History of Jazz MUEL 3642, Jazz subgenre’s and musical characteristics of 6 listening examples, as well as various influences from that time.

– 2 and 1/2 page paper double spaced minimum.

– Unit #3 covers the history of jazz during the 1950s and 1960s. There are 6 listening examples for Test #3. Please address each example in your paper. Write about what sub genre of jazz each example represents (Hard bop, Cool Jazz, Free Jazz, etc.). What are the musical characteristics of the genres they represent? What styles of music (Gospel, Classical, and Blues for example) have influenced the different sub genres of jazz during the 1950s and 1960s? Please address any other significant points of interest in regard to the listening examples and/or sub genres of jazz from this unit. Think about political/social influences, significant composers/musicians, geographical locations, and other facts that I spoke about in the lectures or that were covered in the reading and weekly discussions as they relate to these various jazz sub genres and listening examples.

Miles Davis – Boplicity

Dave Brubeck Quartet – Take Five

Miles Davis – The Pan Piper

Ella Fitzgerald – Blue Skies

Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers – Moanin’

John Coltrane – Jupiter

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Please see attached powerpoint

^ more Notes from said lecture:

1950’s and 1960’s – Miles Davis and John Coltrane

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• Miles Davis peed his pants in Billy Madison – nice
• Anything cool = Miles Davis
• He literally was one cool ass dude
• One cool fucking guy
• Cool as fuck
• Jsut the cool guy
• His walk was cool
• His talk was cool
• Oozed coolness ( GROSS)

Miles Davis

• Originally from Illinois, moved to St. Louis
• From an affluent family, dentist dad
• Talented at music from a yung age
• Good teeth
• Was able to go to julliard bc major bands aka money
• Was addicted to harowen
• Dropped out of julliard and Joined charlie parkers grpoup full time
• Miles davis autobiography
• Racial issues for dropping out ^
• Nbever looked back
• Recognizable sound
• Great trumpet player
• Ability as a leader is what makes him so special
• Miles Davis First Quintet- hard bop
• Late 50’s early 60s, teams back up with Gil Evans for album
• “Kind of Blues” is the most sold jazz album of all time
• 1963-68, creates second great qunitet

Miles Davis Characteristics:

• Less is more kind of player
• Harmonmute
• Unique sound and timbre quality
• Sparce,
• conservative
• refrained
• melodic

John Coltrane

• Amazing saxophonist
• Not really a leader
• Originally started playing alto sax and clarinet
• Joined navy band in 1945 at age 18
• Mortal once?
• Crazy practicing always consumed by sax
• Played alto sax w navy band in one version of ko-ko
• He briefly played with Dizzy Gillespie
• Dizzy got him on the tenor sax
• Played w miles davis and thelonious monk in 1950s and early 60s
• 1959 Kind of Blue and album Giant steps “Coltrane Changes” launches his career
• Playing is described as sheets of sound
• Plays intense, fast and angry notes up and down his instrument
• His contrast playing from Davis is what made them sound so good toge4ther
• Only had one real group: classic quartet (HE PLAYED TENOR & SOPRANO SAx)
• 1965-1967 AVANT GARDE
• Addicted to heroin and alcohol

John Coltrane Characteristics:

• Lots of notes
• More aggressive/firey
• Not a lot of space
• Sheets of sound
• Virtuoso
• Sensitive side (ballads)
• Always pushing the envelope
• Spiritual awakening
• avant-garde

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Additional musical characteristics examples, not limited to these though:

Intro and Important Vocab

• Instrumental Music:
• Melody: “A series of musical notes that is musically satisfying”
• Texture: ( # and type of instruments): 1
  • Combine multiple Timbre’s together to create a new sound
    • Or multiple instruments (muted trombone, sax, and violin to create new sound)
• Timbre: (quality of sound; not good or bad necessarily) the character or quality of a musical sound or voice as distinct from its pitch and intensity.
• Chord:
• Harmony: the combination of simultaneously sounded musical notes to produce chords and chord progressions having a pleasing effect.
• Beat: a main accent or rhythmic unit in music
• Rhythm: a strong, regular, repeated pattern of movement or sound.
• Tempo: the speed at which a passage of music is or should be played.
• Meter: In music, metre refers to the regularly recurring patterns and accents such as bars and beats. Unlike rhythm, metric onsets are not necessarily sounded, but are nevertheless expected by the listener.
• Bar or Measure:a bar (or measure) is a segment of time corresponding to a specific number of beats in which each beat is represented by a particular note value and the boundaries of the bar are indicated by vertical bar lines.
• Form:
• Introduction: When the instruments begin the song and do not have any lyrics or singers

ETC….