The Evolution of Jazz; 12; Instruments in New Orleans Jazz, Part Two

And this is how they music might well have sounded that night in 1950 or the music of Buddy Bolden. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks.

Thanks. I am. I. Thank you. Thank. You at the ear. I am. Now as. I am.

I am. I think. I thank you I think. I thank you. Either. And I think. I. Was. Moved. I.

Was. Thank. You I think. You. Would. Let. You. Get. Begin. By 1970 Bolden A disappeared from the scene he had lost his mind while marching in a parade. But there was a constant succession of startling Jazz Man Joe Oliver Louis Armstrong Freddie kept

hardbody pretty much Carrie and Don Johnson and cornets Willie Cornish Jope Robertson and Kid Ory on trombones McCurdy all phone speaker Johnny Dodds big guy Louis Nelson on clarinets and New Orleans rose to increasingly greater heights. Unfortunately there isn't the opportunity. In terms of time to chronicle the story of all these men and other important musicians and to hear their individual styles because as Jellyroll said everyone had a style of his own individuality then as now being the essence of jazz steroidal closed during the First World War. Early on August 19 17 Secretary of War and Dee Baker issued an order forbidding open prostitution within five miles of an army can time and a similar ruling was made by Josephus Daniels secretary of the Navy respecting naval establishment Storyville was definitely an area affected by the ruling. And though the mayor of New Orleans and the leading citizens of Storyville protested vigorously it was decreed that after midnight of November 12th

1917 it would be unlawful to WA parade a house anywhere in New Orleans. The exodus began two weeks before the deadline but enough were left for an impressive demonstration on the night of November 11th. As the evening wore on and the musicians came out of the house as one band after another and formed into line as one of them later said it was the best brass parade that New Orleans ever had. Slowly it marched down the streets. Iberville Conti custom house and as it made its solemn way it played played of late much like the brass bands on the way to the graveyard. The band was followed by a line of Storyville inhabitants and the next morning Storyville was no more than it was. Thank you.

And it was produced in Storyville which led to travel to

Chicago and other sections of the United States served as set in large part the future course of jazz. Let it be noted as we did at the beginning that there were other streams as well which will cover in the evolution of jazz in New York and in the Midwest. But to a large extent the dominating force was that kind of jazz that grew in Storyville. Let me repeat heart of a previous appraisal by Sidney Finkelstein. It was largely out of the marriage of rags and blue tits but the great New Orleans music flowered with the additional fertilization of hymns spirituals folk songs of every origin March's cakewalks and other folk dances. The rags were a great influence on New Orleans music largely for their educated background from the piano rags jazz got an instrumental virtue a city that had been lacking in the folk blues it's not hard to see a

translation of the runs and decorated figures of ragtime piano and the clarinet decorations of New Orleans band music. Now the gift of the piano Rags is a more complex and organized musical design. They contribute a 16 bar theme contrasting to enriching the 12 bar blues thing. They provide a music build upon the contrast of two distinct themes. One serving as a refrain the other for development and variation of form similar to the Rondo of classical music which also originated in old European folk dance. They provided a recognition of key or a diatonic music with an accompanying ability to modulate or change key. Almost every piece of New Orleans marching jazz has such a modulation simple harmonies of ragtime piano provided a base for standardizing the instrumental ensembles of band music and thus making possible the interplay of solo an ensemble of diatonic and non-diatonic language. That is an essential quality of New Orleans music. Arrangements the skeletal outline of harmonies and ensembles played a prominent role in this

music it wasn't as it couldn't have been a wholly improvised aura and certainly it wasn't as some of claimed unconscious. The Blues provided the wonderfully poignant melodies he continued the non-diatonic musical language that was Sondos of the blue notes in the vocal approach to instrumental music as already mentioned and the soaring freedom that resulted. They permeated the musical form and provided the most subtle contrasts of hot and sweet of blue and non blue idiom. The Blues provided the riffs and breaks so important to the new jazz forms they provided the essential antiphonal character the statement and answer the forward movement through a constant series of contrasts and surprises. The heartbeat which is so moving and human a quality of the music. The rags provided the impetus to a greater technical mastery of the instrument. The brilliant runs and decorated figures the interplay and contrast of themes the use of key out of the two rows of music well organized form. When a sportsman adds

the instrumentation was perfectly suited for its purpose. To translate vocal folk music into instrumental folk music the tenor voice was carried by cornet Soprano voiced by clarinet the bass voiced by trombone handclaps which translated into snare drum beats beats into bass drum accents the throat sounds and other rhythmical ejaculate sions of Negro American folk music which translated into guitar and double bass accents and into the tambour of the frontline instruments as well. This forum made an adroit use then of instrumental tambour the clarinet trumpet and trombone were a perfect combination. Each different in range and in its musical role so that simply by each following out of its natural kind of movement a most rich ensemble in contrast of solo could be created. This was a phenomenon similar to the rise of polyphonic music and European folk music where the contrast in voices of tenor Alto and bass each starting with the same melody but following its own

natural line of movement brought into being a beautiful of rough polyphonic music. One of the most enjoyable aspects of New Orleans music is the use of contrasting of tambourines of the instruments for variation and climax. Not only in ensembles but in the manner with which a driving full ensemble is followed by the voice of the solo clarinet the clarinet by the rough often staccato voice of the trumpet a trombone and so on to the final climactic ensemble. All right out as in this recording by the kid Thomas band of New Orleans. Thank. You. Thank.

God. That was a very late New Orleans record in Storyville days. There was more emphasis on ensemble and less on extended solos. But that record I thought brought out clearly the way different Tambor is including that of the voice itself intertwined in the New Orleans band. In the section on instruments in New Orleans I mentioned that the early jazz man except for the Creoles had little formal training as a result. They explored the potentialities of their instruments for themselves with no method book to tell what could not or should not be done. They widened the range of their instruments. Contemporary classical orchestration has been influenced by the fact that jazz has broadened the expressive possibilities of such instruments particularly the trumpet and trombone. At least one classical conducted George zero prefers his brass man for example who have had some jazz or dance band training because of the greater flexibility with the instrument.

This background provides. So these New Orleans jazz men play their coronets and clarinets and trombones in a way no one ever had before and in vocalizing the instrument they gave it new tone colors new ways of phrasing and everyone had his own distinctive voice his own style. Perhaps we can best appreciate the Revolutionary Nature actually it was evolutionary as I hope I've demonstrated of this approach to European instruments by examining the qualities of the leading instruments in the New Orleans bands. The importance of the drummer in jazz was obviously underscored in the New Orleans street parade. So anything goes as a perceptive note on the Jazz drum as it began to evolve in New Orleans and its resultant later characteristics it focuses first of all on the vital differences between jazz drumming and African drumming indicating how far jazz has evolved from its first Afro-American roots and the inapplicability of direct contrast. I scribing of

influences to African sources. By the time we had we had reached New Orleans. He writes While the African use of drums is magnificent in its own right there is a basic difference between it and the Jazz drum. Much of African drumming was a substitute for speech or vocal communication. The rise of more elaborate melodic instruments in a more elaborate body of melody as in jazz made such use of the drums and rhythm unnecessary. Furthermore even when used as an accompaniment to dance or chant African drumming for all its intricacy of two or three rhythms at once has a single minded compelling beat aimed at fusing all listeners into one mind in one movement. Jazz drumming is much more modern human in the sense of never letting us forget that this is a new age in which the group is made up of more individual thinking minds it is much more elastic in its rhythm even when a second and third rhythmic pattern is laid down against the basic four for beat the opposing rhythms are never free from one another. As an African poly rhythmic drumming but combine in each

phrase like a going away and return home characteristic of jazz drumming and not found an African is the surprise the kitting the serial Comic Spirit which pervades almost all jazz music and creates some of its most powerful emotional effects the break the sudden silence the suspension of rhythm and the return to the beat. In the 20s he continues many composers like Stravinsky and his sax of the plant. Neo in the no hasty avail and parts of his concerto for left hand Copeland and his jazz concerto employed a poly rhythm close to African music in a sense sometimes under the mistaken idea they were reproducing jazz. Such music although it has many other beauties tends to add a mechanistic quality in the light of our present day feelings and needs a quality neither African nor wholly modern and ever found in jazz. About the only approach to this music in jazz is in some virtuoso drum solos by players with no real feeling for the Jazz phrase. Even

in the work of Max Roach the brilliant modern jazz drummer who works something most intricate pattern of Crossan interplaying rhythms. There is always the human alas to study the interplay with and against the basic beat which is fundamental to jazz although the suspensions of beat stretched and his playing to fantastic intervals. The New Orleans drummer baby dogs describes the odyssey of a jazz drummer moving from Storyville in New Orleans to the Chicago of the 20s. And thereby gives us a preview and part of the part of jazz in Chicago after it left New Orleans. I just yeah. I've been a member of the do from I'm actually from from drunk at some gun battle about the soul about all that I think every bit of that thinks I'm drunk but when you start no growth no better off

panel that big fat bastard. Drugs drugs street drug free from doctor. We're off to a group to group breath I'm not sure where the right to not kind of it like whether the 500 record at a time like crap you get really really when you've been in bands whether you live in the fact that the electric bike and the other big shows or you know that there are no no. I know little another levee break there no talk about drawing the docu stuff they used the day after the battery goes sick and was something entirely another the national motto for the not OK well let's hope it only is only coming back on things that you shall go to clearly see

the real to shake he shake. Naturally if I don't just play up to stop it it think it will only be faked everything packed and has no night gave place. Yes yes of course that reason the China compete with what they're doing today. And again not to many why don't they. And to place my own music on you I have plenty and we have the right. They beat odds when the when this record was made it was part of a revived New Orleans band led by the late bunk Johnson which was playing at the Stuyvesant Casino in New York for the weekend. The other thing that we want to be from Saudi. Yeah. And which one of the things I want to do is more or less his dark side to create that feeling that you

have to do the left a little a day was possible to get. I don't want to you know get at it if possible to try and bring back the beat a little bit like that with trying to do what they're trying to. I think that I wound up yellow by the photo. I bet you do you prefer to call it the day to day. And you also know that none of these people but really nobody really really tight. I used to. You have been listening to the evolution of jazz. I recorded series prepared and produced by

Nat Hentoff under the auspices of Northeastern University and presented by the Lowell Institute cooperative broadcasting Council. The evolution of jazz was recorded in the Boston studios of WGBH Af-Am. This is the national educational radio network.