Tag Archives | Jazz

All is Jazzy in Japan

We end our jazzy week in the jazziest of all jazzy nations — Japan. Jazz became popular in Japan as early as the 1920’s. While Imperial Japan was wary of Western music, especially in the years before and during World War II, when American soldiers occupied Japan starting in the mid 1940s, Japanese musicians were quick to embrace the form. Today “J-Jazz” is so popular that some jazz watchers claim Japan has the more jazz fans than the U.S. Take that, America!

Glad to have had the chance to be jazzy with you this week. Next week we really get down to business with a week full of “work songs.”

Jazz in the Northernmost North

Jazz may have been born in steamy New Orleans, but musicians around the world find a way to sizzle no matter where they live. For example, jazz is widely popular in Scandinavia, where our northernmost performers may not necessarily be funky but they certainly can be fabulous. In this video the too-soon-departed pianist Esbjörn Svensson makes the case for jazzy Swedes.

Afrobeat Plus Jazz = Kokoroko

Nigerian musical icon Fela Kuti fused Afrobeat from many international styles, drawing in great part from West African rhythms as well as American funk, blues and jazz. Today Afrobeat orchestras like London’s Kokoroko Afrobeat Collective prominently place jazz at the heart of their African explorations.

Ethio-Jazz with Taste of Tabla

Jazz may have formed in the U.S. but musicians worldwide were quick to “get hip.” Genres upon genres of music worldwide have developed in some interplay with jazz. Here we hear Ethiopian vocalist GiGi performing international fusion that finds a good deal of information in both South Asian music and Ethiopian Jazz (“Ethio-Jazz.”)

So What?

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. Bepop’s virtuosic musicians communicated with each other and with audiences through fast and frenzied improvisation. In particularly, jazz heavyweights Miles Davis and John Coltrane were fearless musical pioneers.

Big Bands are the Best Bands

Though jazz mainly originated in the early 20th century among African-American musicians, by the early 1920s everyone realized jazz was awesome. Soon “big bands,” composed of ten or more musicians who sat or stood in rows while they were performing, formed to play Jazz songs. (Often the bands were segregated by race, but musicians are musicians are musicians, and were quicker than most to cross boundaries.) Though much more like Western Classical orchestras than free-flowing New Orleans “Dixieland ensembles,” they became popular in dance halls and on the recently accessible-to-the-masses radio, bringing jazz to the the nation. In this video you’ll see the big band of Benny Goodman, the best of the best.

All That Jazz — Jazz is everywhere!

All Around This World US and Canada "Everywhere Map"

This week in class we spend a few days in the U.S. .diving deep into JAZZ. The roots of jazz, like the roots of all forms of modern American music, are global, and there are also many. You have the millennia-old African-American traditions of call and response, of intertwining rhythms, of improvisation in drumming and singing and dance. You have the European Western Classical traditions of melody and harmony, of rich musical theory, of a multi-instrumental approach to arranging and performing music. You also have the Latin tradition of syncopation, taking a straightforward rhythm and twisting it until it feels just right.

From Lahore With Love — the Sachal Jazz Ensemble

We end our week of Pakistani exploration by meeting te Sachal Jazz Ensemble, a Pakistani musical sensation that embodies the hope of this complex South Asian nation

The 2016 documentary The Sachal Ensemble — Song of Lahore tells the tale of how the Sachal Jazz Ensemble overcame conservative religious oppression as it achieved international success, integrating traditional Pakistani music with the best of global jazz. Good news from Pakistan? Yes!

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