:: wikimiki.org ::

Giant Steps

Giant Steps

Giant Steps is a 1960 album by jazz musician John Coltrane. Giant Steps was a first for Coltrane in several ways. It was Coltrane's first album for the Atlantic label, and marked the first time that all of the pieces on a recording had been composed by him. The recording exemplifies Coltrane's harmonic improvisation and melodic phrasing that came to be known as sheets of sound. The album is also considered to be Coltrane's farewell to the style of music called "bebop." He would venture into the territory known as "modal jazz" shortly after. Several pieces on this album went on to become jazz standards, such as "Naima", "Giant Steps", "Cousin Mary", "Countdown", and "Mr. PC". Giant Steps is number 102 on the List of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

Track listing

Original LP release Giant Steps, 1960 (Atlantic SD 1311) #"Giant Steps" - 4:43 #"Cousin Mary" - 5:45 #"Countdown" - 2:21 #"Spiral" - 5:56 #"Syeeda's Song Flute" - 7:00 #"Naima" - 4:21 #"Mr. P.C." - 6:57 #:Alternative takes first released on Alternate Takes, 1974 (Atlantic SD 1668): #"Giant Steps" - 3:40 #"Naima" - 4:27 #"Cousin Mary" - 5:54 #"Countdown" - 4:33 #"Syeeda's Song Flute" - 7:02 #:Additional alternative takes first released on John Coltrane: The Heavyweight Champion, The Complete Atlantic Recordings, August 1995 (Rhino 71984): #"Giant Steps" - 3:32 #"Naima" - 3:37 #"Giant Steps" - 5:00

Personnel

Recorded May 4 and May 5 1959: main take tracks 1–5, 7; alternative take tracks 10–12, and additional alternative track 15.
- John Coltrane - Tenor sax
- Paul Chambers - Bass
- Tommy Flanagan - Piano
- Art Taylor - Drums
- Tom Dowd - Engineer
- Phil Iehle - Engineer Recorded December 2 1959: main take track 6
- Wynton Kelly - Piano
- Jimmy Cobb - Drums Recorded April 1 (March 26 according to Rhino liner notes) 1959: alternative tracks 8 and 9, and additional alternative tracks 13 and 14
- Cedar Walton - Piano
- Lex Humphries - Drums

Releases

- 1960 (Atlantic Records SD 1311, vinyl)
- 1990 (Atlantic Records 1311-2, remastered CD) :with alternate takes 8-12
- 1994 (Mobile Fidelity UDCD 605, Gold CD) :with alternate takes 8-12
- 1998 (Rhino Records 75203, Deluxe Edition CD, 180-gram vinyl) :with alternate takes 8-12 and additional alternate takes 13-15, no alternate takes on vinyl

External link

- [http://web.archive.org/web/20020615215357/http://www.rhino.com/features/liners/75203lin.html Liner notes] and [http://web.archive.org/web/20020817184159/www.rhino.com/features/tracks/75203trx.html track notes], Rhino Deluxe Edition Category:1960 albums Category:John Coltrane albums Category:Grammy Hall of Fame Awards

Giant Steps

Track listing

Personnel

Releases

External link

1960 in music

Events

- January 14 - Elvis Presley is promoted to Sergeant in the U.S. Army
- February 6 - Songwriter Jesse Belvin dies in an automobile accident in Los Angeles, California. Belvin was the co-author of "Earth Angel," the Penguins' classic from 1954
- February 17 - The Everly Brothers sign a 10-year, $1 million contract with Warner Bros. Records.
- March 5 - Elvis Presley returns home from serving in the US Army
- March - UK music trade publication Record Retailer launches its own singles, albums and EP charts.
- First performance of Lionel Bart's Oliver!
- April 1 - Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Elvis Presley, Dean Martin and Mitch Miller film Sinatra's Timex Special for ABC at Miami, Florida's Fountainbleu Hotel
- April 2 - The National Association of Record Merchants presents its first annual awards in Las Vegas, Nevada
- April 4 - RCA Victor Records announces that it will release all pop singles in mono and stereo simultaneously, the first record company to do so. Elvis Presley's single, "Stuck on You," is RCA's first mono/stereo release.
- April 17 - Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent and Cochran's girlfriend Sharon Sheeley are injured in a car accident near Chippenham, Wiltshire. Cochran dies in a hospital in Bath, England, from severe brain injuries.
- April 20 - Elvis Presley returns to Hollywood, California for the first time since coming home from Germany to film G.I. Blues
- May 2 - The Drifters' Ben E. King leaves the group and signs a solo record contract with ATCO Records.
- August 1 - The Beatles make their debut in Hamburg, Germany. The band at the time included John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Stu Sutcliffe on bass and Pete Best on drums.
- August 27 - The Louisiana Hayride put on its final radio show.
- November 5 - Country singer Johnny Horton dies in an automobile accident in Milano, Texas.
- November 13 - Sammy Davis, Jr. and May Britt wed.
- Dalida receives the Radio Monte Carlo Oscar and the Grand Prix for best Italian song.
- The Beatles' musical career begins.
- Patti LaBelle's musical career begins
- Carla Thomas' musical career begins
- Hank Williams Jr.'s musical career begins
- Van Morrison's musical career begins
- The Supremes' musical career begins
- Renato Carosone announces his retirement

Albums released

- Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas - Ella Fitzgerald
- Elvis Is Back - Elvis Presley
- GI Blues - Elvis Presley
- Genius of Ray Charles - Ray Charles
- Giant Steps - John Coltrane
- Hello, Love - Ella Fitzgerald
- "Joan Baez" - Joan Baez
- Les Enfants du Pirée - Dalida
- Ella in Berlin: Mack the Knife - Ella Fitzgerald
- Me And My Shadows - Cliff Richard & The Shadows
- More Songs By Ricky - Ricky Nelson
- Nice ’n’ Easy - Frank Sinatra
- Sings Songs from Let No Man Write My Epitaph - Ella Fitzgerald
- String Along - The Kingston Trio
- This Is Brenda - Brenda Lee
- Where The Boys Are - Connie Francis

Top hits on record

- "Alley-Oop" - Hollywood Argyles
- "Burning Bridges" - Jack Scott
- "Cathy's Clown" - The Everly Brothers
- "Chain Gang" - Sam Cooke
- "Corinna, Corinna" - Ray Peterson
- "Dreamin' " - Johnny Burnette
- "Everybody's Somebody's Fool" - Connie Francis
- "Exodus" - Ferrante & Teicher
- "Georgia On My Mind" - Ray Charles
- "Good Timin'" - Jimmy Jones
- "I'm Sorry" - Brenda Lee
- "Itsi Bitsi Petit Bikini" - Dalida
- "It's Now Or Never" - Elvis Presley
- "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" - Brian Hyland
- "L'Arlequin de Tolède" - Dalida
- "Les Enfants du Pirée" - Dalida
- "Mission Bell" - Donnie Brooks
- "Mule Skinner Blues" - The Fendermen
- "North To Alaska" - Johnny Horton
- "Only The Lonely" - Roy Orbison
- "Ô Sole Mio" - Dalida
- "Romantica" - Dalida
- "Rubber Ball" - Bobby Vee
- "Save The Last Dance For Me" - The Drifters
- "Sink the Bismarck" - Johnny Horton
- "Stay" - Maurice Williams & the Zodiacs
- "T'Aimer Follement" - Dalida
- "Tall Oak Tree" - Dorsey Burnette
- "Teen Angel" - Mark Dinning
- "Tell Laura I Love Her" - Ray Peterson
- "Today's Teardrops" - Roy Orbison, written by Gene Pitney
- "True Love Ways" - Buddy Holly
- "Walk, Don't Run" - The Ventures
- "What In the World's Come Over You" - Jack Scott
- "Wild One" - Bobby Rydell
- "You're Sixteen" - Johnny Burnette
- "You Talk Too Much" - Joe Jones See also: Hot 100 No. 1 Hits of 1960 (USA)

Published popular music

- "Ain't That A Kick In The Head?" w. Sammy Cahn m. James Van Heusen
- "Alley-Oop"     w.m. Dallas Frazier
- "Apache"     m. Jerry Lordan
- "Artificial Flowers"     w. Sheldon Harnick m. Jerry Bock from the musical Tenderloin
- "Because They're Young"     w. Aaron Schroeder & Wally Gold m. Don Costa
- "Bellyup To The Bar, Boys"     w.m. Meredith Willson
- "Bonanza!"     w.m. Jay Livingston & Ray Evans
- "Calcutta"     w. Lee Pockriss & Paul Vance m. Heino Gaze
- "Calendar Girl"     w. Howard Greenfield m. Neil Sedaka
- "Camelot"     w. Alan Jay Lerner m. Frederick Loewe
- "Cathy's Clown"     w.m. Don Everly & Phil Everly
- "Chain Gang"     w.m. Sam Cooke
- "Corinna, Corinna"     adapt with new w. Mitchell Parish
- " 'D' In Love"     Sid Tepper, Joeseph C. Bennett
- "Dis-Donc, Dis-Donc"     w. (Eng) Julian Moore, David Heneker & Monty Norman (Fr) Alexandre Breffort m. Marguerite Monnot
- "Do You Mind"     w.m. Lionel Bart
- "Dolce Far Niente"     w.m. Meredith Willson
- "Eee-o-Eleven" w. Sammy Cahn m. James Van Heusen
- "Emotions"     Kearney
- "Everybody's Somebody's Fool"     w. Howard Greenfield m. Jack Keller
- "Exodus"     w. Charles E. (Pat) Boone m. Ernest Gold
- "Faraway Boy"     w.m. Frank Loesser
- "Fings Ain't Wot They Used To Be"     w.m. Lionel Bart
- "Follow Me"     w. Alan Jay Lerner m. Frederick Loewe
- "Footsteps"     w.m. Barry Mann & Hank Hunter
- "Give A Little Whistle"     w. Carolyn Leigh m. Cy Coleman
- "Good Timin' "     w.m. Fred Tobias & Clint Ballard, Jr.
- "Goodness Gracious Me"     D. Lee, H. Kretzmer
- "The Green Leaves Of Summer"     w. Paul Francis Webster m. Dimitri Tiomkin
- "Happy-Go-Lucky Me"     w.m. Paul Evans
- "He Will Break Your Heart"     w.m. Jerry Butler, Calvin Carter & Curtis Mayfield
- "Hey, Look Me Over!"     w. Carolyn Leigh m. Cy Coleman
- "How To Handle A Woman"     w. Alan Jay Lerner m. Frederick Loewe
- "I Ain't Down Yet"     w.m. Meredith Willson
- "I Can See It"     w.Tom Jones m. Harvey Schmidt
- "I Gotta Know"     w.m. Paul Evans & Matt Williams
- "I Loved You Once In Silence"     w. Alan Jay Lerner m. Frederick Loewe
- "I Want To Be Wanted"     w. (Eng) Kim Gannon (Ital) A. Testa m. Pino Spotti
- "I Wonder What The King Is Doing Tonight"     w. Alan Jay Lerner m. Frederick Loewe
- "I'd Do Anything"     w.m. Lionel Bart
- "If Ever I Would Leave You"     w. Alan Jay Lerner m. Frederick Loewe
- "I'll Be There"     w.m. Bobby Darin
- "I'm Sorry"     w.m. Ronnie Self & Dub Allbritten
- "Irma La Douce"     w. (Eng) Julian More, David Heneker & Monty Norman (Fr) Alexandre Breffort m. Marguerite Monnot
- "It Depends On What You Pay"     w.Tom Jones m. Harvey Schmidt
- "It's Now Or Never"     w.m. adapt. Aaron Schroeder & Wally Gold
- "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini"     w. Paul Vance & Lee Pockriss m. Brian Hyland
- "Jump Over"     w.m. Frank C. Slay Jr & Bob Crewe
- "Just Come Home"     w. (Eng) Carl Sigman (Fr) Edith Piaf m. Marguerite Monnot
- "Kids"     w. Lee Adams m. Charles Strouse
- "Last Date"     m. Floyd Cramer
- "Let's Think About Living"     w.m. Boudleaux Bryant
- "Little Boy Lost"     w.m. Johnny Ashcroft & Tony Withers
- "A Lot Of Livin' To Do"     w. Lee Adams m. Charles Strouse
- "The Lusty Month Of May"     w. Alan Jay Lerner m. Frederick Loewe
- "The Magnificent Seven"     m. Elmer Bernstein
- "Make Someone Happy"     w. Betty Comden & Adolph Green m. Jule Styne
- "A Million To One"     w.m. Phil Medley
- "Mission Bell"     w.m. William Michael
- "Mister Custer"     w.m. Fred Darian, Al De Lory & Joseph Van Winkle
- "Money (That's What I Want)"     w.m. Janie Bradford & Berry Gordy, Jr.
- "Mountain Of Love"     w.m. Harold Dorman
- "Mr Lucky"     m. Henry Mancini
- "Much More"     w. Tom Jones m. Harvey Schmidt
- "My Heart Has A Mind Of Its Own"     w. Howard Greenfield m. Jack Keller
- "My Home Town"     w.m. Paul Anka
- "My Old Man's A Dustman"     Lonnie Donegan, P. Buchanan, B. Thorn, R. Beaumont
- "My Shoes Keep Walking Back To You"     L. Ross, Bob Wills
- "Never On Sunday"     w. (Eng) Billy Towne (Greek) Manos Hadjidakis m. Manos Hadjidakis
- "Nice 'N' Easy"     w. Marilyn Keith & Alan Bergman m. Lew Spence
- "North To Alaska"     w.m. Mike Phillips
- "O Dio Mio"     w.m. Al Hoffman & Dick Manning
- "One Boy"     w. Lee Adams m. Charles Strouse
- "One Last Kiss"     w. Lee Adams m. Charles Strouse
- "One Of Us (Will Weep Tonight)"     w.m. Clint Ballard Jr & Fred Tobias
- "Only The Lonely"     w.m. Roy Orbison & Joe Melson
- "La Pachanga"     w. (Eng) Jeanne Pollack (Sp) Eduardo Davidson m. Eduardo Davidson
- "Pepe"     H. Wittstatt, D. Langdon
- "Plant A Radish"     w. Tom Jones m. Harvey Schmidt
- "Please Don't Tease"     B. Welch, P. Chester
- "Please Help Me I'm Falling"     w.m. Don Robertson & Hal Blair
- "Poetry In Motion"     w.m. Paul Kauffman & Mike Anthony
- "Portrait Of My Love"     w. David West m. Cyril Ornadel
- "Puppy Love"     w.m. Paul Anka
- "Put On A Happy Face"     w. Lee Adams m. Charles Strouse
- "Round And Round"     w.Tom Jones m. Harvey Schmidt
- "Rubber Ball"     w.m. Anne Orlowski & Aaron Schroeder
- "Run Samson Run"     w. Howard Greenfield m. Neil Sedaka
- "Sailor"     w. (Eng) Alan Holt (Ger) Fini Busch m. Werner Scharfenberger
- "Save The Last Dance For Me"     w.m. Doc Pomus & Mort Shuman
- "The Second Time Around"     w. Sammy Cahn m. James Van Heusen
- "Shazam!"     w.m. Duane Eddy & Lee Hazlewood
- "She Wears My Ring"     w.m. Felice & Boudleaux Bryant
- "She's My Baby"     Turnbull, Moffat, Finch
- "Sink The Bismarck"     w.m. Tillman Franks & Johnny Horton
- "Sixteen Reasons"     w.m. Bill Post & Doree Post
- "So Sad (To Watch Good Love Go Bad)"     w.m. Don Everly
- "Soon It's Gonna Rain"     w. Tom Jones m. Harvey Schmidt
- "Spanish Harlem"     Jerry Leiber, Phil Spector
- "Stairway To Heaven"     w. Howard Greenfield m. Neil Sedaka
- "Starbright"     w.m. Lee Pockriss & Paul Vance
- "Stay"     w.m. Maurice Williams
- "Stuck On You"     w.m. Aaron Schroeder & J. Leslie McFarland
- "Swingin' School"     w. Kal Mann m. Bernie Lowe & Dave Appell
- "T.L.C. Tender Love And Care"     Lehman, Lebowsky, Clarke
- "A Taste Of Honey"     w. Ric Marlow m. Bobby Scott
- "Tell Laura I Love Her"     w.m. Jeff Barry & Ben Raleigh
- "Theme from "A Summer Place""     m. Max Steiner
- "Theme from "The Apartment""     m. Charles Williams
- "Theme from "The Unforgiven""     w. Ned Washington m. Dimitri Tiomkin
- "They Were You'     w.Tom Jones m. Harvey Schmidt
- "Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport"     w.m. Rolf Harris
- "Togetherness"     w.m. Russell Faith
- "Try To Remember"     w. Tom Jones m. Harvey Schmidt
- "The Twist"     w.m. Hank Ballard
- "Twistin' USA"     w.m. Kal Mann
- "Two Of A Kind"     w.m. Bobby Darin & Johnny Mercer
- "The Village Of St. Bernadette"     w.m. Eula Parker
- "Wake Me When It's Over"     w. Sammy Cahn m. James Van Heusen
- "Walk, Don't Run"     w.m. Johnny Smith
- "Walking Away Whistling"     w.m. Frank Loesser
- "Walking To New Orleans"     w.m. Antoine "Fats" Domino
- "What Do The Simple Folk Do?"     w. Alan Jay Lerner m. Frederick Loewe
- "What Takes My Fancy"     w. Carolyn Leigh m. Cy Coleman
- "When Will I Be Loved?"     w.m. Phil Everly
- "Who Will Buy?"     w.m. Lionel Bart
- "Wild One"     w.m. Bernie Lowe, Kal Mann & Dave Appell
- "Will You Love Me Tomorrow?"     Carole King, Gerry Goffin
- "Wings Of A Dove"     Robert B. "Bob" Ferguson, Sr.
- "Wonderful World"     w.m. B. Campbell
- "Wooden Heart"     w.m. adapt. Fred Wise, Ben Weisman, Kay Twomey & Bert Kaempfert
- "(In The Summertime) You Don't Want My Love"     w.m. Roger Miller
- "You Talk Too Much"     w.m. Joe Jones & Reginald Hall
- "Young Emotions"     w. Mack David m. Jerry Livingston
- "You're Sixteen"     w.m. Richard M. Sherman & Robert B. Sherman

Classical music

- William Alwyn - Piano Concerto No. 2
- Malcolm Arnold - Symphony No. 4
- Mario Davidovsky - Contrastes No. 1 for string orchestra and electronic sounds
- Jakov Gotovac - Plesovi od Bunjevaca
- Krzysztof Penderecki - Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima
- Dmitri Shostakovich - String Quartet No.7 in E flat major, Op.108
- Dmitri Shostakovitch - String Quartet No. 8 in C minor, Op.110
- William Walton - Symphony No. 2
- Mieczyslaw Weinberg - Sinfonietta No. 2

Opera

Musical theater

- Bye Bye Birdie (Lee Adams and Charles Strouse) - Broadway production
- Camelot (Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe) - Broadway production
- Do-Re-Mi     Broadway production
- The Fantasticks     off-Broadway production
- Flower Drum Song (Rodgers & Hammerstein) - London production
- From A To Z     Broadway production
- Irma La Douce     Broadway production
- Oh, Kay!     Broadway revival
- Oliver! (Lionel Bart) - London production
- Parade     Broadway production
- Tenderloin     Broadway production opened at the 46th Street Theatre on October 17 and ran for 216 performances.
- The Unsinkable Molly Brown (Meredith Willson) - Broadway production
- Valmouth     Broadway production

Musical films

- Bells Are Ringing
- Can-Can
- Fanny
- Ocean's Eleven

Births

- January 4 - Michael Stipe, lead singer for the rock band R.E.M.
- January 8 - Dave Weckl
- January 12 - Charlie Gillingham, Counting Crows
- January 22 - Michael Hutchence, INXS
- February 3 - Tim Chandler, Daniel Amos, The Swirling Eddies, others
- February 19 - William Holly Johnson, Frankie Goes To Hollywood
- February 27 - Paul Humphries, Orchestral Maneuvers In The Dark
- March 13 - Adam Clayton, bassist for rock band U2
- May 10 - Bono, lead singer for rock band U2
- June 1 - Simon Gallup, The Cure
- June 2 - Tony Hadley, Spandau Ballet
- June 8 - Mick Hucknall, Simply Red
- June 10 - Mark-Anthony Turnage, composer
- July 28 - Chris Reece, drummer of The Lewd and Social Distortion (1985-1995)
- August 1 - Chuck D, Public Enemy
- August 7 - Jacqui O'Sullivan, Bananarama
- August 23 - Steve Clark, Def Leppard
- August 26 - Branford Marsalis, jazz musician
- August 31 - Chris Whitley, singer-songwriter (d. 2005)
- September 8 - David Steele, Fine Young Cannibals
- September 22 - Joan Jett, The Runaways
- October 22 - Cris Kirkwood, Meat Puppets
- October 30 - Joey Belladonna, Anthrax
- October 30 - Alfred Hill, composer
- November 19 - Matt Sorum, The Cult
- November 25 - Amy Grant
- December 2 - Rick Savage, Def Leppard
- December 31 - Paul Westerberg
- Greg Flesch - Daniel Amos, The Swirling Eddies

Deaths

- January 24 - Edwin Fischer, pianist and conductor
- February 3 - Fred Buscaglione, Italian singer, musician and songwriter
- February 6 - Jesse Belvin, car accident
- February 12 - Bobby Clark, US comedian and singer
- March 4 - Leonard Warren, baritone
- April 17 - Eddie Cochran, car accident
- May 12 - Cecil Armstrong Gibbs, composer
- November 5 - Johnny Horton, American country singer, car accident
- Joseph Lamb -
- Jussi Björling - Swedish tenor

Awards

Grammy Awards

- Record of the Year: "Theme From A Summer Place" - Percy Faith
- Album of the Year: Button Down Mind - Bob Newhart
- Song of the Year: - "Theme From Exodus" - Ernest Gold, songwriter

Eurovision Song Contest

- Eurovision Song Contest 1960
-

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

John Coltrane

John William Coltrane (September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967) was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Though he was active before 1955, his prime years were between 1955 and 1967, during which time he reshaped modern jazz and influenced successive generations of other musicians. Coltrane's recording rate was astonishingly prolific, such that many albums did not appear until years after they were recorded. He is regarded as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians, and one of the greatest musicians of the twentieth century. Along with tenor saxophonists Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young and Sonny Rollins, Coltrane fundamentally altered expectations for the instrument.

Early life and career

Born in Hamlet, North Carolina, Coltrane grew up in High Point in an era of racial segregation. During his seventh-grade school year, Coltrane experienced three deaths in his close-knit family; he lost his aunt, his grandfather, and his father. Coltrane began playing music and practicing obsessively at about this time. His early life was influenced by a traditional Southern upbringing; the heavy emphasis on religion especially affected his later musical career. Coltrane began playing clarinet early on, but became interested in jazz and soon switched to alto saxophone. Coltrane moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in June 1943, and was inducted into the Navy in 1945, returning to civilian life in 1946. At this time, he had brief contact with Charlie Parker, during Parker's time in California Coltrane worked at a variety of jobs in the late 1940s until he joined Dizzy Gillespie's big band in 1949 as an alto saxophonist. He stayed with Gillespie through the big band's breakup in May 1950 and switched to tenor saxophone during his subsequent spell in Gillespie's small group,staying until April 1951, when he returned to Philadelphia. In early 1952, Coltrane joined Earl Bostic's band. In 1953, after a stint with Eddie Vinson, he joined Johnny Hodges's small group (during Hodges's four-year sabbatical from Duke Ellington's orchestra), staying with Hodges until mid-1954.

With Miles Davis' First Quintet

1954 Although there are recordings of Coltrane from as early as 1946, he received little recognition until 1955. Coltrane was freelancing in Philadelphia in the summer of 1955 when he received a call from trumpeter Miles Davis. Davis, whose success during the late forties had been followed by several dissipated years, was again consistently active, and was about to form a quintet. Legend has it that Sonny Rollins, Davis preferred tenor-saxophonist, vanished temporarily to ensure that Coltrane was appointed in his place. Coltrane was with this first edition of the Davis group from October 1955 through April 1957 (with a few absences), a period which saw influential recordings from Davis and the first signs of Coltrane's growing ability. This classic "First Quintet", best represented by two marathon recording sessions for Prestige in 1956, disbanded in mid-April due partially to Coltrane's problematic heroin addiction. He returned to Philadelphia again, and succeedded in curing himself of his addictions. Coltrane would use much of what he learned with Davis to run his own groups, namely allowing musicians to solo and improvise with their own sensibilities as well as eschewing involvement with his audience and remaining aloof to press. Coltrane's style at this point was loquacious and critics dubbed his playing as angry and harsh. Harry Frost dubbed Coltrane's solos "extended double-time flurries notable for their lack of direction". During the latter part of 1957 Coltrane worked with Thelonious Monk at New York's Five Spot, a legendary gig. Unfortunately, this association was not well documented, and the best recorded evidence demonstrating the compatibility of Coltrane with Monk, a concert at Carneigie Hall on November 29, 1957, was only discovered and issued in 2005 by Blue Note. His extensive recordings as a sideman and as a leader for Prestige though, have a more mixed reputation. Blue Train though, his sole album as leader for the Alfred Lion era Blue Note, is probably that label's best known album from this period. He rejoined Miles in January 1958 after kicking heroin and experiencing a spiritual epiphany that would lead him to concentrate wholly on the development of his music. In October 1958, Jazz critic Ira Gitler coined the term "sheets of sound" for Coltrane's unique style during this period with Davis. His playing was compressed, as if whole solos passed in a few seconds, with triple- or quadruple-time runs cascading in hundreds of notes per minute. He stayed with Davis until April 1960, usually playing alongside alto saxophonist Cannonball Adderley and drummer Philly Joe Jones in a sextet. During this time he participated in such seminal Davis sessions as Milestones and Kind Of Blue, and recorded his own influential sessions (notably Giant Steps). Around the end of his tenure with Davis, Coltrane began playing soprano saxophone, an unconventional move considering the instrument's near obsolescence at the time. His interest in the straight saxophone most likely arose from his admiration for Sidney Bechet and the work of his contemporary, Steve Lacy. The radical change in his tenor style after leaving the Davis group was due partially to a problem with his mouthpiece and acute pain in his gums, another possible reason for taking up the soprano, which Coltrane generally played "faster." Shortly before completing his contract with Atlantic Records in May 1961 with the album Olé Coltrane, Coltrane joined the newly formed Impulse! label, with whom the "classic quartet" would record. It is generally assumed that the clinching reason Coltrane signed with Impulse! was that it would enable him to work again with recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder, who had recorded the earlier Prestige sessions. It was at Van Gelder's new studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey that Coltrane would record most of his records for the label.

Coltrane's Quartet

Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey] Coltrane formed a quartet in 1960. After moving through different personnel including Steve Kuhn, Pete Laroca and Billy Higgins, the lineup stabilized in the fall with pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Steve Davis and drummer Elvin Jones. Tyner had been a friend of Coltrane's for some years and the two men long had an understanding that Tyner would join Coltrane at an appropriate moment. By early 1961 Davis had been replaced by Reggie Workman. Eric Dolphy joined the group as a second horn around the same time. The quintet had a celebrated (recorded) residency in November 1961 at Village Vanguard which was evidence of a new musical direction being pursued. It was some of the most experimental music he'd played up to this point. The music was influenced by Indian ragas, the recent developments in modal jazz, and the burgeoning free jazz movement. During this period, many critics saw Coltrane as an interesting and virtuosic but somewhat sterile player. Audiences in France famously booed during his final tour with Davis. Down Beat magazine indicted Coltrane, along with Eric Dolphy, as players of "Anti-Jazz" in 1961, in an article that bewildered and upset the musicians. Coltrane admitted some of his early solos were based mostly on technical ideas. Furthermore, Dolphy's angular and jagged playing earned him a reputation as a figurehead of the "New Thing" movement led by Ornette Coleman, which was also denigrated by some jazz musicians and critics. But as Coltrane's style further developed, he was determined to make each performance "a whole expression of one's being," as he would call his music in a 1966 interview. In 1962 Jimmy Garrison in turn replaced Workman. Dolphy departed in early 1962. The "Classic Quartet" with Tyner, Garrison and Jones produced searching, spiritually driven work. Coltrane moved toward a more harmonically static music which allowed him to expand rhythmically, harmonically and motivically in his improvisation. However, influences of his earlier harmonically complex music were still present, for example on the track "But Not for Me" on the 1960 album "My Favorite Things," Coltrane employs a giant steps matrix over the A sections instead of a conventional turnaround progression. The criticism of the quintet with Dolphy may have had an impact on Coltrane. In contrast to the radicalism of Coltrane's 1961 recordings at the Village Vanguard, Coltrane's studio recordings in 1962 and 1963 were much more conservative and accessible. He recorded an album of ballads and participated in collaborations with Duke Ellington and Johnny Hartman. Despite a more polished approach in the studio, in concert the quartet continued its exploratory and challenging approach. The album "Ballads" is a fine example of Coltrane's versatility and his ability to tackle different forms of jazz whilst still being able to shed new light on old-fashioned standards such as "It's Easy to Remember." The Classic Quartet would famously produce A Love Supreme in 1964, a culmination of much of Coltrane's work up to this period, as a four-part suite, essentially an ode to his faith and love for God. Its "spirituality" would characterizes much of Coltrane's late playing from 1965 to 1967. The fourth movement of the suite, "Psalm" is in fact a poem that Coltrane recites through his saxophone. The recording also pointed the way to the atonalism of those later free jazz recordings. Despite its challenging musical content, the album was a commercial success by jazz standards, encapsulating both the internal and external energy of the quartet of Coltrane, Tyner, Jones and Garrison. They only played the suite live once--in July 1965. By then, Coltrane's music had grown more adventurous, and the performance provides an interesting contrast to the original. Tyner and Jones, would back up many other musicians of the day including Wayne Shorter and Joe Henderson on many albums during the sixties, redefining the way rhythm sections would approach backing soloists.

Free jazz

In the early 60s Coltrane was influenced by Davis' modal approach, the free jazz of Ornette Coleman and the music of Ravi Shankar. Much of this influence can be heard as early as Coltrane's surprise 1960 hit My Favorite Things, a nearly 14-minute version of the