Coming
into this course, I was excited to learn more about jazz's history
and those who made it what it is today. For the last 8 years, in the
various jazz bands I performed and competed with, a main focus was
always on improvisation for me. As a lead tenor saxophonist, my
directors always had me listening to bebop musicians. Artists like
Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, and Dizzy Gillespie
who were known for their improvisational skills and the way they
communicated with the rest of the band their their solos. Because of
my own musical background, improvisation and jazz were synonymous.
This class had reinforced this opinion when it came to the bebop era,
but also brought to my attention dialogue does not only exist between
members of a band, but also between the artists and the
audience/community.
Improvisation
is an essential part of jazz music. This was always very clear to me.
This class reinforced this and also added the role importance it
played in the history of the music. Improvisation was not only a way
to show off one's musical talents and knowledge of chord
progressions, but rather a way to convey a specific message to an
audience. In the 1940's it served to provide individualism to the
artists that were being pulled by the conformity brought on by the
war (Gioia, 236).
Improvisation
was something taught only in my jazz bands, never in classical or
marching training. Although it was never taught, improving as a jazz
musician meant improving as a classical performer and vice versa.
This was because jazz has so many roots in classical music, along
with many other genres.
There has been a constant relationship between jazz and the society
it was performed in. When it originated, there were strong horn
sections because of the surplus in military instruments and horn
players when the war was over. The music was a way to express one's
identity as not a slave, but as a human being. The genre grew as
black people were given more rights, and it spread through the
nation.
When
jazz grew and adapted all it could take from New Orleans, such as
it's Spanish and French influences, it moved to Chicago (Gioia, 42).
Chicago was modern city, with sky scrapers and many jobs for the
people moving away from the south. This caused jazz to take a modern
turn and become more of a dance music, for all the workers that
wanted a release after their shifts in the factories (Gioia, 59).
Following
the flow to modern cities, jazz moved to New York and took in
everything the state had to offer. People first needed music that
could include all the different cultures, so stride piano was born
(Gioia, 97). Dance halls were a huge social event, and clubs began to
integrate. Although the band and patrons were separated, the music
adapted to entertain the new audience, paying white customers. Swing
was born for to serve this purpose (Gioia, 171).
All
these adaptations jazz experienced led to the creation of modern
jazz. Through these adaptations and the demand for individualism
among the conformist culture America was experiencing at the time of
World War II (Miles, 72). It is easy to see the dialogue that jazz
had with the culture shifts that America went through as society
grew. Jazz made the necessary changes that would provide a source of
respect and identity for it's artists. As the demand for jazz grew,
as did it's diversity in music styles. Jazz had a constant dialogue
with the community.