What musical styles grew out of jazz. Jazz music: features and characteristics

Apr 16, 2013

"Authentic Jazz vs. Stamped Musical Crafts."

Sergei Slonimsky

Main currents

Jazz is multifaceted and versatile. It has many forms and styles due to its improvisational focus. There are such currents as traditional or New Orleans jazz, swing, bebop, big bands, stride, progressive jazz, cool and many, many other areas.

Jazz is music that enriches, fills and develops us. This is history, people, names, great personalities who created and performed it, who devoted their whole lives to it ...

A jazz musician is not just a performer. He is a true creator, creating in front of the audience his impulsive art - instant, fragile, almost elusive.

Today we will talk about such a truly extraordinary musical genre as jazz, about its styles and trends, and, of course, about the people thanks to whom we can enjoy this amazing music ...

“Don't play, what is already there! Play what is not yet!

These words of the great American jazz trumpeter Miles Davis perfectly demonstrate the essence of jazz, its specificity.

Jazz, as a form of musical art, was formed in the late XIX - early XX century in the United States of America. This genre is an original shake of European and African culture.

Jazz cannot be confused with other styles, because its character is unique - a magical polyrhythm, an inexhaustible improvisation based on a hot rhythm.

Throughout the history of its existence, jazz has often changed, transformed, opened up to performers and listeners from previously unknown sides due to the development of new harmonic models and musical techniques by composers and jazz musicians.

"First Lady of Jazz"

As we said earlier, speaking of jazz music, it is impossible to leave its authors and performers in the shadow. One of the most iconic people in the history of jazz - this Ella Jane Fitzgerald - the owner of a magnificent voice with a range of three octaves, a master of scat and unique vocal improvisation. She is a legend and "the first lady of jazz".

“If jazz has a female face, then this is the face of Ella,” one of the most respected critics in the world of academic music once said. And indeed it is!

Ella Fitzgerald had the kindest and most compassionate heart. She helped those in need at City of Hope National Medical Center and the American Heart Association. And in 1993, the great vocalist opened the Ella Fitzgerald Charitable Foundation, which provides assistance to young musicians and supplies them with everything they need.

This greatest female vocalist in the history of jazz music is a 13-time Grammy Award winner, National Medal of Arts winner, Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, MLA and many other awards.

Jazz in Russia

Along with the development of the jazz scene in the United States of America, jazz began to develop in the USSR around the 1920s.

October 1, 1922 can be called the starting point of Russian jazz. It was on this day that the 1st concert of the jazz orchestra conducted by Valentin Parnakh, a great theatrical figure, dancer and poet, took place.

Soviet jazz bands mainly specialized in performing compositions for such fashionable dances at that time as Charleston and Foxtrot. So jazz began to gain popularity.

Composer and musician Eddie Rosner made a great contribution to the development of Russian jazz. Starting his career in European countries such as Poland and Germany, he later moved to the USSR, becoming a pioneer of swing in the country.

Eddie Rozner, Iosif Weinstein, Vadim Ludvikovsky and other outstanding domestic jazzmen brought up a whole galaxy of infinitely talented soloists, improvisers and arrangers, whose work subsequently brought jazz in the USSR closer to world standards and brought it to a qualitatively new level. For example, Alexey Kozlov, being the founder of the legendary Arsenal jazz group and a composer, performer of many virtuoso jazz compositions, became the author of music for many theatrical productions and films.

Birth of Jazz

Jazz came to us from African lands. And, as you know, traditional African music is characterized by a very complex musical rhythm. On the basis of this spontaneous and, at first glance, chaotic sound, an interesting and unusual musical direction was born at the end of the 19th century - ragtime. This style developed, intertwined with elements of classical blues, absorbing them into itself, as a result, it became the "parent" of such a well-known musical direction as jazz.

Among the many wonderful jazz musicians, one can also highlight the work of Igor Butman - People's Artist of Russia, a great saxophonist and jazzman. He graduated from the famous Berklee College of Music in Boston with two majors: composer and concert saxophonist. In the early 90s he moved to New York and became a member of the legendary Lionel Hampton Orchestra.

Since 1996 Igor Butman has been living in Russia. To date, this jazz musician has received many awards. And since 2009, he has been the owner of his own record label, Butman Music. A year ago, he headed the Moscow Jazz Orchestra. His musical works stagger the imagination with their liveliness and versatility of sound. Unusual jazz notes can be heard in almost every of his work. He works real miracles!

An inexhaustible source of inspiration

Jazz is music that gives pleasure. She always inspires, helps to find meaning, teaches something important and meaningful. Many books have been written about this musical genre, many films have been shot and many words have been said ...

“Jazz is ourselves at our best hours… when we have spiritual uplift, frankness and fearlessness…” - these words of Alexander Genis, a well-known literary critic and writer, in our opinion, best demonstrate the essence of jazz music, its specificity and beauty.

True love for jazz cannot be measured, it can only be felt. This is complex and at the same time incredibly beautiful music, deep and emotional. Jazz is an art to which our heart responds.

Tell your friends:

Jazz as a form of musical art appeared in the United States at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, incorporating the musical traditions of European settlers and African folklore melodic patterns.

Characteristic improvisation, melodic polyrhythm and expressiveness of performance became the hallmark of the first New Orleans jazz ensembles (jazz-band) in the first decades of the last century.

Over time, jazz has gone through periods of its development and formation, changing the rhythmic pattern and stylistic orientation: from the improvisational style of ragtime (ragtime), to dance orchestral swing (swing) and unhurried soft blues (blues).

The period from the early 20s to the 1940s is associated with the heyday of jazz orchestras (big bands), which consisted of several orchestral sections of saxophones, trombones, trumpets and a rhythm section. The peak of the popularity of big bands came in the mid-30s of the last century. Music performed by the jazz bands of Duke Ellington (Duke Ellington), Count Basie (Count Basie), Benny Goodman (Benny Goodman) sounded on dance floors and on the radio.

The rich orchestral sound, bright intonations and improvisation of the great soloists Coleman Hawkins, Teddy Wilson, Benny Carter and others created the recognizable and unique the big band sound, which is a classic of jazz music.

In 40-50 years. of the last century, the time of modern jazz has come; such jazz styles like furious bebop, lyrical cool jazz, soft west coast jazz, rhythmic hard bop, heartfelt soul jazz captured the hearts of jazz music lovers.

In the mid-1960s, a new jazz direction appeared - jazz-rock (jazz-rock), a peculiar combination of the energy inherent in rock music and jazz improvisation. founders jazz style- Rock are Miles Davis, Larry Coryell, Billy Cobham. In the 70s, jazz-rock became extremely popular. The use of rhythmic pattern and harmony of rock music, shades of traditional oriental melody, and blues harmony, the use of electric instruments and synthesizers, over time, led to the emergence of the term jazz fusion (jazz fusion), emphasizing with its name the combination of several musical traditions and influences.

In the 70s and 80s, jazz music, while maintaining an emphasis on melody and improvisation, acquired the features of pop music, funk (funk), rhythm and blues (R&B) and crossover jazz, significantly expanding the audience of listeners and becoming commercially successful.

Modern jazz music that emphasizes clarity, melody and beauty of sound is usually characterized as smooth jazz or contemporary jazz. Rhythmic and melodic lines of guitar and bass guitar, saxophone and trumpet, keyboard instruments, in the sound frame of synthesizers and samplers create a luxurious, easily recognizable colorful sound of smooth jazz.

Despite the fact that smooth jazz and contemporary jazz both have a similar musical style, they are still different. jazz styles. It is generally argued that smooth jazz is "background" music, while contemporary jazz is more individual. jazz style and requires the attention of the listener. The further development of smooth jazz led to the emergence of lyrical trends of modern jazz- adult contemporary and more rhythmic urban jazz with hints of R&B, funk, hip-hop.

In addition, the emerging trend towards the combination of smooth jazz and electronic sound has led to the emergence of such popular areas of modern music as nu jazz, as well as lounge, chill and lo-fi.

Understanding who is who in jazz is not so easy. The direction is commercially successful, and therefore often about the "only concert of the legendary Vasya Pupkin" they shout from all the cracks, and really important figures go into the shadows. Under the pressure of Grammy winners and advertising from Jazz radio, it is easy to lose focus and remain indifferent to style. If you want to learn to understand this kind of music, and maybe even love it, learn the most important rule: do not trust anyone.

It is necessary to make judgments about new phenomena with caution, or like Hugues Panasier - the famous musicologist who drew a line and branded all jazz after the 50s, calling it "fake". In the end, he turned out to be wrong, but this did not affect the popularity of his book The History of Genuine Jazz.

It is better to treat the new phenomenon with silent suspicion, so you will definitely pass for your own: snobbery and adherence to the old is one of the brightest characteristics of the subculture.

In conversations about jazz, Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald are often mentioned - it would seem that you can't go wrong here. But such remarks betray the neophyte. These are emblematic figures, and if you can still talk about Fitzgerald in a suitable context, then Armstrong is the Charlie Chaplin of jazz. You won't talk to an arthouse movie buff about Charlie Chaplin, will you? And if you do, then at least not in the first place. Mentioning both famous names is possible in certain cases, but if you have nothing in your pocket besides these two aces, hold them and wait for the right situation.

In many directions there are fashionable and not very fashionable phenomena, but to the greatest extent this is characteristic of jazz. A mature hipster, used to looking for rare and strange things, will not understand why Czech jazz of the 40s is not interesting. It will not be possible to find something conditionally “unusual” and trump with your “deep erudition” here. In order to imagine the style in general terms, one should list its main directions since the end of the 19th century.

Ragtime and blues are sometimes called proto-jazz, and if the former, being not quite a complete form from a modern point of view, is interesting simply as a fact of music history, then the blues is still relevant.

Ragtime by Scott Joplin

And although researchers call the psychological state of Russians and a total sense of hopelessness the reason for such a surge of love for the blues in the 90s, in reality everything can be much simpler.

A selection of 100 popular blues songs

Classic boogie woogie

As in European culture, African Americans divided music into secular and spiritual, and if the blues belonged to the first group, then spiritual and gospel - to the second.

Spirituals are more austere than gospels and are performed by a choir of the faithful, often accompanied by even-numbered clapping—an important feature of all jazz styles and a problem for many European listeners who clap out of place. The music of the Old World most often makes us nod to odd beats. In jazz, it's the other way around. Therefore, if you are not sure that you feel these second and fourth beats, which are unusual for a European, it is better to refrain from clapping. Or watch the performers themselves do it, and then try again.

Scene from the film "12 Years a Slave" with the performance of the classic spiritual

Contemporary spiritual by Take 6

Gospel songs were more often performed by one singer, they have more freedom than spirituals, so they became popular as a concert genre.

Classical gospel music performed by Mahalia Jackson

Modern gospel music from the film Joyful Noise

In the 1910s, traditional or New Orleans jazz took shape. The music from which it arose was performed by street orchestras, which were then very popular. The importance of the instruments increases dramatically, an important event of the era is the emergence of jazz bands, small orchestras of 9–15 people. The success of the Negro bands motivated white Americans who created the so-called Dixielands.

Traditional jazz is associated with films about American gangsters. This is due to the fact that its heyday fell on the days of Prohibition and the Great Depression. One of the brightest representatives of the style is the already mentioned Louis Armstrong.

Distinctive features of the traditional jazz band are the steady position of the banjo, the leading position of the trumpet and the full participation of the clarinet. The last two instruments over time will replace the saxophone, which will become the permanent leader of such an orchestra. By the nature of the music, traditional jazz is more static.

Jelly Roll Morton Jazz Band

Modern Dixieland Marshall's Dixieland Jazz Band

What is wrong with jazz and why is it customary to say that no one can play this music?

It's all about her African origin. Despite the fact that by the middle of the 20th century whites had defended their right to this style, it is still widely believed that African Americans have a special sense of rhythm that allows them to create a feeling of swinging, which is called “swing” (from English to swing - “to swing "). It is risky to argue with this: most of the great white pianists from the 1950s to our times have become famous thanks to their direction or intellectual improvisations that betray deep musical erudition.

Therefore, if in a conversation you mentioned a white jazz player, you should not say something like “how great he swings” - after all, he swings either normally or not at all, such is reverse racism.

And the word "swing" itself is too worn out, it is better to pronounce it in the very last place, when it is probably appropriate.

Each jazz player must be able to perform "jazz standards" (main melodies, or, in other words, evergreen), which, however, are divided into orchestral and ensemble. For example, In the Mood is rather among the first.

In the Mood. Performed by the Glenn Miller Orchestra

At the same time, the famous works of George Gershwin appear, which are considered both jazz and academic at the same time. These are Blues Rhapsody (or Blue Rhapsody), written in 1924, and the opera Porgy and Bess (1935), famous for its Summertime aria. Prior to Gershwin, jazz harmonies were used by such composers as Charles Ives and Antonin Dvorak (symphony "From the New World").

George Gershwin. Porgy and Bess. Aria Summertime. Academically performed by Maria Callas

George Gershwin. Porgy and Bess. Aria Summertime. Jazzed by Frank Sinatra

George Gershwin. Porgy and Bess. Aria Summertime. Rock version. Performed by Janis Joplin

George Gershwin. Blues Rhapsody. Performed by Leonard Bernstein and his orchestra

One of the most famous Russian composers, like Gershwin, writing in the jazz style is Nikolai Kapustin. .

Both camps look askance at such experiments: jazz musicians are convinced that a written work without improvisation is no longer jazz “by definition”, and academic composers consider jazz expressive means too trivial to work with them seriously.

However, classical performers play Kapustin with pleasure and even try to improvise, while their counterparts act wiser, not encroaching on someone else's territory. Academic pianists who put their improvisations on public display have long been a meme in jazz circles.

Since the 1920s, the number of cult and iconic figures in the history of the direction has been growing, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to put these numerous names in your head. However, some can be recognized by their characteristic timbre or manner of performance. One of these memorable singers was Billie Holiday.

All of Me. Performed by Billie Holiday

In the 50s, a new era begins, called "modern jazz". The musicologist Yug Panasier, mentioned above, denied it from her. This direction opens with the bebop style: its characteristic feature is high speed and frequent changes in harmony, and therefore it requires exceptional performing skills, which such outstanding personalities as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane possessed.

Bebop was created as an elite genre. Any musician from the street could always come to a jam session - an evening of improvisations, so the pioneers of bebop introduced fast tempos to get rid of amateurs and weak professionals. This snobbery is partly inherent in fans of such music, who consider their favorite direction the pinnacle of jazz development. It is customary to treat bebop with respect, even if you don’t understand anything about it.

Giant Steps. Performed by John Coltrane

A special chic is to admire the outrageous, deliberately rude manner of Thelonious Monk's performance, who, according to gossip, perfectly played complex academic works, but carefully concealed it.

Round Midnight. Performed by Thelonious Monk

By the way, the discussion of gossip about jazz performers is not considered shameful - rather, on the contrary, it indicates a deep involvement and hints at a great listening experience. Therefore, you should know that Miles Davis's drug addiction affected his stage behavior, Frank Sinatra had connections with the mafia, and there is a church named after John Coltrane in San Francisco.

Mural "Dancing Saints" from a church in San Francisco.

Along with bebop, another style was born within the framework of the same direction - cool jazz(cool jazz), which is distinguished by a "cold" sound, moderate character and unhurried pace. One of its founders was Lester Young, but there are also many white musicians in this niche: Dave Brubeck , Bill Evans(not to be confused with Gil Evans), Stan Getz and etc.

take five. Performed by the Dave Brubeck Ensemble

If the 50s, despite the reproaches of conservatives, opened the way for experiments, then in the 60s they become the norm. At this time, Bill Evans is recording two albums of arrangements of classical works with a symphony orchestra, Stan Kenton, representative progressive jazz, creates rich orchestrations, the harmony in which is compared with Rachmaninov's, and in Brazil there is its own version of jazz, completely different from other styles - bossanova .

Granados. Jazz arrangement of the work "Maja and the Nightingale" by the Spanish composer Granados. Performed by Bill Evans with symphony orchestra

Malaguena. Performed by the Stan Kenton Orchestra

Girl from Ipanema. Performed by Astrud Gilberto and Stan Getz

Loving bossanova is as easy as loving minimalism in modern academic music.

Thanks to its unobtrusive and "neutral" sound, Brazilian jazz has found its way into elevators and hotel lobbies as background music, although this does not detract from the significance of the style as such. Claiming that you love bossa nova is worth it only if you really know its representatives quite well.

An important turn was outlined in the popular orchestral style - symphojazz. In the 1940s, jazz, powdered with academic symphonic sound, became a fashionable phenomenon and a standard of the golden mean between two styles with a completely different background.

Luck Be a Lady. Performed by Frank Sinatra with Jazz Symphony Orchestra

In the 1960s, the sound of the sympho-jazz orchestra lost its novelty, which led to Stan Kenton's experimentation with harmony, Bill Evans' arrangements, and Gil Evans' themed albums such as Sketches of Spain and Miles Ahead.

Sketches of Spain. Performed by Miles Davis with the Gil Evans Orchestra

Experiments in the field of symphonic jazz are still relevant, the most interesting projects in recent years in this niche are the Metropole Orkest, The Сinematic Orchestra and Snarky Puppy.

Breathe. Performed by The Cinematic Orchestra

Gretel. Performed by Snarky Puppy and Metropole Orkest (Grammy Award, 2014)

The bebop and cool jazz traditions have merged into hard bop, an improved version of bebop, although it can be difficult to tell one from the other by ear. Prominent performers in this style are The Jazz Messengers, Sonny Rollins, Art Blakey and some other musicians who originally played bebop.

hard bop. Performed by The Jazz Messengers Orchestra

Moanin'. Performed by Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers

Rich improvisations at a fast pace required ingenuity, which led to searches in the field fret. So born modal jazz. It is often singled out as an independent style, although similar improvisations are also found in other genres. The most popular modal piece was "So What?" Miles Davis.

So What? Performed by Miles Davis

While brilliant jazz players were figuring out how to further complicate an already complex music, blind authors and performers Ray Charles and walked the path of the heart, combining jazz, soul, gospel and rhythm and blues in their work.

Fingertips. Performed by Stevie Wonder

What'd I say. Performed by Ray Charles

At the same time, jazz organists are loudly declaring themselves, playing music on the Hammond electric organ.

Jimmy Smith

In the mid-60s, soul jazz appeared, which combined the democratism of soul with the intellectualism of bebop, but historically it is usually associated with the latter, silent about the significance of the former. The most popular soul jazz figure was Ramsey Lewis.

The 'In' Crowd. Performed by the Ramsey Lewis Trio

If from the beginning of the 50s the division of jazz into two branches was only felt, then in the 70s it was already possible to speak of this as an irrefutable fact. The pinnacle of the elite direction was

Subsequently, ragtime rhythms combined with blues elements gave rise to a new musical direction - jazz.

The origins of jazz are connected with the blues. It arose at the end of the 19th century as a fusion of African rhythms and European harmony, but its origins should be sought from the moment slaves were brought from Africa to the territory of the New World. The brought slaves did not come from the same clan and usually did not even understand each other. The need for consolidation led to the unification of many cultures and, as a result, to the creation of a single culture (including music) of African Americans. The processes of mixing African musical culture and European (which also underwent serious changes in the New World) took place starting from the 18th century, and in the 19th century led to the emergence of "proto-jazz", and then jazz in the generally accepted sense.

new orleans jazz

The term New Orleans, or traditional, jazz is commonly used to refer to the style of musicians who played jazz in New Orleans between 1900 and 1917, as well as New Orleans musicians who played in Chicago and recorded records from about 1917 through the 1920s. . This period of jazz history is also known as the Jazz Age. And the term is also used to describe the music played in different historical periods by New Orleans revivalists who sought to play jazz in the same style as New Orleans school musicians.

The development of jazz in the United States in the first quarter of the 20th century

After the closure of Storyville, jazz began to transform from a regional folk genre into a nationwide musical trend, spreading to the northern and northeastern provinces of the United States. But its wide distribution, of course, could not be facilitated only by the closure of one entertainment quarter. Along with New Orleans, St. Louis, Kansas City, and Memphis played an important role in the development of jazz from the very beginning. Ragtime was born in Memphis in the 19th century, from where it then spread throughout the North American continent in the period -1903. On the other hand, minstrel performances, with their colorful mosaic of African-American folklore of all kinds, from jig to ragtime, quickly spread everywhere and set the stage for the advent of jazz. Many future jazz celebrities began their journey in the minstrel show. Long before Storyville closed, New Orleans musicians were touring with so-called "vaudeville" troupes. Jelly Roll Morton regularly toured Alabama, Florida, Texas from 1904. From 1914 he had a contract to perform in Chicago. In 1915 he moved to Chicago and Tom Brown's White Dixieland Orchestra. Major vaudeville tours in Chicago were also made by the famous Creole Band, led by New Orleans cornet player Freddie Keppard. Having separated from the Olympia Band at one time, Freddie Keppard's artists already in 1914 successfully performed in the best theater in Chicago and received an offer to make a sound recording of their performances even before the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, which, however, Freddie Keppard short-sightedly rejected.

Significantly expanded the territory covered by the influence of jazz, orchestras playing on pleasure steamers that sailed up the Mississippi. Since the end of the 19th century, river trips from New Orleans to St. Paul have become popular, first for the weekend, and later for the whole week. Since 1900, New Orleans orchestras have been performing on these riverboats, the music of which has become the most attractive entertainment for passengers during river tours. In one of these orchestras, Suger Johnny, Louis Armstrong's future wife, the first jazz pianist Lil Hardin, began.

Many future New Orleans jazz stars performed in the riverboat orchestra of another pianist, Faiths Marable. Steamboats that traveled along the river often stopped at passing stations, where orchestras staged concerts for the local public. It was these concerts that became creative debuts for Bix Beiderbeck, Jess Stacy and many others. Another famous route ran along the Missouri to Kansas City. In this city, where, thanks to the strong roots of African-American folklore, the blues developed and finally took shape, the virtuoso playing of New Orleans jazzmen found an exceptionally fertile environment. The main center for the development of jazz music by the beginning of the 19th was Chicago, in which, through the efforts of many musicians who gathered from different parts of the United States, a style was created that received the nickname Chicago jazz.

Swing

The term has two meanings. First, it is an expressive means in jazz. A characteristic type of pulsation based on constant deviations of the rhythm from the reference shares. This creates the impression of a large internal energy in a state of unstable equilibrium. Secondly, the style of orchestral jazz that took shape at the turn of the 1920s and 30s as a result of the synthesis of Negro and European stylistic forms of jazz music.

Artists: Joe Pass, Frank Sinatra, Benny Goodman, Norah Jones, Michel Legrand, Oscar Peterson, Ike Quebec, Paulinho Da Costa, Wynton Marsalis Septet, Mills Brothers, Stephane Grappelli.

Bop

Jazz style that developed in the early - mid-40s of the XX century and opened the era of modern jazz. It is characterized by a fast tempo and complex improvisations based on changes in harmony rather than melody. The super-fast pace of performance was introduced by Parker and Gillespie in order to keep non-professionals out of their new improvisations. Among other things, the hallmark of all bebopers has become a shocking demeanor and appearance: the curved pipe "Dizzy" Gillespie, the behavior of Parker and Gillespie, the ridiculous hats of Monk, etc. Having arisen as a reaction to the ubiquity of swing, bebop continued to develop its principles in use of expressive means, but at the same time found a number of opposite tendencies.

Unlike swing, which is mostly the music of large commercial dance bands, bebop is an experimental creative direction in jazz, mainly associated with the practice of small ensembles (combos) and anti-commercial in its direction. The bebop phase was a significant shift in focus in jazz from popular dance music to more highly artistic, intellectual, but less mainstream "music for musicians". Bop musicians preferred complex improvisations based on chord strumming instead of melodies.

The main instigators of the birth were: saxophonist Charlie Parker, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, pianists Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk, drummer Max Roach. Also listen to Chick Corea, Michel Legrand, Joshua Redman Elastic Band, Jan Garbarek, Charles Mingus, Modern Jazz Quartet.

Big bands

The classic, established form of big bands has been known in jazz since the early 1990s. This form retained its relevance until the end of the 1990s. The musicians who entered most big bands, as a rule, almost in their teens, played quite certain parts, either learned in rehearsals or from notes. Careful orchestrations, along with massive brass and woodwind sections, produced rich jazz harmonies and produced the sensationally loud sound that became known as "the big band sound".

The big band became the popular music of its time, reaching its height of fame in the mid-s. This music became the source of the swing dance craze. The leaders of the famous jazz orchestras Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Artie Shaw, Chick Webb, Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Lunsford, Charlie Barnet composed or arranged and recorded on records a genuine hit parade of tunes that sounded not only on the radio but also everywhere in dance halls. Many big bands showed their solo improvisers, who brought the audience to a state close to hysteria during well-hyped "battles of the orchestras".

Although the popularity of big bands declined significantly after World War II, orchestras led by Basie, Ellington, Woody Herman, Stan Kenton, Harry James, and many others toured and recorded frequently over the next few decades. Their music was gradually transformed under the influence of new trends. Groups such as ensembles led by Boyd Ryburn, Sun Ra, Oliver Nelson, Charles Mingus, Thad Jones-Mal Lewis explored new concepts in harmony, instrumentation and improvisational freedom. Today, big bands are the standard in jazz education. Repertory orchestras such as the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, the Carnegie Hall Jazz Orchestra, the Smithsonian Jazz Masterpiece Orchestra, and the Chicago Jazz Ensemble regularly play original arrangements of big band compositions.

In 2008, George Simon's canonical book Big Orchestras of the Swing Age was published in Russian, which is essentially an almost complete encyclopedia of all the golden age big bands from the early 20s to the 60s of the XX century.

Mainstream

Pianist Duke Ellington

After the end of the mainstream fashion of big bands in the big band era, when the music of big bands began to be crowded out on stage by small jazz ensembles, swing music continued to sound. Many famous swing soloists, after playing ball rooms in concert, liked to play for fun at spontaneous jams in small clubs on 52nd Street in New York. And these were not only those who worked as "sidemen" in large orchestras, such as Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Roy Eldridge, Johnny Hodges, Buck Clayton and others. The leaders of the big bands themselves - Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Jack Teagarden, Harry James, Gene Krupa, being initially soloists, and not just conductors, also looked for opportunities to play separately from their large team, in a small composition. Not accepting the innovative techniques of the upcoming bebop, these musicians adhered to the traditional swing manner, while demonstrating inexhaustible imagination when performing improvisational parts. The main stars of swing constantly performed and recorded in small compositions, called "combos", within which there was much more room for improvisation. The style of this direction of club jazz of the late 1920s received the name mainstream, or the main current, with the beginning of the rise of bebop. Some of the finest performers of this era could be heard in fine form at jams, when chord improvisation was already taking precedence over the melodic coloring of the swing era. Re-emerging as a freestyle style in the late 's and 's, the mainstream absorbed elements of cool jazz, bebop, and hard bop. The term "contemporary mainstream" or post-bop is used today for almost any style that does not have a close connection to historical styles of jazz music.

Northeast Jazz. Stride

Louis Armstrong, trumpeter and singer

Although the history of jazz began in New Orleans with the advent of the 20th century, this music experienced a real take-off in the early 1990s, when trumpeter Louis Armstrong left New Orleans to create new revolutionary music in Chicago. The migration of New Orleans jazz masters to New York that began shortly thereafter marked a trend of continuous movement of jazz musicians from the South to the North. Chicago embraced New Orleans music and made it hot, raising its heat not only through the efforts of Armstrong's famed Hot Five and Hot Seven ensembles, but others as well, including such masters as Eddie Condon and Jimmy McPartland, whose Austin High School crew helped revive the New Orleans schools. Other notable Chicagoans who have pushed the boundaries of classic New Orleans jazz style include pianist Art Hodes, drummer Barrett Deems, and clarinetist Benny Goodman. Armstrong and Goodman, who eventually moved to New York, created a kind of critical mass there that helped this city turn into a real jazz capital of the world. And while Chicago remained primarily the center of sound recording in the first quarter of the 20th century, New York also emerged as the premier jazz venue, hosting legendary clubs such as the Minton Playhouse, Cotton Club, the Savoy and the Village Vanguard, and as well as arenas such as Carnegie Hall.

Kansas City Style

During the era of the Great Depression and Prohibition, the Kansas City jazz scene became a kind of Mecca for the newfangled sounds of the late 's and 's. The style that flourished in Kansas City is characterized by soulful pieces with a blues tint, performed by both big bands and small swing ensembles, demonstrating very energetic solos, performed for patrons of taverns with illegally sold liquor. It was in these pubs that the style of the great Count Basie, who began in Kansas City in Walter Page's orchestra and later with Benny Mouten, crystallized. Both of these orchestras were typical representatives of the Kansas City style, which was based on a peculiar form of blues, called "city blues" and formed in the playing of the above orchestras. The jazz scene of Kansas City was also distinguished by a whole galaxy of outstanding masters of the vocal blues, recognized as the "king" among which was the long-term soloist of the Count Basie Orchestra, the famous blues singer Jimmy Rushing. The famous alto saxophonist Charlie Parker, who was born in Kansas City, upon his arrival in New York, widely used the characteristic blues techniques he had learned in the Kansas City orchestras and later formed one of the starting points in the experiments of boppers in -e.

West Coast Jazz

Artists captured by the cool jazz movement in the 50s worked extensively in the Los Angeles recording studios. Largely influenced by nonet Miles Davis, these Los Angeles-based performers developed what is now known as "West Coast Jazz", or west coast jazz. As recording studios, clubs such as The Lighthouse on Hermosa Beach and The Haig in Los Angeles often featured his top artists, including trumpeter Shorty Rogers, saxophonists Art Pepper and Bud Shenk, drummer Shelley Mann, and clarinetist Jimmy Giuffrey. .

Cool (cool jazz)

The high heat and pressure of bebop began to wane with the development of cool jazz. Beginning in the late 1900s and early 1900s, musicians began to develop a less violent, smoother approach to improvisation, modeled after tenor saxophonist Lester Young's light, dry playing back in his swing period. The result is a detached and uniformly flat sound based on emotional "coolness". Trumpeter Miles Davis, one of the first bebop players to cool it down, became the genre's biggest innovator. His nonet, which recorded the album "Birth of the Cool" in the -1950s, was the epitome of the lyricism and restraint of cool jazz. Other notable musicians of the cool jazz school are trumpeter Chet Baker, pianists George Shearing, John Lewis, Dave Brubeck and Lenny Tristano, vibraphonist Milt Jackson, and saxophonists Stan Getz, Lee Konitz, Zoot Sims and Paul Desmond. Arrangers also made significant contributions to the cool jazz movement, notably Thad Dameron, Claude Thornhill, Bill Evans, and baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan. Their compositions focused on instrumental coloring and slowness of movement, on a frozen harmony that created the illusion of space. Dissonance also played a role in their music, but with a softer, muted character. The cool jazz format left room for somewhat larger ensembles such as nonets and tentets, which became more common during this period than during the early bebop period. Some arrangers experimented with modified instrumentation, including cone-shaped brass instruments such as horn and tuba.

progressive jazz

In parallel with the emergence of bebop, a new genre is developing in the jazz environment - progressive jazz, or simply progressive. The main difference of this genre is the desire to move away from the frozen cliche of big bands and outdated, worn out techniques of the so-called. symphojazz, introduced in -e by Paul Whiteman. Unlike the boppers, the creators of progressive did not seek to radically abandon the jazz traditions that had developed at that time. Rather, they sought to update and improve swing phrase-models, introducing into the practice of composition the latest achievements of European symphonism in the field of tonality and harmony.

The greatest contribution to the development of the concepts of "progressive" was made by the pianist and conductor Stan Kenton. Progressive jazz of the early 1990s actually originates from his first works. In terms of sound, the music performed by his first orchestra was close to Rachmaninov, and the compositions bore the features of late romanticism. However, in terms of genre, it was closest to symphojazz. Later, during the years of the creation of the famous series of his albums "Artistry", elements of jazz no longer played the role of creating color, but were already organically woven into the musical material. Along with Kenton, credit for this went to his best arranger, Pete Rugolo, a student of Darius Milhaud. Modern (for those years) symphonic sound, specific staccato technique in playing saxophones, bold harmonies, frequent seconds and blocks, along with polytonality and jazz rhythmic pulsation - these are the distinguishing features of this music, with which Stan Kenton entered the history of jazz for many years, as one of his innovators, who found a common platform for European symphonic culture and bebop elements, especially noticeable in pieces where solo instrumentalists seemed to oppose the sounds of the rest of the orchestra. It should also be noted that Kenton paid great attention to the improvisational parts of soloists in his compositions, including the world-famous drummer Shelley Maine, double bassist Ed Safransky, trombonist Kay Winding, June Christie, one of the best jazz vocalists of those years. Stan Kenton has maintained his fidelity to the chosen genre throughout his career.

In addition to Stan Kenton, interesting arrangers and instrumentalists Boyd Ryburn and Gil Evans also contributed to the development of the genre. A kind of apotheosis of progressive development, along with the already mentioned "Artistry" series, one can also consider a series of albums recorded by the Gil Evans big band together with the Miles Davis ensemble in the - s, for example, "Miles Ahead", "Porgy and Bess" and "Spanish drawings". Shortly before his death, Miles Davis turned to the genre again, recording old Gil Evans arrangements with the Quincy Jones Big Band.

hard bop

Hard bop (English - hard, hard bop) is a kind of jazz that arose in the 50s. 20th century from bop. Differs in expressive, cruel rhythmics, reliance on the blues. Refers to the styles of modern jazz. Around the same time that cool jazz was taking root on the West Coast, jazz musicians from Detroit, Philadelphia, and New York began to develop harder, heavier variations on the old bebop formula, dubbed Hard bop or hard bebop. Closely resembling traditional bebop in its aggressiveness and technical demands, hard bop of the 1950s and 1960s relied less on standard song forms and began to place more emphasis on blues elements and rhythmic drive. Incendiary soloing or mastery of improvisation, together with a strong sense of harmony, were properties of paramount importance for wind players, the participation of drums and piano became more noticeable in the rhythm section, and the bass acquired a more fluid, funky feeling. (taken from the source "Musical literature" Kolomiets Maria )

Modal (modal) jazz

soul jazz

Groove

An offshoot of soul jazz, the groove style draws melodies with bluesy notes and is distinguished by exceptional rhythmic focus. Sometimes also called "funk", the groove focuses on maintaining a continuous characteristic rhythmic pattern, flavoring it with light instrumental and sometimes lyrical embellishments.

The pieces performed in the groove style are full of joyful emotions, inviting the listeners to dance, both in a slow, bluesy version, and at a fast pace. Solo improvisations retain strict subordination to the beat and collective sound. The most famous exponents of this style are organists Richard "Grove" Holmes and Shirley Scott, tenorsaxophonist Gene Emmons, and flautist/altosaxophonist Leo Wright.

free jazz

Saxophonist Ornette Coleman

Perhaps the most controversial movement in the history of jazz emerged with the advent of free jazz, or the "New Thing" as it was later called. Although elements of free jazz existed within the musical structure of jazz long before the term itself, most original in the "experiments" of such innovators as Coleman Hawkins, Pee Wee Russell and Lenny Tristano, but only towards the end of the 1990s through the efforts of such pioneers as saxophonist Ornette Coleman and pianist Cecil Taylor, this direction took shape as an independent style.

What these two musicians, along with others including John Coltrane, Albert Ayler, and communities like the Sun Ra Arkestra and the group called The Revolutionary Ensemble, did was to make various changes in structure. and feel for the music. Among the innovations that were introduced with imagination and great musicality was the abandonment of the chord progression, which allowed the music to move in any direction. Another fundamental change was found in the area of ​​rhythm, where "swing" was either redefined or ignored altogether. In other words, pulsation, meter and groove were no longer an essential element in this reading of jazz. Another key component has been associated with atonality. Now the musical saying was no longer built on the usual tonal system. Shrill, barking, convulsive notes completely filled this new sound world.

Free jazz continues to exist today as a viable form of expression, and in fact is no longer as controversial as it was in its early days.

creative

The appearance of the "Creative" direction was marked by the penetration of elements of experimentalism and avant-garde into jazz. The beginning of this process partially coincided with the rise of free jazz. The elements of avant-garde jazz, understood as changes and innovations introduced into music, have always been "experimental". So the new forms of experimentalism offered by jazz in the 50s, 60s and 70s were the most radical departure from tradition, introducing new elements of rhythms, tonality and structure into practice. In fact, avant-garde music became synonymous with open forms, more difficult to characterize than even free jazz.The pre-planned structure of sayings was mixed with freer solo phrases, partly reminiscent of free jazz.Compositional elements so merged with improvisation that it was already difficult to determine where the first ended and the second began.In fact, the musical the structure of the pieces was designed so that the solo was the product of the arrangement, bringing the musical process logically into what would normally be seen as a form of abstraction or even chaos. the pioneers of this trend include pianist Lenny Tristano, saxophonist Jimmy Joffrey and composer/arranger/conductor Günther Schuller. More recent masters include pianists Paul Blay and Andrew Hill, saxophonists Anthony Braxton and Sam Rivers, drummers Sunny Murray and Andrew Cyrill, and members of the AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians) community such as the Art Ensemble of Chicago.

Fusion

Starting not only from the fusion of jazz with pop and rock, but also with music stemming from areas such as soul, funk and rhythm and blues, fusion (or literally fusion), as a musical genre, appeared at the end - x, originally called jazz-rock. Individuals and bands such as guitarist Larry Coryell's Eleventh House, drummer Tony Williams' Lifetime, and Miles Davis have followed at the forefront of this trend, introducing elements such as electronica, rock rhythms and extended tracks, nullifying much of what jazz "stands" from its beginnings, namely the swing beat, and based primarily on blues music, the repertoire of which included both blues material and popular standards. The term fusion came into use shortly after various orchestras emerged, such as the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Weather Report, and Chick Corea's Return To Forever Ensemble. Throughout the music of these ensembles there was a constant emphasis on improvisation and melody, which firmly linked their practice with the history of jazz, despite detractors who claimed that they "sold out" to music merchants. In fact, when one listens to these early experiments today, they hardly seem commercial, offering the listener to participate in what was music with a highly developed conversational nature. During the mid-s, fusion evolved into a variant of easy listening and/or rhythm and blues music. Compositionally or from the point of view of performance, he has lost a significant part of his sharpness, if not completely lost. In -e, jazz musicians turned the musical form of fusion into a truly expressive medium. Artists such as drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson, guitarists Pat Metheny, John Scofield, John Abercrombie and James "Blood" Ulmer, also like veteran saxophonist/trumpeter Ornette Coleman creatively mastered this music in different dimensions.

Postbop

Drummer Art Blakey

The post-bop period encompasses music played by jazz musicians who continued to work in the bebop field, eschewing the free jazz experiments that developed during the same period of the 1960s. Also like the aforementioned hard bop, this form was based on the rhythms, ensemble structure and energy of bebop, on the same brass combinations and on the same musical repertoire, including the use of Latin elements. What distinguished post-bop music was the use of elements of funk, groove or soul, reshaped in the spirit of the new age, marked by the dominance of pop music. Often this subspecies experiments with blues rock. Masters such as saxophonist Hank Mobley, pianist Horace Silver, drummer Art Blakey, and trumpeter Lee Morgan actually started this music in the mid-1900s and presaged what has now become the predominant form of jazz. Along with simpler melodies and more heartfelt beats, the listener could also hear traces of gospel and rhythm and blues mixed together. This style, which met with some changes during the 's, was used to a certain extent to create new structures as a compositional element. Saxophonist Joe Henderson, pianist McCoy Tyner, and even such a prominent bopper as Dizzy Gillespie, created music in this genre that was both human and harmonically interesting. One of the most significant composers to emerge during this period was the saxophonist Wayne Shorter. Shorter, having gone through school in the Art Blakey Ensemble, recorded a number of strong albums during his own name. Together with keyboardist Herbie Hancock, Shorter helped Miles Davis form a quintet (the most experimental and highly influential post-bop group was the Davis Quintet featuring John Coltrane) that became one of the most significant groups in jazz history.

acid jazz

Jazz manush

The Spread of Jazz

Jazz has always aroused interest among musicians and listeners around the world, regardless of their nationality. It suffices to trace the early work of trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and his synthesis of jazz traditions with the music of black Cubans in or later combination of jazz with Japanese, Eurasian and Middle Eastern music, known in the work of pianist Dave Brubeck, as well as in the brilliant composer and leader of jazz Duke Ellington Orchestra , which combined the musical heritage of Africa , Latin America and the Far East . Jazz constantly absorbed and not only Western musical traditions. For example, when different artists began to try to work with the musical elements of India. An example of this effort can be heard in the recordings of flautist Paul Horn at the Taj Mahal, or in the stream of "world music" represented, for example, by the Oregon band or John McLaughlin's Shakti project. McLaughlin's music, formerly largely based on jazz, began to use new instruments of Indian origin, such as the khatam or tabla, during his work with Shakti, intricate rhythms sounded and the form of the Indian raga was widely used. The Art Ensemble of Chicago was an early pioneer in the fusion of African and jazz forms. The world later came to know saxophonist/composer John Zorn and his exploration of Jewish musical culture, both within and outside the Masada Orchestra. These works have inspired entire groups of other jazz musicians, such as keyboardist John Medeski, who has recorded with African musician Salif Keita, guitarist Marc Ribot and bassist Anthony Coleman. Trumpeter Dave Douglas brings inspiration from the Balkans to his music, while the Asian-American Jazz Orchestra has emerged as a leading proponent of the convergence of jazz and Asian musical forms. As the globalization of the world continues, jazz is constantly being influenced by other musical traditions, providing mature food for future research and proving that jazz is truly world music.

Jazz in the USSR and Russia

First in the RSFSR
eccentric orchestra
jazz band Valentina Parnakh

In the mass consciousness, jazz began to gain wide popularity in the 30s, largely due to the Leningrad ensemble led by actor and singer Leonid Utyosov and trumpeter Ya. B. Skomorovsky. The popular film comedy with his participation "Merry Fellows" (1934, originally titled "Jazz Comedy") was dedicated to the history of a jazz musician and had an appropriate soundtrack (written by Isaak Dunaevsky). Utyosov and Skomorovsky formed the original style of "tea-jazz" (theatrical jazz), based on a mixture of music with theater, operetta, vocal numbers and an element of performance played a large role in it.

A notable contribution to the development of Soviet jazz was made by Eddie Rosner, a composer, musician and leader of orchestras. Having started his career in Germany, Poland and other European countries, Rozner moved to the USSR and became one of the pioneers of swing in the USSR and the initiator of Belarusian jazz. An important role in the popularization and development of the swing style was also played by Moscow bands of the 30s and 40s, led by Alexander Tsfasman and Alexander Varlamov. The Jazz Orchestra of the All-Union Radio conducted by A. Varlamov took part in the first Soviet TV show. The only composition that has survived from that time turned out to be Oleg Lundstrem's orchestra. This now widely known big band belonged to the few and best jazz ensembles of the Russian diaspora, performing in 1935-1947. in China.

The attitude of the Soviet authorities to jazz was ambiguous: domestic jazz performers, as a rule, were not banned, but harsh criticism of jazz as such was widespread in the context of countering Western culture in general. In the late 1940s, during the struggle against cosmopolitanism, jazz in the USSR experienced a particularly difficult period, when groups performing "Western" music were persecuted. With the onset of the "thaw", the persecution of the musicians was stopped, but the criticism continued.

According to research by professor of history and American culture Penny Van Eschen, the US State Department tried to use jazz as an ideological weapon against the USSR and against the expansion of Soviet influence in the Third World.

The first book about jazz in the USSR was published by the Leningrad publishing house Academia in 1926. It was compiled by musicologist Semyon Ginzburg from translations of articles by Western composers and music critics, as well as his own materials, and was called " Jazz band and contemporary music» .
The next book about jazz was published in the USSR only in the early 1960s. It was written by Valery Mysovsky and Vladimir Feyertag, called " Jazz” and was essentially a compilation of information that could be obtained from various sources at that time. Since that time, work began on the first encyclopedia of jazz in Russian, which was published only in 2001 by the St. Petersburg publishing house "Skifia". Encyclopedia " Jazz. XX century. Encyclopedic reference” was prepared by one of the most authoritative jazz critics Vladimir Feiertag, numbered more than a thousand names of jazz personalities and was unanimously recognized as the main Russian-language book on jazz. In 2008, the second edition of the encyclopedia " Jazz. Encyclopedic reference”, where jazz history has been held until the 21st century, hundreds of the rarest photographs have been added, and the list of jazz names has been increased by almost a quarter.

Latin American Jazz

The combination of Latin rhythmic elements has been present in jazz almost from the beginning of the cultural fusion that originated in New Orleans. Jelly Roll Morton spoke of "Spanish undertones" in his recordings of the mid to late 1990s. Duke Ellington and other jazz bandleaders also used Latin forms. The main (albeit not widely recognized) progenitor of Latin jazz, trumpeter/arranger Mario Bausa brought a Cuban leaning from his native Havana to Chick Webb's orchestra in the 1990s, and a decade later he brought it into the sound of the Don Redman, Fletcher Henderson and Cab Calloway orchestras. Working with trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie in the Calloway Orchestra since the late 1900s, Bausa introduced a direction from which there was already a direct link to Gillespie's big bands of the mid-1900s. This "love affair" of Gillespie with Latin musical forms continued for the rest of his lengthy career. In th Bausa continued his career, becoming the musical director of the Afro-Cuban Machito Orchestra, fronted by his brother-in-law, percussionist Frank Grillo, nicknamed Machito. The 1950s and 1960s were marked by a long flirtation of jazz with Latin rhythms, mainly in the bossa nova direction, enriching this synthesis with Brazilian elements of samba. Combining the style of cool jazz developed by West Coast musicians, European classical proportions and seductive Brazilian rhythms, bossa nova, or more correctly "Brazilian jazz", gained wide popularity in the United States around . Subtle but hypnotic acoustic guitar rhythms punctuated simple melodies sung in both Portuguese and English. Introduced by Brazilians Joao Gilberto and Antonio Carlos Jobin, the style became a dance alternative to hard bop and free jazz in the 1950s, greatly expanding its popularity through recordings and performances by musicians from the west coast, in particular guitarist Charlie Byrd and saxophonist Stan Getz. The musical mixture of Latin influences spread in jazz and beyond, in the 's and 's, including not only orchestras and groups with first-class Latin American improvisers, but also combining local and Latin performers, creating examples of the most exciting stage music. This new Latin jazz renaissance was fueled by a constant influx of foreign performers from among Cuban defectors, such as trumpeter Arturo Sandoval, saxophonist and clarinetist Paquito D'Rivera, and others. who fled the regime of Fidel Castro in search of greater opportunities, which they expected to find in New York and Florida. There is also an opinion that the more intense, more danceable qualities of the polyrhythmic music of Latin jazz greatly expanded the jazz audience. True, while retaining only a minimum of intuitiveness, for intellectual perception.

Jazz in the modern world

Blues

(melancholy, sadness) - originally - a solo lyrical song of American blacks, later - a direction in music.

In the 20s of the twentieth century, the classic blues was formed, which was based on a 12-bar period, corresponding to a 3-line poetic form. Blues was originally music played by blacks for blacks. After the appearance of the blues in the southern United States, it begins to spread throughout the country.

The blues melody is characterized by a question-answer structure and the use of a blues fret.

The blues had a huge impact on the formation of jazz and pop music. Blues elements were used by composers of the twentieth century.

archaic jazz

Archaic (early) jazz- The designation of the oldest, traditional types of jazz that have existed since the middle of the last century in a number of southern US states.

Archaic jazz was represented, in particular, by the music of Negro and Creole marching bands of the 19th century.

The period of archaic jazz preceded the emergence of the New Orleans (classical) style.

New Orleans

The American homeland, where jazz itself originated, is considered the city of songs and music - New Orleans.
Although it is argued that jazz originated throughout America, and not only in this city, but it was here that it developed most powerfully. In addition, all the old jazz musicians pointed to the center, which they considered New Orleans. In New Orleans, the most favorable environment for the development of this musical direction developed: there was a large Negro community and a large percentage of the population were Creoles; many musical directions and genres actively developed here, elements of which were then included in the works of famous jazzmen. Different groups developed their own musical directions, and African-Americans created a new art that has no analogues from the combination of blues melodies, ragtime and their own traditions. The first jazz records confirm the prerogative of New Orleans in the origin and development of the art of jazz.

Dixieland

(Country Dixie) - colloquial designation of the southern states of the United States, one of the varieties of traditional jazz.

Most of the blues singers, boogie-woogie pianists, ragtime players and jazz bands came from the South to Chicago, bringing with them the music that would soon be nicknamed Dixieland.

Dixieland- the broadest designation of the musical style of the earliest New Orleans and Chicago jazz musicians who recorded records from 1917 - 1923.

Some historians refer to Dixieland only as the music of white New Orleans-style bands.

Dixieland musicians sought a revival of classic New Orleans jazz.

These attempts have been successful.

Boogie Woogie

Piano blues style, one of the earliest varieties of Negro instrumental music.

A style that turned out to be very accessible to a wide audience.

full-sounding boogie-woogie style appeared due to the need that arose at the beginning of the twentieth century to hire pianists instead of orchestras in inexpensive cafes such as "honky-tonk". To replace an entire orchestra, pianists invented different ways of playing rhythmically.

Characteristic features: improvisation, technical virtuosity, a specific type of accompaniment - motor ostinato figuration in the left hand part, a gap (up to 2-3 octaves) between bass and melody, continuity of rhythmic movement, refusal to use the pedal.

Representatives of classic boogie-woogie: Romeo Nelson, Arthur Montana Taylor, Charles Avery, Mid Lux ​​Lewis, Jimmy Yankee.

folk blues

Archaic acoustic blues based on the rural folklore of the black population of the United States, in contrast to the classic blues, which had a predominantly urban existence.

folk blues- This is a kind of blues, performed, as a rule, not on electric musical instruments. It covers a wide range of playing and musical styles, and can include unfussy, simple music played on the mandolin, banjo, harmonica, and other non-electric jug bands (i.e. handmade) instruments. Folk blues gives the impression uncouth, somewhat informal music. In a word, this is real folk music played by the people and for the people.

Within folk blues there has been a more influential singer than Blind Lemon Jefferson, Charlie Patton, Alger Alexander.

Soul

(literally - soul); the most popular style of music in the 60s of the twentieth century, which developed from the cult music of American blacks and borrowed many elements of rhythm and blues.

There are several directions in soul music, the most important of which are the so-called "Memphis" and "Detroit" soul, as well as "white" soul, which is mainly inherent in musicians from Europe.

Funk

The term was born in jazz in the 50s of the twentieth century. The "funk" style is a direct continuation of the "soul" music. A form of rhythm and blues.

The first performers of what would later be referred to as “funk” music were jazzmen who played a more energetic, specific type of jazz back in the late 50s and early 60s.

Funk, first of all, is dance music, which determines its musical features: the ultimate syncopation of parts of all instruments.

Funk is characterized by a rhythm section brought to the fore, a sharply syncopated bass guitar part, ostinato riffs as the melodic-thematic basis of the composition, an electronic sound, an excited vocal, and a fast pace of music.

James Brown and George Clinton created an experimental funk school with PARLAMENT/FUNKDEIC.

Classic funk recordings date back to the turn of the 1960s and 1970s.

free funk

free funk- a mixture of avant-garde jazz with funk rhythms.

When Ornette Coleman formed Prime Time, the result was a "double quartet" (consisting of two guitarists, two bassists and two drummers, plus his viola) playing free-toned music but with eccentric funk rhythms. Three members of Coleman's band (guitarist James Blood Ulmer, bassist Jamaaladin Takuma, and drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson) later organized their own free-funk projects, and free-funk was the main influence of m-bass players, including violists Steve Coleman and Greg Osby.
Swing

Bop- a jazz style that developed by the mid-40s of the twentieth century and is characterized by a fast pace and complex improvisations based on playing out harmony, not melody. Bebop revolutionized jazz; boper created new ideas about what music is.

The bebop phase was a significant shift in emphasis in jazz from melody-based dance music to more rhythm-based, less popular "musician music". Bop musicians preferred complex improvisations based on chord strumming instead of melodies.

Bebop was fast, edgy, he was "hard on the listener".

Jazz Progressive

In parallel with the emergence of bebop, a new genre is developing in the jazz environment - progressive jazz. The main difference of this genre is the desire to move away from the frozen cliche of big bands and outdated techniques of the so-called. symphonic jazz.

Progressive jazz musicians strove to update and improve swing phrase-models, introducing the latest achievements of European symphony in the field of tonality and harmony into the practice of composition. The greatest contribution to the development of "progressive" was made by Stan Kenton. The sound of the music performed by his first orchestra was close to the style of Sergei Rachmaninov, and the compositions bore the features of romanticism.

A series of recorded albums "Artistry", "Miles ahead", "Spanish drawings" can be considered a kind of apotheosis of the development of progressive art.

(cool jazz), one of the styles of modern jazz, formed at the turn of the 40s - 50s of the twentieth century on the basis of the development of the achievements of swing and bop.

Trumpeter Miles Davis, who was one of the first performers of bebop, became an innovator of this genre.

Cool jazz is characterized by such features as a light, “dry” sound color, slowness of movement, frozen harmony, which creates the illusion of space. Dissonance also played a certain role, but differing at the same time in a softened, muffled character.

Saxophonist Lester Young coined the term "cool" for the first time.

The most famous kula musicians are Dave Brubeck, Stan Getz, George Shearing, Milt Jackson, "Shorty" Rogers .
Mainstream

(literally - mainstream); a term in relation to a certain period of swing, in which the performers managed to avoid the clichés established in this style and continued the traditions of Negro jazz, introducing elements of improvisation.

The mainstream is characterized by a simple but expressive melodic line, traditional harmony and a clear rhythm with a pronounced drive.

Leading Artists: Ben Webster, Gene Krupa, Coleman Hawkins, as well as big band leaders Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman.

(hard, hard bop), a style of contemporary jazz.

It is a continuation of the traditions of classic rhythm and blues and bebop.

It arose in the 1950s as a reaction to the academicism and European orientation of cool and West Coast jazz, which had reached its peak by that time.

The characteristic features of early hard bop are the predominance of strongly accented rhythmic accompaniment, the strengthening of blues elements in intonation and harmony, the tendency to reveal the vocal principle in improvisation, and some simplification of the musical language.

The main representatives of hard bop are mostly black musicians.

Art Blakey's quintet JAZZ MESSENGERS (1954) was the first ensemble of this style to record on records.

Other leading musicians: John Coltrane, Sonia Rollins, Henk Mobley, Max Roach…

(literally - fusion, fusion), a modern style direction that arose on the basis of jazz-rock, a synthesis of elements of European academic music and non-European folklore. Starting not only from the fusion of jazz with pop music and rock, fusion as a musical genre appeared in the late 1960s under the name jazz-rock.

Larry Coryell, Tony Williams, Miles Davis introduced elements such as electronics, rock rhythms and extended tracks, reversing much of what jazz stood for - the swing beat.

Another change is in the area of ​​rhythm where swing has either been redefined or ignored altogether. Pulsation, meter were no longer an essential element in reading jazz.

Free jazz continues to exist today as a viable form of expression, and in fact is no longer as controversial a style as it was perceived at the dawn of its origin.

The connection of Latin rhythmic elements was present almost from the beginning in the mixture of cultures that originated in New Orleans. The musical Latin influence in jazz has extended not only to orchestras and groups with top-notch improvisers of Latin American origin, but also to combining native and Latin performers, creating examples of the most exciting stage music.

And yet, today we are witnessing a mixture of an increasing number of world cultures, constantly bringing us closer to what, in essence, is already becoming “world music” (world music).

Today's jazz cannot but be influenced by sounds penetrating into it from almost every corner of the globe.

The potential for the further development of jazz is currently quite large, since the ways of developing talent and the means of its expression are unpredictable, multiplying by the combined efforts of various jazz genres encouraged today.