Musical Changes In Jazz example essay topic

As time goes by in music, style changes. Most societies are constantly learning to better themselves (with the accept ion of some cultures which purposefully stay at an e comical plateau for the purpose of maintaining tradition and religion). Everyone would agree that music has changed since, say, the 19th century although not everyone would agree that that change is for the better. But with all these views and opinions aside, music is constantly in a state of change. I'm going to look at what causes these changes and specifically look at the evolution of the swing era. New Orleans, in the state of Louisiana, has been re known for its contribution to Jazz.

Many great Jazz musicians have been there in the past - Louis Armstrong, Freddie Kep pard and Bill Johnson to name a few. It had a diverse cultural legacy of which music played a big part. Europeans brought over a lot of classical musicians as it was founded as a French Colony in 1718. It became part of America in 1803 during the Louisiana Purchase.

In 1810, it was named the fifth largest U.S. city. 1861 marked the end of the American Civil War and in 1865, slavery was abolished against the will of the Con-feder acy (Southern States). But during the war, the Union (Northern States) managed to take New Orleans and so black people therefore enjoyed freedom and had a headstart in the abolition of slavery. So New Orleans became a city where black people were free and the feeling was unique to the southern states. During the post-war reconstruction, troops were brought in. They brought their instruments with them and played military music during their work.

When they left, they discarded their instruments on the streets for poor people, especially black people, to pick up and use. Out of this march music came a far more rhythmically advanced interpretation by the black community. There was a mounting enthusiasm for social dancing which, when mixed with the social atmosphere of the time, fused to form what we call 'rag-time', meaning 'ragged time'. It consisted of a strong pulse, inherited from marching music, but it added emphasis on the off-beats. Common ragtime music featured a piano, a banjo and a small wind section, probably a single trumpet, trombone and clarinet. Brass instruments became more popular and available during the reconstruction because of the marching bands.

Ragtime is more popularly known for Scott Joplin's solo piano work. Musicians migrated to bigger towns to find work and planted themselves in clubs and dance halls "The large commercialized dance halls came to focus on morally restrained, often athletic social dancing and encouraged bands of arranged, big band music designed to stimulate it". As musicians increased, band sizes increased. As clubs became more popular among the public, bands increased. There were more and more clubs every year and as the awareness of some popular bands and even single artists like Armstrong increased, the demand for the clubs increased. The entertainment industry was booming.

In the year 1920 alone, 150 million records were sold. Radios had been invented and were distributed and bought by a lot of America and Europe. The record industry was booming as people wanted to be able to play their favourite pieces. Radios and the record industry worked together - the radios played the tunes and then the people heard them 100 and bought them.

Also, musical instruments became more available. High quality instruments with wide ranges, consistent tone throughout the spectrum of pitch, good articulation and highly vocal sounds. Musicians, especially the poorer black society spent and spent. All people started to spend more as the dollar became more valuable and so the businesses including the clubs raised their prices eventually leading the public to demand higher wages forming a circle of inflation. The massive boom led to a massive bust in October 1929 called the Wall Street Crash. The record industry took a financial blow as people couldn't buy records anymore, but the radio was cost-free, it unified the people as they listened to the same thing at the same time.

The work places for most musicians until then and through the depression were the clubs and speakeasies ("places where alcoholic drink was sold illicitly during prohibition"). But the headlong spending of money on drink was one of the causes of the depression. People just wanted to drink and dance their troubles away. President Roosevelt realised the careless spending and placed tax on drink. People were discouraged from going to the clubs and so the effects of the Wall Street Crash started to mend. But musicians were forced to find work elsewhere.

Many migrated to New York or Chicago in search of jobs in dance halls and on radio. Some made it through and found jobs in more respectable places. But its as if the depression forced musicians to the big cities, bringing them all together. Musicians became easier to find and bands got much bigger. Arrangers and orchestrators were easier to find.

Musicians started to come together in the big cities. The economy called for a more conventional type of Jazz thereafter seeking a less reckless, feisty style of popular music. They didn't know it, but they were moving from New Orleans style to Swing. The momentum of recklessness in finance and the arts and culture called for a much more relaxed season in the economy and so producers, publishers and band leaders who were on the cutting edge at the time, took music into a laid back era - the Swing era. The nationalization of jazz and dance band booking also solidified the power of white people over African-American popular music across the nation. But as the economy changed, leaders of clubs and dance halls allowed black people to get jobs there.

With an increasingly healthy social atmosphere, and the pressure upon white musicians to make their acts more convincing to managers of dance halls, bands started to filter out the negative aspects of the bands. Leaders were chosen for their entertainment value and their ability to work with an audience and a band at the same time. Music and style was re-thought and with the ongoing pressure of the changing times, style changed dramatically. Benny Goodman was, around the time of the wall street crash, working with the Ben Pollock Orchestra.

Then he formed a big-band with Fletcher Henderson as the arranger. The reaction was more than he expected, as America tuned in to hear the new sound of Jazz. He was called by NBC (National Broadcasting Company) in 1933 to audition for the job of being the featured 'hot jazz' band on a program called 'Lets Dance'. The radio program was broadcasted on Saturday nights and contained 3 hours and 3 bands. He formed a trio with Gene Kr upper (Drums) and Teddy Wilson (Piano).

The group became a quartet with Lionel Hampton on the Vibes and a Quintet with Charlie Christian on the guitar. This was the first public band that included mixed ethnicity - a huge step in the complex realms of society. The musical changes in jazz that happened in the 30's were profound. As well as the addition of lots of wind instruments, the banjo was discarded from its massive popularity in the 20's, drummers moved from used the snare for time-keeping to the ride cymbal, and the bass lines became 4 to a bar. Melodies became more fluent due to the need for strict articulation with large wind sections, harmony became less pentatonic, leading up to the complex five, six and seven voice chords of Be-Bop. Rhythm was less jolted and on-the-beat (it had become like that with the influence of the marching music).

Of course, it wasn't called 'The Swing Era' at the time but bands were certainly aware of the fact that music was changing in the 30's. Jazz had been the "central cultural experience of the 1920s" but by no means did it stop there. "By comparison, the emerging Swing Era would inherit the racial segregation of big city dance halls of the twenties, which had allowed only all-white audiences, would confine jazz soloists to arrangement-reading dance bands, and would dilute the musical experience in large open spaces filled with self-absorbed social dancers". Goodman hadn't created a new phrase - "swing". In fact, the word swing was used in Jazz before Goodman came into the picture. For example Duke Ellington produced a song in 1932 called It Don't Mean a Thing (if it ain't got that Swing) and the rhythmic factors that contribute to swing existed long before Goodman.

But what Goodman managed to do was capture the attention of an enthusiastic, young audience. Gunther Schuller recognized three factors that The Swing Era consisted of, all of which started in the 20's. Firstly, symphonic jazz is a type of large-scale orchestration. It involved the arranging of popular tunes and the re-working of some standards which led through the Bop Era. Secondly, virtuoso soloists which stand out above other musicians. People like Bix Beiderbecke, Paul Whiteman, Flecther Henderson and of course, Louis Armstrong.

Lastly, trained musicians started to multiply throughout the Swing period. Musicians that could read and write music, that could put together tighter pieces. Another cause of the development and success of Swing was the fact that its 'creator' was white. It was a white adaption of black music. At the time of the rise of Swing, the white population was beginning to buy a lot more jazz records and learn how to play jazz.

And with Teddy Wilson, Cootie Williams and Charlie Christian, all black musicians, joining Goodmans band, the face of Jazz changed. From the mid-30's, it was customary for black and white musicians to appear on stage together. After Goodman, Al Jolson and Glenn Miller. Jazz had found a bigger audience with the help of Goodman. With the increase of white musicians, and the influence from the european classical musicians passing their methods and skill down the generations, jazz worked its way onto published manuscript. Band leaders wrote down everything, because the number of musicians in the new big band sound called for some order.

The sound of jazz in the 20's was reckless and happily improvised with little set structure. Now there were around 4 trumpets, 4 trombones, 5 saxes and a rhythm section in many big bands. Swing music had become the new sound of jazz. Its big 'wall of sound' provided a huge contrast from the New Orleans Style. Tunes were put onto record and played over the radio. Jazz went from being a folk art to a business.

Duke Ellington realised early on that he'd have to have a big booking agency and be able to travel far, not just stay in New York. With Irving Mills he and his band got into radio, records, clubs and concerts. Because the music was recorded and written down, it suddenly became vulnerable to commercial benefits. Money was made over it, heroes and pop idols were produces from it, the power of its influence was exploited - jazz hit the wide world. With that in mind, let's look at todays pop music. The 'Pop " culture is widely believed to be a product of the twentieth century, although Charles Hamm traces its links and origins to the modern era, which extended from the late eighteenth century to the mid twentieth century, or from the industrial revolution through late capitalism.

The most popular view on pop music is that its constant updating of style and content doesn't adapt to society, but rather it spearheads the direction of society. For instance, Britney Spears dressing up in a school uniform and singing and dancing provocatively might be considered to be contributing to the rise in pedophilia and teen pregnancies. The duet Tatu might be considered to be spearheading a rise in homosexual rights and the acceptance of the practice of homosexuality. The most obvious reason for this would be the power of music. After all, what would a film be like without music?

What would the atmosphere be like in a car journey to work without a radio or cd / tape player? Music has much control over the emotions of a lot of cultures. But a major part of the philosophy of the pop culture is publicity and public opinion. If the majority of society likes what is being given to them, they will take it. Charles Hamm says: "Any cultures, at any time, in any place, reflects a collection of individuals, each with his own personality, ideas, beliefs, and attitudes. Certain events or the force of powerful political personality may lead numbers of people - even a majority of them - to agree on enough basic issues to give a particular culture a distinct flavour.

When this stage is reached, anything else that seems to fit into the general scheme of things will appear to be part of the culture, regardless of whether there is cause and effect relationship. And even when certain attitudes are predominant, there are always persons who do not share them, who are at odds with the way things are going". What Charles Hamm is saying is that there are certain individuals or movements that rise above the general society and add definition to vague areas, and in doing so, set trends and draw lines on what is normal. Areas most commonly effected by this change are: music, fashion, view points on sexual issues, film and TV, marra ige, law. Most of the areas are forms of art because the arts provide entertainment which is what humanity feels most comfortable with.

Once the masses start going in the direction of the change, everything else involved in the area falls under the influence, with or without being caused on purpose by the influence. As I said before, one of the major parts of pop culture is in publicity, to have a voice in society. The media has made it clear that the key to this publicity, is through commercialism. During the beginning of the capitalist movement, popular music was regarded as short lived and classical music was regarded as eternal. As I've already established, this was mainly due to the opposition to the change of society and evolution of music. Critics will have written negative reports about the 'new sound of music' and in doing so, kept society's opinion about it negative.

But soon after, in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, music began to take physical form, both in the rise of publication of written music and in phonographic discs. Popular music started to become eternal. Sigmund Spaeth once said that: "A classic is after all nothing more than a work of art that has established its permeance, and in music such a masterpiece may prove to be more honestly popular than any hit song of the moment". Evan Eisenberg suggests that once poetry has been written down, it becomes a "thing". It becomes preserved in the whole of eternity, therefore free, but also chained down by the fact that the words are now ordered, lines are structured, emotions are set in stone onto a piece of paper. The same therefore goes for all forms of art and expression.

Music, once recorded onto DAT, CD, cassette, vinyl etc becomes part of history's record collection. Eisenberg says that once music takes physical form, it has a massive effect on the future of society. It is sold to the masses and the power of its art-form re-directs society. But he also says that German writers in the nineteenth century called these people Philistines - people that saw anything of value as able to be sold. People would become philistines to either make beautiful things permenant, to understand beautiful things, to distinguish themselves as consumers, or to feel like they belong to a moment in time to which they never belonged (atavism, a form of nostalgia).

The definition of a philistine is therefore someone who takes what is valuable and reproduces it for commercial benefits, negating its uniqueness. During the wake of the mass reproduction and consumption of records in the 1930's, schools of thought started to increase. One arises from Marxism - the philo phy of Karl Marx (b. 1818, d. 1883). Marxism is founded on the belief that: "capitalism will ultimately be superseded by communism" The doctrine of capitalism, when applied to the arts, suggests that the state own and control music, drama, TV, film, literature, dance, theatre etc and use it for their own advantage - to subliminally suppress the community.

Aldous Huxley's book Brave New World (1932) depicts a future where humanity is controlled by the state via a drug. A regime controlled society keeping the masses happy and quiet. This is an extreme example of right wing oppression. The doctrine of communism, when applied to the arts, suggests that the community owns and controls the arts for its own purposes - entertainment, even the manipulation of the state. Theodor W. Adorno, a music specialist who studied Marxism, suggests two other spheres of music other than Sigmund Spaeth's Classical and Popular music.

He gives us 'serious " and 'non-serious " music. Classical music is serious, as it is intended for cultural entertainment. Serious music is natural. It is published and used by people for studying, playing and enjoying. On the other hand, non serious music is manipulated for studying, playing and enjoying. For example, James Bond theme tunes are, what a lot of people would call 'predictable' - they can dictate what sound, style, lyrics, motifs and themes the piece would contain BEFORE the entire piece is actually at its stylistic peak.

"The whole is pre-given and pre-accepted, even before the actual experience of the music starts: therefore it is not likely to influence, to any great extent, the reaction to the details, except to give them varying degrees of emphasis... To this limited situational extent the detail depends upon the whole. But no stress is ever placed upon the whole as a musical event, nor does the structure of the whole ever depend upon the details" Therefore, in the James Bond Theme Tune The Man With The Golden Gun, you know from the start that it's up-tempo, it involves a lot of brass, it's in a minor key and it's got a gutsy style both in the singing and the musical arrangement. For a boy-band to sing a James Bond Theme in their own style would be unthinkable, because everything that you hear at the beginning of a Bond Theme cries out loudly that the song is what it is. The brass, tonality and style are all what Adorno calls 'details'.

In order to function well, they depend upon what the song is expressing as a whole. Adorno also said that: "Popular music is bad, bound to be bad, without exception" The Swing Era has been considered to be popular music, as it was birthed in the rise of commercialism in music (although not the first instance of it). It was targeted at a certain audience - young people - for simple fact that the state wanted music to be less reckless and more enthusiastic. Duke Ellington once summed it all up: "Jazz in music, swing is business" Adorno comment that all popular music is bad can be considered too extreme because it helped recover society from the massive slump at the beginning of the 30's - so it can be used for bad then surely it can also be used for bad, it just depends whose hands its in. In serious music, the details are highly organised. If you were to look at Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D, you " ll see that there are many themes, mof its and ideas.

These details are arranged in such a way as to complement the concerto as a whole. The themes and their links are organised brilliantly so that they work together to achieve the whole. If you were to take one of these themes and compose a 'brand new' piece with it, the theme wouldn't achieve the desired effect because it was intended to fit in with its neighbouring themes. This process leaves little room for the benefits of commercialism as it is too in genius and simply lives to be enjoyed and studied by the professional and amateur listener. However, popular music contains larger, more clearly defined sections of music - choruses, verses, bridges and middle-eights. Each section works alone and the listener ends up liking one entire section over another.

The details do not complement each other and simply serve as cogs in a machine - the whole. For example, a triton e substitution is a typical stencil detail - it's a five-one cadence, it's just been changed slightly to give the sound a twist but it still fits into the stencil. This 'stencil mentality' allows any social force to exploit the piece of music for its own benefits. Adorno hypothesizes that pop music is used as a form of social control to keep its voting, working people (proletariat) happy - to stop them from protesting against their comfort. The music they put on in their car to 'relax' themselves after a hard day at work silences their voice from protesting against being driven into working and seeing nothing benefit them from it besides an income. I can conclude that Marxism therefore promotes folk-music, as it is almost totally untouched by commercialism and exists simply as a form of social culture.

Jazz started off as a folk-art (it was of the people). There were views during the emergence of the swing style that the real type of jazz was New Orleans and that everything else was rubbish. These people were called New Orleans Revivalists.