Jazz Report Project
Using the information from the PowerPoint, other resources, and outside research sources, chose one question below and complete a one-page paper in Time New Roman, 12 point font, and doubled spaced.
- How might the city or neighborhood in which you live influence your musical taste?
- Describe an important event or time in history – it could be something that just happened or something that happened long ago. How might this event influence popular culture, such as art, books, theater, music, fashion, language?
- Explain how jazz played a role in the struggle for social and legal equality in United States history during the twentieth century.
TWENTIETH CENTURY AND BEYOND
1900-2019
MUSICAL STYLES: 1900-1945
CHARACTERISTICS OF TWENTIETH-CENTURY MUSIC
Tone color became a more important element of music during this time period.
Percussion instruments became more prominent.
Harmony had two terms: consonant and dissonant. A consonant chord was stable. A dissonant chord is unstable.
Rhythm vocabulary was expanded with an increased-on irregularity and unpredictability. Rapid meter changes occurred during the twentieth century.
Melody is no longer necessarily tied to traditional chords. It has no tonal center.
Impressionist paintings depict the joys of life and the beauties of nature.
CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862-1918)
He linked the romantic era with the twentieth century.
He was inspired by literacy and pictorial ideas.
His stress on tone color and atmosphere is characteristic of impressionism in music.
Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun
NEOCLASSICISM
An artistic movement
Marked by emotional restraint
“Back to Bach was the slogan of the movement, which reacted against romantism and impressionism.
IGOR STRAVINSKY (1882-1971)
Was part of the neoclassicism movement
His music includes compositions of almost every kind, for voices, instruments and stage.
Symphony of Psalms
EXPRESSIONISM
ARNOLD SCHOENBERG (1874-1951)
Was an almost entirely self-taught musician.
He took the revolutionary step of abandoning the traditional tonal system and began to write atonal music.
Atonality is the absence of key. All twelve tones are used.
The twelve-tone system is a new way of organizing pitch in a composition. It is a systemized form of atonality that gives equal importance to each of the twelve chromatic tones.
Pierrot Lunaire, Op. 21 (Moonstruck Pierrot; 1912)
ALBAN BERG (1885-1935)
A student of Schoenberg
Wrote music that is a unique synthesis of traditional and twentieth-century elements
Wozzeck was made such a powerful impression on the public that it was performed throughout Europe and the United States.
BELA BARTOK (1881-1945)
Music is infused with the spirit of east European folksong.
He was influenced by the Hungarian nationalist movement.
Concerto for Orchestra
MUSIC IN AMERICA
Up to the early, twentieth century, bands were the favorite instrumental organizations in America.
They performed at picnics, parades, political rallies, dances, and carnivals.
The leading Amercan composer and conductor of band music was John Phillip Sousa “the march king”. The Stars and Stripes Forever
CHARLES IVES (1874-1954)
Born in Danbury, Connecticut
Studied composition at Yale University
His music is rooted in the folk and popular music: ragtime, hymns, village bands, church choirs, and patriotic songs.
Putnam’s Camp, Redding, Connecticut from Three Places in New England
GEORGE GERSHWIN (1898-1937)
Popular sings and musical comedies as well as jazz-flavored orchestral works and opera won worldwide fame for this American composer.
He taught himself to popular hit tunes.
Rhapsody in Blue
WILLIAM GRANT STILL (1895-1978)
Member of the Harlem Renaissnance
Born in Woodville, Mississippi
Afro-American Symphony
AARON COPELAND (1900-1990)
A leading American compser from Brooklyn.
Music went in several phases: jazz to orchestral
Appalachian Spring
ALBERTO GINASTERA (1916-1983)
The most prominent Latin American composer
Began to attract international attention in the 1950s.
By the 1960s, he was so well regarded that three of his operas were performed in the United States.
Estancia Suite, Op. 8a
MUSICAL STYLES SINCE 1945
Increased use of the twelve-tone system after World War II
Serialism was a use of a series or ordered group of musical elements, to organize several dimensions of a composition. This method lead to a totally controlled and organized music, but the sound might seem random and chaotic.
Chance music was the opposite of serialism. In chance music, chose pitches, tone colors, and rhythms at random.
Minimalist music is characterized by steady pulse, clear tonality, and insistent repetition of short melodic patterns. This music created a trancelike or hypnotic effect
Musical quotation represents a conscious break with serialism, as well as as an attempt to improve communication between the composer and listener.
Electronic music is a varied as nonelectronic music. Since the development of studios, synthesizers, and computers in the 1950s and 60s, composers used unlimited resources for the production and control of sound. Composers could control tone color, duration, dynamics. They were no longer limited by the human voice.
MUSIC SINCE 1945
Composer John Cage invented the prepared piano, a grand piano whose sound is altered by object such as bolts, screws, rubber bands, pieces of felt, paper between the strings of some of the keys.
Edgard Varese pioneered in the exploration of percussive and noiselike sounds. Poeme electronique was electronic music crested in a tape studio. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9T1ZngecxU
The tango is a dance of Argentinian origin for couples in close embrace. Astor Piazzolla created a unique style of tango music intended for concerts that fused traditional dance with elements from classical music and jazz. Libertango https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdhTodxH7Gw
MUSIC SINCE 1945
John Adams is a leading American composer. He is a conductor and composer having taught at several conservatories of music. Short Ride in a Fast Machine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsv8rPRRrzY
Tania Leon is a composer and conductor who is a Distinguished Professor of the City University of New York. According to Leon, inura refers to the “Exu energy that exists in each one of us. Inura https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2myZUO2QUTY
JAZZ
ROOTS OF JAZZ
Early jazz blended elements from many cultures, including west African, American, And European. West African influences included an emphasis on improvisation, drumming, percussive sounds, and complex rhythms.
Call and Response derived from African American church services occurs when a voice is answered by an instrument, or when one instrument (or group of instrument) is answered by another instrument (or group).
Ragtime is a style of composed piano music developed primarily by black pianists who played in southern and midwestern saloons and dance hall.
BLUES
Refers to a form of vocal and instrumental music and to a style of performance.
Grew out of African American folk music, such as work songs, spirituals, and the field hollers of slaves.
The poetic and musical form of blues crystallized around 1910 and gained popularity through the publication of Memphis Blues and St. Louis Blues by W.C. Handy.
Lost Your Head Blues https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYsGYWQT690
ELEMENTS OF JAZZ
JAZZ STYLES
New Orleans Style – typically played by a small group of five to eight performers. It is usually based on a march or church melody, a ragtime piece, a popular song, or twelve-bar blues. Scat Singing is a vocalization of a melodic line with nonsense syllables.
Hotter Than That by Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAlrpx40UnE
Swing – developed in the 1920s. It was played mainly by big bands; the typical swing band.
Bebop – a complex style of music usually for small jazz groups consisting of four to six players and meant for attentive listening, not dancing. A Night in Tunisia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfLVVHxk4IM
JAZZ STYLES CONTINUED
Cool Jazz – was related to bop but far calmer and more relaxed.
Free Jazz – style that was not based on regular forms or established chord patterns
Jazz Rock (Fusion) – a new style combining the jazz musician’s improvisatory approach into a style employing rock musical forms, rhythms, and tone colors.
Miles Runs the Voodoo Down https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QCOJo9YH9M
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