Month: July 2024

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Neo-traditionalism: hard bob, straight ahead jazz and neo bob (The development of jazz 6/11)

Previous instalments dealt with trends and changes in jazz during the post-war period: ‘Bebob’, the flight into virtuosity that didn’t catch on much with audiences. ‘Cool jazz’ that took the hard edges off bebop. ‘Fusion’ and ‘smooth jazz’ that inspired musicians to mix jazz and other genres. ‘Free jazz’ that gave musicians room to break free from most of the rules that had hitherto governed jazz music and improvisation. 

Several jazz musicians feel drawn to none of these trend and continue to search for the ‘true nature’ of jazz. It is obvious that not everyone thought the same way. The result is a range of new styles’, some of which this posts highlights. These include ‘hard bob’, ‘straight ahead jazz’ and ‘neo-bop’. ‘Soul jazz’ is often included in this list, but in my opinion, it belongs under ‘fusion’ and is also discussed there.

Hard bop (1950s – 1960s)

What distinguishes hard bop from bebop and cool jazz? Essentially, the difference is about increasing the appeal of jazz to a wider audience while preserving jazz as an art form.

Features

– As in bebop, solos take chord sequences as a starting point, which are repeated throughout the song.

– The tempo of hard bop is often as fast as that of bebop; 

– The melodies are more recognizable and simpler.

– Piano and saxophone are dominant instruments.

Innovator Miles Davis introduced hard bob at the first Newport jazz festival (1954) with his song ‘Walking’. You can see and listen to this song on a 1957 recording here.

Other Miles Davis compositions from this era can be found on albums like ‘Milestones’ (1958) and ‘Kind of blue'(1959). You can now see and listen to the song ‘All Blues’ from this last album, played by the Frankfurt Radio Bigband (2020)

Other prominent hard bop musicians include Horace Silver and drummer Art Blakey with their band The jazz Messengers (Live in Belgium, 1958), trumpeter Clifford Brown (Stompin’at  the  Savoy, 1954), bassist Charles Mingus (Devil’s blues, a 1975 recording), saxophonist Cannonball Adderley (Work song, 1962), pianist Thelonious Monk (Live in 66 Norway & Denmark concerts, 1966) and flugelhorn player Lee Morgan (Moanin‘, 1961).

Straight ahead jazz and neo-bop (1980s and later)

Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis (1961 – ) played an important role in the succession of hard bop by ‘straight ahead jazz’ (1960s-70s) and neo-bop (from 1980s onwards). Marsalis’ ideal was also that jazz would achieve ‘fine-art’ status and would eventually be compared to classical music. 

Features

– Both straight ahead jazz and neo-bob seek connection with old-time jazz and swing.

– Straight ahead jazz musicians reject both free jazz and fusion because of the influence of pop music.

– The emphasis is on acoustic instrumentation, such as conventional piano, walking bass patterns, 4/4 beat and swing and bop-based drum rhythms.

– Neo-bop had a more swinging and melodic character than straight ahead jazz, influenced by the styles that had developed in the pre-1980 period.

– ‘True’ jazz, according to Marsalis, was based on swing, acoustic sounds, tonality, craftsmanship and knowledge of the jazz tradition.

Wynton Marselis has performed in 30 countries. His Grammy Awards in jazz include for ‘Best Instrumental Solo’ : Think of one1(983) and Hot House Flowers, (1984) Best Jazz Instrumental Album : Black Codes (From The Underground) (1985, recorded 2013) and Marsalis Standard time (1987). You can listen to ‘Smokehouse Blues played by the Wynton Marsalis Septet in 2015 here.

Horace Silver and Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers were also a breeding ground in terms of style for young musicians who wanted to play ‘true’ jazz. Marsalis, incidentally, also played in this group as a trumpeter. A leading album by the Jazz Messengers is ‘Straight Ahead ‘(1981). You can listen to ‘Just By Myself'(1958) here

Another ‘straightforward’ musician was tenor saxophonist Scott Hamilton. His first album was ‘Scott Hamilton Is A Good Wind Who is Blowing Us No Ill’(1977). Also: Jackie McLean with his album The Jackie Mac Attack live (1991) and Eric Alexander Solid (1998) , The second Milestone (2001) and Gentle Ballads (2008). 

Several musicians who had made a mark on ‘fusion’ in the 1970s started recording acoustic jazz again, including Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock. Even Miles Davis’ music of the 1980s, though certainly still fusion, became more accessible and recognizable at that time than his abstract work of the mid-1970s. Nevertheless, he had nothing to do with neo-traditionalism. He spoke of a ‘warmed-up’ turkey and considered Marsalis the jazz police.

Coda

If you listen to bebop, cool jazz, hard bop, straight ahead jazz and neo-bop, you will hear a wide variety even within these styles and recognizing them is often difficult. Probably they represent the core of jazz. However, it is going too far to speak of ‘true jazz’. Fusion and free jazz have stretched the playing field and ultimately enriched jazz.

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Fusion and smooth jazz: blending jazz with other music styles (The development of jazz 5/11)

Jazz musicians also like to listen to rock, pop or classical music. If these styles inspire some musicians is obvious. They had another reason to go the way of fusion, namely to make jazz more accessible to a wider audience and possibly achieve commercial success. Fusion and smooth jazz blend seamlessly. The examples in this episode show that making music that is easy on the ear and at the same time maintaining the melodic and harmonic principles of jazz is feasible. With smooth jazz, the emphasis is a bit more on the first premise. 

The best-known fusion artist is Miles Davis. Others include Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock, vibraphonist Gary Burton, drummer Tony Williams, violinist Jean-Luc Ponty, guitarists Larry Coryell, also called the godfather of fusion, Al Di Meola, John McLaughlin, saxophonist Wayne Shorter and bassists Jaco Pastorius and Stanley Clarke.

Here you can listen to Miles Davis playing the pop song ‘Time After Time’ (1985).

In his album Bitches Brew (1969), Davis largely abandons swing beat and uses rock and roll idiom. The album mixes free jazz horns with an ensemble featuring electronic keyboards, guitar and percussion. He sold 400,000 albums, four times his annual average. In the same year, he released his album In a Silent Way (1969), which is considered his first fusion album.[12] Almost all of the aforementioned musicians collaborated on it.

Jazz and rock

The most used form of fusion is a ‘crossover’ between jazz and rock. Bridges between these genres have been built from both sides. An older example is the Charles Lloyd Quartet with Keith Jarrett, among others, which went down this route from the late 1960s. You can see here a recent recording by the quartet (now without Keith Jarrett) of the composition ‘Dream Weaver’.

Yet initially, it was mostly rock groups that mixed jazz and rock. Examples include: Colosseum (Take Me Back to Doomsday, 1970), Chicago (Tanglewood, 1970), Blood, Sweat & Tears (God Bless This Child, 1973), Soft Machine (Switzerland, 1974), Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention, Gratefull Death (October, Winterland, 1974), The Allman Brothers, In Memory of Elisabeth Reed, 1970). Santana (Evil Woman, 1969), Jimi Hendrix (Voodo Child, 1970), King Krimson (Larks’ Tongues in Aspic, 1972) and most recently Ozric Tentacles (Epiphilioy, 2016) Every song is worth listening to! From Emerson, Lake & Palmer, hear now: Mussorgsky – Pictures At An Exhibition,1970)

Emerson Lake & Palmer have been called the most pretentious ‘progressive rock’ group ever, because of their ever more overwhelming stage presence. At their peak, they took 40 tons of equipment and sometimes a 50-piece choir.

These were rock bands with above-average artistic pretensions and often referred to as progressive rock, which were inspired by jazz. Progressive rock already some characteristics of jazz, such as an affinity for long solos, divergent time signatures and complex rhythms and melodies. 

While the days of ‘progressive rock’ were long gone, fusion between jazz and rock remained popular, with musicians such as Pat Metheny (Jaco, 1977), John Abercrombie (Timeless, 2021), John Scofield (Live, Leverkusener Jazztage, 2023), the Swedish group e.s.t. (Behind The Yashmak, here with Pat Metheny, 2003), Brad Mehldau (Live in Montreal, 2023) and The Bad Plus (Live Moers festival, 2017). The latter two have explored contemporary rock music within the possibilities of the traditional acoustic jazz piano trio, recording instrumental jazz versions of rock songs. Here, The Bad Plus plays Confortable Numb by Pinkfloyd with vocals by Wendy Lewis. You can watch the Brad Mehldau trio perform Hello Joe by Jimmie Hendrix here:

By the way, Brad Mehldau is considered one of the best jazz pianists of the 21ste century.  He has been nominated for a Grammy Award every year since 2013, one of which he finally won in 2020 for his album “Finding Gabriel”.

Jazz and soul

Soul jazz is an outgrowth of hard bob with influences from soul, blues and rhythm & blues. The Hammond organ plays an important role. Compared to hard bop, soul jazz has a more ‘earthy and bluesy’ character that invited dancing. Soul jazz quickly moved towards smooth jazz.

Some prominent names include: Cannonball Adderly (‘Work song’, 1963), Lee Morgan (‘The sidewinder’, 1963), Frank Foster (‘Samba blues’, 1963), Horace Silver (‘Song for my father’ ( 1964), Ramsey Lewis (‘The ‘in’crowd (1965, recording 1973), which became a hit and artists like Chick Corea, John McLaughlin and later the ‘Norwegian’ style of Bugge Wesseltoft. But here, too, fusion and smooth jazz are close to each others.

Finally, worth mentioning is the Cinematic Orchestra, which combines (classical) jazz, soul and the use of electronics, including turntables, in tuneful productions.

You can watch and listen to two songs of various kinds “To build a home” (sung by Patrick Watson) and “Breath” (sung by Fontella Bass), both live from the Barbican in London in 2007. You can listen to the latter track here.

The Cinematic Orchestra’s music has found its way to audiences through albums and performances but especially because of its frequent use in documentaries and (feature) films. 

Jazz and funk

Fusion was not limited to jazz, rock or soul. Herbie Hancock sought a crossover between jazz and funk. An example is his album Head Hunters (1973). It was already his 12de album, mar with it he broke through artistically and commercially.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=reCo-EfiuD8%3Fsi%3DkG7u9ErqgVvpCYj0%26start%3D53

Hancock had already begun to push the boundaries of hard bop. His first album, for instance, contained the song ‘Watermelon Man’(1962) featuring his tight funky piano playing. Miles Davis also made a foray into jazz funk, notably his album ‘On the Corner'(1972. This was an attempt on his part to narrow the gap with young African-Americans.

Characteristic of jazz funk is the strong backbeat (fourth beat). And the already early introduction of electronic synthesizers. 

As in the case of jazz rock, jazz’s hardliners reacted with aversion and talked about jazz for the dance halls. Nevertheless, the album Head Hunters was a significant moment in the development of jazz. It inspired jazz musicians, as well as funk, soul and hip-hop artists. It also stimulated the further use of synthesizers as a tool in the fusion genre. 

Smooth jazz

Many jazz musicians who chose fusion also wanted to increase the acceptance of their music, hence the  transition between fusion and smooth jazz is gradual.

Features:

– Most songs are ‘downtempo’ (90-105 counts per minute) 

– The melody is usually played by just one instrument.  This is usually a saxophone or an electric guitar.

– Smooth jazz often shuns improvisation and emphasizes a melodic whole. This is why commercially oriented ‘would be’ jazz is often referred to disparagingly.

Guitarist Wes (Leslie) Montgomery laid the foundations for smooth jazz in the last years of his still young life (he died in 1968 at the age of 45), making music that appealed to both jazz and pop lovers. Before that, he mainly played (hard) bop. Examples include ‘Here Is That  Rainy Day‘ (1965). ‘Full House‘ and ‘Round Midnight’, which you can watch and listen to below.

By the early 1980s, much of the original fusion genre had been subsumed into other branches of jazz and rock, especially smooth jazz, which included a rapidly growing number of artists. These include Gerge Benson Al Jarreau, Anita Baker, Chaka Khan and Sade, as well as saxophonists such as Grover Washington Jr, Kenny G, Kirk Whalum, Boney James and David Sanborn.

Pluralism

Since the 1990s, jazz has been characterized by a pluralism, with a wide range of styles, genres and blends, each with its own fans. Fusion occupies an important place here. The style has brought together a multitude of genres, bringing back the jazz audience, mainly thanks to the combination of melody and rhythm.

From the beginning of the 21ste century, jazz has become a distinct and popular type of music more than before. A number a young musicians are making themselves heard, including pianists Jason Moran and Vijay Iyer, guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel, vibraphonist Stefon Harris, trumpeters Roy Hargrove and Terence Blanchard in the US.

In the UK, these were Sons of Kemet, Shabaka Hutchings, Ezra Collective and Moses Boyd.

Established jazz musicians like Wayne Shorter, John Scofield, Jan Garbarek, Pat Metheny, Brad Mehldau, Olga Konkova, Christian McBride, Per Mathisen and supergroup Snarky Puppy integrating conventional instruments and electronics. You can watch and listen to the latter here.

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Avant-garde jazz (The development of jazz 4/11)

Leon Zernitsky: Free Jazz

Avant-garde jazz developed from the mid-50’s and was mostly called free jazz from the 70s onwards. Avant-garde is an originally military term that, in the world of art refers to deliberately breaking existing norms. This is often done to experiment, to stand up to other artists or to make a political statement. 

Anyone hearing avant-garde jazz for the first time is likely to be confused, if not averse.  In that case, it is important to remember that all art forms have avant-garde. Some examples of classically oriented avant-garde composers of the 20th century include Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Philip Glass. Listening to their compositions helps to get a first idea of this kind of music and perhaps to begin appreciating it.  Therefore, here you can listen to Karlheinz Stockhausen’s composition ‘Gruppen’ (1955 – 1957), played by Ensemble Intercontemporain, which consists of no less than three orchestras. 

Already somewhat used to avant-garde music? Now you listen to what this genre sounds like in jazz. But first this. We tend to appreciate music most that we recognise.  This usually involves melody, meter (3/4 or 4/4), rhythm and structure (stanza/refrain). The creators of this music employ an ‘idiom’, just as every language has its own idiom. The better you know that idiom, the easier it is to speak that language or be able to bring home and appreciate that music.  Sometimes you will sing along with a song even if you have only heard it once.

Avant-garde artists got rid of the idiom they had become accustomed to in previous years. They looked for other ways to organise ‘sounds’. This primarily involved the expression express of their own mood or an abstract idea.

Features

– The tempo can vary or be pulsed. Regularly slowing down and speeding up gives the impression that the music is moving like a wave.

– Rhythm can change constantly, sometimes along with changes in pace. 

– Different time signatures are used simultaneously (polyrhythmic)

– Free jazz is often atonal rather than using a fixed key. 

– Band members often improvise at the same time (collective improvisation).

– Identical lines are often played simultaneously, where tempo and timbre may differ (contrapuntal interaction)

– Using chromatic scales (all 12 tones of an octave are used) and microtonality (pitch differences of a quarter or less)

– Abandoning fixed chord progressions

– Chords can be placed under any note to accentuate it, regardless of the meter.

– Many practitioners have a fascination with earlier jazz styles, such as dixieland with its collective improvisation, with African music and more broadly with world music. 

– Sometimes they would play African or Asian instruments or invent their own ones.

The idiom of free jazz is thus much less pre-given and thus offers the listener little to hold on to. This is precisely what makes free jazz attractive to fans.

Forerunners

One of the first musicians to use atonal improvisation in his compositions was Lennie Tristan. In “Intuition” (1950), only the order in which the musicians participate in ensemble playing and its timing are predetermined. Key, beat, tempo, melody or rhythm were left open. Contrapuntal interaction was used as a means of maintaining cohesion. Appreciation among fellow musicians varied. Charlie Parker who was always open to innovation was enthusiastic, others found it too avant-garde and doubted whether this kind of work could ever become popular.

In 1953, he released “Descent into the Maelstrom”. It was based on Edgar Allan Poe’s story of the same title and consisted of an improvised piano solo, using multitracking (superimposing several recordings), which had no preconceived harmonic structure. Instead, he built on a series of motifs. You can listen to this work here:

You can now watch and listen to “City of Glass”, written in 1948 by Bob Graettinger for the Stan Kenton band. It is a four-voice piece that in one long movement “narrates”) the contents of a poem (tone poem).

It is characterised by polyphonic and atonal intensity. The composition was fully in line with Stan Kenton’s aspiration to play ‘progressive’ jazz to be listened to in a concert hall, thus bridging the gap between (avant-garde) jazz and classical music.

The composition is performed here by David Kweksilber Bigband in Amsterdam (2013)

In the late 50s, Ornette Coleman, Albert Aylor, Archie Shepp, Cecil Taylor, Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Sun Ra, among others, applied their own accent. I highlight some of these artists.

Ornette Coleman

The term “free jazz” comes from Ornette Coleman‘s 1961 album “Free Jazz, a collective improvisation”. Earlier albums were “The Shape of Jazz to Come” and “Change of the Century” (1959).

“Free Jazz, a collective improvisation” lasts 37 minutes, which at the time was the longest recording of a jazz song ever. The piece was recorded with two quartets, each having its own stereo channel. Both quartets played simultaneously, with the two rhythm sections laying a dense rhythmic foundation for the horns soloing, interspersed with pre-composed passages. These passages consist of short and dissonant interplay between solos. You can listen to it now. 

Coleman has continued to experiment into the 21ste century, increasingly using electronic instruments. His pallet of styles has broadened considerably. On this recording, he plays the song Song X with Pat Metheny, in pronounced free jazz style (1985). Herehe plays Virgin Beauty (1980), which seems more like a free form of cool jazz. He is the second jazz musician after Wynton Marsalis to receive the Pulitzer Prize.

Albert Ayler

Albert Ayler was one of the most important composers and performers during in the early days of free jazz. At the beginning of his career as a bebop tenor saxophonist in Scandinavia, he had already begun to push the boundaries of tonal jazz and blues to their harmonic limits. He began collaborating with free jazz musicians such as Cecil Taylor in 1962. 

One of Ayler’s most important free jazz songs is “Spiritual Unity (1964). You can listen to that here. The song is played here by Marc Ribot at the Vision Festival XI on 19 June 2007.

Timbre is the backbone of his playing rather than harmony and melody.  His ecstatic music as “Ghosts” (1964) and “Spirits Rejoice” (1965), included simple, themes interspersed with group improvisations. 

Ayler stretched the jazz idiom to its limits and many of his compositions hardly resemble jazz of the past. He exploited the possibilities of microtonal improvisation. This involves reducing the distance between notes. By tinkering with his saxophone, he was able to achieve polyphonic effects. 

Cecil Taylor

As a classically trained musician, Taylor was particularly influenced by European avant-garde composers such as Bela Bartók and Karlheinz Stockhausen. His piano playing was influenced by Thelonious Monk and Horace Silver, who play a key role in Taylor’s later unconventional use of the piano. This sounds like 88-tuned drums. 

The composition “Unit Structures” (1966) marks his transition to free jazz. He made hardly any use of scores, time signatures and harmonic progressions. The work is complex and has a rich timbre. The two bassists make varied contributions to the whole. One provides the driving force; the other is volatile and mysterious. You can listen to the composition here.

John Coltrane

Coltrane’s most work belongs to the post-bop genre. His record “Ascention” (1965) shows his appreciation of free jazz. On this record, Coltrane expanded his quartet to include six hornsplayers, including Archie Shepp and Pharoah Sanders.[8]:   The composition features free solo improvisation. One of the hallmarks of Pharoah Sanders’ and John Coltrane’s playing on this record is overblowing.

Sun Ra

Much of Sun Ra’s music can be classified as free jazz, especially his work from the 1960s. His earlier work was more melodic in nature, but even after that time, many works have a hybrid character, with elements of ragtime, swing, bebop and fusion. His work “The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra” (1966) was characterised as black mysticism. Many compositions were created while experimenting and improvising in the studio. 

Sun Ra has recorded more than 100 albums. He also performed frequently. His success was limited to a small group of followers. You can watch a recent performance by the Sun Ra Arkestra (2022) here. Sun Ra died in 1993 at the age of 79.

Elements of free jazz have blended with other styles and genres over the years, whose diversity has also increased as a result.

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Bebop and cool jazz (The development of jazz 3/11)

Stan Getz and Chet Baker (1983)

Band members had been drafted into the army and they were replaced by young players, like Stan Getz, who was still a teenager, dance venues had to pay more entertainment taxes and closed their doors, and conflicts arose over royalties. But more importantly, a growing number of musicians were dissatisfied with the commercially motivated artistic demise of (big band) jazz.

Dissatisfaction with mainstream jazz

The music they made was not for dancing, but for listening (“musicians’ music”). They established small ensembles, usually consisting of saxophone (alto or tenor), trumpet, piano, guitar, double bass and drums. This musical development . I’ll show you an example of what it sounded like. It is Allen’s Ally (song by Coleman Hawkins (1946) played by Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie and Sonny Stitt in 1958

Characteristics of bebop

Practitioners of bebop set high artistic standards and had to be proficient with their instrument. The main characteristics of bebop are:

 – A piece of music has a wider collection of sounds than a usual melody line. 

– The sequence of notes forms a complex pattern, dissonances were not shunned.

– The tempo is fast; sometimes up to 200 counts per minute. Go dance to that!

– The rhythm section often connects the different improvisations, or they flow into each other through a kind of dialogue.

– Starting points for new songs are sometimes themes borrowed from existing pieces of music extended with complex harmonies.

– The original theme is often played at the beginning and at the end, with improvisations by all band members alternating in between. 

Artists

Key figures of this genre included alto saxophonist Charlie Parker; tenor saxophonists Dexter Gordon, Sonny Rollins and James Moody; clarinetist Buddy DeFranco; trumpeters Fats Navarro, Clifford Brown, Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie; pianists Bud Powell, Barry Harris and Thelonious Monk; electric guitarist Charlie Christian; and drummers Kenny Clarke, Max Roach and Art Blakey.

Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie recorded one of the first bebop records with the Billy Beckstine Orchestra in 1944. You can still hear many features of big band jazz in this, but the melody is more complicated.

Jazz standards

Standards composed by bebop musicians include: Gillespie’s “Salt Peanuts” (1941) and “A Night in Tunisia” (1942; recording 1981), Charlie Parker’s “Yardbird Suite” (1946) and “Scrapple  from  the Apple” (1947), and Monk’s “‘Round Midnight“, currently the most recorded jazz standard composed by a jazz musician. You can listen here to Parker’s “Anthropologie” (1946), played by the NDR big band in 2020, Parker’s 100ste birthday.

Audience reception

The prevailing opinion of the public was that bebop no longer is music, which you listen to with pleasure, but consisted of runaway, nervous, erratic and often fragmented sounds, in which hardly any melody can be recognised. Nor did most jazz musicians see in bebop the promised restoration of the artistic level of jazz. After all, listeners need to experience artistry, and artistry is much more than virtuosity.

From bebop to cool jazz 

Charlie Parker and Miles Davis performed together as bebop musicians from 1944 – 1948, but Miles Davis began to feel increasingly uneasy with the songs they were playing. He formed a band of his own and experimented for two years with like-minded colleague. They felt that their music should contain a rich palette of harmonies. The sounds of the wind instruments had to blend rather than oppose each other. They also reduced the tempo. Eventually, this experimentation did lead to a trend-setting album, “The birth of the cool”, in 1957.  The recordings were made by a ‘nonet’ (a nine-piece band). The full recording of this album can be listened to here. Below you will find a recording of one of the songs, “Venus of Milo” composed by Gerry Mulligan, played by the Frankfurt Radio Big Band.

Characteristics of cool jazz

– The pieces are more strongly arranged and contain less improvisation than was the case with bebop.

– As with bebop, existing themes are often starting points; they are sometimes borrowed from classical works.

– Nervous energy and tension of bebop gives way to a tendency towards calmness and softness through the choice of long, linear melodic lines.

– The interplay of instruments is mainly focused harmony, rather than melody.

– Strives for brighter tones, subtlety and learning from other musical genres.

Chet Baker

Chat Baker, singer and trumpeter, is considered a great innovator within cool jazz and was dubbed the “Prince of Cool” for it. He joined Gerry Mulligan’s quartet in 1952. They developed a unique style: Instead of playing identical melody lines as solos, both complemented each other by anticipating what the other was going to play. He also received rave reviews in the 1950s for his singing, for instance here on his record “It could happen to you” (1958) 

His musical career was erratic (see the episode dedicated to him in this series) and was interrupted by long periods of drug addiction and imprisonment. He picked up his career again in late 1970.

Top of the list of 1930s jazz standards is the song “My Funny Valantine”, from the musical “Babes”. This song appears on more than 1,300 albums and has been performed by 600 different artists. One of the most intriguing versions is Chat Baker’s (1987) one year before his death. You can listen to this one now.

Modern Jazz Quartet

A special contribution to the development of cool jazz was made by the Modern Jazz Quartet, also because of its unusual composition: piano, vibraphone, bass and drums.  The four original members formed the rhythm section of Dizzy Gillespie’s band in the late 1940s. This group created its own niche in the cool jazz movement. They played elegant, understated music that often involved classical fugues.  You can hear that here in the 1956 song Django on the album of the same name, named after Belgian jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt. 

Others who contributed to cool jazz were Dave Brubeck, Bill & Gill Evans, Stan Getz and John Coltrane. Charlie Parker also started playing more melodically in the 1950s 

On the following episodes

From the 1950s, the number variants within and between  genres increased. The coming episode of this series  will deal with three trends, some of which occurred and are still occurring in parallel, each encompassing different genres. The first is the creation of music with a minimum of melodic and harmonic conventions. We then speak of avant-garde or free jazz (issue 4/11). The second is seeking enrichment through crossovers to other musical styles, ranging from pop, blues, funk, hip hop and others. We summarise this under the name fusion (episode 5/11). The third trend is the search for the assumed true nature of jazz. I summarise these attempts under the name back to basics (episode 6/11). 

Incidentally, you will come across some musicians in every genre. These are musicians who constantly sought innovation such as Miles Davis and John Coltrane.