Stan Kenton 19121979

1
Stan Kenton 1912-1979

• survived the decline of the swing era
• Ellington
• Basie
• Herman
• Kenton
• Kenton drew from 3rd stream influences (a merger
  of classical and jazz
• combining classical and jazz compositional
  features
• uses orchestral instruments
• imitates classical music
• example Mirage written by Pete Rugolo for Stan
  Kenton Orchestra (tape 3 13)

2
Stan Kenton

• called his band neophonic
• new bands formed based on hard driving swing
• Buddy Rich
• Maynard Ferguson
• Toshiko Akiyoshi - Lew Tabackin
• Kentons band was called progressive
• very successful in music education
• became more abstract
• Chorale for Brass, Piano, and Bongo(Music for
  Strings, Percussion, and Celeste)

3
Stan Kenton

• 1954 Kenton was considered to be one who had
  contributed the most to modern American music in
  the Twentieth Century
• reputation for leading the loudest band
• most important works were the non-swing concert
  pieces
• a founder of the college stage band movement

4
Kenton Recordings

• New Directions in Music
• New Concepts of Artistry in Rhythm

5
Cool Questions

• The term for modern style that sounds more
  subdued than bebop
• Cool Jazz
• Important influences on the cool jazz style
  included
• Count Basie and Lester Young
• Among the first musicians to create the cool
  style were
• Lennie Tristano. Lee Konitz, and Miles Davis
• The Birth of the Cool band was that of
• Miles Davis in 1949-50

6
Cool Questions

• With quartets that did not use piano, _______is
  identified with West Coast Jazz.
• Gerry Mulligan
• The most famous cool jazz musician was
• Dave Brubeck
• The best known string of modern jazz big bands
  were led by
• Stan Kenton

7
The Tenor Saxophone

• became one of the three most important horns in
  jazz (along with trumpet and alto sax)
• evolved from dance orchestras and marching bands
• not used too much in the 1920s in New Orleans
  and Chicago styles
• Coleman Hawkins was the first important tenor sax
  soloist

8
Free Jazz

• The 1960s - called avant-garde or free Jazz
• Leading figures
• Ornette Coleman (b. 1930)
• John Coltrane (1927-1967)
• Cecil Taylor (b. 1933)
• Archie Shepp (b. 1937)
• Charles Mingus (1922-1979)

9
John Coltrane

• His genius is his technique
• sheets of sound
• extended the range of the instrument
• Also used soprano sax
• Noted for
• Innovative approach to improvisation
• Unorthodox handling of rhythms and form
• Use of African, Arabic, Indian, and other
  non-Western elements
• Deep spirituality
• The three levels of his development are
  represented by
• Giant Steps (1959)
• A Love Supreme (1964)
• Meditation (1965)

10
Life

• b. Hamlet, NC, 1926
• studied alto sax in high school
• attended Granoff Studios and the Ornstein School
  of Music in Philadelphia
• played clarinet in the Navy Band
• 1949 performing with Dizzy
• 1952 joined Earl Bostic and worked with Johnny
  Hodges
• released by Hodges because of alcohol
• 1955 married, joined Miles Davis

11
Life

• first real exposure came with the recordings and
  performances with Miles from 1955-1957
• periods of abstinence and indulgence
• left Davis and went to Philadelphia
• revelation from God
• Joined Monk in 1957, returned to Davis
• formed his own quartet in 1960
• McCoy Tyner, piano Elvin Jones, drums Steve
  Davis, bass
• greatest recordings with this group were
  expressions of his belief in God

12
The Move to Free Jazz

• 1965 Jones and Tyner left the group
• Coltrane intensified his search for freer musical
  structures
• formed a new group
• Pharoah Sanders, tenor Rashied Ali, drums Alice
  McLeod, piano
• Coltrane studied percussion
• this was called the ClassicQuartet
• moved to freer organization - not popular
• chaotic
• last recordings bear little relationship to his
  earlier ones

13
The Move to Freer Jazz

• recording Om contains chanted words from Eastern
  literature
• Leonard Feather and John Tynan called Coltrane
  antijazz
• last recordings - rhythm and inflection took
  priority over traditional melody and harmony
• Alis drumming blurred the beat until it
  disappeared
• Coltrane arrived at a totally free jazz structure
• greatest success was in Japan in the summer of
  1966

14
Coltrane in the Miles Davis Sextet

• So What
• John Coltrane, tenor sax
• soloists
• Bill Evans, p
• Paul Chambers, b
• Miles Davis, t
• Coltrane, ts
• Adderley, as
• Evans, p
• Chambers, b
• recorded 3/2/59

15
John Coltrane Quartet

• Alabama SCCJ disc V, track 6
• begins with a solem meditation, moves to prayer,
  hope, affirmation, prayer
• desegregation problems in Alabama
• Coltrane said It represents, musically,
  something that I saw down there, translated into
  music from inside me.
• soloist Coltrane
• recorded 11/18/63

16
FREE JAZZ

• Ornette Coleman was one of the first to
  experiment with free jazz
• the four common musical procedures in free jazz
• tone color becomes a structural element
• a new emphasis is placed on collective
  improvisation
• new roles are assigned to soloists and to those
  playing accompaniments
• all traditional musical rules are open to question

17
TONE COLOR

• Coleman played with a white plastic saxophone
• nasal, shallow sound better suited his style
• dismissed as a poor player (excessive inflections
  and the way he blew the horn)
• it was a personalized technique
• his sound was similar to the early blues singers
• he was accepted by R B bands
• not accepted by the be-bop musicians (out of tune)

18
Collective Improvisation

• free jazz restored this concept which was almost
  lost since the passing of Dixieland
• harmonies and melodies not governed by formal
  chord progressions
• Coleman seldom used any comping instruments
  (piano, guitar) - too restricting
• any soloist could lead the bass to any harmony
• one thought springs from another

19
Ensemble

• collective improvisation means an end to the
  traditional role of the soloist
• all performers are free to play any time they
  wished
• they could decide when and what to play

20
New musical priorities

• question traditional rules
• do not abandon the tradition but, rather, lean on
  it, especially in the blues

21
Lonely Woman (1959) SCCJ

• example of free-flowing harmonic structure
• Ornette Coleman, as Don Cherry, t Charlie
  Haden, b Billy Higgins, d
• follows the traditional AABA structure
• reminds the listener of rural blues performances

22
Free Jazz (1960) SCCJ

• Ornette Coleman, as Donald Cherry Freddie
  Hubbard, t Eric Dolphy, bc Scott La Faro
  Charlie Haden, b Billy Higgins Ed Blackwell, d
• denser and more complex
• attains the harmonic and melodic freedom
• few traditional melodies or harmonies
• the instruments accompanying Coleman freely
  respond to his ideas
• swinging rhythm feeling is maintained (would not
  be in freer styles of jazz)

23
Ornette Coleman 1930 -

• b. Fort Worth, Texas in 1930
• mother was a seamstress father died when he was
  7
• age 14 - mother gave him an alto sax
• studied with his cousin and at high school
• age 16 - playing in the high school band during
  the day and in RB nightclubs at night
• listened to and copied other players
• 1949 - joined a traveling minstrel show Silas
  Green from New Orleans

24
Ornette Coleman

• left in LA could not get a job
• baby sitter, elevator operator, porter, stock
  clerk
• married Jayne Cortez
• met Don Cherry
• small group of musicians (Haden, Don Payne,
  Walter Norris, Ed Blackwell and Billy Higgins)
  practiced in a garage
• 2/1959 - recorded
• interested the Percy Heath, b (MJQ)
• Lenox School of Jazz

25
Ornette Coleman

• graduated in 1959, opened at the Five Spot
• plastic sax and pocket trumpet
• became the rage of NY - contract w/Atlantic
  Records
• 1962 raised his fees
• 1965 two new instruments - trumpet and violin
• European tour in 1965
• called free jazz Harmelodic
• First jazz performer to receive a Guggenheim
  grant - symphonic - opera
• Skies of America

26
Ornette Coleman

• remains in NY
• does not perform much

27
Questions

• John Coltrane became known to a wider audience
  from 1955 when he joined the group of
  bandleader__________.
• Miles Davis
• Two non-Bebop-derived approaches Coltrane took in
  the 1960s include FREE and________.
• MODAL
• What instrument was Coltrane particularly noted
  for popularizing?
• the soprano sax

28
Questions

• What is Albert Aylers primary instrument?
• tenor sax
• What is Sun Ras primary instrument?
• piano
• Charles Mingus was best-known as a bandleader,
  composer-arranger and as a_____.
• bassist
• AACM stands for_________.
• Association for the Advancement of Creative
  Musicians

29
Cecil Taylor

• Stockhausen, Stravinsky, Schoenberg
• highly regarded
• b. Long Island, 1933
• both grandmothers were Native Americans, fathers
  family was Scotch
• studied piano at age 5 also studied percussion
• 1951 - moved to Boston, degree in composition
  from NEC
• studied piano, arranging, harmony
• said he learned more from listening to the Duke
  than he did in class

30
Cecil Taylor

• tone clusters
• exploits the pianos percussion ability
• uses fists and elbows
• 1960s and 1970s refused to abandon his kind of
  music
• engagements separated by long periods of
  disagreeable jobs
• taught courses in black music at the University
  of Wisconsin in 1971, Artist in Resident at
  Antioch College 1972-3, Guggenheim Fellowship in
  1973, and Honorary Doctorate of Music from NEC in
  1977

31
Cecil Taylor

• Exercises the right to determine the working
  conditions
• Pianos of the best quality (96 key Bösendorfer)
• Extensive rehearsal schedule

32
Enter Evening (1966)

• The musicians
• Cecil Taylor, piano, bells
• Eddie Gale Stevens, trumpet
• Jimmy Lyons, alto sax
• Ken McIntyre, alto sax, oboe, bass clarinet
• Henry Grimes, bass
• Alan Silva, bass
• Andrew Cyrille, drums
• The music
• Third Stream jazz
• great variety of musical texture
• the players react to each other free of harmony,
  meter and other jazz idioms

33
Marty Ehrlich

• born in St Paul, Minnesota, 1955
• Began playing clarinet at an early age in
  Louisville, Kentucky
• Moved to St. Louis at age 10, began studying
  clarinet with members of the St Louis Symphony
  Orchestra and to also play saxophone
• Became involved with a community of poets and
  musicians working to expand the contexts and
  languages of improvised music
• Black Artist Group (BAG) was a major influence on
  these artists, many of who had been members of
  BAG
• Performed often on radio and in concert with The
  Human Arts Ensemble

34
Marty Ehrlich

• 1973 attended the New England Conservatory of
  Music
• Graduated with honors in Jazz Performance and
  Saxophone
• His teachers there included the then president of
  NEC, Gunther Schuller
• Became the first Jazz Major to win the
  conservatory's Chadwick Medal for Outstanding
  Achievement

35
Marty Ehrlich

• Moved to New York in 1978
• 1979 performed over 30 nights at the Village
  Vanguard with George Russell's Living Time
  Orchestra
• Toured Europe for the first time with Anthony
  Braxton's Creative Music Orchestra
• Worked with saxophonist Julius Hemphill
• Appears on close to 100 CD's with these artists
  Jaki Byard, Butch Morris, John Zorn, and others
• Performed with numerous classical ensembles,
  including the New York City Opera, the New York
  City Ballet, the Lincoln Center Chamber Players,
  and the St. Luke's Orchestra

36
Marty Ehrlich

• Received three composer fellowships from the New
  York Foundation for the Arts
• Two grants from the National Endowment for the
  Arts
• Two commissioning grants from the Mary Flagler
  Charitable Trust
• Touring grants from Arts International
• Composition fellow at the Civitella Ranieri Arts
  Center in Italy
• Blue Mountain Center in New York
• Composer-in -Residence at the Isabella Stuart
  Gardner Museum in Boston
• Peter Ivers Visiting Artist at Harvard University

37
Marty Ehrlich

• Since 1977, Ehrlich has been actively promoting
  the music of the late Julius Hemphill
• An original member of Hemphill's Sextet, Ehrlich
  has continued the group's performing, functioning
  as its musical director
• The Julius Hemphill Sextet released a critically
  acclaimed recording of previously unrecorded
  Hemphill Compositions called At Dr. King's
  Table.  
• New England Conservatory's Outstanding Alumni
  Award,
• Down Beat's Talent Deserving Wider Recognition
  (TDWR) for clarinet
• Wind Player of the Year from the Jazz Journalists
  Association

38
Emergency Peace

• Emergency Peace evokes a feeling music can give.
  The more the concept of peace is used in
  explicitly absurd ways by societal leaders, often
  in the service of the call to arms for another
  emergency war, the more it grows in immediacy as
  an imperative in ones imagination - Marty
  Ehrlich

39
Emergency Peace

• The players
• Marty Ehrlich, clarinet, bass clarinet, flute,
  wooden flutes, alto sax
• Abdul Wadud, cello
• Lindsey Horner, bass
• Muhal Richard Abrams, piano
• The Music
• Emergency Peace
• Dusk
• The Painter
• the tucked sleeve of a one-armed boy
• Unison
• Double Dance
• Circle the Heart
• Charlie the Parker
• Tribute

40
Emergency Peace

• The Recording
• Marty Ehrlich and The Dark Woods
  EnsembleEmergency PeaceNW 80409 - 2

41
Pliant Plaint

• Pliant Plaint mixes swing, double-time,
  stop-time, two-beat, shuffle, and textural
  rhythms. Six distinct melodic phrases move over
  or within these rhythms in a pliant manner.
  This was a commission from the Musicians of
  Brooklyn Initiative (MOBI)

42
Pliant Plaint

• The band
• The New York Composers Orchestra
• The New York Composers Orchestra was formed in
  1986 by composers Wayne Horvitz and Robin
  Holcomb. The NYCO provides a regular performing
  ensemble for composers wishing to write a jazz
  instrumentation without being confined to
  traditional notions of "jazz" and "big band"
  styles.
• The Recording
• The New York Composers OrchestraNew World
  Records/Countercurrents NW 397-2

43
At Dr. Kings Table

• Composition becomes important
• The musicians preferred to be called improvisers
  rather than jazzmen or composers
• NW 80524-2

44
Julius Hemphill 1938-1995

• Hemphill founded the World Saxophone Quartet in
  1976

45
Muhal Richard Abrams1930 -
46
Muhal Richard Abrams

• 1930 - born in Chicago
• Studied piano at Chicago Musical College and
  Governors State University
• predominately a self-taught musician
• 1950 - began writing arrangements for the King
  Fleming Band
• Played in the hard-bop band Modern Jazz Two
  Three
• 1961 - founded the Experimental Band which was
  the precursor to the musicians cooperative
  Association for the Advancement of Creative
  Musicians (AACM) - he was the co-fouonder
• 1970 moved to New York
• Performed and recorded solo piano and big band
• Recorded for Delmark, Black Saint, and Arista
  Novus

47
Muhal Richard Abrams

• One Line, Two Views NW 80469-2
• Textures 95The Prism 3Tribute to Julius
  Hemphill and Don PullenOne Line, Two Views11
  Over 4Ensemble Song
• Personnel
• Muhal Richard Abrams, piano, synth, rain stick
  percussion, voiceMark Feldman, violin,
  percussion, voiceTony Cedras, accordion,
  percussion, voiceMarty Ehrlich, alto sax, bass
  clarinet, percussion, voicePatience Higgins,
  tenor sax, bass clarinet, percussion, voiceAnne
  LeBaron, harp, percussion, voiceEddie Allen,
  trumpet, percussion, voiceLindsey Horner, bass,
  percussion, voiceBryan Carrott, vibraphone,
  percussion, voiceReggie Nicholson, drums,
  percussion, voice