Jazz Key Questions:

What is Jazz? - for the most part this is a trick question. Jazz is different to everyone.

What are the sonic characteristics of Jazz? - Swing, Complex Harmony, hearing things such as
horns.

What are some kinds of social characteristics of Jazz? - Small gigs, sometimes they are intimate
with the crowd sometimes not. Could sometimes be a large orchestral setting.

How do you know when you're listening to Jazz?

What are the sonic and/or social boundaries between jazz and other musics?

What does it look and sound like to learn, listen to and play jazz in New Zealand?

Music is always relational, always communal in some way.

Life in New Zealand is framed by the principles of The Treaty of Waitangi.
These principles are also centered on relational and communal issues.

Kaitiakitanga - protection, guardianship, nurturing

Whai wahi - participation

Jazz will look different depending on the identity of who is playing and listening.

1) Jazz circulated globally with an unprecedented rapidity in the early 1900s

2) Much of the canon of jazz today is centred on histories and practices in the US
3) Jazz aesthetics and histories everywhere are intertwined with conceptions of race;
And
4) Life in New Zealand is framed by the ToW

Historiography - the way that historians approached a topic.

Jazz historiography - the way jazz historians approached the history of jazz.
Canon - Things and people that are staples that are relevant in history

Who decides what belongs in a canon? - Marketing, record labels, journalism, social media,
various media outlets, educators,

Origin stories - Where did the word “jazz” come from? First seen in 1912, California used the
word in newspapers for baseball.
“Jazz” a film by Ken Burns promoted a narrative for Jazz known as a Great Man Narrative.
Has underlying themes of sexism and Ken’s historiography doesn’t accurately represent
The Great Man narrative severely limits the idea of whai wahi. Whai wahi is about not limiting
certain people and ethnicities to their own cultural expectations. E.g, African Americans only
have the opportunity to play jazz.

DeVeaux “Constructing the Jazz Tradition” (1991)

Was swing “real jazz”? - plenty of breaks, everyone is playing melodies and have small solos
Was bebop “real jazz”? - fast tempo, everyone sounds more together

When bebop came around, there were many debates of whether it was Jazz due to it being so
different from the New Orleans style. To think that Jazz is progressing, is to insinuate that the
previous styles are inferior and in association, the musicians that played it were also inferior.
Before bebop, Jazz was an entertainment genre. Bebop requires more attentive listening.

Confining someone/an ethnic group to one musical style is an issue with your historiography.

86 Fairlee Terrace, 11am Thursday ROOM 006

Oral Tradition and Written Tradition: Music is always sonic, therefore is an oral tradition.
Oral Tradition is important in jazz because it’s the only way you can learn it. To some extent you
can learn by the written tradition, however, the written tradition is trying to emulate the sonic
representation of music.

?Reading Music is not essential for understanding the music?

April 1930s Downbeat magazine, contained theory content which shows evidence of written
tradition being prominent in jazz history.

Elements of Music:
● Timbre - quality/tone of a sound. It can’t be measured. Metaphorical explanations for
timbre - dry, bright, dark, warm, wet, tinny, round.
● Rhythm - tempo, metre, syncopation
● Texture - polyphonic, monophonic, homophonic.
● Melody - ascending, descending, arc shaped, chromatic.
● Harmony - dissonant, altered, upper extensions.
● Structure/Form - blues (12 bar micro form), AABA, head solos head.
● Performance Practices - dynamics.

Difference between “Roots” and “Oldness” in musical culture

Nomadic Africans (forager)
Sub saharan Africa has many different cultures and languages

Social organisation of central african foragers:

 1. Egalitarian (Females and Males do both roles)
2. Intimate interaction with the environment
3. Mobile
4. History of exchange with neighboring sedentary groups
5. Animism

General Characteristics of music from Central African Forager Societies:

● Oral Tradition
● Anonymous and undateable
● Collective Music (Whai wāhi)
● For internal use
● Cyclic structure with improvised variations
● Often responsorial and antiphonal (call and response)

Steve Coleman

Unity in Diversity in sub saharan Africa

Added timbral effect, these effects are nods to ancestral and spiritual beings.
Relaxed, open vocal
Ostinato - repeating pattern
Unity of music and dance
Celebration of egalitarianism and veneration of individual achievement.

Ma Rainey “Prove it on me Blues” 1928

Trumpet plunger created an added timbral effect of microtonality making it sound like a scat
solo.
The popular race record

Bessie Smith
A lot of her songs talk about violence,
Agency - the capacity and power of an individual that allows them to act independently.
An agentive aspect of the blues is the availability to express people’s sexuality.
What is intersectionality
How does it play out in jazz
How does intersectionality connect to kaitiakitanga and whai wahi in jazz contexts?
Ragtime, Harlem stride, race, class and virtuosity
Ragtime - end of 1800s, main features is syncopation
Seems to have an AABB like structure.
Ragged, term rag was used as a verb, ragged make it more syncopated
James Reese Europe
Stride Piano - Generally fast tempo, improv style, rhythm is complex and syncopated,
borrowing, virtuosity in terms of personality, swing, European-derived classical music, cutting
contests,
Post ww1 migrations and harlem rent parties,
70% of landlords were black, but rents were very high.
Roots of harlem rent parties were from American south pre 1900s
Widespread practice in harlem after people relocated there
The music was stride.
“Double Consciousness” useful concept about marginalised groups
One being your own identity and another being able to see how white people see you.
Willie “The Lion” Smith was a significant influence on Duke Ellington, he often drew on
European classical music in his compositions. He was a musical innovator, using left hand
variations of stride that nearly was like a walking bassline.
The Great Migration after ww1. 1916-1930
Louis Armstrong, his soloing:
- Defines swing
- Invented new ways to swing
- Massively Influential
- Feeling of spirituals
- Elevated the trumpet
- Rhythm and microtonality

Issues in tension in jazz in New Zealand

1) Jazz circulated globally with an unprecedented Rapidity in the early 1900s.
2) Much of the canon on jazz is centered around the US.
3) Jazz aesthetics and histories everywhere are intertwined with conceptions of race.
4) Life in Aotearoa is framed by the treaty of waitangi which among other things, guides us
as we think through and experience issues of race, ethnicity, and difference as they
relate to power and privilege.

Kaitiakitanga:
What does it look like to honourably protect and nurture the treasure of jazz and the musical
traditions with which it overlaps as musicians, listeners and thinkers engaged with music.

Jazz and European classical music overlap

There was a division between high opera which was associated with the upper class whereas
Jelly Roll morton ended this division. Typically the lower working class would listen to “common”
music for entertainment.
Jelly Roll’s father was a trombonist, this helped him incorporate a call and response musical
style. The Spanish tinge/latin tinge, people claimed that Jelly influenced latin jazz. Habanero
rhythm?

Louis Moreau Gottschalk

(1829-1869)
“The Banjo” a solo piano composition that is complex, classical and it very effectively emulates
the aesthetics of the banjo :
● Syncopated rhythm
● Fast staccato notes in a higher register
● Using a pentatonic scale
These also happen to be features from African musics.

Minstrelsy wasn’t an honourable way to nod towards African music whereas this piece by
Gottschalk was significantly better.

James P Johnson - A negro rhapsody

Rhapsody - constantly showing new sections/new themes

Maurice Ravel - an interest in jazz

Blues by Ravel (1923ish):
● Microtonality in the melody with the violin
● Hints at swing rhythm with blues like bass
● Dissonant harmonies

Django Reinhardt (1910-1953)

(Gypsy Jazz) - peculiar style, it’s greatly associated with one person. Mostly one person
Featured?
His hand was burned in a fire when he was 18. This made him have a distinctive guitar sound,
timbre of the guitar is associated with the type of guitar he played. No drums, sometimes violin,
bass, two guitars. This is reminiscent of African American traditions of a string band.
Tiger Rag (1934) melody with accompaniment. Homophonic - Same rhythm different pitches.
Gypsy jazz is typically fast, very difficult to do. Two feel on bass, almost mimicking the tuba.

The Og Dixieland Jazz Band plays this, keep in mind the texture.
The polyphony of this track seems to weave in between eachother instrument wise. Some take
the main melody as others go and fill in the background.

Zhou Xuan (1918-1957) - Chinese singer

Colonialism, conceptions of race, whiteness, china was not part of this slave trade there it has a
complex relationship with this colonialism. Jazz is looked down on from Chinese intellectuals,
they wanted a musical idiom of european classical music.
Civilised music and “Jungle music” and it was a troupe to consider African American music as
primitive.
In some cases in china, they considered that jazz was modern music so jazz did two things. It
repelled certain parts of China because of the colonialism clash, whereas, jazz’s modernity also
attracted an audience in China.
Her vocal runs go through interesting intervals that make me think of traditional Chinese music.
The overall timbre of brass instruments signify a Hollywood screen like sound.
The structure seemed to be AABA.
Had a blues reference in the entrance, with the trumpets use of micro tonality.

The Melody Boys from Rotorua. “E Puritai Tama E”

Somewhat call and response, however the melody was more prominently apparent in this track
compared to the early New Orleans style.

The rise of the big bands and the vocalists that made (some of) them.

Swing
One of the first musics that younger people enjoyed dancing to.
Swing is an uneven division of the beat where the first half of the beat has more duration and
emphasis than the second half. There is a heavy emphasis on the 2 and the 4.

Territory Bands
Bands that are based in certain regions that circulate around the same route/network
There were plenty of all woman bands for this time due to WW2.
Black wall street and the Tulsa race riot 1921
A neighbourhood in Tulsa “Greenwood” was the wealthiest Black community in the US known
as Black Wall street. It became a refuge for African Americans and gave them a chance to run a
business. “An Economic Haven”
A black teenage man was accused of assaulting a white teenage woman in an elevator, black
hospitals were burnt to the ground, 10,000 people were left homeless and 6 African Americans
were left detained. Many buildings were ruined. White supremacy based destruction, and these
territory bands were also subject to these conditions.

Walter Page’s Blue Devils (1925-1931)

This band supported the trend of the bass replacing the Tuba.
Bennie Moten band was also in Kansas city and they added Count Basie as their piano player.
“Kansas city shuffle” - before Walter page joined the band in 1926
Bass drum was playing four on the floor.

Mary Lou Williams (1910-1981)

Was a band leader in Memphis in her teens,
Arranger and composer in Oklahoma and was also known for being a part of the territory bands.
She was apart of this broad geological ecosystem of music making.
Count Basie Orchestra modernised the swing sound, this band seemed to take over from the
Bennie Moten band. Freddie Green on Guitar and ??Papa Joe Jones on drums??
Walter Page was a significant innovator of this walking bass style.
This changed the timbre, texture and ways of feeling the beat.
Long improvised solos with backings included
Riffs - short melodic phrases

Count Basie - from New Jersey, this is an example of distorting the great man narrative and it
gives me a wider historical perspective or historiography because otherwise we’d only talk about
New Orleans.

“For Dancers only” - Jimmie Lunceford and his Orchestra. Jimmie was from Tennessee
Trumpets have a great swing feel in the intro.

Ella Fitzgerald (1917-1996)

Is a very canonised figure in jazz history.

Duke Ellington
Washington DC
Middle class family, his father worked for the US navy and was a butler at the whitehouse.
GIfted painter, offered arts scholarships
His band in the early 20s worked with Cindy Butchet. He tended to incorporate New Orelans
musicians in his band. He was a part of the Harlem renaissance. His compositions and his work
was doing something that considered jazz as sophisticated art, part of his success was being a
skilled businessman.

Economic injustice (rise of rent) in Harlem once the great immigration occurred (Various
foreigners and African Americans began to populate Harlem, it was originally used as a retreat
for wealthy whites, who then later ended up leaving manhattan and settled in a more suburban
area.)
Cotton Club 142nd street - was a launch pad for Duke Ellington’s band.
Duke Ellington rejected the concept of minstrelsy.
Black and Tan Fantasy (1927) - named after a club black and tan

White audiences were looking for something they find exotic and exciting, exoticism in racism, in
some ways it’s appreciation. Can be seen through fear of that group and fascination. In terms of
marketing, this fear and fascination drew white audiences to go “slumbing” to Harlem to
experience the life there.
Black and Tan Fantasy can have many different interpretations. Some believe that it is talking
about the possibility of all races being all one together, has musical elements from the blues,
classical, etc.

“The Holy City” - Stephen Adams (1891)

Major key mirror image of Black and Tan Fantasy, *spiritual significance* Also references
Chopin’s “funeral march” - this reference is at the end of Black and Tan Fantasy