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Jazz is without doubt America's
very own classical music. Along with the blues, its forefather, it is one
of the first truly indigenous music genres to develop in America. What sets
it apart from blues is its unpredictable, risky ventures into improvisation,
which gave it critical cache with scholars that the blues lacked. Essentially
jazz was dance music, performed by swinging big bands. Eventually the dance
elements faded into the background and improvisation became the key element
of the music. The evolution of the genre saw jazz diversify into different
styles, from the speedy, hard-hitting rhythms of be-bop to the laid-back,
mellow harmonies of cool jazz to the jittery, atonal forays of free jazz
to the earthy grooves of soul jazz. The common chord was its foundation
in the blues, a reliance on group interplay and unpredictable improvisation.
Throughout the years, and in all the different styles, those are the qualities
that defined jazz.
Big Band/Swing:
Big Bands Jazz featured jazz groups that had over 10 musicians, who played
a variety of different styles from bop to free jazz and is usually referred
to the '30s and '40s classic era of swing. Most of the Big Band jazz groups
played a robust, invigorating style of swing that derived from New Orleans
jazz. Swing was dance music, yet it offered individual musicians a chance
to improvise musically fresh, technically complex solos. Not all Big Bands
played 'Swing' and 'Swing' isn't performed only by Big Bands - but the two
are forever tied together, since they matured simultaneously.
Bop:
Bop or bebop was a radical new music that developed in the early 1940's
and made it big around 1945. Bop saw the soloists engaged in chordal improvisation,
often discarding the melody altogether after the first chorus and using
the chords as the basis for the solo. The tempos would be very fast and
soon bop evolved from popular music to art music. Bop also mutated into
Swing-Bop, which crossed the inventions of bop with a swinging Big Band,
and Vocalese, which was a vocal interpretation of bop. Contemporary artists
performing straight bop are often classified as Modern Bop
Hard Bop:
Hard Bop is an extension of Bop with the differences being that Hard Bop
melodies tend to be simpler and often more soulful and the rhythm section
is usually looser with the bassist not as tightly confined to playing four-beats-to-the-bar
as in bop. A gospel influence is felt in some of the music with many saxophonists
and pianists producing sound that sounded like early rhythm and blues. By
the early '60s, the music splintered into a number of different styles,
notably Modal Jazz, Post-Bop and Soul-Jazz.
Cool:
Cool Jazz was a mixture of bop with certain aspects of swing that had been
overlooked or temporarily discarded. Dissonances were smoothed out, tones
were softened, arrangements became important again and the rhythm section's
accents were less jarring. Some of the recordings were experimental with
hints of classical music while some over arranged sessions were bland but
this was a viable and popular style.
Free Jazz
Free Jazz was a radical departure from past styles for typically after playing
a quick theme, the soloist does not have to follow any progression or structure
and can go in any unpredictable direction. Free Jazz, which overlaps with
the avant-garde, remains a controversial and mostly underground style, influencing
the modern mainstream while often being ignored. Avant-garde Jazz differs
from Free Jazz in that it has more structure in the ensembles, although
the individual improvisations are generally just as free of conventional
rules.
Fusion
Fusion's original definition was a mixture of jazz improvisation with the
power and rhythms of rock. As rock became more creative and its musicianship
improved, and as some in the jazz world became bored with hard bop and did
not want to play strictly avant-garde music, the two different idioms began
to trade ideas and occasionally combine forces. This style of commercially-oriented,
melodic, crossover jazz became the dominant style of fusion in the '80s,
and by the beginning of the '90s, it had earned a new name - smooth jazz
- which further separated from the risk-taking fusion that was its forefather.
Latin Jazz/World Fusion
The emphasis on percussion and Cuban rhythms make Latin Jazz danceable and
accessible which essentially is a mixture of bop-oriented jazz with Latin
percussion. The style has not changed much during the past 40 years but
it still communicates to today's listeners. Latin Jazz and its cousins Afro-Cuban
jazz, Brazilian Jazz and New York Salsa are the most familiar and popular
jazz styles that borrow heavily from various world music. There, however,
are other jazz musicians that take from other styles of World music, and
their music is often called World Fusion.
New Orleans/Classic Jazz
New Orleans was the home of the first jazz style, which evolved as a form
of small-band music. What distinguished Classic Jazz from its descendants
was that it was somewhat less solo-oriented. The groups used combinations
of cornet, clarinet, saxophone, trombone, tuba, guitar, banjo, bass viol,
drums, and piano and the music featured several moving parts at the same
time. Many of the solos and embellishments were improvised, and much of
the melody was paraphrased for personalization. The musicians refined the
syncopations of ragtime, and adapted pop tunes, marches, hymns, blues, and
rags for their repertory. The music was quite lively and featured a wide
assortment of unusual tone qualities and soulful inflections of a melody
tone's pitch.
Soul Jazz/Groove
Soul Jazz, which was the most popular jazz style of the 1960's, differs
from bebop and hard bop (from which it originally developed) in that the
emphasis is on the rhythmic groove. Groove is a sub-set of Soul-Jazz, one
that is injected with the blues and concentrates on the rhythm. It is a
funky, joyous music, where everything in the performance is there to establish
and maintain the groove. There's a steady beat to the music, whether it's
uptempo funk or slow blues. |
