Jazz Music Note

From Jazz to Swing

● Swing music:
- Was primarily performed by larger “big bands” featuring instrumental sections of reeds,
brass, and rhythm.
- Was derived from music of the 1920s. Mostly from the Fletcher Henderson style of
arranging.
- Retained rhythmic contrast, bluesy phrasing, and balance between improvisation and
composition.
- Developed a more commercial profile than 1920s jazz.
- Favored homophonic textures, bluesy riffs, clearly defined melodies, and dance grooves.
● The Swing Era was bounded by 2 events
1) The first was the Great Depression, which started in 1929 and deepened into the
1930s.
- Swing acted as a counterstatement to the deep anxiety caused by the Depression.
- Swing also demanded action in the form of exuberant and partly improvised dance.
- It was teenagers’ music, the first in the nation’s history.
2) WWII was the second major event.
- As servicemen and women returned home, the dancing culture fared out, and with it, the
economic basis for swing.
● During the war, swing was very popular.
● For many it symbolized the strengths of American democracy.
- Participatory and informal, and it built community.
Swing and Economics
● The Depression almost destroyed the record industry.
- Records cost about $1-$2
- 1927-106 million records sold
- 1932-6 million records sold
- Things were beginning to look up because of the popularity of the jukebox.
● “The Majors”
- Decca plus two firms owned by radio networks ( Columbia by CBS, Victor by NBC)
● Industry concentration also occurred in the radio business. Hollywood movies, and Tin
Pan Alley.
- Three main radio networks, few large movie studio ect.
● All of these intersected
- Pop music depended on radio, and movies often premiered songs.
- Starts moved back and forth between radio and Hollywood.
● Swing was situated on the fault line of race.
- On the one hand, it was a symbol of black culture:
- Its dance steps were developed by black teenagers;
- Its call-and-response, riff-based performance practices mimicked black church music;

- It boosted the careers of many black musicians.

- On the other hand:
- Much of the money went into while pockets
- Some black musicians felt the music had been stolen from them.
- Many whites were dancing to an African American beat
- White audiences were not concerned with the black origins of swing music, the dance, or
the language (“jive”) that accompanied it.
Swing and Dance
● Swing was characterized by a four-beat foundation, perfect for dancing.
● Swing dance came out of Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom.
_ Block long and luxurious
_ charged a modest entrance fee
_ Two bands a night played there in a mixed ethnic and social environment.
● Social dancing at the Savoy was communal and intense.
- Thousands packed the huge dance floor
- Top dancers executing their best moves right next to the bandstand.
● At the Savoy, the new dance style was called the Lindy Hop.
- More African, lower to the ground
- More flexibility in the hips and knees.
- It also allowed for improvisation during the breakaway.
- Air steps
Swing
● To accommodate the new groove new musical choices became standard:
- The tuba was replaces by the string bass
_ the string bass has a more percussive quality than the tuba.
- The guitar took over the banjo.
_ the guitar added a more subtle and secure sound to the music.
- Soli Passages
_ elaborate solo lines for an entire section.
- “Head arrangements” were also popular.
Henderson Arrangements
● Fletcher Henderson (1897-1952)
- Used both elaborate written and unwritten (head) arrangements,
- Most of his hits were head arrangements of older tunes such as “King Porter Stomp.”
● Arranging style was characterized by short, memorable riffs.
● Left considerable room for solos.
● “Shout chorus.”
● “Blue Lou”

Earlier recordings of the Henderson band never lived up to their live performances.
- 1936, when “Blue Lou” was recorded, they were a much better recording ensemble.
- Written by saxophonist Edgar Sampson and arranged by Horace Henderson.
- Featured soloist Roy Eldridge (trumpet) and Chu Berry (tenor saxophone).
- Recording starts in a relaxed, two-beat rhythmic feel, a swing rhythm eventually prevails.
Benny Goodman (1909-1986)
● Through the 1930s, the music industry was divided by race.
- “hot” music was a specially of black bands.
● There is a long history of white musicians learning how to play jazz by listening carefully
to black musicians.
- Many white musicians learned how to play “legit” and then copied whatever hot jazz they
could find.
- Their “day gig” was generally playing in commercial ensembles like radio orchestras or
dance bands.
Benny Goodman (1909-1986)
- Grew up poor in Chicago
- Found he could escape a life of menial labor through music.
- Played Clarinet
- Elegant soloist with penchant for blues.
- By the 1920s, his exposure to the jazz idiom had begun with work in Ben Pollack’s band.
● Goodman wanted to lead a band that bridged the jazz he loved and the commercial music
realities of his day.
● Mildred Bailey suggested he hire some black arrangers.
- Many of whom were out of work because of the Depression.
● In 1935, his band was featured as the hot orchestra on the radio program Let’s Dance.
● On a national tour that summer, the musicians elicited a dismal response until they played
the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles.
● The band applied jazz arrangements to current pop songs.
- Arrangements usually started with a clear rendition of the melody.
- In later choruses the tune turned into swing.
● Goodman was viewed as someone who could use black music in such a way that whites
could dance to its liberating and exciting sound.
● Goodman brought dance music into the mainstream. His band played a successful concert
at Carnegie Hall in 1938. Cementing their respectability.
The Goodman Trio and Quartet
● Good man launched a number of small groups that emphasized the soloist.
● Teddy Wilson (1912-1986)
- Goodman jammed with Teddy and was impressed with his polished, inventive
improvisations.
- He was also wary of forming a mixed-race trio with his white drummer.
- Recording sold well, so Goodman brought him on as a special guest.

Lionel Hampton (1908-2002)

-In 1936, Goodman added Lionel, a vibraphonist, to form a quartet.
- Hampton later formed his own band and took [art, in early rhythm and blues.
* “Dinah”
1. A32-bar AABA pop song composed in 1925. It became a standard, it has the feeling of a jam
session about it.
2. Goodman starts by playing the melody but then plays a busy bridge.
3. Krupa starts interesting rhythmically while Goodman improvises. Wilson adds a brief solo.
4. By the end, the three are playing polyphonically. The style of the playing is polished and the
feeling is relaxed. Other recording show the quartet ending on riffs.
John Hammond and Other Fans
● Hammond was a long-time music entrepreneur and activist.
● He was important in many musical careers and styles
- Billie Holiday, Bessie Smith, Fletcher Henderson, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Bob
Dylan, and Bruce Springsteen.
● He was born into a wealthy New York family. He was attracted to the black music of
Harlem from an early age.
● Graduated from Yale
● Became a jazz reporter and a record producer.
● His two passions were a hatred of racial injustice and a love of black folk music a jazz.
● This led him to believe that black music was better than white music.
● He joined Columbia Records and scouted out new talent, which he recorded.
● Some black musicians resented his aristocratic insistence and patriarchal attitude.
● Hammond was one jazz enthusiast among many.
- A growing legion of jazz record collectors started searching for old recordings.
- This led to the first jazz reissues, which preserved the jazz of the 1920s.
- Some collectors noted the disco graphical details of each recording the found.
_ the beginning of jazz discography, the science of jazz record classification.
- They also formed “Hot Clubs” in towns across the U.S
- New magazines such as Downbeat and Metronome.
A Few Major Swing Bands (among many)
● As the dance business boomed, dance bands proliferated.
● Emerge from within the ranks of established ensembles such as Benny Goodman’s
● Each bandleader brought their own experiences and tastes to Swing music.
Artie Shaw (1920-2004

Shaw was Goodman’s chief rival

- Came from the dame kind of background
_ studied clarinet, and learned from the great African American musicians of Chicago.
- He led a double Life
_ one as a jazz musician playing with Harlem musicians such as Willie “The Lion” Smith
_ one as a member of the CBS staff orchestra playing commercial music.
● Never expecting to make much money out of his music.
● Had a huge hit in 1938 with “Begin the Beguine.”
● He became a major celebrity, which he felt got in the way of the music.
● He particularly detested jitterbugs.
● He retired from music in 1954.
“Star Dust”
- Shaw was a skilled improviser.
- He sometimes played raucous music, but at other times he played music that bridged the
jazz and classical worlds.
- Originally written in 1936, this version is form 1940.
- Arranger Lennie Hayton.
● Jimmie Lunceford (1902-1947)
- Lunceford did not fit the bandleader mold.
_he was not a star performer, and although he learned to play a number of instruments, he
did not play in his own band.
- He was university-educated high school music teacher before he started to lead his own
group.
- Lunceford was a strict disciplinarian in terms of music, appearance, and behavior.
- While putting on a show, the performers played hard-driving swing music.
- A black band such as Lunceford’s had to tour continually.
- Lost many of his best men to other bands
_ owning to his predilection for stingy salaries and a grueling work schedule.
“Annie Laurie”
● “Annie Laurie” is a brilliant example of Lunceford band’s individuality.
● Sy Oliver’s highly original style of arranging.
● The “Annie Laurie” ballad (initially published in 1838) was a musical setting by Scottish
composer Alicia Ann Spottiswood if a seventeenth-century love poem.
● Its dramatic octave leap in the first measure evokes the Scottish folk tradition.
● Oliver, adapting the original melody into 32-bar song form (AABA), creates a swinging
euphoria that recalls the polyphonic revelry of New Orleans jazz.
● Glenn Miller (1904-1944)
- Probably the most celebrated bandleader of the 1940s.
- Miller has no intention of forming a jazz ban.
- The audience he aimed for was the white American middle class.
- Born in the Midwest, he developed a liking for jazzy dance music.

During the 1920s, he was both an arranger and a soloist, working at various times with
Goodman, the Dorsey Brothers, and Ray Noble.
- In 1938, he started his own band, which played clear melodies with smooth danceable
rhythm and a distinctive sound.
_ combined the saxophone section with a clarinet.
_ also added vocals to some of his arrangements.
- This combination resulted in a great number of hits during the 1940s.
- Miller also worked with the armed services.
- The Glenn Miller Army Air Force Band.
- In 1944, Miller disappeared over the English Channel.
“In the Mood”
- Best-selling swing tune of the era.
- Bridges the gap of blues and pop music.
_ 12 bar blues with 16 phrases mixed in
_ this approach appealed to a large number of Americans black and white.
- Makes us of a common saxophone riff as the main part of the song.
- Features two false endings, adding to the novelty.
● Cab Calloway (1907-1944)
- To whites, Calloway represented a view into African American cultural life.
- To black, he represented the hope that a man with talent and ambition could rise to the
top.
- He grew up in Baltimore.
- He studied classical singing but sang jazz at night.
- In the 1920s, he met Armstrong, from whom he learned about scat-singing.
- His band, the Alabamians, played New York’s Savoy Ballroom but were viewed as
corny.
- In 1930. He took over a swinging band from Kansas City, the Missourians.
- It was this band that was asked to replace Duke Ellington at the cotton club.
- In New York, he collaborated with songwriter Harold Arlen and lyricist ted Koehler to
create a number of pieces that depicted imaginary Harlem scenes.
- Calloway’s exuberant personality and scat-singing added excitement to the songs.
- He was a very good singer with a broad range
- He was also a good businessman, hiring the best musicians he could find.
- His band toured the South, often evoking hostile reactions to their New York hipness.
- They travelled in style, on their own Pullman railroad car.
- By the 1930s, Calloway started to focus on jazz. He hired the best jazz musicians,
including a young Dizzy Gillespie.
- The quality of the music, including some of Gillespie’s first arrangements, was always
high, and there were plentiful opportunities to solo.
- Calloway appeared in the 1980 hit movie The Blues Brothers.
“Minnie the Moocher”
- Part of a series of songs about the Harlem underground.
- “Kickin’ the Gong Around”, Smokey Joe searches for his drug addict girlfriend Minnie.

- In a minor mode.
- Features Calloway’s incredible scat singing in a humors call-and-response.
- Extends the style of dark, moody music that came out of Ellington’s band during their
stint at the Cotton Club.
Chapter 8: Count Basie and Duke Ellington
The Southwest
● By the 1930s; there was one strong regional center where African American swing and
blues traditions influenced the mainstream.
- The Southwest, an area whose headquarters was in Kansas City.
● Since the Civil War, American blacks had been fleeing the South
- Many of them went to the urban North during WWI
- Some went west to the “frontier”
- Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas.
● Many worked on the rivers and railroads and in turpentine factories and mines.
The Southwest and Boogie-Woogie
● The music in this relatively free frontier was bluesy, orally based, and improvisational.
● Boogie-woogie
- A blue piano style
- Began in the Southwest and spread during the 1920s, finding a home in Kansas City and
Chicago.
- Had a strong left-hand rhythmic foundation
- Unlike ragtime, it was made up of a percussive ostinatos (or “chains”) in 4/4 time.
_ the right hand played bluesy patterns, often in cross rhythms.
- It was a raucous social music
- Good for dancing and blues singing.
- It was played in speakeasies, where pianists would work all night for tips and a few
dollars in pay.
- Boogie-woogie was like the southwestern version of stride piano.
_ it struggled to survive in black markets
_ by the mis-1930s, it has become popular with the mainstream white audience.
● John Hammond
_ took advantage of the interest in black music generated by swing.
_ put on a concert at Camegie Hall in 1938 called “From Spirituals to Swing.”
_ included swing, blues, and spirituals.
- Hired some of the best boogie-woogie pianists
_ which reinvigorated interest in the style.
● As pianists were increasingly expected to know how to play in boogie-woogie style, this
former underground Kansas City music made it to the mainstream.
“It’s All Right, Baby”
Pete Johnson (1902-1967

Big Joe Turner (1911-1985)

● The Sunset Café in Kansas City
- One of the centers of boogie-woogie.
- Pianists Pete Johnson and singer Big Joe Turner performed diving, percussive blues.
- Turner worked across the room as a bartender and would sing from behind the bar.
- Occasionally he would step outside and sing to lure customers into the bar.
● Johnson and Turner played in Hammond’s 1938 “From Spiritual to Swing”
● They has to trim the length of their performances
● Performed at the Camegie Hall concert
● Turner’s “shouts”
● Johnson’s percussive playing
● The call-and-response exchange between the two.
Territory Bands
During the 1920s and 1930s, most dance music remained local.
- People hire bands that they knew from the performance and that were within a day’s
drive
_ in the “territory”
- All bands started this way
- Eventually some bands become national through radio network broadcasts and tours.
● There were thousands of territory bands during the 1930s
- White and black, hot and sweet
- Dome were all-female
- Religious
● By the end of the 1930s, territory bands were considered “minor league”
- A good place for musicians to break into the business.
● Andy Kirk (1898-1992)
● Twelve Clouds of Joy was a “commonwealth” band.
- Income, business decisions & responsibilities were equally divided among the musicians.
● Typical for a territory band
- They toured constantly
- Didn’t record at first
- Were under constant financial pressure.
_ sometimes paid in fried chicken or would steal corn to eat.
● Mary Lou Williams (1910-1981)
● The musical genius of the band
● Had an uncanny musical memory and perfect pitch
● Influences include Earl Hines, Jelly Roll Morton, and James P. Johnson.
● Wrote arrangements after she learned how to read music.
● “Night Life”
- One of two songs to be released under her own name.
“Walkin’ and Swingin”

Written by Mary Lou Williams in 1936. Just after the band signed with Decca.
- The band was smaller than most in 1936.
- Williams had one of the trumpeters play with the saxophone section, using a mute to help
blend.
- The last chorus contains a riff that Thelonious Monk later used for his composition
“Rhythm-a-sing.”
Count Basie (1904-1984)
● William “Count” Basie (1904-1984)
- Grew up in New Jersey, near New York.
- Taught himself stride piano
- Started working in New York until he joined a traveling vaudeville show
● In 1927, He was stranded in Kansas City due to an Illness.
- There he heard the Blue Devils
- He was impressed by their sense of fun and team spirit.
● He played occasionally with the Blue Devils over the next several years.
_ as a commonwealth band, they found it difficult to operate in an increasingly
centralized music business.
● The Blue Devils dissolved in 1933
● Benny Moten (1894-1935)
- The most prosperous band in the territory, run by benny Moten, hired Basie, bassist
Walter Page, and others form this band.
- Moten was a ragtime pianist well connected to the regime of Tom Pendergast.
● Tom Pendergast and Kansas City
- Political boss in the city
- Has a Laissez-Faire attitude toward elicit activity
- Resulted in a rowdy night life perfect for dancing
- Important to stay on his good side.
● Benny Moten:
- As early as 1933, the characteristic four-beat groove of Kansas City jazz was starting to
be heard.
- In 1935, Moten died on the operating table during a tonsillectomy
_ bleeding to death from a severed artery
- Basie started his own small band from the remnants of the Moten band at the Reno Club
in Kansas City.
_ They played mostly head arrangements.
● Head Arrangements and Jam Sessions
- Arranging in Kansas City was more casual than elsewhere.
- Arrangements were created collectively and passed down orally.
- This skill came in handy for the jam sessions that were common in Kansas City.
- Out-of-work musicians would gravitate to clubs where they could just sit in and play.
- Jam sessions were friendly, but also competitive.
- Clubs would hire a rhythm section.

With many horn players involved in the jam session, each had to find a note that wasn’t
already being played.
- Resulted in the addition of extended notes to the chord.
- Reminiscent of African American folk practices.
● Sometimes head-arrangements riffs were written down.
● The character of head arrangements allowed the band to extend the performance of a
piece as long as dancers required it.
The Incomparable Ellington
● In the early 1930s
- Ellington’s group had replaced Henderson’s as the foremost black dance band.
- Recorded, toured, and made radio appearances.
● Ellington thought that the word “Jazz” marginalized black musicians.
- He thought of himself as “beyond category”
- A composer of “Negro folk music.
“In what category do you place a pianist, bandleader, composer, and arranger who
created an ensemble unlike any other an wrote practically every kind of Western music
other than grand opera- from ragtime to rock and roll, from blues to ballet, from stage
and film scores to tone poems, oratorios, and sacred concertos, not to mention works for
instrumental combinations from piano-bass duets to symphony orchestra.”
● Composing
- Ellington, like European composers, wrote down some musical ideas in isolation
_ but also wrote anywhere an idea came to him
- Most of his composing was done in collaboration with other musicians
_ Ellington would present his ideas and the band would respond, often offering
alternatives.
_ this made his scores confusing, and no permanent record of his music survives.
● In 1965, he was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize but was turned down by the Pulitzer
board.
● Ellington’s talent came out most strongly in the recording studio.
- Made many three-minute recordings
- Also created longer, more ambitious pieces for multiple 78-rpm discs, and later, starting
in the 1950s, for LPs.
● Ellingtonians
- Unlike other bands, Ellington wrote for the specific musicians in his band.
- Ellington’s band had unique musicians that sparked his imagination.
_ each section could blend beautifully, but each musician had his own particular sound as
well.
_ many of Ellington’s musicians stayed with the band for many years.
● Cootie Williams- trumpet
● Harry Carney- baritone saxophone

Barney Bigard- clarinet

● Johnny Hodges- alto saxophone
● Lawrence Brown- trombone
● Juan Tizol- trombone
Duke Ellington’s music – Jungle Music
● “Mood Indigo”
- Recorded in 1930
- Example of how Ellington used his instrumental resources.
- Ellington’s inspiration for this piece is a story about a “little girl and a little boy” and the
unrequited love between them.
- The melody comes from Barney Bigard, but Ellington turns it into his own.
- Although Ellington uses the New Orleans front line of trumpet, trombone, and the
clarinet, the sound is entirely distinctive.
- Muted brass and low-register clarinet.
● In the Swing Era
- Ellington became a celebrity during the 1930s.
_ 1933 trip to France and England, where he was adored
_ he returned home with new expectations.
- Ellington’s public persona was one of aristocratic sophistication
_ One can see his public persona in the 1935 short film Symphony in Black
- He was also a “race man”
_ insisted that the black man was the creative voice of America.
To the black community, Ellington and his band represented worldly sophistication.
- Black, Brown, and Beige 1943
_ Wordless suite that was politically and musically persuasive.
_ Premiered in 1943 Carnegie Hall but was not received well by the white critics, who
saw it as pretentious.
“Come Sunday”
● “ Conga Brava”
- A sequel of sorts to “Caravan”
- This piece starts with “exotic” evocations and covers a tremendous amount of stylistic
territory before it returns to the opening mood played by Juan Tizol.
- During the 1940s, Ellington also brought in new players, such as Ben Webster (featured
here).
● The Later Years
- By the mid-1940s, a number of band members tired of the constant touring left.
_ in 1951, Johnny Hodges left, partly out of irritation with Ellington’s appropriation of
his musical ideas.
_ He took Lawrence brown and Sonny Greer with him.
- Though the rise of modern jazz marginalized Ellington’s sound, in 1956 his fortunes
picked up.
_ Third annual Newport Jazz Festival, “Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue.”
_ Tenor saxophonist Paul Gonsalves played 27 choruses.
● For the next 20 years Ellington wrote longer pieces, taking advantage of LP technology.
_ These included reworking of older pieces and compositions inspired by special
circumstances.
● He also wrote a number of film scores and made a few albums with modernists such as
John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, and Max Roach.
● Billy Strayhorn (1915-1967)
- Strayhorn was Ellington’s musical partner during this late activity.
- Originally interested in classical music
_ he moved to popular music after discovering that opportunities in the classical world
were limited for blacks.
- He was also homosexual.
- Strayhorn met Ellington in 1938, when he played a few of his piano variations on
Ellington’s “Sophisticated Lady”
- Ellington invited him to New York where, based on his directions Strayhorn wrote what
would become the band theme song.
- “Swee’Pea” as he was known, worked closely with Ellington during the 1950s and 1930s
_ so closely that is difficult to separate their work.
_ Strayhorn shared the composer credits with Ellington, and on some pieces he was
named as the sole composer.
- “Blood Count” 1967
_ Written while Strayhorn was in the hospital dying of esophageal cancer, this was his
last composition.
_ Although it is tonally ambiguous at the beginning, soloist Johnny Hodges takes the
melody through a number of keys before reaching a crescendo in the second bridge.

Chapter 09: A Word of Soloists

Jammin’s the Blues
● Soloists’ styles were as well-known as band styles during this period
_ individual players often having a short space in an arrangement to take a solo.
● Famous soloists often switched bands.
_ Shone only as brightly as the leader allowed.
● The lack of soloing time led many players to participate in Jam Sessions.
● Many players left big bands for the armed forces during the 1940s
_ others played public jam sessions or joined small groups
_ Joined groups started by successful orchestra leaders.
● These settings allowed for more playing time.
● The increasing popularity of soloists garnered new respect for jazz musicians
● In 1944, as swing slowed up, Norman Granz produced a ten-minute film, Jammin’s the
Blues,
- Featured well-known soloists of the day
- Captured the informal environment of the jam session
Coleman Hawkins
● Coleman Hawkins ( 1904-1969)
● Played Tenor Sax
- Shift from focusing on the soprano sax (Bechet) or the C-melody sax (Trumbauer).
- These instruments eventually fell into disuse.
● Established himself with the Henderson band (1923-34)
● Later lead his own band.
● Style:
- Heavy vibrato
- Powerful timbre
- Incredibly emotional
- Interesting use of harmonies
- Changed improvisation from varying the melody to creating line based on arpeggiated
harmonies.
● Added more intricate harmonies and harmonic substitutions
● Prefigured bebop.
● “Body and Soul”
- Originally written for a Broadway revue in 1930
- Since become a standard for jazz musicians
- Harkin’s recordings acted as a challenge to other saxophonists.
- Recorded in an ad-lib recording session.
- Hawkins started with the melody, but after 2 measures he headed into new territory.
- Hawkins described the climactic passages as a kind of sexual release.
The Hawkins School
● Hawkins’s influence was similar to Armstrong’s

Players of other kinds of sax switched to tenor.

● Except for an indigenous tenor saxophone style emerging front the American Southwest
(embodied in Lester Young), Hawk’s primacy was almost absolute.
Lester Young (1909-1959) and the Lestorian Mode
● Lester Young (1909-1959)
● Played Tenor Saxophone
● Started playing many instruments in the traveling Young Family Band.
● In1927, He left work with King Oliver, Bennie Moten, and the Blue Devils
● In 1933, He settled in Kansas City
● There was a legendary battle of the tenors between Hawkins, Young, and Webster.
● Style:
- Radically different from Hawkins.
- Produced a light, vibratoless tenor sound.
- Some of his melodic phrases used notes of the chord, and some did not.
- Did not detail every harmony.
- Was more liberal with dissonance.
- Often repeated a succession of single pitches to play with intonation
- He was also more liberal with rhythm.
● Young eventually joined the Basie Band
- He traveled to New York and Chicago 1936
- He remained an outsider.
_ Diffident, shy, and unconventional
_ He wielded an idiosyncratic style.
● He wore a porkpie hat and narrow knit ties
● Held the saxophone to the side at an angle when he played
● Spoke a colorful slang of his own invention.
● “Oh! Lady Be Good”
- One of his best solos
_ slurred notes, polyrhythm, staccato single notes, pitch variation, and swing.
- The song was written by the Gershwin for a 1924 Broadway musical.
- Recorded by Jones-Smith Incorporated.
Over There
● Jazz was carried all over the world through recordings.
● Two factors stimulated its growth overseas:
1: Europeans recognized it as a serious art form.
_ there was racism, but not supported by the law of the land as in the U.S.
2: In some places, like Nazi Germany and Communist Russia, jazz was illegal.
_ It was associated with rebellion and freedom, but was appreciated underground
● The Nazi banned jazz as the decadent product of black and Jews.
● As they conquered other countries, they realized that the captured populations listened to
local radio that played jazz, in preference to German broadcast.
● They decided to exploit this by providing imitation of swing.
● After the war, American jazz musicians were treated as heroes.

● Jazz mutually interacted with local musical practices when it arrived in many parts of the
world, generating new musical mixes.
● American jazz musicians remained starts, but many local musicians in other countries
also achieved fame.
Django Reinhardt (1910-1953)
● Django Reinhardt (1910-1953)
● The only European to be considered one of jazz’s prime influences
● Played Guitar
● Played in France with Quintette du Hot Club de France.
_ Grew out of jam sessions and featured two great soloists, Reinhardt and Stephane
Grappelli
● Reinhardt’s guitar playing was unique.
- With fewer fingers on one hand, it was difficult to play many chords.
- Developed a melodic based guiter style.
- Could only play Minor 6 9 chords
● “Nuages” Quintette du Hot Club de France.
Women in Jazz: Valaida Snow (1904-1956)
● During the War
- American women were on the rise while men were in uniform.
- “Rosie the Riveter” – arms flexed in determination
_ symbolized the readiness of women to work for their nation’s defense, whether on
factory floors
- The piano was considered “feminine,” providing fewer barriers for the like of Lil Hardin
and Mary Lou Williams.
● Only a few women made names for themselves as instrumentalists in male bands:
- Trumpeters Bellie Rodgers and Norma Carson
- Vibraphonist Marjorie Hymans
- Trombonists Melba Liston
● Ultimately, the pressures of the road proved too much for most women, whose careers
were cut short by family duties, marriage, or social convention.
● Valaida Snow (1904-1956)
● Snow’s appeal was multifaceted
- She was an excellent trumpet player
- As a singer, her style modeled on Louis Armstrong’s, which she often combined with
dancing
_ in one stage act, she brandished her trumpet while hooding on top of a huge bass drum.
● “ You’re Driving Me Crazy”
- The brisk, upbeat selection was paradoxically rife with during political subtext.
- “You’re Driving Me Crazy” is from a session she recorded in Copenhagen in tandem
with Winstrup Olesen’s Swingband three months after

the Nazis invaded Denmark.

- It is a fine example of the way Valaida (she was billed with her first name only) and
Danish musicians found a common language in swing-specially, the improvisational style
of Armstrong and the ensemble excitement of Fats Waller.
Bellie Holiday (1915-1959)
- She worked with the Basie and Artie Shaw big bands
_ had to leave the latter because the racial injunctions.
- In 1939, she sang at the interracial nightclub Café Society in New York.
- Her recording sold well.
_ “Strange Fruit” (1939), about lynching, raised her standing with the intelligentsia.
- Long and painful downfall.
● Lady Day’s Style
● Her main influences were Ethel Water, Bessie Smith and, especially, Louis Armstrong
● Unlike other singers, she did not scat sing
● She rarely sang blues form
● She had a limited vocal range
● She could make a song her own through melodic variation.
● Jazz musicians adored her phrasing. She had a musical romance with Lester Young.
● Ella Fitzgerald ( 1917-1996)
● In contrast to Holiday, she:
- Was a great scat-singer
- Had a four-octave range
- Used falsetto cries and low growls
- Wielded a luscious
- Treated the blues as just another vehicle for improvisation, though, like Holiday, she
rarely sang blues form.
● Singing at the Apollo Theater in 1934, she was teased when she walked onstage because
of her looks but won the competition all the same.
Ella Fitzgerald (1917-1996)
- Benny Carter recommended her to Chick Webb.
_ he became her legal guardian restructured his band to feature her voice.
- She recorded from 1935 on and had a big hit in 1938 with “A-Tisket, a-Tasket.”
- After Webb’s dealth, she recorded with other musicians and was recruited by Norma
Granz for his jazz at the Philharmonic program
● Granz become her personal manager, building the Varve Record label around her.
● During the 1950s and 1960s, she made the highly acclaimed American songbook series
of recordings.
- “ Blue Skies”
● Original recorded for the Irving Berlin songbook album.
● The song was judge too adventurous but was released on a later album. Get Happy!
● She sings a three-chorus scat solo quoting from Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and
Wagner’s “Wedding March”

Rhythm is Our Business

● The foundation of the swing band lay in the rhythm section: piano, guitar, bass, and
drums.
● Rhythm sections supplied the beat and marked the harmonies in distinctive ways that fir a
particular style.
● The also made advances into areas typically reserved for front-line soloists, helping to set
the stage for modern jazz.
Piano
● Pianists in Swing bands took solos
● Pianist-bandleaders limited themselves to introductions mini-concerto.
● Earlier self-sufficient piano styles such as stride and boogie-woogie peaked during the
1930s.
Fats Waller (1904-1943)
- Composer, songwriter, pianist, vocalist, satirist, and prolific recording artist.
- Waller straddled the line between pop and jazz.
- He learned piano and organ and got his appreciation for Bach from his mother.
- During his mid-teens, he became enamored of James P.Johnson.
- He worked rent parties and gained a reputation as an expressive interpreter of blues and
ballads.
- By the late 1920s, he was a prominent composer in jazz and theater music.
- Louis Armstrong had hits with some of his songs, such as “Ain’t Misbehaving” and
“Honeysuckle Rose.”
- In 1934, Waller and his six-piece band signed with RCA Victor.
- Waller satirized Tin Pan Alley and sentimental songs but could also compose sincere
material.
● “Christopher Columbus”
- Typically funny rendition of a much recorded piece that between famous with benny
Goodman’s use of it as a secondary theme for his 1938 recording of “Sing,Sing,Sing.”
- Andy Razaf wrote the lyrics for this recording.
- A mix of stride piano, cross-rhythms, and small group swing provides the rhythmic
power.
● Art Tatum (1909-1956)
- Tatum was born in Toledo, Ohio
- Was legally blind all his life
- His spectacular dexterity impresses listeners now as much as it did during the 1930s.
- He led his own bands by age seventeen and signed a two-year radio contract before he
was twenty.
- His superiority was instantly recognized by stride pianists in New York including
Ellington.
● “Over the Rainbow”

- This 1939 recording was the first of five recorded versions and was made only days after
the debut of the movie from which it came, The Wizard of OZ.
- An example of Tatum’s amazing ability quickly to make song his own.
- This recording was made for a company called Standard Transcriptions, which made
recordings only for radio play.
- Broadcasters did not have to pay licensing fees to air commercial recordings.
- Eventually, this labels and networks cut a deal and transcription discs disappeared.
Plugging In
● Unlike the solo role it had enjoyed briefly in the 1920s, the guitar had begun to recede
into the rhythm section by the early 1930s, merely reinforcing the roles of the drummer
and bassist.
Charlie Christian (1916-1942)
- Showed that the electric guitar was more than a loud acoustic guitar.
- Christian’s career lasted less than two years
- During that time he transformed the electric guitar into an instrument capable of the same
kinds of rhythmic and dynamic subtleties as jazz saxophone or trumpet.
- He also provided an initial impetus for soon-to-be bebop players.
- Christian took up guitar, trumpet, piano, and bass.
- Mary Lou Williams heard him convinced John Hammond to arrange a 1939 audition with
Benny Goodman.
- Goodman was reluctant at first but changed his mind after hearing him.
- Goodman put Christian into his sextet, which was playing on weekly radio broadcasts.
- Christian had a major influence on generations of guitarists; his bluesy, riff-based, logical
melodies seemed to change the role of the guitar overnight.
● “Swing to Bop” (“Topsy”)
- This recording was made in 1941 by Jerry Newman.
- He recorded sessions at Minton’s Playhouse
- This piece was originally a swing hit called “Topsy” but was remanded when Newman
released it a few years after it was recorded. T
- He word “bap” didn’t exist yet, so “Swing to Bop” couldn’t have been the name.
Bass
● The bass was the last instrument of the rhythm section to reach maturity.
● Its tradition role of keeping the beat and outlining the basic harmonies provided little
incentive for bassists to expand the instrument’s possibilities.
● Until the 1930s, the average bass solo was a walking–bass line.
● Bad technique and intonation were commonplace.
● The exceptions:

1) Walter Page: the leader of the Blue Devils in Oklahoma and an important figure in
Kansas City during the 1920s, Page codified the walking bass, which he brought to the
Basie band. His rock-steady pulse became one of the hallmarks of the Basie band but was
a dead end for other bass players.
2) Milt Hinton: He expanded the walking bass by introducing advanced harmonies,
syncopation, and inventive melodic figures. He was in great demand as a recording artist
and recorded with jazz pop, and rock and roll singers, while playing modern jazz with
boppers such as Dizzy Gillespie.
Drummers Step Out
● In contrast to bass playing, drumming evolved quickly. Drummers were loud and
therefore often the center of attention.
● The learned to become showmen in terms of their performance persona and instruments.
● A genuine virtuosity also emerged after the Swing Era as drummers found new wyas to
keep time, shape arrangements, and inspire soloists.
● Gene Krupa
- Gene Krupa was one of the white Chicago players of the Beiderbecke circle.
- He was the first drummer to become a household name.
- He was best known for histrionics (especially “dropping bombs”) and his tom-tom solo
on “Sing, Sing, Sing.”
- In 1938, he started his own band made social history by hiring African American
musician Roy Eldridge.
Section 3
Chapter 11 BEBOP
● Bebop and Jam Sessions
● Bebop, or simply Bop Mid 1940s
- Represented a turning away from jazz as a popular music.
- Isolated, non-danceable
- Played by small combos to a small audience in a virtuosic style that was difficult to
grasp.
(Bebop - hard music to listen, a lot mix up and hard to take in, take old melody make it
faster and hard notes. Usually have “be-bop or re-bop” at somewhere in the song for the
end of it.)
* There are 2 ways to view this change:
- One labels bebop as revolutionary, something apart from the jazz came before it.
- The second- the view adopted here-sees bebop as evolutionary, part of the jazz tradition.

● Swing musicians started work in the evening

- Played at jam sessions after their gig
- Jams were relaxing in their informality, but work-like in their competitiveness.
● Musicians kept inexperienced players off the bandstand by playing tunes at ridiculously
fast tempos in unfamiliar keys.
● Standards like “I Got Rhythm” were re-harmonized with difficult chord substitutions.
● Charlie Parker and other beboppers played jam sessions at Minton’s Playhouse on 118
th
Street in Manhattan
- A venue at the forefront of experimentation with this new style and its adventurous
challenges
● Drummer Kenny Clarke relates how the transformed drumming
- With Teddy Hill’s band in the 1930s
- He couldn’t play every quarter note on the bass drum
- Kept the beat on the ride cymbal, producing a lighter, more flexible way of keeping time.
- Left the bass drum available for fills.
● Minton later offered him the job of running the music at his playhouse.
● Clarke’s combinations of snare and bass drum accents were call “klook-mop”
● “Klook” as he came to be known, played unexpected bass drum accents
- A technique known as “dropping bombs”
_ (this all look place, after all, during WWII)
- This became popular with younger drummers such as Max Roach and Art Blakey.
● Soloists played unpredictable melodies
- Often ending with two eight notes (“be-bop” or “re-bop”), this irritated older musicians.
● Pianists, inspired by Basie, started comping
- Putting in accompanying chords in unpredictable places that complemented the drummer.
● Because of the new drum technique, guitarists no longer needed to play four to the bar
and instead comped on the newly popular electric guitar.
● Bassists continued to be timekeepers but raised the level of virtuosity.
- Through sheer speed of tunes
● Oscar Pettiford could play swiftly and also take melodic solos.
“Nobody Plays Those Changes”
● Bebop is characterized by complex, dissonant harmonies.
- Although disliked by many musicians, these harmonies were not new.
- Art Tatum, Duke Ellington, and Coleman Hawkins used complex and dissonant
harmonies, orchestrations, and solo lines, respectively.
● The problem with Bebop,
- How to share these complex harmonies so that other musicians could use them?
_ sometimes planned in advance
_ sometimes figured out on the fly
- Characterized by common use of the triton and extended notes of a chord.
- This approach made improvising more difficult.
- Musicians had to learn to tackle this music intellectually, not just emotionally.

● Racial and economic forces

- Were factors in driving musicians out of swing
- These non-musical forces form the basis of the revolutionary view of bebop.
● Most black bands were forced onto the road.
- Some of the top bands could travel in their own railroad cars.
- Most had to travel on buses and tour the Jim Crow South.
- They were subject to discriminatory practices.
● Musicians became bitter and exhausted
- Increasingly left the big bands for jam sessions.
- Bebop provided a site where they could go and explore their music outside the system.
● By the early 1940s
- A new jazz based on chromatic harmonies and an interactive rhythm section was in place.
● All that remained was the arrival of a new kind of virtuoso soloist.
● Charlie Parker (1920-1955)
- Parker (“Bird”) is considered among the best alto saxophonists in jazz history.
- Grew up in Kansas City
- “Bird” also resonated with the sense of taking flight embodied by Parker’s approach to
playing
_ Qualities that include speed, agility, elusiveness, and melodic beauty.
● Parker did not show any great gift for his music at first
- Was humiliated by drummer Jo Jones at a jam session early on.
● This spurred him to start practicing seriously for a summer in the Ozarks.
● His model was Lester Young, memorized his solos
- His was described as playing like Lester Young only twice as fast.
● He joined the well-known territory band lead by Jay McShann
- Started using alcohol, pills, and morphine
- Eventually he started using heroin
● His solo playing seemed to be both bluesy and modern
● - enlivening traditional blues progressions with modern harmonic substitutions
- Rapid-fire solo lines
● Constant movement from band to band taxed the patience of most bandleaders.
● Eventually ended up in New York
- Had a readily available drug supply and jam sessions to play.
● Through these sessions he found a network of musicians who shared his approach to
“advanced” music.
● Once such was trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie.
● Dizzy Gillespie (1917-1993)
- Dizzy was as much a virtuoso as Parker
- The intellectual force behind bebop.
- Originally from Cheraw, South Carolina
- He was self-taught on the trumpet and had unusual technique.
- He earned a music scholarship to attend Laurinburg Institute in North Carolina.
● His first heard jazz on the radio, including players like Roy Eldridge.
● He left to play jazz in Philadelphia, then in New York.
● By 1939, he was at the “top of the heap”
- Played with Cab Calloway
- Also wrote arrangements and composed for the band.
- Gillespie chafed against the staid atmosphere of the band.
● The next several years he freelanced around New York.
- Played in the small-comb jam sessions that gave birth to bebop.
● Gillespie became the center of gravity for Bebop.
● He was generous to other musicians
- Show them the harmonic and rhythmic features of the new music
- “explain the rules”
● He adapted dissonant chords to his compositions such as “Salt Peanuts”
- Based on a bop drum lick, thus introducing his humorous side to the music.
● Another of his compositions,” A Night in Tunisia,” illustrates his deepening fascination
with Latin music.
● Gillespie and Parker
- Gillespie first met Parker when they both played in the Earl Hines big band in 1942.
- Gillespie admired Parker’s fluidity
- Parker admired Gillespie’s sound and harmonic knowledge.
- In 1944 they played together again in former Hines vocalist Billy Ekstine’s band.
- Gillespie’s arrangements for this band made it the first big band to embrace bebop.
- By the end of 1944, Parker and Gillespie turned to the jam-session-style small ensemble.
Bird on Record
● The first bebop recordings date from 1945 and were made mostly by small independent
labels.
● For record companies, this was a low-cost way to get into the business
- Bebop musicians regularly created new melodies over old chord progressions.
● “Ko-Ko”
- This piece is based on the chord progression of Ray Noble’s 1938 piece “Cherokee,”
which was recorded in 1939 by Charlie Barnett and Count Basie.
“Ko-Ko”
- It has a 64- bar form ( twice the 32 bar A A B A form), with a difficult bridge
- In 1945, “Cherokee” became “Ko-Ko”, recorded for Savoy Records.
- The owner of the label would not tolerated a copyrighted melody, so they left the
“Cherokee” melody out.
- The pianist didn’t show, so for this piece it is probably Gillespie on piano, except when
he is playing trumpet.
(Improvisation)

● “ Embraceable You”
- This Gershwin piece was recorded in 1948
- Parker avoid the melody.
- Instead he plays a popular 1930 melody, “A Table in the Corner,” recorded by Artie
Shaw.
- After Parker’s impressive solo, a young Miles Davis takes the next solo.
● “Now’s the Time”
- Parker adds the chromatic harmonies of modern jazz and a fluid sense of rhythm to the
blues.
- This piece is a Parker composition built on one riff.
- It was used later for a rock and roll hit called “The Huckle-Buck” and was covered by
many pop musicians.
- Parker didn’t earn royalties because the owner of Savoy records retained the copyright.
Bird’s Last Night
● The Parker-Gillespie partnership ended in 1946 when the band went to Los Angeles and
met with an indifferent response.
● Gillespie took the band back to New York, but Bird cashed in his ticket to get money for
his heroin habit.
- He stayed in California for a year taking drug
- When the heroin supply ended, he turned to alcohol and barbiturates
● It was in this state, during 1947, that Parker made some recordings for Dial Records
- Showcasing his playing at its worst.
● Later that night he was found in his hotel lobby wearing only his socks.
- He was arrested and committed to the state hospital for six months.
● Free from drugs, he returned to New York, only to resume his habit.
● With the help of Norman Granz, Parker found some commercial success with Mercury
Records
- Recorded with strings.
● But his drug addiction made him unreliable and wore him down.
● After his death in 1955 at just thirty-four, the coroner estimated his age to be fifty-three.
The Elder Statesman
● Gillespie disdained drugs
- Showed how bebop could act as a foundation for the professional jazz musician.
● Upon returning from California in 1946
- He started a big band using bebop arrangements.
● When not playing trumpet, he took his cue from his former boss, Cab Calloway
- Balanced art with wit and silliness
- A mix that could broaden the audience for bop.
● As bop declined in the 1950s

- Gillespie remained drug-free and generous.

- He kept his big band active for years
- Nurtured the careers of many young jazz musicians
- Travelled overseas for the U.S government with his band
_ openly criticized the stated of American race relations.
● He eventually became a jazz celebrity, even as his “chops” weakened in his later years.
The Bebop Generation
● An entire generation of young musicians started playing bop.
- Some, like trumpeter fats Navarro, thought that drugs and the ability to play the music
were connected
- If they did not die from substance abuse, many were frequently jailed for drug
possession.
● Other players such as Sonny Stitt would go on to equal the musical virtuosity of Parker.
● Tenor saxophonists
- Continued to model playing off Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young
- These included Don Byas, Lucky Thomson, and Illinois Jacquet.
● Other musicians to apply Bebop
- J.J. Johnson on trombone
- Serge Chaloff and Leo Parker on baritone saxophone
- Milt Jackson on vibraphone
Bud Powell (1924-1966)
- Part of a musical family
- Knew classical music but learned about jazz ay hanging out at Minton’s Playhouse
_ Monk spotted his talent- recognition that Powell never forgot.
● After dropping out of high school.
- Joined Cootie William’s band
- While touring with Ellington during this period, he was badly beaten by police in
Philadelphia, leaving him with crippling headaches.
- This started a protracted bout of psychiatric treatments,
_ which included incarceration, medication, and electroshock treatments that affected his
memory.
- Powell also had a weakness for alcohol.
● Stylistically
- Laid the foundation for all bebop pianists to follow.
- His left hand played chords while his right hand improvised lines.
- Sometimes he would play block-chord style, where the melody is supported by rich
chords.
● “Tempus Fugure-It”
- Recorded in 1949.
- Powell had just emerged form a sanatorium and would return shortly after this recording.
_ he seems surprising in control, given the circumstances

enue
● Bebop was played on the West Coast as well.
- The West Coast had long history of jazz.
- New Orleans musicians recorded there as early as 1922.
● Rivaling New York’s 52
nd
Street, Central Avenue was the center for African American
life in Los Angeles.
- It was also the hub of local entertainment, which included modern jazz by around 1945,
with Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie, Howard McGhee.
Dexter Gordon (1923-1990)
- Come from a middle-class home
- Jazz-loving father who was a doctor to jazz musicians such as Lionel Hampton and Duke
Ellington.
- Dexter studied clarinet and then saxophone in high school
- Saw Coleman Hawkins as a master
_ was initially inspired by Lester Young.
- He studied music theory with Gillespie
- A later encounter with Parker molded him into a young disciple of bebop.
- His style combined a relaxed mode of playing with rhythmic intricacies.
● “Long Tall Dexter”
- This song features many of the so-called bebop generation’s most talented figures
- It is built off of a singular riff and strategically introduces a bit of unexpected dissonance.
- Interaction of the group typifies the atmosphere of a jam session.
● During the 1950s
- Gordon alternated playing and prison
- The 1960s saw him return to form
_ recording for Blue Note.
_ he spent much of his time in Europe, where black musicians felt less prejudice.
● He returned to New York and a successful career in 1976
- He recorded for Columbia, acted in films
- Took on the role of elder statesman.
Aftermath: Bebop and Pop
● For a brief time in the 1940s
- Bebop was marketed as a popular music, while swing began to fade.
- It was represented both as modern and as a comic novelty.

Dizzy Gillespie reinforced the latter image through language and look, as did other jazz
musicians.
● It failed as pop music
- Musicians saw it as a musical system that became part of the foundation of the jazz
musician’s identity
Jazz at the Philharmonic (JATP)
● Norman Granz (1918-2001)
- Grew up in Los Angeles
- Like John Hammond
_ he developed an interest in jazz that was both musical and political
- His first concerts were interracial and were held at a classical music venue, Philharmonic
Hall.
_ there were soon banned because, according to management, there was a threat of
violence.
_ according to Graz, the ban stemmed from the interracial audiences.
● Though he soon took the concerts on the road, he kept the name if the group.
- Jazz at the Philharmonic after the venue it originated in.
● Featured performers from various styles
- Swing, bop, and nascent rhythm and blues.
● Encouraged the competitive nature of the jam session
- The young audiences hollered and stomped their feet during concerts.
● He profited greatly from these concerts
● He insisted that his bands and the audiences be integrated
● Took a special interest in Ella Fitzgerald and Oscar Peterson.