Jazz Festivals » Music Jazz

Jazz Influence and Fashion

admin2 — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 01:51:48 +0000

For years, jazz has influenced different countries culture. This influence is mostly spotted on fashion developments across the years. This industry targeted a society that revolved around a certain kind of music. The evolution in jazz music throughout the 1920s was accompanied by reflective changes in the fashion industry. The jazz music was so popular in the twenties, that the fashion industry was barely able to satisfy the needs of the costumers.

Like the music, jazz fashion evolved in a few stages. Upper and lower body freedom was essential when dancing the Charleston, so dresses were cut to reflect the ability to move freely while dancing.

The precarious hairstyles of the pre-war era were unsuitable for jazz dancing. The “bobbed” hairstyle of the 1920s was not only a mark of rebellion; it was a practical style for the popular dance music. The Charleston was a very strange and vigorous dance, and chest binding, while appearing bizarre to some people, would have been a functional practice for many women. In the Fashion Source book of the 1920s, Peacock states that an average ensemble for evening wear in 1927 would consist of: “A sleeveless mesh dress embroidered all over with gold sequins, a low V-shaped neckline, a loosely fitted bodice, and a flared short skirt. Gold kid shoes and matching handbag, along with a long string of pearls” (58).

Jazz music provided females of all ages with an outlet for rebellion. It helped to provide jobs for women within the music industry, and expanded the base of women as a consumer target market. Jazz encouraged primitive and sexual behavior through the uninhibited and improvisational feel of the music. This kind of music was rejected by the older generation, and therefore, jazz music and jazz dancing were ideal ways for young women (and even men) to rebel against the society of their parents and grandparents.

By: Johnh Thompson

Jazz Guitar Players – Immortalized By Their Musical Style

admin2 — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 21:28:13 +0000

Jazz guitar players are distinguished by their ability to improvise and each one has a unique style of their own. While there is no specific rule for improvisation, there are some great jazz guitar players who develop a pattern and technique, which sets them apart and makes them immortal in the world of music.

Different Styles Jazz Guitar Players Use

Some famous jazz guitar players develop the style of focusing on a few specific ideas when they play a solo. They tend to modify these with various techniques and rhythms – and this performance gives their audience the sense that they are experiencing something amazing. What’s more, it is possible for the audience to join in and sing with the song, making it a totally enjoyable experience. Every fan of Wes Montgomery will testify to this, as practically all his solos are wonderful to sing along with.

There are jazz guitar players like Holdsworth, Pat Metheny, etc. who follow a particular pattern where they focus on an intricate harmony, underplaying the rhythm part. You will find that it is not as easy to join in vocally with these kinds of solo players; nevertheless, these players are masters in terms of technique and hold their audiences enthralled with their music.

Another type is the kind of player with whom you can sometimes sing along, and sometimes not, depending on what he or she is playing. These players put in some work before their performance and time them with accuracy. When they play, they sound extremely practiced since it is like a preplanned performance flowing through a familiar chord progression. If you listen to Robert Conti, Pat Martino, etc. you will recognize the style.

Here is an inspiring look at ten of the most well-known and well-loved jazz guitar players who have inspired millions of aspiring guitarists through their most famous works:

Pat Metheny, best known for American Garage in 1999 has a very unique style with a blend of the Midwestern blues. He puts a lot of attitude and freedom into his jazz guitar playing, making him stand out. Jim Hall has the distinction of being a composer and a jazz guitar player who saw no limits. His “Concierto”, in 1997 was a masterpiece of his tonal abilities. Joe Pass’s work “Virtuoso” put him among the world’s best. He has a sense of melody and improvisation that is unmatched – so much so, he can play alone and yet sound like a band. Kenny Burrell, a Detroit player, has been a source of influence for players through the generations with his outstanding lyrics and blues-style. Wes Montgomery hailed from Indianapolis. But jazz music fans all over the world know him for his “Incredible Jazz Guitar”. He was so creative that he set a whole new trend to jazz guitar music with his techniques. Tal Farlow was an expert with his solos incorporating hard bop into them. Johnny Smith’s Moonlight in Vermont will be fresh in any jazz music fan’s memory forever. He was a master of chord arrangement with his jazz guitar playing, blending it with superb technique and artistry. Charlie Christian was a member of the Benny Goodman Sextet. He has the distinction of being among the first to use amplifiers and his modern jazz playing influences every jazz guitar player in some way or the other. Eddie Lang of the ‘Yazoo” fame is the incredible jazz guitar player who performed the solo recording “Feeling My Way”. He was the first Jazz guitar Virtuoso. Django Reinhardt, a European is famous for his gypsy jazz music, giving the jazz guitar fresh new sounds. His deformed left hand did not stop him from carving a unique place for himself in jazz music history with his fantastic control over techniques.

What the above proves is that each jazz guitar player is distinctive, no matter what ’style’ they are typecast into.

By: Brian Trainer

Popular Jazz Artists and Their Music

admin2 — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 14:27:19 +0000

Many people consider jazz as the one true original American music. However, just as the country is a hodge-podge of different cultures, its music a mixture of different beats and melodies. In fact, jazz is a combination of African beat and European melodic influences. The combination is so unique only to America, which is why it cannot be considered as something that came from somewhere else. Jazz was first heard in the suburban areas in the south during the late 1800’s, in communities that were largely populated by Afro-Americans.

Because of its origins, the early popular jazz music artists were blacks. The genre was still at its inception stage with ragtime as its earliest form. The usual instruments used to create such music were banjo and piano. The popular artists then were Ernest Hogan and Tim Turpin, who published the Harlem Rag. By the end of the century, jazz developed further with the innovations created by Scott Joplin. Being a pianist trained in the classical music, he created a beautiful fusion of his specialty and ragtime. By the beginning of the 20th century, the blues came into being, with W.C. Handy as one of the most popular artists of such genre.

Big bands usually play jazz music during the early years. However, when swing music, another new jazz form, rose to prominence in the 1930’s, soloists became more popular too. Swing music highlights the skills of the trumpeter. Because of this, the trumpet player usually ends up becoming more famous than the other musicians in the band. During this time, the genre’s icons, such as Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington grew so popular that any jazz lover should know them and their music.

From the danceable swing music, jazz evolved further in the 1940’s to 1960’s with bebop. Bebop is known as the musician’s music because it gave emphasis on the talents of the instrument players. Every musician in the band was provided with moments to shine, from the piano, the base, to the wind instruments in the band. Among the top trumpeters were Clifford and Dizzy Gillespie. The most popular among the pianists were Thelonius Monk and Bud Powell. Even drummers gained recognition, with Max Roach as one of the more famous ones.

The 70’s saw the development of jazz fusion, a bold attempt to combine the elements of rock and roll with the classic jazz sound. These were the times when the jazz artists, such as Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, and Tony Williams became very famous. Not only did they develop a new jazz sound. They also influenced even the rock and roll artists of the time, such Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, and the Grateful Dead.

By: Jim Oneil

A Guide to the Annual Brussels Jazz Festival

admin2 — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 00:58:15 +0000

Jazz fans from throughout the world descend on the city for this annual event which takes place from May 25th to May 27th of every year.

Prepare your ears for a feast as you set off for the Brussels Jazz Marathon where you can enjoy all the jazz you want, from funk to Latino, classic to improvisational, as the best of Europe’s musicians come out to play. For all music lovers and jazz aficionados, this festival cannot be missed.

If you are thinking of travelling to Brussels, try to time your trip to experience the Jazz Festival. Brussels is a musical city, famous for its jazz caf

Music Of France

admin2 — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 18:51:12 +0000

French music has greatly contributed and played an important role in the development of the European music and cinema. As French people are very fond of music and food, music is all the more popular in the country. Though a lot of music is influenced and brought in by British and American bands, French too have their own original music and genre.

The French have also bestowed a lot to the world of modern western music, jazz, rock and pop. In fact, modern western pop music has influenced music in France in a significant way, and this has resulted in the country seeing the rise of popular French rock, hip-hop, and pop performers.

After the introduction of operas in Italy, they were blended with French ballets and French operas also came up. The masters of French opera during the Baroque period were Jean-Baptiste Lully and his successor Jean-Philippe Rameau.

Spectral music, a form of computer assisted composition, developed by the French has become quite popular in Europe and the United States. French music is a blend of a variety of different music styles. Many great legendary composers have originated from French, and French music has greatly dominated European music and art. Immigrants from Africa, Latin America and Asia have significantly influenced French music. French hip hop, rock and pop performers are extremely popular in the country. Traditional or folk music basically survived in remote areas or nationalistic regions like Island of Corsica and Bretons. And, folk dances were seen more in the West of France in places like Courante.

There are deep differences between the regions of central France, with the Auvergne and Limousin retaining the most vibrant folk traditions of the area. The Bagpipe is found in wide forms in France compared to any other country. An unrelated unique ethnic group, called the Basques, has a form of folk music which is called Trikitixa. Spiritual or secular and even modern groups of 3 males are called music of Corsica and this music is considered to be extremely harmonious. City of Lorient hosts France’s most popular music festival. The most popular form of Breton folk is the bagad pipe band, which features native instruments like biniou and bombarde alongside drums and, in more modern groups, biniou braz pipes.

During the Renaissance, Burgundy became a major center for musical development. There was even a romantic era which gave birth to many music pioneers. At the end of World War II, French musicians experimented a lot with music and this creativity led to development of many different genres of music in France.

By: Jared Lee

Listen to Jazz Online Conveniently

admin — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 13:05:29 +0000

Are you jazz lovers? Do you usually listen to local jazz radios? Well, as you certainly have understood, jazz radios can become perfect sources of jazz. Those jazz radios usually do not only broadcast jazz music but also provide the latest information about jazz music, musicians, singers, and industry. In other words, jazz radios are perfect partner for jazz lovers.

If you love listening to jazz radios, there is a more convenient way to listen to them. You now are able to listen to Jazz Internet Radio so you don’t need to be afraid of being unable to listen to your favorite jazz radios while you are out of town. You will just need to go to JazzRadioToolbar.com in order to get the toolbar. Using the toolbar, you will be able to listen to Jazz Radio Online wherever you are through live streaming. There are more than ten jazz radios that can be listened and this means that you can satisfy yourselves with unlimited access of jazz music.

To Listen to Jazz Online, you should install the toolbar to your computer. You will need seconds to have the toolbar installed. If you want to uninstall the toolbar, you can use the uninstaller that can be downloaded from this website for free. In conclusion, now you can listen to your favorite jazz radios wherever you are. So, visit this website and get the toolbar now.

Jazz and Its Journey

admin — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 19:10:02 +0000

A lot of opinion that jazz are the music for elite and well established. But when us look back to root of the jazz may be spelled out members exactly leaves for back. Jazz is an expression art in the form of music. Jazz conceived of basal music in life man and way of evaluating his traditional values. Tradition jazz grows from a dusky skin public life style in oppressed America. Initially, influence from tribal drums and music gospel, blues and field hollers (rallying call of farmer) the parturition has showed that jazz hardly relating to defense of life and human life expression.

What is interesting is that of word “Jazz” comes from a vulgar term applied for action of sexual. Some of rhythms in jazz have ever been associated with houses for whore and women with dislike reputation. On the way then, jazz finally becomes form of music art, either in typical composition and also improvisation, what reflects melody spontaneously. Musicians jazz usually express the feeling which do not easy to be explained, because this music must be felt at heart. “If you ask it you will never know” so according to Louis Armstrong.

Legend of jazz is started in New Orleans and grows to Mississippi, Memphis, St. Louis, and finally Chicago. Of course jazz influenced by the music in New Orleans, tribal drums African and Europe for the music structure. Reasoning of jazz cannot be discharged from fact where jazz is influenced by many music such as: music spiritual, cakewalks, ragtime and blues. One of legend jazz believed that around 1891, an owner of hair shaped shave shop in New Orleans so called Buddy Bolden breezes it’s cornet and from that moment jazz started as new breakthrough in world of music. Half century after that, jazz in America gives many contributions in music world, studied in university, and finally becomes a music stream which is serious and considered.

Music Video Clip Website

By: Andri Irawan

African American Music: Big Band Jazz Music

admin — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 12:00:30 +0000

Jazz is the form of music, which has been getting bigger since its inception and Big Band, is a music ensemble, linked with jazz and developed over thirty years. The specialty of Big Band Jazz Music is its feet tapping rhythm, conducive to excite your heart beat. Jazz, Hip Hop, Rap, Soul, Funk, Rhythm and Blues fit in the famous music genres belonging to music umbrella of African Americans, with talented artists expressing themselves. Using their music heritage, they communicated their culture and the American Spirit

African American music based steeply on accent, as well as rhythm that fluctuates in relation with one another revolutionized the European music, which had been deeply rooted on melody. Big Band Jazz Music developed as a result of this merger in around 1898 leading to loose-structured, but unusual rendering of music that was all the rage using different distinctive playing techniques.

Big Band comprise of about 12-25 musicians. The rhythmic “call and response” of jazz music are made into rich music with its rhythmic segment including banjo, bass, vibes and piano, saxophones, trombones and trumpets.

Tools for Teaching Jazz

Teaching jazz is said to be among the most potent methods for learning it. The approach is to reduce fundamental principles to bare bones and teach it without adopting jargon usage. Inventing creative analogies that you come upon everyday is something jazz students can comprehend. This teaching process will aid in getting a deeper perception about intricacies of the subject and stay focused.

It assists in intensifying the comprehension of various aspects (for instance finger style, chords, scales, strumming, rhythms, slides, arpeggios) and numerous concepts and various techniques in Jazz making it much easier for students to pick it up.

Jazz Play Alongs

For jazz music lovers, even a musical idea implementation has got far reaching effect and makes them feel like in a groove. Now days, there are more and more Jazz Play Alongs like books, sheet music like guitar and piano sheet music, guitar scales, as well as tablature, songs sung by some popular artists and CDs with live band, where you get to play along to finish the music piece.

By: Anirban Bhattacharya

How to Be a Jazz Drummer

admin — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 15:30:45 +0000

So you have decided that you want to be a drummer but is at a loss as to which genre of playing style you want to master. Have you considered learning how to be a jazz drummer?

As you probably know, jazz is one of the most artistic and intriguing genre of music and especially so for the jazz drummer. Playing jazz music gives the drummer the opportunity to exhibit his amazing technical drumming skills and capabilities. However, most drummers choose not to take the time to learn how to play jazz drums properly which is partly due to its wide range of technicalities unlike most other forms of music.

Although jazz drumming seem to look very complicated, in reality, it is not that difficult to learn. The main difference is that most drummers are used to the 4/4 tempo of drumming where jazz is played with plenty of triplets and has a different feel from most other types of music. So the drummer may have to relearn some drumming techniques. Furthermore, most jazz pieces are relatively fast in tempo and thus most drummers also need to make improvements on their stick speed.

The first thing a new drummer needs to learn when playing jazz pieces is the basic jazz swing tempo or sometimes called the “swing groove”. A jazz drummer’s main role is to keep time for the rest of the band just like in any genre of music. The drummer should never overpower the rest of the band unlike when playing rock songs. To do this, simply use your hi hat and ride cymbal.

Ok. Let’s start with your hi-hat stepping on the 2 and 4 count to a piece of swing music. It is critical to keep this count over top of everything else that you play. Next, add ride the cymbal with a triplet tempo and feel. Practice these moves to perfection before going further with your drum lessons.

Now that you have mastered how to keep the swing tempo with the hi-hat and ride cymbal, let’s move on to the bass drum or sometimes called the kick-drum. Jazz drumming techniques are sometimes very subtle and because of this, the bass drum should not be too dominant. So do make sure that you do not play the bass drum too loudly. This again is unlike most other form of drumming. A good technique for this is keep your heel down when playing the bass drum. In this way, you are more in position control the strength of the kick more easily. A technique jazz drummers often use is the feathering the bass drum. This is done by lightly tapping the bass drum on the quarter or eighth notes.

You will probably know that is highly common for the bass drum to follow the bass guitar player. So you may need to know what kind of rhythm progression the bass player is playing and try to follow him. The bass drum should be played with more of a feel rather than powerful thumping like those in rock music.

The snare drum can be used to help as an accent for the band or can be used to play straight quarter notes.

Another common rhythm in jazz music is the shuffle and every jazz drummer must also master this form of drumming. Furthermore, since jazz music usually have musicians doing solo runs, the jazz drummer must also learn how to play drum solos. By developing these common jazz drumming styles, you will be playing jazz drums like a pro pretty soon!

By: Chris Chew

Learn How To Play Jazz Drums

admin — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 10:24:09 +0000

By: Chris Chew