Beacon, 2006. While all my lessons are free, if you find them useful please consider donating to help keep them coming. Jazz began in New Orleans in the . In the late 1990s, there was a swing revival in the U.S. hb```. @1&$3.YTyfx.=**hE+f|5SSz/=n/ Trumpets provide a brash buzzing sound thats well suited for a melody. The History of Jazz. Figure 1: The Western Jazz Quartet (piano: By 1937, the "sweet jazz band" saxophonist Shep Fields was also featured over the airways on the NBC radio network in his Rippling Rhythm Revue, which also showcased a young Bob Hope as the announcer. [14][12][13] [15][16][17][18], Twenty-first century big bands can be considerably larger than their predecessors, exceeding 20 players, with some European bands using 29 instruments and some reaching 50. Hickman's arranger, Ferde Grof, wrote arrangements in which he divided the jazz orchestra into sections that combined in various ways. trombone. style based on a faster, danceable beat with featured improvised solos. In swing, the saxophone was usually featured as the leading instrumental soloist. And because of this, Swing had a greater emphasis on written-out composition and arrangements. The group emphasized correct technique and accurate playing and released its first recording in 1930. Many of the great swing bands broke up, as the times and tastes changed. Compared to Dixieland bands, swing bands used two or three times as many players and produced a fuller sound. Choose the vocabulary word that answers each riddle. Lester Young & Herschel Evans. The trumpeter blows on the mouthpiece at one end of the trumpet with closed lips, and the sound wave reverberates through the tube until it exits out the widened far end of the instrument. The popularity of their bands in the mainstream reveals the extent to which jazz and blues had become the most popular dance music of the 1930s and 1940s. Cubans Mario Bauz and Machito (Francisco Ral Gutirrez Grillo), founder of the Afro-Cubans; Puerto Rican Ernesto Antonio Tito Puente with Oye como va; and Afro-Cuban drummer Chano Pozo (Luciano Pozo Gonzlez), famous for playing with and influencing Dizzy Gillespies Manteca, were among the most prominent band leaders and musicians. Up until that time, it was viewed with ridicule and looked upon as a curiosity. The instrumental lineup of a big band will vary from ensemble to ensemble, but is typically composed of around 17 musicians, divided into four sections: five saxophones; four trombones; four trumpets; a rhythm section of piano, double bass and drums; Common additions might include guitar, french horn, tuba or a vocalist. 1920s as a blending of blues, ragtime, and civic brass band traditions, then this Bob Hope, Shep Fields and The Rippling Rhythm Revue", Photograph of Bob Hope as master of ceremonies on the "Rippling Rhythm Revue" Show in 1937 on Gettyimages, State University of New York, Fredonia. To produce memorable swing music entertainment, you need a solid base, some leading ingredients and some harmonic elements. Theyre noticeable, but not overwhelming. [44], Although big bands are identified with the swing era, they continued to exist after those decades, though the music they played was often different from swing. Another interesting and important development happened with Swing improvisation. ragtime [47] In Kansas City and across the Southwest, an earthier, bluesier style was developed by such bandleaders as Bennie Moten and, later, by Jay McShann and Jesse Stone. Click here for a FREE preview of The Classic Swing Bands newest CD Ballroom Dance Favorites.. syllables). They were knowledgeable and often biased toward their favorite bands and songs, and sometimes worshipful of famous soloists and vocalists. performing at the same time. 3. He joined Ben Pollacks band and made his first recording. When the trumpets and saxophones are combined in a musical accompaniment, they can lead a vibrant and multi-toned swing melody. leaders in America. Her version of the nursery rhyme A-Tisket, A-Tasket (1938) brought her international fame. The string bass replaced the tuba and the guitar replaced the banjo. Only hotel-type bands such as that of Guy Lombardo and select jazz players such as Benny Goodman found consistent employment. [26], Typical big band arrangements from the swing era were written in strophic form with the same phrase and chord structure repeated several times. (say, the brass section, i.e., trumpets and trombones) would play a musical phrase and then be "answered" by another section (say, the . A ballad is a simple song, usually romantic in nature, and uses the same melody for each stanza. Bridging the gap to white audiences in the mid-1930s was the Casa Loma Orchestra and Benny Goodman's early band. Gioia, Ted. (As told to Albert Murray). New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. ,r,el1)PrPer{mN,cq+W!yJn?@}gU-+GACIuyrPgnpQCZ76il9%0A9b vr, Q&L Sc3oX *{{toV Swing as Popular Music 1. But there were a few instrumental popular hits, such as Count Basie's "One O'Clock Jump" and Miller's "In the Mood." 3. Since keyboards are essentially advanced incarnations of pianos, they can be used to quietly accompany the rhythm section of a swing band or to play a quiet harmony. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. accompaniment (acoustic bass with piano and/or guitar). His efforts helped make it possible for jazz musicians to earn a decent wage. Count Basie became an Oklahoma City Blue Devil around 1929 and also played with Bennie Moten. A. Rolfe, Anna Mae Winburn, and Ina Ray Hutton.[35]. African American theaters and night clubs, the Apollo, the Savoy, and the Lafayette, became legendary for presenting jazz combos and orchestras. With no market for small-group recordings (made worse by a Depression-era industry reluctant to take risks), musicians such as Louis Armstrong and Earl Hines led their own bands, while others, like Jelly Roll Morton and King Oliver, lapsed into obscurity. Radio increased the fame of Benny Goodman, the "Pied Piper of Swing". Some bands, like those of Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Woody Herman, that performed in the 1920s, 1930s, or 1940s continued to perform successfully into the 1970s and 1980s. After the end of both bands, Basie formed his own orchestra, recruiting members from these two bands. The successful bands of the Swing Era featured carefully composed arrangements that held many talented players together. Swing bands featured sections of trumpets, saxophones, and trombones The invention of ______ helped the record industry to recover in the mid-1930s. Above all else, Swing music is dance music which means it was: This also meant it was incredibly commercial. Q G("CH^T)daA]yg~zN^y>.g~01D%>7dj.|K+8'9 q*U!i|O1#"v\YOGtc_GD1JL. KC Jazz is characterised by: And because KC Jazzsongs were riff based, they were often played from memory by the band (rather than from sheet music). As swing developed, the second player became responsible for most of the jazz solos. Ellington, Duke Kennedy. Walter Page is often credited with developing the walking bass,[38] though earlier examples exist, such as Wellman Braud on Ellington's Washington Wabble from 1927. Three bypass valves over the tube can be used to lower the pitch of the trumpet. Louis ARMSTRONG (1900-1971): Hotter Than That (1927). They danced to recordings and the radio and attended live concerts. Southwest bands offered a different solution to big band improvisational structures. While the trumpet is commonly featured in a swing band, a saxophone is also often used to enhance melodies. creating a style known as "Dixieland" Jazz or Here are the five most common swing band instruments, and how they commonly fit into swing music. His "C" His famous recording Body and Soul, recorded in 1939, is known for its continuous smooth sound. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});
. [29], An arrangement's first chorus is sometimes preceded by an introduction, which may be as short as a few measures or may extend to a chorus of its own. American society, while standing as a brilliant reflection of American freedom have emerged: "Free jazz" (a "random" loosely-structured Instead of just embellishing the melody, he created a whole new melody based on the songs harmony by arpeggiating the chords and adding further chord alterations and substitutions to make his solo more complex. The International Sweethearts of Rhythm became known for its strong riffing brass section, heavy percussion, rhythmic sensibility, and dynamic blues playing heard in Jump Children.. Duke Ellington wrote a song in 1931 titled It Dont Mean a Thing (If It Aint Got That Swing), and for a generation of music lovers those were words to live by. As the soloistic improvisations intensified, bebop players such as saxophonist Charlie "Bird" PARKER often Big Bands began to appear in movies in the 1930s through the 1960s, though cameos by bandleaders were often stiff and incidental to the plot.Shep Fields appeared with his Rippling Rhythm Orchestra in a playful and integrated animated performance of "This Little Ripple Had Rhythm" in the musical extravaganza The Big Broadcast of 1938. Whiteman increased the size of his band into nearly symphonic proportion. But on performance day, this band of Lab rats replaces the high-tech gizmos with trumpets, saxophones, trombones, drums and a piano. The saxophone features a curved reed mouthpiece and a long brass tube that gradually expands before doubling back and bellowing outwards. Although The popularity of many of the major bands was amplified by star vocalists, such as Frank Sinatra with Tommy Dorsey, Helen O'Connell and Bob Eberly with Jimmy Dorsey, Ella Fitzgerald with Chick Webb, Billie Holiday and Jimmy Rushing with Count Basie, Dick Haymes and Helen Forrest with Harry James, Doris Day with Les Brown,[40] and Peggy Lee with Benny Goodman. HWYo8~G ("b+[:r$%_r8oFdnIt]5pu\Kr|z~+au/I8vTm3}` e style, boogie-woogie was born. instruments (Saxophone, trumpet, clarinet, trombone, flute, vibraphone, etc.). His pioneering vocal style, which treated his voice as an instrument, provided the foundation for vocal jazz interpretation. In the early years of Jazz, and up until the Swing Era, the piano was still very much rooted in the rhythm section of the band. Kansas City was busy with musical activity from the early 1920s to about 1938. Columbia, Victor, and Decca were the three most important, Swing bands featured sections of trumpets, saxophones, and. Duke Ellington at one time used six trumpets. Paul Whiteman (18901967), called the King of Jazz, sought after talented top names for his band like Bing Crosby, Bix Beiderbecke, and Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey. So generally the pianist played very rhythmically, and helped keep the beat. So the Swing Era was during the Depression and it acted as a kind of counter-statement or rebellion against the unemployment and misery that the Depression caused. note-for-note. In Harlem, the creative and literary arts, Black musicals, and big band entertainment flourished within the movement known as the Harlem Renaissance, in which music played as great or possibly a greater role than literature. The "Modern Popular Music" chart below, style promoted by Ornette COLEMAN and John COLTRANE), which has raised a continuing controversy about [48][49][50] Big band remotes on the major radio networks spread the music from ballrooms and clubs across the country during the 1930s and 1940s, with remote broadcasts from jazz clubs continuing into the 1950s on NBC's Monitor. They had the Blue Devils. 3. projected in the way the drums and bass express the beat, how the piano [31] A head arrangement is a piece of music that is formed by band members during rehearsal. "C" Jam Blues (1942). 3 4 5 6 7 8, - The Music . Swing is an outgrowth of the 1920s big band traditions in Chicago, Kansas City, and New York City. 1930s, jazz expanded into a "Big Band" phenomenon with Duke Ellington The 194244 musicians' strike worsened the situation. In the mid-1930s, he was the featured soloist in the Basie Orchestra. Williams is considered one of the great jazz pianists and one of the greatest performers from Kansas City. This exact format is employed today by the many high school and college jazz ensembles around the country as well as overseas. the late 1930s through the 1950s, Duke Ellington was one of the premier swing band While bassists can use a bow to vibrate the strings, swing band bassists will frequently pluck the strings instead. He was also a band leader and arranger who traveled throughout Europe and Japan during the 1950s and 1960s. hbbd``b`:$g@Hp,@,Fb 0 O3 In the 1950s, Stan Kenton referred to his band's music as "progressive jazz", "modern", and "new music". can keep track of this form by counting to 4 twelve times ("1 2 3 4", "2 2 3 4", "3 2 3 4", "4 2 3 4", "5 2 3 4", etc. widespread popularity of big band/swing was accelerated by the rise of dozens These bands had identifiable leaders, such as Glenn Miller and the Dorsey brothers, who placed their individual stamps on their musical arrangements. of main line "crooners" such as Bing is called the ", The This was in part due to a political organization called the Pendergast Machine which encouraged a nightclub atmosphere. Fitzgerald recorded several standards that became hit songs. II era. (1899-1974): The such works incorporate certain elements of the jazz tradition, there is not even Tenor saxophonist Lester Young (19091959) had a different approach than Hawkins and used a lighter tone. Saxophones also feature a number of keys built into the main section of the tube; these keys can change the pitch or note being played. Woody Herman's first band, nicknamed the First Herd, borrowed from progressive jazz, while the Second Herd emphasized the saxophone section of three tenors and one baritone. Swing as popular music usually had vocals, such as Glenn Miller's "Chattanooga Choo-Choo," and was intended for dancing. They refuse to look for new ideas and new outlets, so they fall by the waysideIm going to try to find out the new ideas before the others do., I stole everything I ever heard, but mostly I stole from the horns.. The rhythm section would typically include piano, string bass, drum set, with occasional additions of guitar or other chordal/melody instruments. The genre was gradually absorbed into mainstream pop rock and the jazz rock sector.[45]. [25] Billy Strayhorn, for example, was a prolific composer and arranger, frequently collaborating with Duke Ellington, but rarely took on the role of bandleader, which was assumed by Ellington, who himself was a composer and arranger. Ella Fitzgerald contributed to the success of Webbs band in New York City. Trumpet image courtesy: PJ via Wikimedia Commons, Saxophone image courtesy: via Wikimedia Commons, Keyboard image courtesy: Eurotuber via Wikimedia Commons, Double Bass image courtesy: David Price via Wikimedia Commons, Drum set image courtesy: Pbroks13 via Wikimedia Commons, Gumbo image courtesy: Amadscientist via Wikimedia Commons, For more than 10 years, The Classic Swing Band of Dallas has offered the best in live entertainment. 1554 0 obj <> endobj The project is also supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. One Oclock Jump: The Unforgettable History of the Oklahoma City Blue Devils. Louis Armstrong was the first to establish vocals as a part of an instrumental tradition. freedom vs. chaos. The style features prominent horn riffs, call and response between the brass and reed sections, and a consistent rhythmic drive derived from walking and/or boogie-woogie-type bass lines. Examples include the Vienna Art Orchestra, founded in 1977, and the Italian Instabile Orchestra, active in the 1990s. He received his BA in Political Science from the University of Chicago and an M.A. In Kansas City, Bennie Motens and Count Basies bands had begun developing a looser type of big band arrangement that allowed for freer styles of soloing, giving rise to a unique Kansas City swing style in the 1930s. Swing was the predominant style of jazz music played from the late 1920s to mid-1940s. This expansive eclecticism characterized much of jazz after World War II. Two other musical characteristics of swing bands are a return to the use of a flat-four rhythm and the use of block chords (chords with many notes moving in parallel motion). out of tune) notes, (4) and even a section with Armstrong's famous "scat Cool Jazz [3] In the 1940s, Stan Kenton's band used up to five trumpets, five trombones (three tenor and two bass trombones), five saxophones (two alto saxophones, two tenor saxophones, one baritone saxophone), and a rhythm section. Fletcher Henderson (18971952) is credited with creating the pattern for swing arrangements. Swing was hugely popular in fact, it was the pop music of the 1930s. Other swing bands in New York City and beyond incorporated the defining elements associated with the Kansas City tradition to which they added their own stamp, as did Chick Webb and His Orchestra (Stomping at the Savoy, 1934), and Lionel Hampton and His Orchestra (Flying Home, 1942). leaders in America. Count Basie played a relaxed, propulsive swing, Bob Crosby (brother of Bing), more of a dixieland style,[39] Benny Goodman a hard driving swing, and Duke Ellington's compositions were varied and sophisticated. is America's Critics and historians refer to these groups as ghost bands because of the absence of their leaders and new personnel. As a result of the military draft and transportation hardships in the U.S., the swing era ended quickly. Big bands uplifted morale during World War II. daring arrangements of classic jazz tunes. In a big band jazz group, at least three trumpets, two trombones, four or more saxophones, and a rhythm section of piano, guitar, bass, and drums are combined with a vocal element. The invention of ______ helped the record industry to recover in the mid-1930s. progression and the same number of measures/beats, but it may be applied to of the most creative composers in the history of jazz, particularly renowned "Hot" Jazz, as improvised over standard blues patterns. Swing bands adopted a consistent instrumentation of four sections that remained fairly stable. He toured in many parts of the world and was also commissioned to record classical compositions. NY: Penguin Books:1977. 6 Steps to Big Band Writing with Steven Feifke. here to see a YouTube video on "swing" groove vs. other types of initiated by a 4-measure lead-in improvised over a "C" chord The trumpet section included four trumpets; the first was responsible for the highest notes. sense means to merge styles together. All the big bands would go up there. highly improvisatory style called Bebop, For example, Tommy Dorsey played with a beautiful tone and control on the trombone. John Coltrane's "hard bop" of Typically the most prominent shows with the earliest time slots and largest audiences have bigger bands with horn sections while those in later time slots go with smaller, leaner ensembles. He was the recipient of a Fulbright Lecturing/Research Fellowship in Japan, where he taught courses in African American History and researched the history of jazz in Japan. of the United States between 1920 and 1970. All Jazz styles have two common features: - Nostalgia for the Big Band style has kept it alive today. Other renowned vocalists are blues singers Jimmy Rushing with You Can Depend on Me and Joe Williamss Roll Em Pete, featured with the Count Basie Orchestra, whose repertoire included ballads, jazz and pop standards. The dance duo Vernon and Irene Castle popularized the foxtrot while accompanied by the Europe Society Orchestra led by James Reese Europe. piece several times, but the most famous is from 1942, with the following Phil Spitalny, a native of Ukraine, led a 22-piece female orchestra known as Phil Spitalny and His Hour of Charm Orchestra, named for his radio show, The Hour of Charm, during the 1930s and 1940s. These musical ensembles associated with the swing era. Henderson was a pianist and excellent arranger who wrote most of the musical arrangements that helped launch the success of Benny Goodmans orchestra. exemplifies many of the most innovative aspects of this new jazz style: (1) It How relevant do you believe the poem is today? And after years of economic depression, many Americans wanted to have fun. "Swing" feeling: The rhythmic phenomenon of "swing" feeling is He created his band as a vehicle for his compositions. tenor saxophone. The repertoire of swing bands featured both jazz and popular arrangements. The size could be anywhere from about 12 to 30 players. The Great Depression, which started with the stock market crash in 1929, and WWII which ended in 1945. D. in History from the University of California, Berkeley. California. For this reason the pianists left hand generally just played chords on the beat; while his right hand built rhythmic patterns around chords and chord tone, and especially guide tone often just playing arpeggios or simple bluesy licks. The swing era was the one time that jazz was a truly popular style. Swing bands featured sections of trumpets, saxophones, and . and Ph. during the World War II years. The Glenn Miller band was one of the most popular bands of the Swing Era. (Change the second verb to the future progressive form.). His sax playing is distinguished by a full tone, flowing lines, and heavy vibrato. To learn more about the book this website supports, please visit its, You must be a registered user to view the. performers such Louis ARMSTRONG completed the transition from Ella Fitzgerald, the featured vocalist of Chick Webbs Orchestra during the late 1930s, is considered to be one of the most outstanding singers of the swing era. Congress repealed the Volstead Act, a law that prohibited the manufacture, transportation and sale of alcoholic beverages, in 1933. Most swing was performed by Big Bands, which were literally big bands, divided into trumpets, saxophones, trombones, and a rhythm section consisting mostly of drums, bass, guitar, and piano. woodwinds (saxophones, clarinets), brass (trumpets, trombones) and a back-up Traveling conditions and lodging were difficult, in part due to segregation in most parts of the United States, and the personnel often had to perform having had little sleep and food. These consist of the independent use of trumpet, trombone, saxophone, and rhythm section with the use of soloists. Then, during the Swing Era, the sax player Coleman Hawkins changed the way jazz approached improvisation from melody to harmony (horizontal to vertical). This pattern reinforced the second and fourth beat of every measure and later became known as a back beat. Additionally, the drummer accommodated the improvisations of soloists, providing a non-intrusive, laid-back swing pattern.
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