...Freedom. He had played over 20,000 performances worldwide over the span of his 50-year career. He took his first piano lesson around age seven or eight and he didn't retain the lessons that long. He was more favored to play baseball as a youngster . Duke went on a vacation in Asbury Park and he heard a pianist named Harvey Brooks playing. Duke sought Harvey out in Philadelphia where Harvey showed Duke some ...Expand to read entire bio >pianistic tricks and shortcuts. Duke later recounted that, "When I got home I had a real yearning to play. I hadn’t been able to get off the ground before, but after hearing him I said to myself, ‘Man you’re going to have to do it.’” Thus the music career of Duke Ellington was born. Oliver “Doc” Perry and Louis Brown,...
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...peanut butter because it just would not be the same. So what makes the trumpet so special? The trumpet is by far the loudest and sharpest sounding horn in the band. The interesting shaped horn amplifies sound with the bends on pipes within it. This makes playing trumpet natural for leaders, and to become successful with it if they are good too. In 1894, early trumpet pioneer Buddy Bolden became the first known jazzman simply because he was a trumpeter. From then on other musicians followed this trend and the trumpet reigned king ever since. King Oliver was a very influential band to bring out the best of what the trumpet could offer. Musician Louis Armstrong began his ride to fame with this group in 1922. Armstrong's playing technique was honed by constant practice, which extended the range, tone and capabilities of the trumpet. Armstrong also almost single-handedly created the role of the jazz soloist, taking what was essentially a collective folk music and turning it into an art form with tremendous possibilities for individual expression. Another trumpet unit that should be noted as jazz greats is Duke Ellington’s trumpet section. Such musicians as Bubba Miley, Cootie Williams, and then the most well know of all is the “El Gato” as Duke would call him. El Gato or the cat in Spanish real name was Cat Anderson who helped make signature the trumpet feature in Duke’s...
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...During the Harlem Renaissance The Cotton Club was one of the most famous nightclubs in history. The cotton club was located in New York City in Harlem. The club operated from the 1920's to the 1930's. The Cotton Club was mostly about jazz. Jazz is the art of individuals working in unison to make one sublime sound. This establishment was for whites only, all though it featured some of the best black entertainers and jazz musicians this era had to offer. In 1920, heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson opened the Cotton Club under the name “Club Deluxe” on the corner of 142nd Street and Lenox Avenue in the heart of the Harlem district. Owney Madden, a prominent bootlegger and gangster, took over the club in 1923 while imprisoned in Sing Sing and changed its name to the Cotton Club. A deal was arranged between the two that allowed Johnson to still be the club’s manager. Madden used the cotton club as an outlet to sell his number one beer to the prohibition crowd. The Cotton Club was a “Whites-only” foundation. Even in the heart of Harlem, the race line divided the black performers from the white patrons. Inside the Cotton Club, African themes were exploited and only "jungle music" was played to an all white audience. Duke Ellington put together one of the most talented jazz bands ever to walk on stage to play for the patrons of The Cotton Club six nights a week. As the twenties went on, Ellington would continue his huge success at The Cotton Club into many classic recordings...
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... |Procedure: (How?) | |(Who?) |(How long?) | | | | | | | |Pre-text |What A Wonderful World |Picture of Louis |T-Ss |3 | |Lead In/Create interest | |Armstrong | |minutes | |To contextualize song |Show picture of Louis Armstrong. | | | | |To introduce themes of later tasks |...
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...Three artist who stood out to me and why The first artist who stood out to me that I really enjoyed seeing and listening to was Louie Armstrong. I've already heard the song what a wonderful world but never saw or heard Louie perform himself. I was also very entertained with his acting career. I was unaware that African Americans/blacks were even allowed to interact with whites on the the big screen in Hollywood and be respected. What I’m most passionate about Louie Armstrong is that he opened my mind into jazz, which I had no idea could be so good. What a wonderful world, Hello Dolly and West End Blues. The second artist who i enjoyed listening to was Elvis Presley. I am was one of the few people who actually heard Elvis sing and perform and I’m ashamed to admit that, but I was more than happy to do research and found out what really made him the king. Every song was good but Jail house Rock was the best. What I also liked about Elvis was that he was one of the few artist that could actually act and had a decent movie career and really raised the bar for musician/actors today. Elvis was the best of all time to me and I was happy to that I did my research on him. Last and not least is Sammy Davis Jr he was phenomenal musician and actor. I liked his music a lot but enjoyed his acting a little more. I never really seen the Sammy Davis Jr Show but I did like his guest appearances on “All in the Family” and the “Dean Martin Show”. I liked how he always made people laugh...
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...they break it down to five main reasons why bebop has been so influential. Those five main reasons are, art music, innovation, individualism, vocabulary and political activism. These five terms have contributed to the success of the bebop movement. Bebop became more of an art and a way to express yourself, which is unlike any other type of jazz that was created before this. This opened up jazz for people to become more expressive with it and it was an art form rather than an entertainment piece. Through the art music, bebop created a way for people to innovate beyond the norms and to look past that. This would help what was coming later in the jazz era. The third reason was individualism, up until this point there was soloist artists. Louis Armstrong attempted it, but the idea didn’t come through until Bebop came along. The vocabulary that was created was new to the Bebop movement. It is said that when Bebop came along it made the swing vocabulary outdated. Most of the words that were created in the Bebop vocabulary are still used in the genetic code of jazz. The last and final reason why Bebop was influential was because of the political...
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...)(2 points) Answer below: The first selection, “Hotter Than That”, is a very colorful, upbeat presentation of traditional jazz. The tempo is in 4/4 and is played at around 100 beats per minute. Mr. Armstrong moves quickly and widely with the trumpet from high, vibrato tones to low, mellow contradictions. There is the bright addition from a drum-set that keeps the beat up. The Clarinet begins playing at about 45 seconds into the song, which helps to add a mellow opposition to the brassy, crisp sound of the trumpet. In total, the tempo and mood of the arrangement is exciting and energetic. When Louis Armstrong begins to sing, his raspy, low voice acts as a great addition of shape and diversity, and even though his words are incomprehensible, he is able to make the sounds of the trumpet with his vocal chords. It sounds like some sort of stringed instrument chimes in at the end of the vocal performs, after which the trumpet plays for about ten seconds in a low, raspy arrangement, sounding an awful lot like the vocals that just finished I don’t have an extensive involvement with this type of composition, but I really like it. I played the trumpet in school and have always really like the clean sound it produces. This piece is no exception to that, and Louis Armstrong utilizes every bit of the capability available in the instrument. B. Defining characteristics: How is this selection representative of Early Jazz? (List 2-3 musical characteristics that you can hear and...
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...Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald were friends and influential singers of the Swing Era. Each singer possessed a unique musical style that continues to be emulated by today’s jazz singers. Listen to Billie Holiday’s Back in Your Own Back Yard and Ella Fitzgerald’s Flying Home. [Back In Your Own Back Yard (Gridley, Chapter 5, Page 83: Jazz Classics for Concise Guide to Jazz CD 1 track 11; Flying Home: Chapter 5, Page 86: Jazz Classics for Concise Guide to Jazz CD 1 track 12]. Respond to each prompt. Then, offer commentary regarding the similarities and differences between the examples. | Back In Your Own Back Yard (Billie Holiday) | Flying Home (Ella Fitzgerald) | Similarities and Differences | Tempo (slow, medium, fast, dance-like?) | Medium | Fast | Back Yard has a lower tempo, as Flying Home is more faster/upbeat. | Swing feel (Do you sense a weak, medium, or strong rhythmic pulse? Which song has a stronger pulse?) | Medium | Strong | Flying Home has a stronger pulse. | Syncopation (Is there evidence of syncopation or tugging and pulling against the musical pulse?) | Tugging | Pulling | The syncopation seems to be more apparent with the tone in Flying Home, pure and supple compared with Back Yard. | Lyrics (What story, if any, is told by lyrics each artist sings?) | You left happiness at home, in the backyard. | It seems to have a feel of freedom to be flying home. | Two different stories being told with similar subjects on life, yet there is happiness in both...
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...social revolution was on it's way. Customs and values of previous were rejected. Life was to be lived to the fullest. This was also known as the era of the "lost generations," and the "flapper" with her rolled stockings, short skirts, and straight up-and-down look. They disturbed their elders in the casino, night clubs, and speakeasies that replaced the ballrooms of prewar days. Dancing became more informal - close of the nineteenth century in the unpleasant dance halls and whorehouses of the South and Midwest where the word Jazz commonly meant sexual intercourse. Southern blacks, delivered from slavery a few decades before, started playing European music Afro modifications. The first place of jazz has many origins: New Orleans, St. Louis, Memphis and Kansas City are just a few. But New Orleans was and still remains an important jazz center. The ethnic rainbow of people who went to the bars and whorehouses were a big part of the development of jazz. The city had been under Spanish French rule because of the Louisiana purchase. By 1900, it was a blend of Spanish, French, English, German, Italian, Slavic and countless blacks originally brought in as slaves The first jazz bands contained a "rhythm section" consisting of a string bass, drums, and a guitar or banjo, and a "melodic section" with one or two cornets, a trombone, a clarinet, and sometimes even a violin. Years later, jazz was taken over by large orchestras; A "society jazz contained fifteen or more musicians. Today...
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...knew how to describe it and early on it was associated with the colored community, which made it difficult for mainstream artists to accept it, but John Philip Sousa, regarded as the greatest American composer at the time, backed Scott Joplin. Sousa said that Joplin’s music, “will live as long as music is known to man,” which gave ragtime huge credibility among the musical elite and around this time people started buying sheet music and playing it at home, which also pushed ragtime towards acceptance. After Sousa publically supported Joplin’s music the “colored” and “black” was dropped off of ragtime and the music intergrated, which broke down a huge barrier that America did not even realize at the time. In 1904, after performing at the St. Louis World Fair, alongside Sousa, in the papers Joplin still was not given much of a mention, which convinced him that he needed to be taken seriously. Scott Joplin’s long time publisher, John Stark decided to move to New York into Tin Pan Alley, but Scott did not accompany him at first because he did not fully support his new ragtime opera idea. He spent all of his time on his ragtime opera, Joplin even stopped talking and seeing people even though everyone was writing rag now. In 1910, he headed out to New York to take his finished opera to John Stark to have it backed by him, but unfortunately he could not get it funded and Joplin was succumbing to the effects of syphilis. By 1913, he formed a publishing company with his third wife and by...
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...acoustic guitar replicates the piano’s off beats against the Rag rhythm. Last but not least, the banjo is a commonly used instrument for keeping a steady pulse. Ragtime originated from African-American culture in the Midwest, mostly in Missouri. St. Louis was a focal point for Ragtime, as well as Sedalia. Ragtime was also influenced by small towns around New Orleans. The composer's most responsible for creating Ragtime are Scott Joplin, Jelly Roll Morton, and Eubie Blake. In 1899, Scott Joplin, created one of Ragtime’s most famous pieces called, “The Maple Leaf.” Because of “The Maple Leaf’s” huge success, Scott Joplin earned the nickname, “King of Ragtime.” In 1905 another composer, Jelly Roll Morton, created a piece called, “King Porter Stomp”. While this piece is a Ragtime piece, it is also categorized as an early jazz piece. In 1921, Eubie Blake along with Noble Sissle created the first Broadway musical written and directed by African-Americans. Blake wrote “Charleston Rag” and “Bandana Days.” Scott Joplin, Jelly Roll Morton, and Eubie Blake are not the only people who gave Rag a name. Born in Pierce City, Missouri, Theron Bennett was a Ragtime pianist, composer, and music producer. In 1904 Bennett created a song called, “St. Louis Tickle,” and that piece made him famous in the Rag community. James Scott was another famous composer of Ragtime. He was born in Neosho, Missouri. Scott’s idol was Scott Joplin; he wanted nothing more than to have Joplin listen to his music. One...
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...Louis Armstrong In the early twentieth century, a new style of music was being created in New Orleans. This style of music, known as Jazz, was performed with the audience in mind. It was heavily influenced by ragtime and washboard bands. Jazz is also highly competitive since the musicians wanted to stand out from the rest of the crowd. Their differences were accomplished through the use of timbres, improvisation, and many other characteristic of Jazz. Louis Armstrong’s version of “(What Did I Do to Be So) Black and Blue” illustrates the characteristics of Jazz, is completely unique to his style of preference, and advocates against racial discrimination. Improvisation was the most unique and challenging style utilized in the Jazz era. Musicians used this skill set to differentiate themselves from other artists within their original musical scores along with remakes of other artist’s songs, as no two performances of a song were the same. This is because the musicians literally made up or created the notes they played for their solos during the performance. The top skilled performers of Jazz were defined by their unique ability to create interesting solos with both their vocals and instruments. Louis Armstrong had the ability to use phrasing as a singer to capture syncopations that were prominent in early jazz. Jazz in the 1920’s was a combination of blues, ragtime, swing notes, and other European influences. Armstrong was able to capture the blue note,...
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...Widely acclaimed saxophonist Donny McCaslin returns with a personalized project of his authorship after participating in David Bowie’s Blackstar. McCaslin reunites his Fast Future quartet, whose members - Jason Lindner on keyboards, Tim Lefebre on electric bass, and Mark Guiliana on drums - were also crucial in the English pop star's lattermost album, and adds a few influential guest musicians to play on selected songs. The nine tracks of Beyond Now intelligently combine a variety of variables that catapult McCaslin to the vanguard of the modern jazz. The opening tune, “Shake Loose” pulses with hypnotic rhythmic chops and feels simultaneously urban and futuristic. With strong influences of pop-rock, jazz, and electronic music, the quartet proliferates a penetrating tension that remains elevated until its release through expansive harmonic progressions and the attractive melody of the chorus. A comparable approach is used in the melodious and patiently-driven “Bright Abyss”, another fantastic original that quickly connects to our senses through a sober, alert, and provocative instrumentation. The emotional grandeur brought into its final section, which is magnified by voices, has become McCaslin’s signature over the years. Working with David Bowie must have been a great honor for these musicians. Grateful for the opportunity, they've agreed in the recording of two of his songs: “A Small Plot of Land”, featuring Jeff Taylor on vocals and Nate Wood on guitar, is a depressive chant...
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...Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald were friends and influential singers of the Swing Era. Each singer possessed a unique musical style that continues to be emulated by today’s jazz singers. Listen to Billie Holiday’s Back in Your Own Back Yard and Ella Fitzgerald’s Flying Home. [Back In Your Own Back Yard (Gridley, Chapter 5, Page 83: Jazz Classics for Concise Guide to Jazz CD 1 track 11; Flying Home: Chapter 5, Page 86: Jazz Classics for Concise Guide to Jazz CD 1 track 12]. Respond to each prompt. Then, offer commentary regarding the similarities and differences between the examples. | Back In Your Own Back Yard (Billie Holiday) | Flying Home (Ella Fitzgerald) | Similarities and Differences | Tempo (slow, medium, fast, dance-like?) | Medium / Slow Tempo | Medium / Fast Tempo | Back Yard is different as slower tempo, as Flying Home is more faster/up-beat | Swing feel (Do you sense a weak, medium, or strong rhythmic pulse? Which song has a stronger pulse?) | Medium pulse | Strong pulse | Medium pulse Strong pulse Flying Home has a stronger pulse | Syncopation (Is there evidence of syncopation or tugging and pulling against the musical pulse?) | Tugging/Pulling background of Lester Young playing the Sax. | Guitar elements give like a dirtier sound. There is disorienting being heard | The syncopation seems to be more apparent with the tone in Flying Home; pure and supple tone compared to Backyard. | Lyrics (What story, if any, is told by lyrics each artist sings?)...
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...A Personality and a Pioneer: Jack Cole’s Influence on Modern Jazz Countless of women have marveled over Marilyn Monroe’s stunning performance of “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” in the film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. The way she captivates the men around her while maintaining a dominant, sultry poise has made this an iconic scene in the history of American film. She comes across as a natural presence, dancing flawlessly and confidently. What most people do not know is that Marilyn was not trained in dance whatsoever before this debut. A man by the name of Jack Cole is responsible for her training and choreography during this legendary performance (Friscoe, September 10, 2013) Jack not only transformed Marilyn Monroe’s entire career, but reshaped theatrical performance in the film industry and modern jazz as a whole. In a post-war period marked by radical transformation, American Jazz made a shift from the “danceable rhythms” of 1930s swing to the “dissonant harmonics and frenzied rhythmic shifts” of 1940s bebop. A federal tax wage was placed on dance floors, causing them to shut down and the big swing bands that performed in them to be eclipsed. As Vaudeville houses closed and swing bands faded, jazz in its traditional form of tap dancing on the popular stage diminished. This environment...
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