What is jazz?

Now, anyone hearing this music, anyone on any civilized part of this earth, East

or West, pole to pole, would immediately say “that is jazz”. We are going to try

to investigate jazz. Not through the usual historical approach of up the river from

New Orleans, etc. but through approaching the music itself. We are going to

examine the musical intimate of jazz to find out once and for all what it is that

sets it apart from all other music.

Jazz is a very big word. It covers a multitude of sounds, all the way from the

earliest blues * to dixieland bands * to charleston bands * to swing bands * to

boogie woogie * to crazy bop * to cool bop * to mambo * and much more. It is all

jazz and I love it all.

I love jazz because of his humour. Jazz really plays around with notes in

a way that other music doesn’t always. We usually say “playing music,

playing piano, guitar…”. We usually use the word “play” to refer to handle

a musical intrument usually. But jazz has some of the amusement

connotation of the word “play”. Jazz has fun with notes. It is

enterteinment in its truest sense.

But the thing I like best about jazz is that it is an original form of

emotional expression. It’s unique. It is never completely sad or

completely happy. For instance even the deepest blues…….

(All music comes from folk music and folk music comes from the earth.

Jazz is almost completely a players art, depending on improvisation rather than

composition. This means that the player of jazz is himself the real composer)

We have to know what it is. I propose to share with yousome of the things I

know and love about jazz

What are the elements that make that jazz?

Let’s take this blues (we heard before) and find out what it is made of.

Now, what are the elements that make that jazz?

First of all, there is the element of MELODY:

Western music in general is based melodically speaking on scales: major

and minor, mainly. But there is a special scale for jazz which is a

variation of the major scale. In jazz, this scale gets modified two different

times: the third and the fifth notes get lowered. Those two changed notes

are referred to as BLUE NOTES. So instead of a phrase which ordinarily

would go something like this *, which is not particularly jazzy, we would

get, using blue notes, this phrase * which begins to show jazz quality.

But this called jazz scale is used only melodically, in the harmony,

underneath, we still use our old unflatted notes. And that causes a

dissonance that happen between the tune and the chords, which

provides a tru jazz sound. Jazz musicians are always using these two

dissonant notes together and there is a reason. They are really searching

for a note that there isn’t at all. One that lies somewhere between the two

notes and the note is called a quarter tone. The quarter tone comes

straight from Africa, which is the cradle of jazz and where quarter tones

are a everyday’s staff. As far as we can’t produce it with our instruments

we have to aproximate it by playing together the two notes on each side

of it. The real note is somewhere between them.

Now, just to show how important these so cold blue notes are to jazz let’s

hear the same blues played without them, using only the plain notes of

the major scale.

There is something missing, isn’t there?

But even more important than melody in jazz is the element of rhythm.

Rhythm is the first thing you associate with the word jazz, after all. There

are two aspects to this point, the first being the BEAT. The beat is what

you hear when the drummer plays the bass drum or when the bass

player plays his bass. The beat goes on from the beginning to the end of

any song, two or four of them to a bar. But more interesting is the rhythm

going on over the beat, rhythmic figures which depend on something

called SYNCOPATION. (A good way to understand syncopation is

thinking a hard beat that goes along and at a moment of shock misses

the beat and causes a physical reaction). Technically, syncopation

means the removal of an accent where you expect one or the placing of

an accent where you least expect one. In either case there is the element

of surprise and shock. The bosy responds to this shock either by

compensating for the missing accent or by reacting to the unexpected

one.

Now, where do we expect accents? Always on the first beat of a bar, on

the downbeat. If there are two beats on a bar, one is going to be strong

and one is going to be weak, exactly as in marching: LEFT-right, LEFT-

right… even if there are four beats on a bar is still like marching: HOP-two-

three-for, HOP-two-three-for…There is always this natural accent on one.

Take it away and there is a simple syncopation.ONE-two-three-four, -two-

three-four, -two-three-four. This missing accent of the beat evoques a

body responds.

Now the other way to make a syncopation is exactly the revers: put an

accent on a weak beat, the second or the fourth, where it does not belong,

like this: one-TWO-three-FOUR, one-TWO-three-FOUR, one-TWO-three-

FOUR. This is what we all do when we listen to jazz, claping our hands or

snapping our fingers on the off-beat: one-TWO-three-FOUR. (chasq)

(Between one beat and another there are shorter and weaker beats, and

when these get accents, the shock is correspondingly greater. Since the

weaker the beat you accentuate, the greater the surprise. Let’s take eight of

these beats in a bar: ONE-two-three-four-five-sex-seven-eight. The normal

accent would fall on one and five: ONE-two-three-four-FIVE-sex-seven-

eight. In stead, let’s put a big accent in a real weak one wich is is the fourth:

ONE-two-three-FOUR-five-six-seven-eight.)

Of course, the strongest syncopation would be obtained by doing both things

at one: putting an accent on a weak beat and taking away the accent from

the strong fifht beat entirely (led zeppelin).

Now that you’ve heard what syncopation is like let’s see how the same blues

we heard before would sound without it *

It sounds squared, doesn’t it?

Jazz would not be jazz without its special tonal colors. These colors are

many, but they mainly come from the quality of the negro singing voice.

For instance, when Louis Armstrong plays his trumpet, he is only doing

another version of his own voice. The instruments imitating the voice is

the essence of improvisation. Improvisations develop from this kind of

voice imitation.

You have ceirtanly heard jazz played by non jazz orchestras and wondered

what was missing: the coloration.

Well, there you have it: melody, rhythm, tonal color, harmony. In each

department there are especial features that make music sound jazzy.

Let’s now put them all together

IMPROVISATION: a song doesn’t become jazz until it is improvised. And

here you have the real core of all jazz: improvisation. Do you remember I

said Jazz is a players art, rather than composers?. This is the key: it is

the player who by improvising makes jazz.ç

What does improvising mean? It means that you take a tune, keep it in mind

with his melody and harmonyand then you make it up (go to town) by adding

ornaments or figurations or by making variations.

This stuff of improvising together gives rise to the style called dixieland,

where everyone is improvising together.

You see how exciting this can be.

Here in jazz are the beginnings of serious North American music.

JAZZ IN THE CONCERT HALL

American composers begin trying to get some of the excitement of jazz feeling,

American feeling into the symphonic music.

JOURNEY INTO JAZZ

PIONEERS OF AMERICAN MUSIC

THERE WAS A BIG SHOCK IN THE AIR

GEORGE GERSHWIN, LEONARD BERNSTEIN (AIN)

2. QUE ES LA MÚSICA AMERICANA

We are going talk about WHAT MAKES AMERICAN MUSIC SOUNDS

AMERICAN?

And just to start with, let’s hear American music

I don’t think there is anybody in this class who wouldn’t know that music is

American music. Not only is the tittle clear, which as you know is “……” and not

because the composer, “…” was American. But is in the music itself: it sounds

american, it smells American, it makes you feel American when you hear it.

Now, WHY IS THAT? What makes certain music seem to belong to America.

That’s wahat we are going to try ot today.

Almost every country or nation has some kind of music that belongs to it, and

sounds right natural for its people. So, when a nation has its own kind of music,

we call that music NATIONALISTIC. Sometimes it is just FOLK MUSIC, very

simple songs, or sometimes nor even songs but just “invocations for rain” or

sorts of primitive chantings: tarantella from Italy, a reel from Ireland. So, the

moment you hear at that music, you know it is Irish, Italian, and so on.

Now, can you tell me what country makes this music youo think of?

What country is that? Right!

You are so smart today!

It has a folk song in it.

When this music is played in the country it belongs to, all the people listening to

it feel that it belongs to them.

What about America?

That’s a problem, because

They have different kinds of ancestors (forefathers)

MELTING POT: BRITISH, ITALIANS, JEWISH, DUTCHS, SPANISH,

SWEDISH

NORTH AMERICANS COME FROM EVERYWHERE. SO, WITH ALL THOSE

DIFFERENTS FOREFATHERS THEY HAVE. WHAT IS IT THAT THEY ALL

AMERICANS HAVE IN COMMON?

WHAT CAN THEY CALL THEIR AMERICAN FOLK MUSIC?

North American is a very young country compared with the European countries.

So their folk music is still very young compared

Actually, their authentic American Music begin at the middle-late XIX century.

Until then, most music imitated European music. However, they wanted to find

their own music and writing their own American music

A Czechoslovakian composer named Dvorak visited the USA and was amazed

(surprised) to find all the American composers wrote the same kind of music he

did. So he told them: why don’t you use your folk music when you write? Indian

music. So, in order to show them how it could be done, Dvorak made up some

indian themes and negro themes and wrote a symphony called “New World

Symphony”. But he was forgeting the most important thing: that indian music

has nothing to do with most of them. Their forefathers were not indians. The

problem is that it doesn’t sound American, it sounds Czech.

I’m sure you all know the second movement of the symphony, wich is the most

famous part.

In spite of that, Dvorak made an important impression on the American

composers and started writing this way.

After the First World War something very special came into American music. Do

you know what it is? Jazz was born and it changed everything because, finally,

there was an american folk music that belonged to all Americans. Jazz was

everybody’s music.

At last there was something like American folk music that eveybody understood.

Jazz influence became a part of their lives: everybody used to dance the foxtrot

back in the twenties, etc.

NOW LET’S SEE HOW THIS CHANGE TOOK PLACE:

- for instance, take the rythms of jazz. The thing that makes jazz rhythm so

special is something called syncopation, wich means getting an accent

where you don’t expect one, getting a strong beat where you have a

weak beat.

Let’s try and see if we can do syncopation together: we are all going to clap

together, regular beats. 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4… without getting faster, without

getting slower, just keep it steady. While you do that, I’m going to play a

syncopated charleston rhythm with accents in the unexpected places,

between the right places.

Let’s try again.

Have you heard this syncopated rhythm?

That was the charleston in the twenties

Now, let’s change the whole thing: I’ll do the regular steady beat while you

do the charleston. (let’s see how we’re gonna do it).

Wonderful! I could feel the jazz everywhere.

There are many sides in American music as many different people are: all

those ethnic groups, and personalities from all over the world that make up

USA. Heritages. Is like those different accents there are in a speech.