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Lyttelton

Lyttelton

Lyttelton can be:
- One of the Barons Lyttelton.
- The port of Lyttelton, New Zealand, named after the fourth Baron Lyttelton.
- Humphrey Lyttelton, a British jazz musician.
- Thomas de Littleton, a British judge.
- Lyttelton, Gauteng, a place in Gauteng Province, South Africa

Baron Lyttelton

Baron Lyttelton is a barony in the British peerage, which has been created twice, though both times to the same family, being awarded to William Henry Lyttelton in 1794 some fifteen years after his nephew, Thomas Lyttelton, died without legitimate issue. In 1888, Charles George Lyttelton, 5th Baron Lyttelton, succeeded to the Viscounty of Cobham, after the death of the 3rd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, and into which title the Barony is now merged. The holder is also a baronet in the Baronetage of England; which title dates from 1618.

Baronets of Frankley (1618)

- Sir Thomas Lyttelton, 1st Baronet (1593–1650)
- Henry Lyttelton (1624–1693)
- Sir Charles Lyttelton, 3rd Baronet (1628–1716)
- Sir Thomas Lyttelton, 4th Baronet (d. 1751)
- Sir George Lyttelton, 5th Baronet (1709–1773) (created Baron Lyttelton in 1756)
- Thomas Lyttelton, 2nd Baron Lyttelton (1744–1779)
- Sir William Lyttelton, 7th Baronet (1724–1808) (created Baron Lyttelton in 1794)

Barons Lyttelton of Frankley, first creation (1756)

- George Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton (1709-1773)
- Thomas Lyttelton, 2nd Baron Lyttelton (1744-1779) (extinct)

Barons Lyttelton of Frankley, second Creation (1794)

- William Henry Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton (1724-1808)
- George Fulke Lyttelton, 2nd Baron Lyttelton (1763-1828)
- William Henry Lyttelton, 3rd Baron Lyttelton (1782-1837)
- George William Lyttelton, 4th Baron Lyttelton (1817-1876)
- Charles George Lyttelton, 8th Viscount Cobham, 5th Baron Lyttelton (1842-1922) (become Viscount Cobham in 1888)
- Charles George Lyttelton, 8th Viscount Cobham, 6th Baron Lyttelton (1842-1922)
- John Cavendish Lyttelton, 9th Viscount Cobham, 7th Baron Lyttelton (1881-1949)
- Charles John Lyttelton, 10th Viscount Cobham, 8th Baron Lyttelton (1909-1977)
- John William Leonard Lyttleton, 11th Viscount Cobham, 9th Baron Lyttelton (b. 1943) Lyttelton

New Zealand

New Zealand or Aotearoa, the Land of the Long White Cloud, is a country of two large islands and many smaller islands in the south-western Pacific Ocean. New Zealand is notable for its isolation, being separated from Australia on the northwest by the Tasman Sea, some 2,000 km wide. The closest neighbours to the north are New Caledonia, Fiji and Tonga. The population of New Zealand is mostly of European descent, with the indigenous Māori as the largest minority. Non-Māori Polynesian and Asian peoples are also significant minorities, especially in the cities. Officially, Elizabeth II is the Queen of New Zealand and is represented in the country by a non-political Governor-General; though the Queen has no real political influence. Political power is held by the Prime Minister who is leader of the Government in the democratically elected Parliament of New Zealand. The monarch's Realm of New Zealand also includes the Cook Islands and Niue, which are entirely self-governing; Tokelau, which is moving towards self-government, and New Zealand's claim in Antarctica.

History

New Zealand is one of the most recently settled major land masses. Polynesian settlers arrived in their waka some time between 800 and 600 years ago to establish the indigenous Māori culture. Settlement of the Chatham Islands to the south-east of New Zealand produced the Moriori people but it is disputed whether they moved there from New Zealand or elsewhere in Polynesia. Most of New Zealand was divided into tribal territories called rohe, resources within which were controlled by an iwi ('tribe'). Usually no two iwi had overlapping rohe. Māori adapted to eating the local marine resources, flora and fauna for food, hunting the giant flightless moa (which soon became extinct), and ate the Polynesian Rat and kumara (sweet potato), which they introduced to the country. The first Europeans known to reach New Zealand were led by Abel Janszoon Tasman, who sailed up the west coast of the South and North islands in 1642. He named it Staten Landt, believing it to be part of the land Jacob Le Maire had discovered in 1616 off the coast of Chile. Staten Landt appeared on Tasman's first maps of New Zealand, but this was changed by Dutch cartographers to Nova Zeelandia, after the Dutch province of Zeeland, some time after Hendrik Brouwer proved the South American land to be an island in 1643. The Latin Nova Zeelandia became Nieuw Zeeland in Dutch. Lieutenant James Cook subsequently called the archipelago New Zealand, although the names he chose for the North and South islands were rejected, and the main three islands became known as North, Middle and South, with the Middle Island being later called the South Island. Cook began extensive surveys of the islands in 1769, leading to European whaling expeditions and eventually significant European colonisation. From as early as the 1780s, Māori had encounters with European sealers and whalers. Acquisition of muskets by those iwi in close contact with European visitors destabilised the existing balance of power between Māori tribes and there was a temporary but intense period of bloody inter-tribal warfare, known as the Musket Wars, that only ceased when all iwi were so armed. Concern about the exploitation of Māori by Europeans, Church Missionary Society lobbying and French interest in the region led the British to annex New Zealand by Royal Proclamation in January 1840. To legitimise the British annexation, Lieutenant Governor William Hobson had been dispatched in 1839; he hurriedly negotiated the Treaty of Waitangi with northern iwi on his arrival. The Treaty was signed in February, and in recent years it has come to be seen as the founding document of New Zealand. The Māori translation of the treaty promised the Māori tribes "tino rangatiratanga" would be preserved in return for cedeing kawanatanga, which the English versions translates as "chieftainship" for "sovereignty"; the real meanings are now disputed. Disputes over land sales and sovereignty caused the New Zealand land wars which took place between 1845 and 1872. In 1975 the Treaty of Waitangi Act established the Waitangi Tribunal, charged with hearing claims of Crown violations of the Treaty of Waitangi dating back to 1840. Some Māori tribes and the Moriori never signed the treaty. Although New Zealand was initially administered as a part of the Australian colony of New South Wales, it became a colony in its own right in 1841. European settlement progressed more rapidly than anyone anticipated, and settlers soon outnumbered Māori. Self-government was granted to the settler population in 1852. The first capital of New Zealand was Kororareka (known today as Russell) but shortly afterwards moved to Auckland. There were political concerns following the discovery of gold in Central Otago in 1861 that the South Island would form a separate colony. So in 1865 the capital was offically moved to the more central city of Wellington. New Zealand was involved in a Constitutional Convention in March 1891 in Sydney, New South Wales, along with the then-colonies of Australia. This was to consider a potential constitution for the proposed federation between the then-British Colonies of Australasia. New Zealand lost interest in joining Australia in a federation following this convention. New Zealand became an independent dominion on 26 September 1907 by royal proclamation. Full independence was granted by the United Kingdom Parliament with the Statute of Westminster in 1931; it was taken up upon the Statute's adoption by the New Zealand Parliament in 1947. Since then New Zealand has been a sovereign constitutional monarchy within the Commonwealth of Nations.

Politics

New Zealand is a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary democracy. Under the New Zealand Royal Titles Act (1953), Queen Elizabeth II is Queen of New Zealand and is represented as head of state by the Governor-General, Dame Silvia Cartwright. The New Zealand Parliament has only one chamber, the House of Representatives which usually seats 120 members of Parliament. Parliamentary elections are every three years under a form of proportional representation called Mixed Member Proportional (MMP). The 2005 General Election created an 'overhang' of one extra seat (occupied by the Māori Party), due to that party winning more seats in constituencies than its proportional entitlement. There is no single written constitution; however, the Constitution Act (1986) is the principal formal statement of New Zealand's constitutional structure. The Governor-General has the power to appoint and dismiss Prime Ministers and to dissolve Parliament. The Governor-General also chairs the Executive Council which is a formal committee consisting of all ministers of the Crown. Members of the Executive Council are required to be members of Parliament, and most are also in Cabinet. Cabinet is the most senior policy-making body and is led by the Prime Minister who is also the Parliamentary leader of the governing party or coalition. The current Prime Minister is Helen Clark of the Labour Party. She has served two complete terms as Prime Minister and has begun her third. On 17 October 2005 she announced that she had come to a complex arrangement that guaranteed the support of enough parties for her Labour-led coalition to govern. The core of the coalition is a cabinet consisting of Labour Party ministers and Jim Anderton, the Progressive Party's only MP. In addition to the parties represented in cabinet the leaders of New Zealand First and United Future are to be appointed as Ministers outside Cabinet. An arrangement of this kind has never been attempted before in New Zealand. A further arrangement has been made with the Green Party, which has given a commitment not to vote against the government on confidence and supply. This commitment assures the government of a majority of seven MPs on confidence. The Leader of the Opposition is National Party leader Don Brash who was formerly Governor of the Reserve Bank. Also in opposition are the Māori Party and ACT New Zealand. The highest court in New Zealand is the Supreme Court of New Zealand. The Supreme Court was established in 2004 following the passage of the Supreme Court Act in 2003. The Act abolished the option to appeal Court of Appeal rulings to the Privy Council in London. The current Chief Justice is Dame Sian Elias. New Zealand's judicary also has a High Court which deals with serious criminal offences and civil matters, and a Court of Appeal, as well as subordinate courts.

Foreign relations and military

New Zealand maintains a strong profile on environmental protection, human rights and free trade, particularly for agriculture. New Zealand is a member of the following geo-political organisations: APEC, Commonwealth of Nations, OECD and the United Nations. It has signed up to a number of free trade agreements, of which the most important is Closer Economic Relations with Australia. For its first hundred years, New Zealand followed Britain's lead on foreign policy. "Where she goes, we go, where she stands, we stand", said Prime Minister Michael Savage, in declaring war on Germany on 3 September 1939. However, Britain's inability to protect New Zealand from Japanese aggression in World War II led New Zealand to come under the influence of the United States of America for the generation following the war. New Zealand has traditionally also worked closely with Australia, whose foreign policy followed a similar historical trend. In turn, many Pacific Islands such as Western Samoa have looked to New Zealand's lead. The American influence on New Zealand was weakened by the disappointment with the Vietnam War, the nuclear danger presented by the Cold War, the Sinking of the Rainbow Warrior by France and by disagreements over environmental and agricultural trade issues. New Zealand is a party to the ANZUS security treaty between Australia, New Zealand and the United States. In 1984 New Zealand refused nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed ships access to its ports. In 1986 the United States announced that it was suspending its treaty security obligations to New Zealand pending the restoration of port access. The New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament and Arms Control Act of 1987 prohibits the stationing of nuclear weapons on the territory of New Zealand and the entry into New Zealand waters of nuclear armed or propelled ships. This legislation remains a source of contention and the basis for the United States' continued suspension of treaty obligations to New Zealand. In addition to the various wars between Iwi, and between the British, settlers and Iwi, New Zealand has fought in the Boer War, World War I, (sustaining the highest casualties per head of population of any combatant nation), World War II, the Korean War, the Malayan Emergency (and committed troops, fighters and bombers to the subsequent confrontation with Indonesia), the Vietnam War, the Gulf War and the Afghanistan War and has briefly sent a unit of army engineers to help with rebuilding Iraqi infrastructure. The New Zealand military has three branches: the New Zealand Army, the Royal New Zealand Navy, and the Royal New Zealand Air Force. New Zealand considers its own national defence needs to be modest; it dismantled its air combat capability in 2001. New Zealand has contributed forces to recent regional and global peacekeeping missions, including those in Cyprus, Somalia, Bosnia, the Sinai, Angola, Cambodia, the Iran/Iraq border, Bougainville and East Timor.

Local government and external territories

East Timor The early European settlers divided New Zealand into provinces. These were abolished in 1876 so that government could be centralised for financial reasons. As a result, New Zealand has no separately represented subnational entities such as provinces, states or territories apart from its local government. The spirit of the provinces however still lives on, and there is fierce rivalry exhibited in sporting and cultural events. Since 1876, local government has administered the various regions of New Zealand. In 1989, the government completely reorganised local government, implementing the current two-tier structure of regional councils and territorial authorities. Today New Zealand has 12 regional councils for the administration of environmental and transport matters and 74 territorial authorities that administer roading, sewerage, building consents, and other local matters. The territorial authorities are 16 city councils, 57 district councils, and the Chatham Islands County Council. Four of the territorial councils (one city and three districts) and the Chatham Islands County Council also perform the functions of a regional council and thus are known as unitary authorities. Territorial authority districts are not subdivisions of regional council districts, and a few of them straddle regional council boundaries. Regions are (asterisks denote unitary authorities): Northland, Auckland, Waikato, Bay of Plenty, Gisborne
- , Hawke's Bay, Taranaki, Manawatu-Wanganui, Wellington, Marlborough
- , Nelson
- , Tasman
- , West Coast, Canterbury, Otago, Southland, Chatham Islands
- . As a major South Pacific nation, New Zealand has a close working relationship with many of the smaller Pacific Island nations, and continues a political association with the Cook Islands, Niue, and Tokelau. New Zealand operates Scott Base in its Antarctic territory, the Ross Dependency. Other countries also use Christchurch to support their Antarctic bases and the city is sometimes known as the "Gateway to Antarctica".

Geography

Ross Dependency are visible in the centre of the North Island. The Southern Alps and the rain shadow they create are clearly visible on the South Island]] New Zealand comprises two main islands (simply called the North and South Islands in English, or usually Te-Ika-a-Maui and Te Wai Pounamu in Māori) and a number of smaller islands. The total land area of New Zealand, 268,680 km², is a little less than that of Japan and a little more than the United Kingdom. The country extends more than 1600 km along its main, north-north-east axis. The most significant of the smaller inhabited islands of New Zealand include Stewart Island/Rakiura, Waiheke Island, an island in Auckland's Hauraki Gulf, Great Barrier Island, east of the Hauraki Gulf and the Chatham Islands, named Rekohu by Moriori. The country has extensive marine resources, with the fifth largest Exclusive Economic Zone in the world covering over 4 million km², more than 15 times its land area. The South Island is the largest land mass, and is divided along its length by the Southern Alps, the highest peak of which is Aoraki/Mount Cook, at 3,754 metres (12,316 feet). There are 18 peaks of more than 3,000 metres in the South Island. The North Island is less mountainous than the South, but is marked by volcanism. The tallest North Island mountain, Mount Ruapehu (2,797 metres), is an active cone volcano. The dramatic and varied landscape of New Zealand has made it a popular location for the production of television programmes and films, including the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Lord of the Rings The usual climate throughout the country is mild, mostly cool temperate to warm temperate, with temperatures rarely falling below 0°C or rising above 30°C. Conditions vary from wet and cold on the West Coast of the South Island to dry and continental in the Mackenzie Basin of inland Canterbury and subtropical in Northland. Of the main cities, Christchurch is the driest, receiving only some 640 millimetres of rain per year. Auckland, the wettest, receives a little less than three times that amount.

Flora and fauna

Northland Because of its long isolation from the rest of the world, and its island biogeography New Zealand has extraordinary flora and fauna. About 80 percent of the New Zealand flora only occurs in New Zealand, including more than 40 endemic genera. The main two types of forest have been dominated by podocarps including the giant kauri and southern beech. The remaining vegetation types in New Zealand are grassland of grass and tussock, usually associated with the subalpine areas, and the low shrublands between grasslands and forests. Until the arrival of the first humans, 80% of the land was forested and, barring two species of bat, there were no non-marine mammals at all. Instead, New Zealand's forests were inhabited by a diverse range of birds including the flightless Moa which is now extinct, the Kiwi, Kakapo, and Takahē which are all endangered due to human actions. Unique birds capable of flight include the Haast's eagle which was the world's largest bird of prey before it became extinct and the large parrots the Kaka and Kea. Reptiles present in New Zealand include skinks and geckos and the Tuatara. There are no snakes but there are many species of insects— including the weta which may grow as large as a House Mouse.

Economy

House Mouse New Zealand has a thriving, modern, developed economy. The country has a high standard of living, ranking 19th on the 2005 Human Development Index and 15th of The Economists 2005 world-wide quality-of-life index. Since 1984 successive governments have engaged in major macroeconomic restructuring, transforming New Zealand from a highly protectionist and regulated economy to a liberalised free-trade economy. During the late 1980s, the New Zealand Government sold a number of major trading enterprises, including its telecommunications company, railway network, a number of radio stations and two financial institutions in a series of asset sales. Although the New Zealand Government continues to own a number of significant businesses, collectively known as State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs), they are operated through arms-length shareholding arrangements as stand-alone businesses that are required to operate profitably, just like any privately owned enterprise. Unfortunately, due in part to the sudden transition to a market economy, an economic bubble developed in the New Zealand stock market starting in 1984. This burst in October 1987 and the total value of the market halved within a year (it has still to recover this lost value). The effect of this bubble was a period of poor economic growth which lasted until the mid 90s. It also led the government to begin a programme of massive immigration to boost GDP. However, since 1999 New Zealand has enjoyed a period of relatively strong and sustained growth, and contained inflationary pressures. The current New Zealand government's economic objectives are centred around moving from being ranked among the lower end of the OECD countries to regaining a higher placing again, pursuing free-trade agreements, "closing the gaps" between ethnic groups, and building a "knowledge economy." In 2004 it began discussing free trade with China, one of the first countries to do so. New Zealand is heavily dependent on trade—particularly in agricultural products—to drive growth, and it has been affected by global economic slowdowns and slumps in commodity prices. Since agricultural exports are highly sensitive to currency values and a large percentage of consumer goods are imported, any changes in the value of the New Zealand dollar has a strong impact on the economy. Its primary export industries are agriculture, horticulture, fishing, forestry and information technology. There are also substantial tourism and export education industries. The film and wine industries are considered to be up-and-coming.
Demographics
New Zealand has a population of about 4.1 million. About 70% of the population are whites of European descent. New Zealanders of Anglo-Celtic ancestry are known as Pākeha - this term is used variously and some Māori use it to refer to all non-Māori New Zealanders. A large proportion of white New Zealanders are of Scottish ancestry. Māori people are the second largest ethnic group (the percentage of the population of full or part-Māori ancestry is 14.7%; those who checked only Māori are 7.9%). Between the 1996 and 2001 censuses, the number of people of Asian origin (6.6%) overtook the number of people of Pacific Island origin (6.5%) (note that the census allowed multiple ethnic affiliations). Virtually all Māori are of mixed heritage (Māori/Pākeha), but a large portion of them marked themselves as Māori-only on the Census. New Zealand is positive about immigration and is committed to increasing its population by approx 1% per annum. At present migrants from the UK constitute the largest single group (30%) but new migrants are drawn from many nations, increasingly from East Asia. Christianity is the predominant religion in New Zealand, although nearly 40% of the population has no religious affiliation. The main Christian denominations are Anglicanism, Presbyterianism, Roman Catholicism and Methodism. There are also significant numbers who identify themselves with Pentecostal and Baptist churches and with the Mormon church. The New Zealand-based Ratana church has many adherents among Māori. According to census figures, other significant minority religions include Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam.
Culture
IslamNew Zealand has a diverse contemporary culture with influences from British, the Māori,and other European immigrants and most recently Polynesian cultures. There were many people from Scotland amongst the early British settlers and elements of their culture persist; New Zealand is said to have more bagpipe bands than Scotland. Cultural links between New Zealand and the UK are maintained by a common language, sustained migration from the UK and the fact that many young New Zealanders spend time in the UK on their "overseas experience (OE)". Pre-European contact Māori culture had no metal tools, relying on stone and wood. Modern Māori do not live a traditional lifestyle. Elements of Māori culture survive and the Government actively promotes it to all New Zealanders. Use of the Māori language (Te Reo Māori) as a living, community language remained only in a few remote areas in the post war years but it is currently going through a renaissance; with generous state support for Māori language medium schools and a Māori language television channel. New Zealand's landscape has appeared in a number of television programmes and films. In particular, the television series Hercules and Xena were filmed around Auckland, and the film Heavenly Creatures in Christchurch. The television series The Tribe is set and filmed in New Zealand as well. Director Peter Jackson shot the epic The Lord of the Rings trilogy in various locations around the country, taking advantage of the spectacular and relatively unspoiled landscapes, and Mount Taranaki was used as a stand-in for Mount Fuji in The Last Samurai. The latest of such major international films to be released are King Kong and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Sport
New Zealand's most popular sports are rugby union, cricket, netball, lawn bowling, soccer (the most popular sport amongst children) and rugby league. Also popular are golf, tennis, cycling and a variety of water sports, particularly sailing, whitewater kayaking, Surf Lifesaving and rowing. In the latter, New Zealand enjoyed an extraordinary Magic 45 minutes when winning four successive gold medals at the 2005 world championships. Snow sports such as skiing and snowboarding are also popular. Equestrian sportsmen and sportswomen make their mark in the world (Mark Todd being chosen international "Horseman of the Century"), and all the way down to the juniors at pony club level.
Olympic Games
The country is internationally recognised as achieving extremely well on a medals-to-population ratio at Olympic Games and Commonwealth Games. See, for example, New Zealand Olympic medallists and New Zealand at the 2004 Summer Olympics.
Rugby
Rugby as a sport is closely linked to New Zealand's national identity. The national rugby team is called the All Blacks and has the best winning record of any national team in the world, including being the inaugural winners of the World Cup in 1987. The style of name has been followed in naming the national team in several other sports. For instance, the nation's basketball team is known as the Tall Blacks. New Zealand is to host the 2011 Rugby Union World Cup. New Zealand's national sporting colours are not the colours of its flag, but are black and white (silver). The silver fern is a national emblem worn by New Zealanders representing their country in sport. The haka—a traditional Māori challenge—is often performed at sporting events. The All Blacks traditionally perform a haka before the start of international matches.
Yachting, America's Cup
New Zealand is one of the leading nations in world yachting, especially open water long distance or around the world races. Round-the-world yachtsman, Sir Peter Blake was something of a national hero before his untimely death at the hands of river pirates while on an environmental exploration trip on the Amazon. In inshore yachting, Auckland hosted the last two America's Cup regattas (2000 and 2003). In 2000, Team New Zealand successfully defended the trophy they had won in 1995 in San Diego, which made them the only team in the history of the Cup to successfully defend a challenge other than a United States team, but in 2003 they lost to a team headed by Ernesto Bertarelli of Switzerland, whose Alinghi syndicate was skippered by Russell Coutts, the former skipper of Team New Zealand. Team New Zealand will compete for the America's Cup at the next regatta in Valencia in 2007. The team manager is Grant Dalton.
Public holidays
Statutory Holidays
(These holidays are legislated by several Acts of Parliament, such as the Holidays Act. New Zealand Statutes can be viewed at [http://www.legislation.govt.nz/browse_vw.asp?content-set=pal_statutes legislation.govt.nz]) There are also Provincial Anniversary Days to celebrate the founding days or landing days of the first colonists of the various colonial provinces. The actual observance of Anniversary days can vary even within each province due to local custom, convenience or the proximity of seasonal events or other holidays. This may differ from the historical observance day, and may be several weeks from the historic date of the events being commemorated. A full list of Anniversary days is listed in the article Holidays in New Zealand.
International rankings

- UN Human Development Index (HDI), 2005: 19th out of 177 behind Norway; United Nations Development Programme (pdf) [http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2005/pdf/HDR05_complete.pdf]
- Quality of Life Index, 2005: 15th out of 111 behind Ireland; The Economist Intelligence Unit (pdf) [http://www.economist.com/media/pdf/QUALITY_OF_LIFE.pdf]
- Environmental Sustainability Index, 2005: 14th (out of 146) behind Finland; Yale University Center for Environmental Law and Policy & Columbia University Center for International Earth Science Information Network (pdf) [http://www.yale.edu/esi/ESI2005_Main_Report.pdf]
- Index of Economic Freedom, 2005: 5th= (out of 155) behind Hong Kong; Heritage Foundation/Wall Street Journal [http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/]
- GDP Ranking, 2005: 25th out of 111 behind Luxembourg; The Economist Intelligence Unit (pdf) [http://www.economist.com/media/pdf/QUALITY_OF_LIFE.pdf]
- Transparency International 2005: 2nd= (out of 159) behind Iceland on its list of least corrupt countries in the world. [http://ww1.transparency.org/cpi/2005/cpi2005_infocus.html#cpi]
See also

Notes
McGlone, S.M. and Wilmshurst, J.M. 1999. Dating initial Māori environmental impact in New Zealand. Quaternary International 59:5 - 16
Ministry for the Environment. 2005. Offshore Options: Managing Environmental Effects in New Zealand's Exclusive Economic Zone. [http://www.mfe.govt.nz/publications/water/offshore-options-jun05/html/page3.html Introduction]
Allan, H.H. 1982. Indigenous Tracheophyta - Psilopsida, Lycopsida, Filicopsida, Gymnospermae, Dicotyledons, Flora of New Zealand Volume I. Botany Division, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research

External links

- [http://www.teara.govt.nz/ Te Ara, the Encyclopedia of New Zealand]
- [http://webdirectory.natlib.govt.nz/index.htm Te Puna Web Directory ] - A directory to New Zealand web sites
- [http://www.mch.govt.nz/ Ministry for Culture and Heritage] - includes information on flag, anthems and coat of arms.
- [http://www.govt.nz/ New Zealand Government Portal]
- [http://www.nzte.govt.nz/ New Zealand Trade and Enterprise] - New Zealand's trade and economic development agency.
- [http://wikitravel.org/en/article/New_Zealand Wikitravel] - New Zealand travel guide.
- [http://www.metservice.co.nz/ New Zealand weather]
- [http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/ NZHistory.net.nz New Zealand history website]
- [http://www.stats.govt.nz/ Statistics New Zealand] - Official statistics.
- [http://www.newzealand.com/ Tourism New Zealand]
- [http://www.astronomy.net.nz/ Astronomy in New Zealand] The guide to astronomy in New Zealand
- [http://www.nzherald.co.nz/ New Zealand Herald] - New Zealand newspaper online A
Category:Island nations Category:Members of the Commonwealth of Nations Category:Former British colonies Category:Monarchies Category:Oceanic countries Category:Polynesia als:Neuseeland zh-min-nan:Aotearoa ko:뉴질랜드 ms:New Zealand ja:ニュージーランド simple:New Zealand th:ประเทศนิวซีแลนด์

Humphrey Lyttelton

Humphrey Richard Adeane Lyttelton (born 23 May 1921) is a well-known British jazz musician and chairman of the radio programme I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue, and a cousin of the 10th Viscount Cobham. Lyttelton attended Sunningdale Preparatory School and then Eton College, where his father (The Hon. George Lyttelton, second son of the 8th Viscount Cobham) was a housemaster (and, indeed, where he had been born). At Eton he developed his love for jazz, forming a quartet there in 1936, which included future journalist Ludovic Kennedy on drums, after teaching himself the trumpet. After leaving school, he served in the Grenadier Guards. Following demobilisation after World War II, he attended Camberwell Art College for two years. In 1949, he joined the Daily Mail as a cartoonist, where he remained until 1956. In the late 1940s and early 1950s Lyttelton was prominent in the British revival of traditional jazz forms, from New Orleans, recording with Sidney Bechet in 1949, necessitating the break of Musician Union restrictive practices which forbade working with jazz musicians from the USA. In 1956, he had his only hit, Bad Penny Blues, which was in the UK charts for 6 weeks. As the trad movement (not quite the same thing as revivalism) developed, Lyttelton moved to a mainstream approach favoured by American musicians such as trumpeter Buck Clayton; they recorded together in the early 1960s. By now his repetory had expanded, not only including lesser known Ellington pieces, but even "The Champ" from Dizzy Gillespie's band book. The Lyttelton band - he sees himself primarily as a leader - has helped develop the careers of many now prominent British musicians, including Tony Coe and Alan Barnes. Lyttelton has presented The Best of Jazz on BBC Radio 2 since 1967. In 1972, he was chosen to host the free-form comedy show I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue on BBC Radio 4, a role he still performs. In 2001, Lyttelton and his band added trad jazz elements to a free-form, experimental Radiohead song "Life in a Glass House" on the Amnesiac album. As well as his other activities, Lyttelton is a keen calligrapher, as President of The Society for Italic Handwriting. He named his record label, Calligraph, which was founded in the early 1980s, after his extra-curricular interest. Not only has the label been used for issuing his own new albums, and those of associates, but his recordings for the Parlophone label in the 1950s have been reissued on CD via the imprint. Lyttleton is well known for his ancient and disreputable Volvo 200 series estate, in which has reportedly clocked up over a quarter of a million miles.

Books

- Humphrey Lyttelton: The Best of Jazz (Robson Books: London, 1998) (423pp.; ISBN 1861051875)

External links

- [http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/comedy/clue.shtml BBC - I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue] official site
- [http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/shows/bestjazz/ BBC - The Best of Jazz] official site of his Monday night show
- [http://www.calligraph-records.co.uk/ Calligraph Records] official site
- [http://www.guardian.co.uk/today/article/0,6729,495395,00.html David McKie's 80th birthday tribute to Humphrey Lyttelton] Lyttelton, Humphrey Lyttelton, Humphrey Lyttleton, Humphery Lyttelton, Humphrey Lyttelton, Humphrey Lyttelton, Humphrey Lyttelton, Humphrey Lyttelton, Humphrey Lyttelton, Humphrey

Jazz

Jazz is a musical art form originally developed by African Americans from around the turn of the 20th century. It is characterized by blue notes, syncopation, swing, call and response, polyrhythms, and improvisation sometimes in jam sessions. As the first original art form to emerge from the United States of America, jazz has been described as "America's Classical Music".

History

Roots of jazz

Jazz has roots in African American music traditions, including spirituals, blues and ragtime, stemming ultimately from West Africa, western Sahel, and New England's religious hymns and hillbilly music, as well as in European military band music. After originating in African American communities near the beginning of the 20th century, jazz gained international popularity by the 1920s. Since then, jazz has had a profoundly pervasive influence on other musical styles worldwide. Today, various jazz styles continue to evolve. The word jazz itself is rooted in American slang, probably of sexual origin, although various alternative derivations have been suggested. According to University of Southern California critical studies professor Todd Boyd, the term originated from slang for sexual intercourse because its earliest musicians found employment in New Orleans brothel parlors. Lacking an attentive audience, the musicians began to play for each other and their performances achieved esthetic complexity not evident in ragtime. At the root of jazz is the blues, the folk music of former enslaved Africans in the U.S. South and their descendants, heavily influenced by West African cultural and musical traditions, that evolved as black musicians migrated to the cities. According to Pulitzer Prize-winning African American composer and classical and jazz trumpet virtuoso Wynton Marsalis: Jazz is something Negroes invented, and it said the most profound things -- not only about us and the way we look at things, but about what modern democratic life is really about. It is the nobility of the race put into sound ... jazz has all the elements, from the spare and penetrating to the complex and enveloping. It is the hardest music to play that I know of, and it is the highest rendition of individual emotion in the history of Western music.
Early jazz influences found their first mainstream expression in the marching band and dance band music of the day, which was the standard form of popular concert music at the turn of century. The instruments of these groups became the basic instruments of jazz: brass, reeds, and drums. Black musicians frequently used the melody, structure, and beat of marches as points of departure; but says "North by South, from Charleston to Harlem," a project of the National Endowment for the Humanities: "...a black musical spirit (involving rhythm and melody) was bursting out of the confines of European musical tradition, even though the performers were using European styled instruments. This African-American feel for rephrasing melodies and reshaping rhythm created the embryo from which many great black jazz musicians were to emerge." Many black musicians also made a living playing in small bands hired to lead funeral processions in the New Orleans African-American tradition. These Africanized bands played a seminal role in the articulation and dissemination of early jazz. Traveling throughout black communities in the Deep South and to northern big cities, these musician-pioneers were the Hand helping to fashion the music's howling, raucous, then free-wheeling, "raggedy," ragtime spirit, quickening it to a more eloquent, sophisticated, swing incarnation. For all its genius, early jazz, with its humble, folk roots, was the product of primarily self-taught musicians. But an impressive postbellum network of black-established and -operated institutions, schools, and civic societies in both the North and the South, plus widening mainstream opportunities for education, produced ever-increasing numbers of young, formally trained African-American musicians, some of them schooled in classical European musical forms. Lorenzo Tio and Scott Joplin were among this new wave of musically literate jazz artists. Joplin, the son of a former slave and a free-born woman of color, was largely self-taught until age 11, when he received lessons in the fundamentals of music theory from a classically trained German immigrant in Texarkana, Texas. Also contributing to this trend was a tightening of Jim Crow laws in Louisiana in the 1890s, which caused the expulsion from integrated bands of numbers of talented, formally trained African-American musicians. The ability of these musically literate, black jazzmen to transpose and then read what was in great part an improvisational art form became an invaluable element in the preservation and dissemination of musical innovations that took on added importance in the approaching big-band era.

The United States music scene at the start of the 20th century

By the turn of the century, American society had begun to shed the heavy-handed, straitlaced formality that had characterized the Victorian era. Strong influence of African American music traditions had already been a part of mainstream popular music in the United States for generations, going back to the 19th century minstrel show tunes and the melodies of Stephen Foster. Public dance halls, clubs, and tea rooms opened in the cities. Curiously named black dances inspired by African dance moves, like the shimmy, turkey trot, buzzard lope, chicken scratch, monkey glide, and the bunny hug eventually were adopted by a white public. The cake walk, developed by slaves as a send-up of their masters' formal dress balls, became the rage. White audiences saw these dances first in vaudeville shows, then performed by exhibition dancers in the clubs. The popular dance music of the time was not jazz, but there were precursor forms along the blues-ragtime continuum of musical experimentation and innovation that soon would blossom into jazz. Popular Tin Pan Alley composers like Irving Berlin incorporated ragtime influence into their compositions, though they seldom used the specific musical devices that were second nature to jazz players—the rhythms, the blue notes. Few things did more to popularize the idea of hot music than Berlin's hit song of 1911,"Alexander's Ragtime Band," which became a craze as far from home as Vienna. Although the song wasn't written in rag time, the lyrics describe a jazz band, right up to jazzing up popular songs, as in the line, "If you want to hear the Swanee River played in ragtime...."

The early New Orleans "jass" style

A number of regional styles contributed to the early development of jazz. Arguably the single most important was that of the New Orleans, Louisiana area, which was the first to be commonly given the name "jazz" (early on often spelled "jass"). The city of New Orleans and the surrounding area had long been a regional music center. People from many different nations of Africa, Europe, and Latin America contributed to New Orleans' rich musical heritage. In the French and Spanish colonial era, slaves had more freedom of cultural expression than in the English colonies of what would become the United States. In the Protestant colonies African music was looked on as inherently "pagan" and was commonly suppressed, while in Louisiana it was allowed. African musical celebrations held at least as late as the 1830s in New Orleans' "Congo Square" were attended by interested whites as well, and some of their melodies and rhythms found their way into the compositions of white Creole composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk. In addition to the slave population, New Orleans also had North America's largest community of free people of color, some of whom prided themselves on their education and used European instruments to play both European music and their own folk tunes. According to many New Orleans musicians who remembered the era, the key figures in the development of the new style were flamboyant trumpeter Buddy Bolden and the members of his band. Bolden is remembered as the first to take the blues — hitherto a folk music sung and self-accompanied on string instruments or blues harp (harmonica) — and arrange it for brass instruments. Bolden's band played blues and other tunes, constantly "variating the melody" (improvising) for both dance and brass band settings, creating a sensation in the city and quickly being imitated by many other musicians. By the early years of the 20th century, travelers visiting New Orleans remarked on the local bands' ability to play ragtime with a "pep" not heard elsewhere. Characteristics which set the early New Orleans style apart from the ragtime music played elsewhere included freer rhythmic improvisation. Ragtime musicians elsewhere would "rag" a tune by giving a syncopated rhythm and playing a note twice (at half the time value), while the New Orleans style used more intricate rhythmic improvisation often placing notes far from the implied beat (compare, for example, the piano rolls of Jelly Roll Morton with those of Scott Joplin). The New Orleans style players also adopted much of the vocabulary of the blues, including bent and blue notes and instrumental "growls" and smears otherwise not used on European instruments. Key figures in the early development of the new style were Freddie Keppard, a dark Creole of color who mastered Bolden's style; Joe Oliver, whose style was even more deeply soaked in the blues than Bolden's; and Kid Ory, a trombonist who helped crystallize the style with his band hiring many of the city's best musicians. The new style also spoke to young whites as well, especially the working-class children of immigrants, who took up the style with enthusiasm. Papa Jack Laine led a multi-ethnic band through which passed almost all of two generations of early New Orleans white jazz musicians (and a number of non-whites as well).

Other regional styles

Meanwhile, other regional styles were developing which would influence the development of jazz.
- African-American minister Rev. Daniel J. Jenkins of Charleston, South Carolina, was an unlikely figure of far-reaching importance in the early development of jazz. In 1891, Jenkins established the Jenkins Orphanage for boys and four years later instituted a rigorous music program in which the orphanage's young charges were taught the religious and secular music of the day, including overtures and marches. Precocious orphans and defiant runaways, some of whom had played ragtime in bars and brothels, were delivered to the orphanage for "salvation" and rehabilitation and made their musical contributions, as well. In the fashion of the Fisk Jubilee Singers and Fisk University, the Jenkins Orphanage Bands traveled widely, earning money to keep the orphanage afloat. It was an expensive enterprise. Jenkins typically took in approximately 125 – 150 "black lambs" yearly, and many of them received formal musical training. Less than 30 years later, five bands operated nationally, with one traveling to England — again in the Fisk tradition. It would be hard to overstate the influence of the Jenkins Orphanage Bands on early jazz, scores of whose members went on to play with jazz legends like Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton and Count Basie. Among them were the likes of trumpet virtuosos Cladys "Cat" Anderson, Gus Aitken and Jabbo Smith.
- In the northeastern United States, a "hot" style of playing ragtime developed. While centered in New York City, it could be found in African-American communities from Baltimore to Boston. Some later commentators have categorized it after the fact as an early form of jazz, while others disagree. It was characterized by rollicking rhythms, but lacked the distinctly bluesy influence of the southern styles. The solo piano version of the northeast style was typified by such players as noted composer Eubie Blake, the son of slaves, whose musical career spanned an impressive eight decades. James P. Johnson took the northeast style and around 1919 developed a style of playing that came to be known as "stride." In stride piano, the right hand plays the melody, while the active left hand "walks" or "strides" from upbeat to downbeat, maintaining the rhythm. Johnson influenced later pianists like Fats Waller and Willie Smith. : The top orchestral leader of the style was James Reese Europe, and his 1913 and 1914 recordings preserve a rare glimpse of this style at its peak. It was during this time that Europe's music profoundly influenced a young George Gershwin, who would go on to compose the jazz-inspired classic "Rhapsody in Blue." By the time Europe recorded again in 1919, he was in the process of incorporating the influence of the New Orleans style into his playing. The recordings of Tim Brymn give later generations another look at the northeastern hot style with little of the New Orleans influence yet evident.
- In Chicago at the start of the 1910s, a popular type of dance band consisted of a saxophone vigorously ragging a melody over a 4-square rhythm section. The city soon fell heavily under the influence of waves of New Orleans musicians, and the older style blended with the New Orleans style to form what would be called "Chicago Jazz" starting in the late 1910s.
- Along the banks of the Mississippi around Memphis, Tennessee to Saint Louis, Missouri, another band style developed incorporating the blues. The most famous composer and bandleader of the style was the "Father of the Blues," W.C. Handy. While in some ways similar to the New Orleans style (Bolden's influence may have spread upriver), it lacked the freewheeling improvisation found further south. Handy, indeed, for many years denounced jazz as needlessly chaotic, and in his style improvisation was limited to short fills between phrases and considered inappropriate for the main melody.

The national spread of ‘jass’ music

A number of educated "colored" New Orleanians left the South due to increasingly restrictive Jim Crow laws, at first heading mostly to California. One of these was musician Bill Johnson, who thought a good New Orleans-style band would have commercial possibilities out West. Johnson sent for some of the city's best hot musicians, including Freddie Keppard, to join him at the start of the 1910s, forming the Original Creole Orchestra. A vaudeville promoter caught the band playing to enthusiastic crowds in between rounds at a boxing match and booked the band to tour the nation on the Pantages Circuit. The members of the Creole Orchestra wrote their colleagues back home that hot New Orleans musicians could make much better money playing their style up North and out West than they could at home, encouraging many to start spreading the style around the nation. Chicago was one of the first cities to embrace the new style, and from some accounts it was here that the New Orleans style was first popularly christened "jass." Back in New Orleans, it was called by such names as "ratty music", "hot music," or simply "ragtime" (Sidney Bechet often continued to call his music "ragtime" as late as the 1950s). The style was so different from the ragtime and dance music of the rest of the nation, that a new name was needed to distinguish it. Apparently, the first band billed as playing "jass" was that of trombonist Tom Brown. The term "jass" was rude sexual slang, related either to the term "jism" or to the jasmine perfume popular among urban prostitutes. One group that followed the Original Creoles and Tom Brown to Chicago went North in 1916 as "Stein's Dixie Jass Band." These veterans of the Papa Jack Laine bands made their way to New York City the following year, calling themselves "The Original Dixieland Jass Band." In New York, they had an opportunity to record phonograph records. The discs, recorded as a novelty, were a surprise national hit, and "jass" quickly became a national craze. It was in New York where "jass" became "jazz" in the late 1910s, purportedly because mischievous people were making a habit of scratching out the "J"s on posters, which then, unfortunately, advertised "ass band"s.

Jazz in the 1920's

phonograph records Two disparate, but important, inventions of the second half of the nineteenth century quietly had set the stage for jazz to capture the spotlight in American popular music by the 1920s. George Pullman's invention of the sleeping car in 1864 brought a new level of luxury and comfort to the nation's railways; and Thomas Edison's invention, in 1877, of the phonograph record made quality music accessible to virtually everyone. Pullman's ingenious, rolling sleeping quarters provided employment to legions of African-American men, who criss-crossed the nation as sleeping car porters; and by the second decade of the twentieth century, the Pullman Company employed more African-Americans than any single business concern in the United States. But Pullman porters were more than solicitous, smiling faces in smart, navy blue uniforms. The most dapper and sophisticated of them were culture bearers, spreading the card game of bid whist, the latest dance crazes, regional news, and a heightened sense of black pride to cities and towns wherever the railways reached. Many porters also shared, traded and even sold "race records" to augment their income, speeding artistic innovations to musicians eager to hear the latest; spreading among the general public an awareness of and appreciation for this rapidly evolving musical form; and, in the process, putting jazz on the fast track to first U.S., then worldwide, acclaim. With Prohibition, the constitutional amendment that forbade the sale of alcoholic beverages, the legal saloons and cabarets were closed; but in their place hundreds of speakeasies appeared, where patrons drank and musicians entertained. The presence of dance venues and the subsequent increased demand for accomplished musicians meant more artists were able to support themselves by playing professionally. As a result, the numbers of professional musicians increased, and jazz—like all the popular music of the 1920s—adopted the 4/4 beat of dance music. Another nineteenth-century invention, radio, came into its own in the 1920s, after the first commercial radio station in the U.S. began broadcasting in Pittsburgh in 1922. Radio stations proliferated at a remarkable rate, and with them, the popularity of jazz. Jazz became associated with things modern, sophisticated, and decadent. The third decade of the new century, a time of technological marvels, flappers, flashy automobiles, organized crime, bootleg whiskey, and bathtub gin, would come to be known as the Jazz Age.

Key figures of the decade

flappers King Oliver was "jazz king" of Chicago in the early 1920s, when Chicago was the national hub of jazz. His band was the epitome of the New Orleans hot ensemble jazz style. Unfortunately, his band's recordings were little heard outside of Chicago and New Orleans, but the ensemble was a powerful influence on younger musicians, both black and white. Sidney Bechet was the first master jazz musician to take up what previously often had been dismissed as a novelty instrument, the saxophone. Bechet helped propel jazz in more individualistic personality- and solo-driven directions. In this last point, Bechet was joined by a young protege of King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, who was to become one of the major forces in the development of jazz. Armstrong was an extraordinary improviser, capable of creating endless variations on a single melody. Armstrong also popularized scat singing, an improvisational vocal technique in which nonsensical syllables or words are sung or otherwise vocalized, often as part of a call-and-response interaction with other musicians onstage. His unique, gravely voice and innate sense of swing made scat an instant hit. Arguably, Bix Beiderbecke was both the first white and the first non-New Orleanian to make major original contributions to the development of jazz with his legato phrasing, bringing the influence of classical romanticism to jazz. Paul Whiteman was the most commercially successful bandleader of the 1920s, billing himself as "The King of Jazz." Sacrificing spontaneous improvisation for the sake of elaborate written arrangements, Whiteman claimed to be "making a lady out of jazz." Despite his hiring Bix and many of the other best white jazz musicians of the era, later generations of jazz lovers have often judged Whiteman's music to have little to do with real jazz. Nonetheless, his notion of combining jazz with elaborate orchestrations has been returned to repeatedly by composers and arrangers of later decades. It was Whiteman who commissioned Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue," which was debuted by Whiteman's Orchestra. Fletcher Henderson led the top African American band in New York City. At first he wished to follow the lead of Paul Whiteman, but after hiring Louis Armstrong to play in his band, Henderson realized the importance of the improvising soloist in developing jazz bands. Henderson's arrangements would play a significant role in the development of the Big Band era in the following decade. Young pianist and bandleader Duke Ellington first came to national attention in the late 1920s with his tight band making many recordings and radio broadcasts. Ellington's importance would grow in the coming decades.

1930s to 1950s

While the solo became more important in jazz, popular bands became larger in size. The Big band became the popular provider of music for the era. Big bands varied in their jazz content; some (such as Benny Goodman's Orchestra) were highly jazz oriented, while others (such as Glenn Miller's) left little space for improvisation. Most were somewhere inbetween, having some musicians adept at jazz solos playing with section men who kept the rhythm and arrangements going. However even bands without jazz soloists adopted a sound owing much to the jazz vocabularity, for example sax sections playing what sounded like an improvised variation on a melody (and may have originated as a transcription of one). Key figures in developing the big jazz band were arrangers and bandleaders Fletcher Henderson, Don Redman and the man sometimes deemed the most prolific composer in American history, Duke Ellington. The influence of Louis Armstrong continued to grow. Musicians and bandleaders like Cab Calloway — and, later, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and vocalists like Ella Fitzgerald, jumped on the scat bandwagon. Pop vocalists like Bing Crosby embraced Armstrong's style of improvising on the melody, and U.S. pop singers seldom since have rendered a tune "straight," in the pre-jazz style. In the early 1920s, popular music was still a mixture of things—current dance numbers, novelty songs, show tunes. "Businessman's bounce music," as one horn player put it. But musicians with steady jobs, playing with the same companions, were able to go far beyond that. The Ellington band at the Cotton Club and the various Kansas City groups that became the Count Basie band date from this period. Over time, social strictures regarding racial segregation began to relax in entertainment. White bandleaders, who tended to mold the music more to orthodox rhythms and harmony, began to recruit black musicians. In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman hired pianist Teddy Wilson, vibraharpist Lionel Hampton, and guitarist Charlie Christian to join small groups. During this period, the popularity of swing (genre) and big band music was at its height, making stars of such men as Glenn Miller and Duke Ellington. Swing, the popular music of its time, covered a broad spectrum from "sweet" to "hot" bands, with the jazz content varying across the range. A development of swing in the early 1940s known as "jumping the blues" or jump music anticipated rhythm and blues and rock and roll in some respects. It involved the use of small combos instead of big bands and a concentration on up-tempo music using the familiar blues chord progressions. Drawing largely upon the evolution of boogie-woogie in the 1930s, it used a doubled rhythm—that is, the rhythm section played "eight to the bar," eight beats per measure instead of four. Big Joe Turner, a Kansas City singer who worked in the 1930s with Swing bands like Count Basie's, became a boogie-woogie star in the 1940s and then in the 1950s was one of the first innovators of rock and roll, notably with his song "Shake, Rattle and Roll". Another jazz founder of rock and roll was saxophonist Louis Jordan.

Development of bebop

The next major stylistic turn came in the 1940s with bebop, led by such distinctive stylists as the saxophonist Charlie Parker (known as "Yardbird" or "Bird"), Bud Powell and Dizzy Gillespie. This marked a major shift of jazz from pop music for dancing to a high-art, less-accessible, cerebral "musician's music." Thelonious Monk, while too individual to be strictly a bebop musician, was also associated with this movement. Bop musicians valued complex improvisations based on chord progressions rather than melody. Hard bop moved away from cool jazz, incorporating influences from soul music, gospel music, and the blues. Hard bop was at the peak of its popularity in the 1950s and 1960s, and was associated with such figures as Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Art Blakey and Charles Mingus. Later, bebop and hard bop musicians, such as trumpeter Miles Davis, made more stylistic advances with modal jazz, where the harmonic structure of pieces was much more free than previously, and was frequently only implied -- by skeletal piano chords and bass parts. The instrumentalists then would improvise around a given mode of the scale.

Latin jazz

Main article: Latin jazz Latin jazz has two varieties: Afro-Cuban and Brazilian. Afro-Cuban jazz was played in the U.S. directly after the bebop period, while Brazilian jazz became more popular in the 1960s and 1970s. Afro-Cuban jazz began as a movement after the death of Charlie Parker. Notable bebop musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie and Billy Taylor started Afro-Cuban bands at that time. Gillespie's work was mostly with big bands of this genre. While the music was influenced by such Cuban and Puerto Rican musicians as Tito Puente and, much later, Arturo Sandoval, there were many Americans who were drawing upon Cuban rhythms for their work. Brazilian jazz is, in North America at least, nearly synonymous with bossa nova, a Brazilian popular style which is derived from samba with influences from jazz as well as other 20th-century classical and popular music. Bossa is generally slow, played around 80 beats per minute or so. The music uses straight eighths, rather than swing eighths, and also uses difficult polyrhythms. The best-known bossa nova compositions are considered to be jazz standards in their own right. The related term jazz-samba essentially describes an adaptation of bossa nova compositions to the jazz idiom by American performers such as Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd, and usually played at 120 beats per minute or faster. Samba itself is actually not jazz but, being derived from older Afro-Brazilian music, it shares some common characteristics.

Free jazz

Main article: Free jazz Free jazz, or avant-garde jazz, is a subgenre that, while rooted in bebop, typically uses less compositional material and allows performers more latitude in what they choose to play. Free jazz's greatest departure from other styles is in the use of harmony and a regular, swinging tempo: Both are often implied, utilized loosely, or abandoned altogether. These approaches were rather controversial when first advanced, but have generally found acceptance — though sometimes grudgingly — and have been utilized in part by other jazz performers. There were earlier precedents, but free jazz crystalized in the late 1950's, especially via Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor, and probably found its greatest exposure in the late 1960s with John Coltrane, Archie Shepp, Albert Ayler, Sun Ra, Pharoah Sanders, Sam Rivers, Leroy Jenkins, Don Pullen and others. While perhaps less popular than other styles, free jazz has exerted an influence to the present. Peter Brötzmann, Michael Schulz, Ken Vandermark, William Parker, Derek Bailey and Evan Parker are leading contemporary free jazz musicians, and musicians such as Coleman, Taylor and Sanders continue to play in this style. Keith Jarrett has been prominent in defending free jazz from criticism by traditionalists in recent years.

Jazz and rock music: jazz fusion

Main article: Jazz fusion Jazz fusion With the growth of rock and roll in the 1960s, came the hybrid form jazz-rock fusion, again involving Davis, who recorded the fusion albums In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew in 1968 and 1969 respectively. Jazz was by this time no longer center stage in popular music, but was still breaking new ground and combining and recombining in different forms. Notable artists of the 1960s and 1970s jazz and fusion scene include: Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock and his Headhunters band, John McLaughlin and the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Al Di Meola, Jean-Luc Ponty, Sun Ra, Soft Machine, Narada Michael Walden (who would later enjoy huge success as a music producer), Wayne Shorter, Jaco Pastorius, the Pat Metheny Group and Weather Report. Some of these have continued to develop the genre into the 2000s.

Recent developments

The stylistic diversity of jazz has shown no sign of diminishing, absorbing influences from such disparate sources as world music and avant garde classical music, including African rhythm and traditional structure, serialism, and the extensive use of chromatic scale, by such musicians as Ornette Coleman and John Zorn. Beginning in the 1970s with such artists as Keith Jarrett, Paul Bley, the Pat Metheny Group, Jan Garbarek, Ralph Towner, and Eberhard Weber, the ECM record label established a new chamber-music aesthetic, featuring mainly acoustic instruments, and incorporating elements of world music and folk music. This is sometimes referred to as "European" or "Nordic" jazz, despite some of the leading players being American. However, the jazz community has shrunk dramatically and split, with a mainly older audience retaining an interest in traditional and "straight-ahead" jazz styles, a small core of practitioners and fans interested in highly experimental modern jazz, and a constantly changing group of musicians fusing jazz idioms with contemporary popular music genres. The latter have formed such styles as acid jazz which contains elements of 1970s disco, acid swing which combines 1940s style big-band sounds with faster, more aggressive rock-influenced drums and electric guitar, and nu jazz which combines elements of jazz and modern forms of electronic dance music. Exponents of the "acid jazz" style which was initially UK-based included the Brand New Heavies, James Taylor Quartet, Young Disciples, and Corduroy. In the United States, acid jazz groups included the Groove Collective, Soulive, and Solsonics. In a more pop or smooth jazz context, jazz enjoyed a resurgence in the 1980s with such bands as Pigbag and Curiosity Killed the Cat achieving chart hits in Britain. Sade Adu became the definitive voice of smooth jazz. There have been other developments in the 1980s and 1990s that were less commercially oriented. Many of these artists, notably Wynton Marsalis, called what they were doing jazz and in fact strove to define what the term actually meant. They sought to create within what they felt was the tradition, creating extensions of small and large forms initially pioneered by such artists as Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. In the case of Wynton Marsalis these efforts met with critical acclaim. Others musicians in this time period - although clearly within the tradition of the great spontaneous composers such as Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Fats Navarro and many others – choose to distance themselves from the term jazz and simply define what they were doing as music (this in fact was suggested by the great composer Duke Ellington when the term jazz first began to be popular). Alternatively they created their own names for what they were doing (such as M-Base). Many of these artists agree with the creative guitarist Jean-Paul Bourelly who feels that "You shouldn't categorize according to styles of music, you should categorize in terms of creative levels". These musicians feel that rhythm is the key for further progress in the music. Bourelly, similar to M-Base, believes that the rhythmic innovations of James Brown and other Funk pioneers can provide an effective rhythmic base for spontaneous composition. However, the ideas of these musicians go far beyond simply playing over a funk groove, extending the rhythmic ideas in a way analogous to what had been done with harmony in previous times. Some of the musicians involved in the approach called M-Base even view this as Rhythmic Harmony. Others, like Wynton Marsalis, disagree with this point of view, preferring instead to retain the rhythmic base of swing for creating their music. However, all of these artists participate in spontaneous composition and only differ in creative focus and what could be called groove emphasis. With the rise in popularity of various forms of electronic music during the late 1980s and 1990s, some jazz artists have attempted a fusion of jazz with more of the experimental leanings of electronica (particularly IDM and Drum and bass) with various degrees of success. This has been variously dubbed "future jazz", "jazz-house" or "nu jazz". The more experimental and improvisional end of the spectrum includes Scandinavia-based artists such as pianist Bugge Wesseltoft, trumpeter Nils Petter Molvær (who both began their careers on the ECM record label), and the trio Wibutee, all of whom have gained their chops as instrumentalists in their own right in more traditional jazz circles. The Cinematic Orchestra from the UK or Julien Loureau from France have also gained praise in this area. Toward the more pop or pure dance music end of the spectrum of nu jazz are such proponents as St Germain and Jazzanova, who incorporate some live jazz playing with more metronomic house beats. In the 2000s, "jazz" hit the pop charts and blended with contemporary Urban music through the work of artists like Norah Jones, Jill Scott, Jamie Cullum, Erykah Badu, Amy Winehouse and Diana Krall and the jazz advocacy of performers who are also music educators (such as Jools Holland, Courtney Pine and Peter Cincotti). Some of these new styles may be light on improvisation, a key characteristic of jazz. However, their instrumentation and rhythms are similar to other jazz music, and the label has stuck.

Improvisation

Peter Cincotti Jazz is often difficult to define, but improvisation is unquestionably a key element of the form. Improvisation has been since early times an essential element in African and African-American music and is closely related to the pervasiveness of call and response in West African and African-American cultural expression. The exact form of improvisation has changed over time. Early folk blues music often was based around a call and response pattern, and improvisation would factor into the lyrics, the melody, or both. Part of the Dixieland style involves musicians taking turns playing the melody while the others make up counter lines to go with it. By the Swing era, big bands played carefully arranged sheet music, but the music often would call for one member of the band to stand up and play a short, improvised solo. Finally, in bebop, improvisation takes center stage, as almost the entire focus of the music is on clever, improvised solos, with little attention given to the melody, or "head", of each piece. As previously noted, later styles of jazz, such as modal jazz, abandoned the strict notion of a chord progression, allowing the individual musicians to improvise more freely within the context of a given scale or mode. The best-known example of this is the classic Miles Davis album Kind of Blue. When a pianist or guitarist improvises chords while a soloist is playing, it is called comping or vamping (also see ostinato).

References

- Ken Burns, Geoffrey C. Ward: Jazz - A History of America´s Music. Alfred A. Knopf, NY USA. 2000. or: The Jazz Film Project, Inc.

External links

- [http://northbysouth.kenyon.edu/1998/music/rhythm/rhythm.htm The Influence of Africa: Syncopation, Call and Response and Timbre]
- [http://www.darmstadt.de/kultur/musik/jazz/us.htm Jazz Institute Darmstadt — Europe's largest public research archive on jazz]
- [http://www.jazzservices.org.uk/ Jazz in the United Kingdom] Category:Musical genres Category:Musical modernism ko:재즈 ja:ジャズ simple:Jazz th:แจ๊ส

Judge

A judge or justice is an official who presides over a court. The powers, functions, method of appointment, and training of judges vary widely across different jurisdictions. More generally, a "judge" may be a qualified person who evaluates and passes judgment on something. For example, a judge at a county fair might award prizes to the best cattle or best jam, while dog-show judges at a dog show determines which of several dogs best meets the breed standards.

Judges in the legal system

breed standard Judges are considered to be the leaders of one of the three branches of government, the judiciary. In liberal democracies with rule of law, judges are required to be impartial and not influenced by outside factors. In some civil law jurisdictions with inquisitorial systems, judges go to special schools to be trained after graduating with a law degree from a university; after such training they often become investigating magistrate. In common law countries, judges usually operate according to the adversarial system of justice under the applicable rules of civil procedure, and usually are not trained separately from lawyers. In the law of the United States, judges are generally appointed or elected from among practicing attorneys. In the common law system, when there is a jury trial in the trial courts, the jury generally decides questions of fact (guilt or innocence, whether a party was negligent, what the amount of damages should be, etc.) while the judge decides questions of law (under common-law systems, one of the judge's most important power is jury instructions). In the United States, bench trials and summary judgments are situations in which the judge decides issues of both law and fact. Historically, in Europe in the Middle Ages, juries often stated the law by consensus or majority and the judge applied it to the facts as he saw them. This practice generally no longer exists. In Finland, there are two kinds of judges in district courts: a legally-trained judge functions as the president of the court, while judges elected for a four-year term from the population, without any special legal training, serve as lay members of the court. Judges in special courts and apellate courts are always legally trained. Lay judges do not function like a common-law jury. In the usual case, three lay judges in district courts hear criminal cases in cooperation with a legally trained judge, each judge – legally trained or not – having an individual vote. Civil cases, however, are heard exclusively by legally trained judges.

Symbols of office

Being a judge is usually a prestigious position in society. A variety of traditions have become associated with the occupation. In many parts of the world, judges wear long robes (usually in black or red) and sit on an elevated platform during trials (known as the bench). In some countries, especially Britain, judges also wear wigs. The long wig often associated with judges is now reserved for ceremonial occasions, although it was part of the standard attire in previous centuries. A short wig resembling but not identical to a barrister's wig is worn in court. American judges usually always wear simple black robes and use gavels to keep order in the courtroom. However, in some