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Postwar America and the Evolution of Jazz: 1945-1960, Study notes of Jazz music

An in-depth analysis of the postwar era in america and the significant impact it had on the jazz music scene. From the decline of swing music and the rise of bebop, to the changing status of jazz and the influence of political and social movements, this document offers valuable insights into the history of jazz during this period. It covers topics such as the wartime taxes, the draft, the afm recording ban, the cold war, the civil rights movement, and the emergence of modern jazz. It also discusses influential figures like miles davis, norman granz, and dizzy gillespie, and the impact of jazz on popular culture.

Typology: Study notes

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Final Exam Notes
Chapter 16: Bop 1945-1960
Postwar America
- 1945 – end of WWII
- Bebop took over Swing Era
oCool jazz and Hard bop
oMost players were black
Viewed music as a channel for self expression
Shift from economic concerns to political concerns by blacks
- Changing status of Jazz
oWartime taxes motivated club owners to hire small groups instead of
more expensive big bands
oThe draft decimated the ranks of big bands, making it hard to
maintain a large ensemble
oAFM Recording Ban
Most instrumental jazz music came to a halt
Bandleaders forced to disband or scale back
oBiggest names in popular music were solo vocalists
Frank Sinatra, Doris Day, Dinah Shore
oJazz music became valued for its artistic style rather than its popular
appeal
oSmall bands flourished during the ban, playing for audiences who
truly enjoyed the music, not just dancing.
- Prosperous 50s
oSuburbanization of America
The economy was booming and the American dream was to
own a house in the suburbs , where one could live close
enough to a city to enjoy its cultural richness and economic
strength, but far enough away to escape poverty, pollution,
and ethnic diversity.
“white flight”
oTV
The Sound of Jazz by Robert Herridge
Used jazz to evoke a tough, urban ambiance in the theme
music for detective programs
Game shows used to help spur public interest in jazz
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Final Exam Notes Chapter 16: Bop 1945- Postwar America

  • 1945 – end of WWII
  • Bebop took over Swing Era o Cool jazz and Hard bop o Most players were black  Viewed music as a channel for self expression  Shift from economic concerns to political concerns by blacks
  • Changing status of Jazz o Wartime taxes motivated club owners to hire small groups instead of more expensive big bands o The draft decimated the ranks of big bands, making it hard to maintain a large ensemble o AFM Recording Ban  Most instrumental jazz music came to a halt  Bandleaders forced to disband or scale back o Biggest names in popular music were solo vocalists  Frank Sinatra, Doris Day, Dinah Shore o Jazz music became valued for its artistic style rather than its popular appeal o Small bands flourished during the ban, playing for audiences who truly enjoyed the music, not just dancing.
  • Prosperous 50s o Suburbanization of America  The economy was booming and the American dream was to own a house in the suburbs , where one could live close enough to a city to enjoy its cultural richness and economic strength, but far enough away to escape poverty, pollution, and ethnic diversity.  “white flight” o TV  The Sound of Jazz by Robert Herridge  Used jazz to evoke a tough, urban ambiance in the theme music for detective programs  Game shows used to help spur public interest in jazz

o Cold War  Propaganda  US government presented jazz abroad as a powerful symbol of American freedom, creativity, and optimism.  Voice of America was a radio program in 1942 used to broadcast news and music to other countries during WWII  Armstrong became “Ambassador Satch” making jazz a universal language o Civil Rights Movement  Brown v. Board of Education demolished “separate but equal”  Rosa Parks  Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  Founded the SCLC o Modern Jazz  Demand to be heard and to be taken seriously that marked the civil rights struggle also characterized the intellectual posture of the newest jazz styles  Bebop, cool jazz, hard bop  Musicians wanted to distance themselves from the dancing and entertaining aspects of jazz and instead considered themselves artists  Modern Jazz- general term covering several progressive jazz styles after WWII, including bebop, hard jazz, cool jazz, and free jazz  Moldy figs- old-fashioned Dixieland players branded with this name.  Two camps  Louis Armstrong o All-Stars group organized in 1947 (his own Dixieland group) o Performed jazz tunes in an updated New Orleans Style o Enjoyed the greatest audience acceptance of his career, becoming a beloved icon of American popular culture. Young blacks felt embarrassed by his obvious pandering to white tastes; they called him Uncle Tom and rejected his music.

o Psychic automatism- sought to eliminate any barrier between primal inspiration and the application of pain to canvas o Writers began to write their own thoughts in the brutal honesty of the moment. o Actors adopted an approach method called method acting  They identified with their characters so closely that their portrayals became intuitive. o Jazz soloists of the 1950s trusted spontaneous self expression  By 1950s it was expected that most jazz solos would be fully improvised, with little material worked out in advance.

  • Jazz and Drugs o Heroin became the drug of choice and it almost always marred the lives of those who used it o Drugs replaced alcohol in source of revenue for organized crime o Nearly every up and coming jazz player in the 1950s used heroin
  • Nightclubs and Festivals o Nightclub owners began substituting striptease dancers for live jazz o Birdland- jazz club on Broadway  Opened in 1949 in honor of Charlie “Bird” Parker o Village Vanguard  Started as a place to hear beat poetry, but began hosting a great deal of modern jazz in late 1950s  It is the oldest NY jazz club still in business o Cabaret card  Must possess in order to play at a NY club  Police used to control a professional community known to abuse drugs.  Prohibited musicians from permforming if not renewed or if caught with illegal drugs  Abolished in 1967 for being unconstitutional o Jazz festivals  Celebration performances of several days duration  Held outdoors featuring a long and diverse roster of artists  First international took place in France in late 1940s  Often inspired magnificent performances, upping a musician’s career.  1955 Newport Jazz Festival reignited Miles Davis’s career

 Also Duke Ellington

  • Jazz Recording in the 50s o LP- long playing disc  Contained up to 25 minutes of music per side  Microgroove disc- allowed more details of a performance to be captured on recording  LPs made from vinyl instead of shellac  Decreased surface noise o Records now became collections of pieces called albums  gave freedom to jazz musicians to improvise for several choruses on a single recording, thereby nurturing the development of long-range solo improvisation.
  • Criticism o Hodeir’s “Jazz: Its Evolution and Essence” 1956  Analyzed the problem of stylistic diversity in jazz o Nat Shapiro and Nat Hentoff’s “Hear Me Talkin’ to Ya: The Story of Jazz as told By The Men Who Made It” 1955  Oral history from the best interviews published in jazz magazines from the previous 2 decades. o Jazz was not a fad, it was a robust music that had not only survived but had grown and evolved with time  Story of jazz was a rich saga of progress and development, of musical and human achievement over time. Chapter 17: Bebop By 1945, Bebop represented a commercially viable alternative to swing. Characteristics of Bebop (contrasted big band swing)
  • Combo instrumentation, often featuring 2 horns and a rhythm section
  • Simple arrangements, usually following the jam session format: a succession of improvised solos between opening and closing statements of the melody
  • Intricate melodies played in unison or octaves by the front line horn players
  • Higher levels of dissonance than what would be found in standard swing pieces
  • Extremely fast tempos, or extensive double-time playing during slow and medium tempos
  • Charlie Christian o Electric guitarist 1916- o Picked up the guitar to compete with horn players o Talent scout John Hammond introduced him to Benny Goodman, who began featuring him in his small groups o “father of modern jazz guitar” o Anticipated bebop with his long, flowing lines of chromatically embellished melodies—which made him popular at after hours clubs and in Goodman’s sextet, but he died of tuberculosis at age 25 An Elite Music
  • Dizzy Gillespie o Trumpeter, John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie o 1917- o His attempt to master unorthodox techniques soon earned him an agility and range matched by few other trumpet players in his day o Counterpart was Charlie Parker  Alto saxophonist o Gillespie moved bebop style from its experimental stage to a fully coherent and mature musical conception o From Cheraw, SC o Nicknamed dizzy for his outrageous comic behavior o Became one of the founding fathers of modern jazz o Substitution chords- an alternate chord substituted for the standard chord of a piece o 1942 joined Earl Hines’s Big Band with Charlie Parker o Billy Eckstine 1914-Hines’s male singer  Organized his own big band “first bop big band” in which he intended to showcase the new music being developed in Harlem night clubs o By 1944 Gillespie and Parker had both returned to NY from tours of the South to cast their lot with small groups on 52 nd Street The Move to 52 nd Street March 1945- Gillespie opened at the Three Deuces with a quintet that included Charlie Parker, Al Haig(pianist), bassist Curly Russell, and Mix Roach on drums.

Disbanded in July to pursue careers independently of one another

  • Parker had a heroin addiction and Gillespie wanted to form a bop big band The First Recordings
  • Apollo Recordings - sometimes considered the “first bop recordings”
  • 1945 Gillespie-Parker recordings o Hear the new music in its prototypical form, in both horns and rhythmic section, with few residual elements of swing style. o Heads- combining new melodies with familiar chord progressions  New melodies announced the arrival of bebop and allowed musicians to improvise on the chord progressions Reception of Bebop
  • Swing veterans and jazz traditionalists often responded to bebop with bewilderment or anger. o “hearing a different language” Dizzy Gillespie All Star Quintette, “Shaw Nuff” 1945 by Gillespie-Parker Style: Bebop Form: AABA song form (rhythm changes) Instrumentation: trumpet, alto saxophone, piano, bass, drums
  • Was a tribute to Billy Shaw
  • Rhythm changes
  • Jam session format of head-solos-head
  • Importance placed on “shock value” Thelonious Monk
  • In 1941 his friend Kenny Clarke got him a job at Minton’s as the house pianist
  • 1944 Monk made his first recording with Coleman Hawkins
  • Played in Cootie William’s big band the same year, which recorded Monk’s most famous composition “Round Midnight”.
  • He performed mostly at clubs on 52 nd street
  • He recorded several original compositions for Blue Note records which have come to be masterpieces, including “evidence” and “Criss-Cross”

Cubop- a blend of bebop and the Cuban mambo Chapter 18- Charlie Parker

  • Grew up in KC Missouri
  • Alto saxophonist
  • Parker’s improvisational ideas forged the lexicon of modern jazz
  • Became a heroin addict, especially after being in a bad car accident
  • 1939 moved to NY and began jamming in Harlem venues
  • Triadic extensions : the interval of a 7th^9 th^11 th^ or 13th^ above the root of a chord.—“pretty notes” he was searching for
  • Joined the big band of boogie-woogie pianist Jay McShann after his father’s death when he returned to KC for his funeral.
  • Nicknamed “Bird” when bus ran over a chicken and he wanted to go out to get it.
  • Played with little or no vibrato, played sharp on the tone
  • Formulaic improvisation- an approach to solo improvisation that involves combining previously learned melodic formulas into new patterns
  • Played alto saxophone with NO concern for the kind of romantically “beautiful” tone quality
  • Quotation- in a solo, a reference to a well-known melody from the popular or classical repertories
  • Billy Berg’s nightclub - in Hollywodd
  • Ross Russell Charlie Parker’s Re-Boppers, “Koko” by Parker 1945 Style- Bebop Form- AABA song form (to the progression of “Cherokee”) Instrumentation: alto saxophone, drums, bass, piano Charlie Parker’s Classic Quintet
  • Trumpeter Miles Davis, pianist Duke Jordan, bassist Tommy Potter, and drummer Max Roach
  • Savoy recordings and Dial recordings
  • Birdland was opened in 1949 in his honor in NY International Jazz festival in Paris- Parker 1949

Charlie Parker with Strings—and died at age 34. Chapter 19: Cool Jazz

  • “Bop is a flop-commercially.”
  • Characteristics of Cool Jazz o Generally understated manner of expression or rhetorical stance o Subdued rhythms, soft articulations, muted accents o Lyrical melodies o “pastel” ensemble sonorities achieved by combining mellow- sounding brass instruments o Soft dynamics- drummers often use brushes instead of sticks o A greater emphasis on arrangements than generally found in bebop o Exploratory musical forms and structures o Contrapuntal textures o Classically inspired clarity of tone and attack