Jazz Festivals » Word Jazz

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.

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By: Andri Irawan

All About Jazz Music

admin — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 21:52:31 +0000

Jazz music is the American musical art form originated in earlier twentieth century. The African American communities of the Southern United States from the confluence of European and African music tradition were responsible for its beginning. The West African pedigree style is evident in the use of polyrythms, blues notes improvisation, swung notes and syncopation.

From the early development of jazz music until the present, it has also included music from the nineteenth and the twentieth century American popular melody. The word jazz music began in the form of a West Coast slang expression of tentative derivation. This term was initially used in order to refer to the music in Chicago in around 1915.

From its early twentieth century inception, jazz music spawned a huge variety of sub-genres from New OrleansDixieland including the early 1910’s, bebop from middle of 1940s, big band jazz music style swing from 1940’s as well as 1930’s, Brazilian jazz from 1960s and 1950s. Besides a fusion of the Latin jazz fusion like the Afro Cuban, jazz rock mixture from the late 1980’s and 1970s developments including the acid jazz that blended the jazz influences into hip hop and funk are several other melody types that constituted jazz music.

In jazz music, the trained performers interpret a tune in different individual ways and never play the same melody. Depending on the mood of the performer as well as personal experience and interactions with the fellow musicians or the totals number of audience, the jazz music performer might later the harmonies or melodies. The European classical music is said to be the composer’s medium.

Today as well, straight ahead jazz music continues to appeal a large amount of masses. The well popular jazz musicians whose career span decades like the Wynton Marsalis, Dave Brubeck, Wayne Shorter and Sonny Rollins continue to record and perform. In the beginning of 1990 and 2000 various young talented musicians emerged such as Brad Mehldau, Jason Moran, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Stefon Harris, Roy Horgrove, Vijay Iyer, Terence Blanchard and Joshua Redman. While Bugge Wesseltoft, Christian McBride, St. Germain are several other renowned names in the world of jazz music.

By: Akhila Choudhary

How Can Learning Jazz Improve a Classical Musician’s Skills-mozart Learned Improvisation

admin — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 07:22:33 +0000

“…Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, and Liszt all excelled in improvisation, which was then referred to as extemporization…”

Classical music is a sophisticated art form where talking during performances (much less to the musicians) is frowned upon. Yet in jazz, it is very common for the audience to speak to musicians during performances as a way of complimenting their improvisational skills.

Elements of jazz can be found in gospel, country, pop, R&B, movie soundtracks, and other musical forms. However, when the average person uses the word “jazz,” they may not understand the culture or the language.

Many people associate improvisation with jazz and vice-versa. However, improvisation has been an integral part of classical music history, stemming back to the medieval period in Gregorian chants. These chants used additional melodies above the Cantus Firmus (fixed melody in Latin), which were improvised by Medieval musicians to glorify God. In the later periods, improvisation was used in performances outside of churches. J.S. Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, and Liszt all excelled in improvisation, which was then referred to as extemporization. Bartok’s “Mikrokosmos” were originally improvised as were Beethoven’s famous sketch books (which he later used in formal works).

Near the beginning of the 20th Century, improvisation disappeared in the Romantic Period as performers began mastering composers’ works note for note; the art of improvisation was eventually lost. Schubert’s impromptus, contrary to their title, were not improvised but written out methodically. Playing classical music well is a skill requiring great discipline and talent, but the same can be said for jazz. Both disciplines use the same musical alphabet, yet have somehow managed to create different nomenclatures for each respectively.

Historically, jazz music has not been associated with higher education. However, the great Scott Joplin, an African-American jazz composer of the late 19th to early 20th century, took formal lessons with a classical German-born piano teacher and the Creole performers of New Orleans were often Conservatory-trained in Paris.

Both classical and jazz music are disciplines requiring creativity. The classical musician, after mastering the techniques must interpret the score and bring the written notes to life in a performance. The challenge of a jazz musician is to use, simultaneously, both improvisational talent and the technique required to perform unplanned music for a live audience. To draw an analogy, a classical musician is like an actor with a full script – having to memorize and master it, then bringing the character to life. A jazz musician is like an actor with no script, only a few guidelines to follow, yet charged with creating dialogue and instantly performing in character. In its purest essence, technicality must be mastered. One would argue that the task of learning and memorizing a sonata (15-60 pages) or concerto (often exceeding 100 pages) is a phenomenal task! The best classical and jazz musicians must both be proficient in technique, but the more challenging task is for them to able to augment their technical skills in a performance to move their audience emotionally. All musicians need to play from their hearts to truly affect their audience in a meaningful way.

Recently, Conservatory Canada has implemented a new examination category implementing jazz idioms, nomenclature and styles. The Royal Conservatory has for several years used a popular syllabus for their studies selection. In addition to the previously mentioned Jazz Studies program offered at Juilliard, Ivy League schools have also shown their support; Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and Berkley currently offer or are implementing jazz programs. These institutions have embraced an original approach in combining classical and jazz instruction.

We cannot claim that one art form is more or less sophisticated than another. Classical musicians may not fully comprehend jazz culture, just as jazz musicians may not fully interpret classical culture. However, because music is a universal language, the understanding of its different forms and dialects are beneficial. These new “bilingual” musicians are able to better communicate with their audience in various ways. Following the same “early education” concept used for spoken languages, we need to educate children in both classical and jazz music. Children who study classical and jazz at the same time will be able to understand both cultures and fully realize their musical potential.

By: Jeannie Lee

How to get a Jazz Guitar Sound

admin — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 03:55:19 +0000

The word Jazz often evokes a darkly light Smokey club with musicians expertly improvising against seemingly complex chord progressions. Featuring passionate tone – getting that jazz sound can be a complex process – in this article we’ll address what you’ll need to get a great jazz guitar sound.

A Jazz Guitar

Getting the right guitar for a jazz sound used to be expensive. Jazz masters such as Wes Montgomery and Joe Pass may have played expensive Gibson Semi’s but these days there are a variety of entry level guitars that are suitable for getting a jazz tone.

For an authentic jazz tone, you should have a semi-acoustic hollowbody electric guitar. Models such as the Gibson ES-175 or the Gretch Tennessean can run into thousands of dollars but there are also excellent entry models such as Ibanez Artcore line of guitars. Guitar manufacturers such as Yamaha or Guild also make entry level semi-acoustics similar to the more expensive Gibson 335. There are also numerous Epiphone hollowbody guitars that will also be suitable and come from the Gibson stable. Explore your local music store and try out what they look for something that is comfortable to play and can produce a tight clean tone with plenty of sustain.

Hollow body guitars will provide a suitable mellow tone and most will be fitted with two humbucker pickups allowing you to vary your sound accordingly. Most guitars will be fitted with tone controls. Practice rolling the treble off your tone and experimenting – Jazz guitarists often play with a less trebly sound as it produces a rich mellow resonance that is suitable for the style.

A Jazz Guitar Amplifier

Whilst it could be said that there is “no jazz amp” there are a number of considerations for the jazz guitarist when selecting an amplifier.
Firstly it is important to determine the playing style and sound that you wish to attain. Traditional jazz guitarists often choose amps that can produce a clean sound which compliment acoustic archtop guitars. For this sound solid state amps produce a nice clean tone. For a more distorted sound a tube amp may be more applicable. There are many popular amps that are used by Jazz guitarists for example – try experimenting with a Fender Pro or a Polytone
Another requirement may be on board effects this may range from simple reverb to an overdrive channel – again this will depend on the style your trying to achieve.

Effects

Traditional Jazz may only require a hint of reverb but many modern jazz guitarists apply a range of effects from Chorus, Overdrive through to delay. There are many effects units available from single stomp boxes to complex digital “modeling” devices such as the Line 6 Pod. When choosing effects ensure they compliment your playing style and that you retain that “clarity” in your tone. Too many effects often muddy the sound and do not produce a quality sound.

Conclusion

In summary there are primarily 3 things that you should investigate when trying to get a jazz tone. Ultimately you should also listen to a wide range of jazz greats – listen closely to their sounds and try to emulate them. Ultimately when you have done this a few times they will begin to merge and you will begin to develop your own tone that will sound equally brilliant!

By: Adrian Martin