I used to hesitate when someone would ask if I liked jazz. The genre has evolved so much since its beginnings in New Orleans that the most accurate response I could give was “yes and no”.
Think back to the first time you watched Disney’s Monsters Inc., did you not have the theme song stuck in your head for the rest of the day (maybe week)? That’s jazz baby! The saxophone solo in George Michael’s “Careless Whisper.” Jazz. Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good.” Jazz. You can even hear it in the background of latin trap artist Bad Bunny’s “Si Veo a Tu Mamá,” as he samples bossa nova classic, “Girl from Ipanema.”
Here’s a peek into this ever evolving art.
Where it all began
For me it started when I saw my high school’s jazz band perform, directed by The B-Side Players trombonist Mike Benge. But two centuries before my enlightenment, America was receiving its own musical awakening. Picture this. It's the late 1800s in New Orleans. You and your musically inclined buddies find military band instruments at the local pawn shop and begin experimenting. A little bit of European classical, some musical traditions from West Africa, ragtime, blues, and folk songs, all colliding to form what is now known as jazz.
This is Scott Joplin’s first ragtime composition, a style that had a major influence on the beginnings of jazz.
It’s expansion
My knowledge of jazz as an artform began to expand during my third year at UCSB, when I took a class titled Listening to Jazz. I got to spend 3 hours a week for 10 weeks doing just that!
The expansion of jazz itself was catalyzed by The Great Migration and Prohibition. Louis Armstrong was the face of the genre during this time, now considered the father of modern jazz improvisation, which is probably my favorite thing about jazz. Just imagine knowing your instrument so well that you can spontaneously create new melodies in the middle of a jam session.
I bet you’ve heard “In the Mood” by The Glenn Miller Orchestra and didn’t even realize you were enjoying some of the best jazz this time period, the Swing Era, had to offer. *dancing and head-banging encouraged*
A recording ban: the beginnings of Rock and Roll.
From 1942 to 1944, instrumental musicians were banned from commercial recording. If it wasn’t for that ban, vocalists wouldn’t have branched out of the jazz tree to grow the sweet fruit we know as Rock and Roll. After the ban, jazz continued to evolve into bebop, where younger musicians sped up the tempo and played with more complicated melodies and harmonies. Since bebop is not meant to be dance music, it has become my go-to studying music. I can jam out to the solos while trying to make sense of my biopsychology lectures. That’s another exciting thing about jazz: the solos. In “A Night In Tunisia” you’ll hear how each instrument gets a chance to improvise (improvise!) a solo.
Miles Davis gets bored and creates a new genre.
Davis, already used to changing the direction of music several times, once again decided to experiment. In breaking away from the constrictions of Westerm harmonic and melodic conventions, avant-garde jazz was born. Other musicians took this a step further and incorporated electronic instruments, funk, and rock elements to create fusion jazz. Out of these innovations came my favorite jazz song ever, Herbie Hancock’s 1973 "Watermelon Man". The idea of freedom from avant-garde clashes with the Black Power Movement’s Funk, and somehow manages to have jungle-like sounds. When my jazz professor said we were going to listen to “Watermelon Man,” all I could think about was the time I played a simplified version of it in my middle school band. Once he played Herbie's 1973 version though, I couldn’t help but smile at how strange yet cool this version was.
What now?
Electronic instruments inspired a whole other wave of experimentation resulting in Latin jazz, jazz-funk, jazz-rap. The genre continues to expand as new musicians introduce new sounds and ideas. Arts & Lectures has hosted all types of jazz for the community to explore, from the traditional New Orleans group Preservation Hall Jazz Band, to Arturo O’Farrill & The Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra. If you want to explore more or reconnect with your jazz roots, Sammy Miller & The Congregation have created Camp Congregation, a series of “daily rockin’ sessions” featuring jazz history, social distancing, and some good laughs.
Images:
"Utility Box - Painted Trumpeter" by Joey Z1is licensed under CC BY 2.0 (cover image)