Notes on Jazz: the 1st 100 Years

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Notes onJazz the 1st 100 Years

• Chapter 1 Roots

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• Possible definitions/descriptions of jazz
  according to Gridley
• strict definition.
• Improvisation.
• swing feel.
• tradition.
• family resemblances.
• jazzness as a multidimensional concerpt.

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• Possible musical predecessors to jazz
• Work songs and field hollars.
• Spirituals and other religious musical
  expressions.
• Marches, dances, and other music in the European
  style.
• Minstrelsy.
• Ragtime.
• The Blues.

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• Minstrelsy
• Probably the earliest commercially viable form of
  popular entertainment in the U.S.
• In the 1830s, minstrel musical acts appeared as
  interludes between circus acts or theatrical
  performances.
• In 1843 the first full-scale minstrel show played
  in New York four white men from Virginia, billed
  as the "Virginia Minstrels", applied black cork
  to their faces and performed a song-and-dance act
  in a small hall.

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• Minstrelsy (contd.)
• Minstrelsy is characterized primarily by the use
  of "blackface" (typically burned, pulverized
  champagne corks mixed with water or petroleum
  jelly).
• Blackface served as a racial marker, suggesting
  that the performer would be portraying aspects of
  African American culture.
• It also served as a type of mask to shield the
  performers from identification with the their
  roles.

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• Stereotypical characters include
• "Jim Crow" - A construct of Thomas Dartmouth
  "Daddy" Rice, "Jim Crow" was presumably inspired
  by an elderly African American who Rice had seen.
  The name later referred to the racial caste
  system that existed from 1877 to the mid 1960s.
• "Zip Coon" - Creating by George Washington Dixon,
  "Zip Coon" supposedly represented the "dandy,"
  "sporting life" Northern character who had
  acquired some wealth through legitimate or
  illegitimate means.

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• Ragtime
• Highly syncopated (many at the time thought
  excessively so).
• No swing feel. Eighth notes were played
  evenly.
• Ragtime composers wrote down their pieces for
  publication.
• Primarily solo piano pieces.

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• The Blues
• State of mind
• The term "blue.
• Performance or interaction with the music can be
  seen as a means of ridding oneself of "the
  blues."
• Many jazz players of all schools have held that a
  musicians ability to play the blues expressively
  is a measure of his or her quality.
• Performance techniques or paractices associated
  with the blues include
• "rough" or "unrefined" timbres
• "blue" notes such as the b3 or b5, or deviations
  from "standard" pitch
• improvisation, including variations of the melody
  and solos
• Form
• Although not all songs with "Blues" in the title
  follow this form, a "standard" blues structure of
  repeated choruses in the form AAB evolved in the
  early 20th century.