Week two (a.)

Quiz (Thurs.)

1.   Chapters one & two

2.   Vocabulary

3.   Identify sounds/instruments

 

 

VOCABULARY (continued)

Blues notes

accompaniment

arco

ballad

Bass (string)

pizzicato

ride cymbal

ride rhythm

two-beat style

Walking Bass

 

IDENTIFY THE SOUNDS (CD demo):

 

1- bass drum

2- high hat

3- ride cymbal

5- snare drum

8- complete drum set

21- arco bass

22- pizzicato bass

23- walking bass

59- trumpet

78- trombone

69- clarinet

73- tenor saxophone

 

 

 

 

-1-

Week two continued

VIDEO - Marsalis on Music – “Sousa to Satchmo”

 

          Blue Book topics pp. 41-57

.New Orleans  

.Creole Music

.Band, Band instrumentation

.Early New Orleans

.Ragtime

 

            VIDEO observations:

                        A. European contributions to Jazz

                                                .Wind instruments

                                                .Musical Forms i.e. marches (choruses, refrains)

                                                            -early jazz compositions borrowed European forms

.Polyphony (two or more lines/melodies sounding simultaneously i.e. “Stars and Stripes”)

 

 

                        B. Ragtime

                                                .Form borrowed from March tradition (Strains - 16 bars and Trio)

                                                                .Syncopation

                                                .Two – beat feel (danceability)

                                                .Rhythmic in nature

 

                        C. Black – American Improvisatory Music (New Orleans style)

                                                .Improvisation

                                                .Expressive vocal quality (bends, growls and others)

                                                .Groove

                                                .Collective improvisation i.e. improvised polyphony

                                                .Call and Response & Riffs

 

                        D. New Orleans musical style (more vocabulary)

                                                .Break-stop time

                                                .Countermelody

                                                .Tailgating (trombone)

                                                .Use of Registers to define the roles of each instrument

 

 

Combine Letters A though D and you get the characteristics of Early New Orleans Style Jazz

 

Demonstration of the dominant instrument of the day 1900 (cornet/trumpet)

“Carnival of Venice”

                                                           

                                               

Week two (b.)

The Origins of Jazz

 

 

“There is no escaping the fact that jazz owes it origins to the slave trade, a disconcerting reminder of our imperial (and not so distant) past.”

Mervyn Cooke

 

Africa (Music)(B,19)

 

Music permeated African culture.

 

-Music provided a vital role in maintaining the unity of the social group.                                Singing the same songs in the same way at the same time bound individuals together and established a strong group feeling.

-         Music was for a whole community, and everyone from youngest to oldest participated. Music was so interwoven with work play, and social and religious activities that to isolate one phase from its role in the total life of the people is difficult.

-         Tribal religious ceremonies, special occasions births, deaths, and weddings were all accompanied by the pulse and beating of a drum.

-         The drum served as one fundamental means of coordinating the movements of the wonderful rhythmic native dances, aided hunting parties, and played an important part in sport and physical exhibitions.

 

African slaves brought these traditions to the United States and nurtured them in the woe and hardship of slavery. Obviously, the slaves did not intentionally invent a new music at this point; rather, the new music arose unconsciously from the transplantation of the African culture and the African Americans’ struggle for survival.

 

African rhythm(B,20)

 

-         A common misconception concerning the origins of jazz is that its rhythms came from Africa.

-         It is only the emphasis on rhythm that can truly be designated African, not the direct influence of any specific rhythmic pattern.

-         Polyrhythms

 

From the sixteenth century onwards, hundreds of thousands of slaves were transported by European traders to the New World.

 

 

 

 

Early African American musical expressions:

 

1.      Work songs, prison songs, field Hollers (Cries-bending of tones, slurs)

- Some African American songs were born on the banks of the Mississippi to the accompaniment of work tasks associated with the riverboats.

- Others were born in the mines of Virginia, in the cotton fields of the South, and in the gangs of prison camps in Texas and Georgia.

 

This singing of these songs had one thing in common: They were sung without instrumental accompaniment and were associated with a monotonous, regularly recurring physical task.

 

The singing was sprinkled with grunts and groans inspired by the physical effort of straining muscular activity. Many years later, these sounds became distinguishing features of both vocal and instrumental jazz.

(B,25)

 

“Ol’ Hannah” – Doc Reese’

  Work songs, prison songs, field Hollers (Cries), Gospel                                                            aspects, Call and response

 

“Juliana Johnson” – Huddie Ledbetter (Leadbelly) rhythmic grunts/concerted action to take place

 

2.      Spirituals and revival hymns

-Around 1800 there occurred in America a spiritual/religious mass movement know as the Great Awakening.

-Spirituals and revival hymns that carried a great amount of emotion were sung at camp meetings.

-Spirituals, often called “hymns with a beat,” were the first original songs created by Protestant African American slaves on American soil.

 

“I Can’t Feel at Home Anymore”-spiritual-like

 

“Dry Bones”- Rev. J. M. Gates sermon, call and response

 

3.      Gospel

-Thomas A. Dorsey in 1973 was designated “The Father of Gospel Music” by the publication Black World.

.Wrote over 500 songs

.Most popular gospel song of all time, “Precious Lord, Take My                                          Hand.”

                        -1940, Popularity spawned professional tours

-Sister Rosetta Tharpe was singing before as many as thirty thousand people in stadiums and parks.

-1950, Mahalia Jackson recorded “Move On Up a Little”

-The Ward Singers recorded “Surely, God Is Able.”

Both sold over a million copies, thus establishing gospel music in the mainstream of American music.

 

4.      Blues

5.      Ragtime

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jazz originated in New Orleans around the beginning of the twentieth century