THIRD STREAM, which more overtly blended jazz with Western classical music than other forms of jazz. Much of the early work of bassist Charles Mingus, such as the 1954 release, “Minor Intrusion,” is considered to be Third Stream. (Though you will also enjoy later, bluesier Mingus, such as “Devil Blues,” which we can see him and his band perform live at Monteaux in 1975.)
Here are twelve essential third stream performances.
[wpspoiler name=”Miles Davis and John Coltrane perform So What? in 1959″ open=”true” style=”aatw-video”][/wpspoiler]
Others of the many subgenres of jazz that developed in the ’50s and ’60s included MODAL JAZZ, in which musicians based their compositions not on a progression of chords, but on the relationship notes have to each other in “modes,” which are types of scales–“So What,” with Miles Davis on trumpet and John Coltrane on saxophone is a prime example.
BIG BAND BLUES/”JUMP BLUES”:
“Jump” blues took the basic spirit and rhythms of boogie woogie and transformed them into a popular style of energetic, highly danceable music. While some big bands of the ’40s and ’50s played songs in the the jump blues style, most jump blues ensembles were a bit smaller–six or seven performers, featuring just three horns, especially a tenor saxophone and a rhythm section, rather than sixteen or more performers in a big band–and therefore less expensive to hire at swing dances and at nightclubs.
[Watch big band blues vocalist JIMMY RUSHING perform “Going to Chicago” with Benny Goodman’s big band supporting him. | Watch vibe player LIONEL HAMPTON and his band performing, “Flying Home” in 1957 |
[wpspoiler name=”Watch Ornette Coleman (on sax) and his Sextet perform in Germany in 1978.” open=”true” style=”aatw-video”][/wpspoiler]
In the 1960s an experimental, seemingly chaotic form called “Free jazz” became popular among jazz musicians, though not as much among the general population. Free jazz was challenging and unhinged, a style of jazz in which all musicians in an ensemble may be improvising wildly at the same time with little regard for a chord progression. The horns in particular made jarring squeaks and squawks, and the drums very rarely kept everyone’s beat. (AVANT-GARDE JAZZ is a similar subgenre, though it features a more predetermined chord structure over which improvising takes place than free jazz.)
“Free jazz” musicians seemed to understand what other free jazz musicians were doing, affording leaders of the movement such as Texas-born, New Orleans and then Los Angeles-based saxophone player ORNETTE COLEMAN great respect for their mastery of the form. Others questioned whether there was a form at all to be found in Coleman’s expansive and, critics claimed, indulgent musical exploration. Coleman himself only claimed to be following the music he found in the world around him.
[Learn about Ornette Coleman’s energizing–and controversial–arrival at “The Five Spot” in New York City’s East Village in 1959 | W 1978 | Listen to Coleman explain his approach to music in this recent infterview: “Sound is to people what the sun is to light.”]
[wpspoiler name=”Thelonious Monk performs Straight No Chaser in 1965″ open=”true” style=”aatw-video”][/wpspoiler] In the 1940s a new jazz style called “Bebop” emerged somewhat as a counter-movement to Big Band. Bebop ensembles were small–five or six musicians at most, most often featuring drums, bass, piano, trumpet and sax–and performed complicated arrangements that often featured irregular rhythms. These compositions were fascinating to hear but were not made for the dance hall.
Bepop’s virtuosic musicians communicated with each other and with audiences through fast and frenzied improvisation. Trumpeter DIZZY GILLESPIE–he of the amazingly stretchable cheeks and alto saxophone player CHARLIE “BIRD” PARKER, who first came to epitomize the intellectual/”hipster”/artist of the Beat Generation, then, sadly, the intellectual/”hipster”/artist who succumbed to substance abuse (PBS introduces you to
the life and times of Charlie Parker), pioneered bebop, taking advantage of the improvisational freedom the style afforded them as instrumentalists to bring the deep emotion of the blues back into jazz. Other jazz pioneers like idiosyncratic pianist and “High Priest of Bebop” THELONIOUS MONK advanced the genre with their unpredictable compositions. [Learn about Monk by watching the documentary “Straight, No Chaser.”|
Bebop as a jazz form came to maturity in the 1960s and then morphed and developed into other subgenres. For example, musicians like ART BLAKEY and the THE JAZZ MESSENGERS added a groovy, slightly more danceable edge to Bebop, weaving blues and gospel into their tunes. This genre became known as “Hard Bop.” Jazz heavyweights MILES DAVIS and JOHN COLTRANE, as well as trailblazing jazz guitarist WES MONTGOMERY, adopted this style and continued to harden the bop.
[Charlie Parker’s 1945 “Ko-ko” is widely considered to be the first bebop recording. (Dizzy
Gillespie joins him on trumpet.) | Watch Charlie Parker on alto sax and Dizzy Gillespie on trumpet perform “Hot House” in 1952 | Watch the Theonious Monk Quintet perform Monk’s composition, “Straight, No Chaser” in 1965 | Watch Art Blakey (on drums) and the Jazz Messengers performing Dizzy Gillespie’s “A Night in Tunisia” live in 1958 | Listen to John Coltrane’s hard bop classic, “Moment’s Notice” | Watch Miles Davis perform bebop classic, “Walkin” in 1967 | Watch Wes Montgomery’s wonderful performance of “I Love Blues“]
Bebop was primarily instrumental but every so often musicians sang their melodies, or variations on their melodies, in an improvised form of singing that mimicked their instruments. This type of singing, known as “SCAT,” uses vocables to play with and even enhance the melody. Among the conflicting accounts of the origin of the term “bebop,” is a theory posits that “be” and “bop” were common scat syllables that often appeared together. Popular band leaders like CAB CALLOWAY used scat as a way to involve the audience in the vocal part of his compositions often through call and response. Jazz vocalists like ELLA FITZGERALD developed their own version of scat singing, using the voice to imitate jazz instruments.
In class we’re going to try a little scat singing, improvising sounds, imitating instruments and calling and responding ’til the cows come home.
[Listen to Cab Calloway sing “The Scat Song” and also “Zaz Zuh Zaz,” which sounds a whole lot like the more lyrically bawdy, and more famous, “Minnie the Moocher” | Watch Ella Fitzgerald perform her scat-arific “One Note Samba” in 1969, a version of which we’ll hear in class.]
[wpspoiler name=”Danzon la Bella Cubana” open=”true” style=”aatw-video”][/wpspoiler]
COUNTRY: Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico (U.S.)
In the 1790s, French colonists fleeing the Haitian Revolution settled in Cuba and brought with them the Contradanza, which was a “sequence dance,” in which people danced together to make particular figures. By the 1850s the classical Contradanza, danced primarily in Havana by upper and upper-middle class “Europeanized” Cubans, was known as “DANZÓN.” By the early 1900s former slaves had begun to do the contradanza, infusing it with the syncopated “cinquillo” rhythm, bringing it out of the socialites’ dance halls and “into the street.” Over time, the contradanza in 2/4 (see the Everything is a Drum rhythm guide for an intro to time signatures) grew not only into the danzón, but also into the popular habanera rhythm. The contradanza in 6/8 eventually helped form the clave. About danzón | Lord Tiger’s introduction to danzón | A Cuban flute danzón | Cuba: Rhythm in Motion | An introduction to danzón styles via YouTube
Formal Cuban dance music of the late 1800s and early 1900s. Danzón drew its main inspiration from European sequence dances like the contradanza, though it added some African instruments like the timbales and the guiro.
Later, danzón ensembles called charangas added cello, flute and pianos. About danzón | A Cuban flute danzón
Norteño music is a dynamic mix of Spanish melodies with the dance music of Central and Eastern European immigrants to Mexico and the Southwestern United States. Learn all about Polish polka and the role it played in the formation of norteño music.
COUNTRY: Mexico
KEY INSTRUMENTS: Accordion, Bajo Sexto, Bass, Drum kit
[mappress mapid=”16″ center=”-8, -60″ zoom=”3″]
