Music Appreciation Week 15 - Jazz and Rock Part 5: Today

MUSIC APPRECIATION

WEEK 15

JAZZ AND ROCK PART 5

ROCK AND JAZZ TODAY

You may be wondering what Miles Davis was up to in the 80s. Well, playing Michael Jackson tunes for one thing. Here he is playing "Human Nature."

Although a lot of people thought that Jazz should be a reflection of what was going on in popular music and liked what Miles was doing, there were many who really thought Miles had become "anti-jazz." Fusion had become so slick that you could expect to hear it at the dentist office while getting your teeth drilled. It seemed to make Jazz a joke to musicians who looked at Jazz as a vital and explorative art, not as background music for doctors and lawyers. Wynton Marsalis was very vocal in his opinion that Fusion was not really Jazz. He expressed his desire to return to the post bop swing Miles had done so well in the early and mid-60s. A lot of people agreed with him and there was a renewed interest in "straight ahead" jazz. Wynton was also a great teacher and showed his respect for those Jazz musicians who came before him by doing a series in New York City called Jazz at Lincoln Center that he continues today. He has performed the works of all the past Jazz masters including Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Charles Mingus and countless others. He has also written his own music but it mostly falls into a more straight ahead style, as good as it is. Here is a link to Jazz! Live at Lincoln Center. Click below and explore. I would highly recommend going to one of these concerts someday. They are very well done.

Jazz!

Not everyone thought Jazz should be protected from outside forces. John Zorn combined anything and everything into his music, including Punk and Noise Music. Some people called this Punk Jazz or Thrash Jazz. Here is a song from his classic Naked City album.

Jazz continues to explore new frontiers of sound and there are many different styles to choose from as a listener. In some cases, it may be hard to determine what is jazz or rock. I wouldn't worry about it. Just call it music and enjoy.

Today, Rock is in a strange place and not selling as well as it used to. The major record companies are no longer interested in creativity but only in moving as much "product" as possible and rock artists are expected to endorse everything from makeup to beer. In an age when the Beatles' music is used to sell sneakers, things seem pretty dim, as far as creativity goes.

Green Day is a rock band that started out as an "alternative" punk band but has gotten more and more commercial as time has gone on. Green Day has even produced a Broadway musical called American Idiot, named for the "idiots" who do not share their politics. Here is "American Idiot" live on Broadway. (Frank Zappa predicted this back in the early 80s with the album Thing Fish.) Here is Punk sterilized for Mom and Dad to enjoy.

Rock has moved way beyond MTV, which now mostly runs reality shows, and has fully embraced the TV culture. Bruce Springsteen recently said the best way he could promote his music today would be to go on American Idol. This show is the most popular thing in music today, manufacturing TV-ready stars who start out as people like you and I and are groomed into rock stars. Here is a taste of American Idol 2015.

In today's world of Pop (let's not call it Rock) the girls rule. Looking like a model and dressing as sexy as possible is required of all female artists who wish to make it big. Katy Perry is a direct descendent of Madonna and seems to mock the sexy female persona while totally giving into it at the same time. Here is her video for "California Gurlz,"which even has references to Daisy Duke from the 80s television show The Dukes of Hazzard.

Lady Gaga is also a descendent of Madonna but combined with Punk spirit of the Sex Pistols. You can also see the influence of David Bowie's and KISS's Glam Rock...and maybe some Velvet Underground fashion mixed in for good measure. Here is her video for "Bad Romance."

America has had a fascination with young teen idols like Justin Beiber and American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson for a couple of decades now. Their predecessors, Britney Spears and Miley Cyrus (formerly known as Hanna Montana) have had to "sexy up" to stay popular. An exception to this rule, so far, has been 21-year-old Taylor Swift, who writes her own songs and rose up through the ranks the old-fashioned way: by "paying her dues" in the Nashville scene (if having this kind of success is "paying your dues"). Not a product of pre-packaged television, Swift writes catchy songs and seems like she is for real. Her concerts feature her acting out the stories her songs tell. Here she is singing "You Belong with Me" on the David Letterman show:

If you have the money, you can be a rock star, too. Rock has embraced the world of video games with Guitar Hero. Here's a word from our sponsor...Metallica?!!

While the future of Rock looks pretty bleak when we see all of this extreme commercialism taking over the music business, there is still reason for hope. Many musicians like Neil Young are putting out music on their own labels and reaching out to people through the internet. This gives hope to up and coming artists and composers of all styles of music, who can start their own cottage industries and offer specialized entertainment for their intended audiences.

Services like Pandora, iTunes, You Tube and now Spotify have become the preferred source of music for a younger generation that has very little interest in physical media. It will be up to future artists to figure out the best way to get their music out to the public and find a way to get paid and make a living doing it. This means that the musician of today won't be able to rely on record companies to promote them and control their careers. Overall, this could end up being a good thing as artists can have the freedom to create freely and without the restrictions of a backward-thinking outdated record industry model.

The best way to ensure that great music will be continued to be made is to support it with your wallet. Take the time to check out your favorite artists live. See what is out there in your area for live music. Buy a season subscription to the Portland Symphony. Go see the Maine Jazz Festival, attend free concerts at USM and Portland Conservatory. Attend a Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) concert in Boston and then visit a jazz club afterword. Becoming involved in your local music community is rewarding and will insure the future good health of music.

I hope this class has cracked open some doors for you to open further so that you will always have some new worlds of music to discover. The world of music is endless and need never grow predictable or boring for those willing to take the time to explore.

No Music Quiz this week. Next week is the final exam. Study hard.

Music Appreciation: Week 14, Jazz and Rock Part 4 - Punk Strikes Back

MUSIC APPRECIATION

WEEK 14

Jazz and Rock Pt. 4

Punk Strikes Back

By the late 70s, Rock was becoming big business. Big acts like KISS played huge stadiums and sold everything from comic books to action figures. There was even KISS underwear for kids. Acts like The Who and The Rolling Stones, who had once seemed so rebellious, now seemed to be part of the system (although both of these groups were still making valid musical expressions). With the Advent of Art Rock came music that required technical expertise to perform and Disco seemed to be a disease that was slowly taking over the record industry.

In England and America there was an economic recession and it seemed like the opportunities that were available to the previous generation were being denied the new. This created anger and resentment among the young in England, who could not afford music lessons or the economic clout to put on huge pyrotechnical displays like David Bowie or Pink Floyd. There was the feeling amongst these young people that Rock needed to return to its roots. Anybody who wanted to should be able to form a band, whether they had talent or not, and just play some good old fashioned Rock and Roll. As some people said, "just give me three chords and the truth." Virtuosity and long guitar solos were out. Loud, somewhat out of tune guitars and passionate political sneering vocals were in. At first the lyrics offered no solutions, just expression of their anger and total frustration: "There's no future for you." Here is a clip of the Sex Pistols cry for "Anarchy in the U.K."

The Sex Pistols ended up being even more short-lived than Disco as the band self-destructed in a void of drugs, poor management, murder and suicide. The Clash was a U.K. Punk band that went on to evolve musically beyond its Punk roots. The Clash was more political than the Sex Pistols and they retained their leftist politics throughout their career as they grew up artistically. Their classic album is London Calling, which Rocks hard but also features some Jazz, Reggae and Pop in the mix. When they opened for The Who, many Punks brought signs that said "Who Cares?" while The Who were playing.
Here is The Clash playing "London Calling" and "Train In Vain."

In Jazz, Fusion became slick, polished and also more composed and less improvisatory. Fast solos displaying incredible feats of musical virtuosity and technical facility became very popular, sometimes at the expense of creativity. Groups like the Yellow Jackets and late-period Weather Report created heavily produced albums that were easy on the ears and did not push the envelope beyond what the audience would find easy to digest. This eventually lead to Smooth Jazz by people like David Sanborn and Kenny G. This music was perfect for lounges and elevators. My teacher Tony Gabouri used to call Smooth Jazz, "Jazz for people who hate music."

ECM,a new Jazz record label began in the 70s, featured such performers at Kieth Jarrett, Pat Metheney, Chick Corea and Ralph Towner. These mostly solo or small group recordings that valued sound quality and a spacious sound that seemed more intimate and less prone to displays of excessive virtuosity. Unlike fusion, acoustic instruments were preferred and long improvisations were encouraged. The sound on the LPs had an intimate feeling of you being alone with the musician in your living room. One of my favorite artists from this label is guitarist John Abercrombie. Here he is performing "Homecoming" with his group Gateway:

As Punks became more proficient on their instruments and more skilled at songwriting, their music became more sophisticated while still retaining its desire to be different from the "classic rock" bands. This style of music eventually came to be known as New Wave.

Elvis Costello was one of New Wave's best songwriters. His lyrics were clever, he had top-rate musicians in his band the Attractions, and he displayed a facility for writing in a lot of different genres. He has remained an interesting artist through his career. Here is Costello performing "(Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes."

The Police started out as a Punk group but they were just too talented to stay that way for long. Andy Summers was a classical guitar player, Stewart Copeland was a Jazz drummer and Sting could play and sing in any style he wanted. Their break out single was "Roxanne."

The Talking Heads began as part of the New Wave scene in New York City, playing at the CBGB club regularly along with groups like Blondie and the Ramones. As their sound evolved, they added extra band members and included elements from African music and eventually put on huge multi media presentations that were truly unique. Here is "Once in a Lifetime" from the movie Stop Making Sense.

On August 1, 1981 MTV began broadcasting.

In the 80s, to be a star you needed a video on MTV...and it helped if you had a good "look." MTV helped make Michael Jackson a world-wide star. Jackson fully embraced MTV, even creating short films for videos like "Thriller" and "Bad." Here is his video for "Beat It," featuring Eddie Van Halen on guitar.

Madonna built her fame around her MTV videos. Her music and her sexy look was tailor-made for MTV. Here is ver video for "Like A Virgin."

MTV also helped to introduce the rest of the world to Rap. Here is Grand Master Flash and the Furious Five, one of the original Rap groups from New York City with their video for "The Message."

The video that really broke Rap and revived Aerosmith's career was a collaboration between that band and the Rap group Run DMC on "Walk This Way."

To say that Rock music became highly commercialized in the 80s and 90s would be a huge understatement. Heavy Metal became Hair Metal, everyone that was anyone had a video and artists were judged by how much "product" they moved. Sadly, this hasn't really changed. Synthesizers and sampling began to replace guitars and drums and most rock stars had to look like models.

Grunge, which originated in Seattle, Washington, was a reaction to slickness of MTV. Nirvana, with their flannel shirts, ripped jeans and cynical, alienated lyrics seemed to bring back the true rebellious spirit of Rock. Here is "(Smells Like) Teen Spirit."

Another so-called Grunge band was Pearl Jam who also has thoughtful but very dark lyrics of alienation and depression. Here is the disturbing "Jeremy Spoken" performed live in 1992. Pearl Jam remains a great live band to this day.

Keep on going to the next blog for Part II of Week 15.

NEXT: ROCK TODAY - Gaga, Idol and video games.

JAZZ TODAY - The Downtown Scene, a return to swing and Punk Jazz

Music Appreciation Week 14 - Jazz and Rock Part 3: The 70's

MUSIC APPRECIATION

WEEK 14

JAZZ AND ROCK Part 4

The 70s

At the urging of his younger band members, Miles Davis slowly began to use Rock elements in his music. This lead to Miles' newest innovation: Fusion. With the album In a Silent Way (1969), Miles started using more electronic instruments and fewer chord changes with emphasis on groove. He added John McLaughlin on electric guitar and Chick Corea on keyboards and started recording the monumental album Bitches Brew in the same year. This brought together the worlds of Rock and Jazz and featured extended improvisations in the studio all mixed together in an epic two-record set that was to be hugely successful and influential on the future of both Jazz and Rock. Here is a video of Miles performing this new music in 1969.

This album went on to influence many new fusion groups like Return to Forever, seen here performing "500 Miles High" in 1972.

Although the music of Frank Zappa can't really be categorized, Zappa dabbled in Fusion through his career. Here he is performing "King Kong" with the Mothers of Invention in 1968.

Some people have called Zappa's music Art Rock, although he hated that term, because of it ambitious nature and compositional complexity. Here is one of the most difficult pieces to play in all of Rock, "The Black Page," so named because of all the notes. Here we see Zappa on his last tour in 1988 with a full big band filled with virtuoso musicians that could play his music perfectly. Your teacher saw this tour when it came to Portland.

In the 7os, we begin to see Rock being influenced by many different styles of music including Classical. The Moody Blues' concept album Days of Future Past, was a song cycle about one day, from morning until evening. It has a narrator that guides us through the album, recalling Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf . The album also features an orchestra backing the band. Here is "Nights in White Satin" from that album:

The Who was the first Rock band to write a Rock Opera. Tommy was a three record set that told the story of a deaf and blind boy who becomes a Christ-like figure to his followers. Pete Townsend wrote the music as a comment on the celebrity and influence of Rock stars. Here is clip from 1970 of The Who playing "Pinball Wizard" at the Isle of Wight Festival where the band performed the entire album. Townsend claimed the studio was never able to capture the excitement of a live Who performance.

The idea of the "concept" album was perfected by Pink Floyd, who released several concept albums including Wish You Were Here, Animals, The Wall and The Final Cut. Pink Floyd's masterpiece was Dark Side of the Moon, an album as renowned for its studio brilliance as well as its excellent music and thought provoking lyrics. Here is link to a video of the entire album played live in 1994.  It should listened to as one long work, like a symphony. 

The restrictions that defined something as Rock or Jazz were slowly falling away by the 70s and Rock was now being looked at as something beyond entertainment for teenagers. Rock had grown up and so had its audience, leading to a movement called Art Rock. Groups like King Crimson, Genesis and Gentle Giant created ambitious albums that featured long, epic songs, sometimes lasting four sides of an album. Emerson, Lake and Palmer released Brain Salad Surgery 1973, which featured a huge variety of styles and extended instrumental sections throughout the album. This was virtuoso music played by masters of their instruments and it was music best enjoyed with headphones in the dark. Here the band performs their arrangement of two movements from Russian classical composer Modest Mussorgsky's orchestral tone poem Pictures at an Exhibition.

Here is the original.

"The Gnome" original:

And now ELP's take:

Artists like Carlos Santana straddled the line between Jazz and Rock, playing what became known as Jazz Rock. Here is Santana playing "Black Magic Woman"

The first Heavy Metal Bands actually considered themselves to be amplified Blues bands.We heard from Led Zeppelin earlier in the semester but Black Sabbath was the first true Heavy Metal band, with their covers that looked like horror movies and their dark lyrics about war, the Devil and drugs. Ozzy Osborne considered songs like "Lord of this World" and "Iron Man" to be religious songs that were pro-Christian, but with a name like Black Sabbath they soon became hated by parents everywhere and accused of being Satanists. Here is the anti-war classic "War Pigs."

People like Alice Cooper and David Bowie started to treat their concerts like vaudeville shows and played characters with full make up and acted out scenarios. Alice Cooper claimed that "Alice" was a person who came out on stage and was not him. David Bowie toured as Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, an androgynous fictional rock star. He later would appear as The Thin White Duke. This was Glam Rock. Here is David Bowie performing as Ziggy Stardust in 1973:

KISS took this to the extreme. All members wore makeup and played fictional characters, the Demon, the Star, the Cat and the Spaceman. For many years, the group would not allow themselves to be photographed without makeup. Here they are performing "Shout It Out Loud" from their best album Destroyer.

Rock had become big business with huge stadiums and football arenas selling out for mega-acts that put on huge shows with light shows, and very loud sound for fanatic fans.

Disco was a new type of dance music that became a huge but brief fad in the mid-1970s. Hated by the hard-core rockers and loved by the people that danced to it, Disco seemed to take over everything and threaten the future of Rock, with groups like The Rolling Stones and KISS and roots rockers like Rod Stewart all recording Disco tunes to get them on the radio. The Bee Gees, who started out as folk rockers, were by far the most successful of these Disco acts. With the release of Saturday Night Fever in theaters in 1977, Disco music exploded into a national sensation. Here is the opening scene of that movie, featuring John Travolta stylishly walking to the hit "Stayin' Alive" by the Bee Gees.

...and another scene featuring Travolta dancing to "You Should Be Dancing:"

Not everyone was thrilled with Disco, Glam Rock and Art Rock. Many people thought Rock was losing its edgy roots and becoming too slick for its own good. The Punks were about to have their say and it wasn't going to be pretty...well, maybe "Pretty Vacant"....

Smile, and take this week's Music quiz.

Music Quiz

NEXT WEEK: Punk, New Wave, MTV, Grunge and Guitar Hero

Music Appreciation Week 14 - Jazz and Rock Pt. 2

MUSIC APPRECIATION WEEK 14

JAZZ AND ROCK PART 2

The 60s

The world began changing in major ways in the 60s and the music reflected this in both Jazz and Rock.

Saxophonist John Coltrane was one of the great virtuosos in Jazz. He became famous in the 50s for paying so fast over changes that they called his playing "sheets of sound." His composition "Giant Steps", with its challenging chord progression is a bit of a rite of passage for all Jazz improvisors. In the early 60s, though, he began to move away from fast moving chord changes and towards a Modal Jazz style. This was innovated by Miles Davis on his album Kind of Blue (discussed last week). In this style of improvisation the player will improvise a solo over just one "mode" or scale. This frees the mind from worrying about "cutting the changes" and allows for total concentration on creativity and expression. Lets watch a video of Coltrane playing

his version of "My Favorite Things".

Later on John Coltrane would go on to embrace Free Jazz, like Ornette Coleman. Here is an excerpt from "Ascension."

Motown ruled the Black music charts throughout the early 60s with its upbeat tunes and groups hand picked to deliver hit singles. One of the most famous of these acts was The Supremes. Here is "Where Did Our Love Go?"

After the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the British Invasion started, introducing such acts as The Beatles:

...and the Rolling Stones:

Both of these groups were to evolve over the next several years.

The Beatles especially made huge strides as artists throughout their career. Here is a whirlwind tour. With the release of Revolver in 1966, the Beatles showed they were more than just talented Rock and Roll lads but artists with as much to say as the Jazz and Classical artists before them. JohnLennon's "Tomorrow Never Knows" embraces Eastern ideas and advanced studio techniques that still sound fresh today.

If you go back and watch Coltrane's "Ascension" again, you can see that there was something new in the air in the mid-60s, as Rock was about to enter its most creative period, lead by the Beatles in Jazz and John Coltrane and Miles Davis in Jazz.

In this period Miles was in his Post Bop Swing phase. With his group of young Jazz virtuosos including Wayne Shorter (sax), Herbie Hancock (piano), Ron Carter (bass) and Tony Williams (drums) he was still playing straight ahead Jazz but you could see it wanting to break free from old Jazz formulas. The players in this group play with telepathic communication and represent all that is excellent about improvised music. Here is a complete performance from 1967 where you can hear Jazz seeming to break apart at the seems but Miles in control of the maelstrom created by his band members. Witness some of the most exciting moments in modern Jazz.

The freedom of Miles Davis' groups and John Coltrane was not lost on 60s Psychedelic groups like The Byrds. Here is "Eight Miles High," which guitarist Roger McGuin says was inspired by John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme."

Bob Dylan was a major influence on The Byrds. Dylan is Rock's official poet and definitely one of its best songwriters. His lyrics are endlessly fascinating to ponder and the way he uses words, even without the music, is musical in itself. While it is impossible to pick one tune to represent Dylan, probably my favorite Dylan tune is "Like a Rolling Stone," an epic song that broke the "four minute rule" in radio and is just plain fun to sing along with, whatever it means. In this performance, Dylan is being heckled for betraying his folk roots and "going electric." I love the extra sneer and attitude his gives the song as he joins the Rock and Rollers and ticks off the traditionalists.

At this point, the 60s were in full swing complete with hippies, experimental drugs
and "free love." The Psychedelic music of this period reflects these aspects. Jimi Hendrix was an unabashed Dylan fan himself. You should check out his version of Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" and "All Along the Watchtower," which Dylan thought bettered his original. Here is Jimi singing "Purple Haze." The guitar solo is in the mixolydian mode, again reflecting the influence people like Miles Davis and John Coltrane were having on Rock music.

The San Francisco scene produced a lot of great artists including Janice Joplin, Jefferson Airplane
and The Grateful Dead, seen here performing "St. Stephen" on Playboy After Dark in 1969.

The Doors were a band made up of a poet, a flamenco guitar player, a classically trained organist and a jazz drummer. All these elements came together in their music, which many times looked at the dark side of psychedelia. Here is their classic "Light My Fire" live at The Hollywood Bowl. The video does a good job of conveying the improvisational and unpredictable aspects of their music.

The Velvet Underground were from New York City and looked forward to the Punk Rock and New Wave movement in the mid-70s. Their music stretched the bounds of Rock and is only for those with adventurous ears. Lou Reed and John Cale would go on to have solo careers later on.

Here is the chilling Indian Raga-influenced "Venus in Furs" with footage of the band rehearsing.

The 60s were a rich period for Rock and the high point of its creativity that has never been replicated since. The 70s came close, though, and that is the subject of the next blog in this special two part look at the 60s and 70s in Jazz and Rock.

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Groovy Music...um, Thing

Music Appreciation Week 14 - Jazz and Rock Pt. 1: Armstrong to Lewis

MUSIC APPRECIATION WEEK 14: JAZZ AND ROCK I

RAGTIME TO BALLS OF FIRE

These next two weeks we will look at Jazz and Rock and how they have influenced each other.

It is appropriate that in the last blog we looked at Charles Ives who's music was influenced by marching bands. Jazz had its beginnings in marching bands and the blues. In New Orleans, White band leaders and Black Blues and Gospel musicians mingled together, eventually leading to the Dixieland Jazz style that lead to Jazz. Here is Louis Armstrong playing and singing a popular New Orleans Dixieland number. "When the Saints Go Marching In."

As this style progressed and moved into the cities of Chicago and New York City, this began to evolve into Jazz. Here is Louis Armstrong playing "Basin Street Blues", a bluesy swing. Notice how the drums are playing a different rhythm than in the above example and the bass is playing a steady "walking bass "style that became a defining feature in Jazz.

As the Swing style became more and more popular throughout the 1930s and 40s, most vestiges of the Dixieland stele began ti disappear as Louis Armstrong's stele began to seem "old fashioned" to younger urban Black Jazz listeners. Here Billie Holiday sings, "My Man" in her own unique style. Billie was influenced more by saxophone players than other singers and used her voice as a horn. She was a total original that will never be duplicated, although many have tried. Lets listen to "Lady Day" do her stuff:

As Jazz continued to move into the city, bands grew in size and attracted White listeners. The Big Band era hit it apex in the 1940s, with such weld wide stars as Count Basie, Benny Goodman and Stan Kenton. The most influential of the all was Duke Ellington, Jazz's first great composer. The songs of Duke Ellington remain part of the Jazz canon today and have become the standard by which all Jazz composers are judged by. Here is the Duke Ellington Orchestra doing one of my favorite Jazz classics, "Sophisticated Lady", featuring Jazz saxophonist Harry Carney:

Pretty amazing, huh? Well, here's one more with some free good advice: "It Don't Mean A Thing If It Ain't Got that Swing."

After World War II, Bebop took Jazz to new virtuosic levels. It featured more complex rhythms, faster moving chord changes and new scales, influenced by the Impressionist classical composers like Debussy and Ravel. It's most famous players were Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonius Monk and Bud Powell. The size of the ensembles were smaller, encouraging the members of the group to "stretch out" with longer solos. The improvisations became the main thing in this music. Listeners mostly sat down and listened to this music instead of dancing to it like Swing. Here are Charlie Parker (sax) and Dizzy Gillespie (trumpet) playing "Hot House." Notice how the drums seem to comment on the solos instead of just keeping the beat.

Cool Jazz was a reaction the the speed and complexity of Bebop. The chords changed less often, and the tempos were usually a little slower than Bebop. Here is a brief documentary on Miles Davis' monumental album, Kind of Blue:

Another type of Jazz became popular in the mid-50s. Soul Jazz incorporated elements of Black Gospel and Rhythm and Blues and was played by such musicians as Cannonball Adderly (who played on Kind of Blue), Art Blakey and Jimmy Smith. This brings us to the music of Ray Charles, "the Godfather of Soul. " Ray was brought up in the church and his music was heavily influenced by that experience. Compare the Gospel classic "This Little Light of Mine" to Charles' "This Little Girl of Mine:"

And now Brother Ray:

Elvis Presley was also brought up in the church and in Gospel. He also went to the other side of Memphis and used to listen to Black Blues musicians like Big Mama Thornton:

They say the Blues had a baby and they named him Rock and Roll and Elvis is proof of that. The recordings he made in 1954 and 55 at Sun Studios mixed together many different elements including Blues, Country, Gospel and even the Big Band crooning style of Bing Crosby. Elvis and Scotty Moore (guitar) and Bill Black (bass) created a new style of music that came to be known as Rock and Roll. Most of these formative Rock and Roll tunes were the result of "horsing around" in the recording studio. When Sam Phillips, the producer, heard what they were doing he liked it better than what they came there to do. He rolled the tapes and Rock and Roll with its rebellious spirit was born:

We can't give all the credit to Elvis. Blues guitarist and songwriter Chuck Berry recorded "Maybelline" in 1955 and forever influenced every Rock guitarist to play the music in the future. Here is a clip of his signature tune "Johnny B. Goode":

Although space does not permit everyone I would like to include, we should mention R&B piano player and singer Fats Domino, who typifies the Rock and Roll "Doo Wop" sound. Lets take a trip to "Blueberry Hill."

But Jazz was about to change in a big way. In 1959 Ornette Coleman released the album, The Shape of Jazz to Come, which signal the arrival of Free Jazz. This was a new type of Jazz that rejected playing over changes (chords) and instead "freely" improvised on whatever the musicians felt like doing at the time. You can clearly hear the influence of Charlie Parker in the lines, but not in the organization. Later on, Coleman, like Schoenberg, would formalize some of his concepts. He calls these "Harmelodics." Here is Ornette Coleman's "Lonely Woman."

It was almost 1960 and Jazz and Rock and Roll were both about to change and influence each other even more throughout the 60s and 70s. That is the era we will look at in our next installment. Let me leave you with "The Killer", Jerry Lee Lewis:

You are now ready for this week's music quiz.

Music Quiz

Music Appreciation Week 13- Bartok and Ives

MUSIC HISTORY WEEK 13:

TWO GREAT MAVERICK 2oth CENTURY COMPOSERS

BELA BARTOK (1881 - 1945)

Bela Bartok was born in Hungaria and had an interest in Gypsy music, which he studied and transcribed. Bartok was really the first ethnomusicologist and the folk music he studied heavily influenced his own music. He was interested in ancient music that used modes, unfamiliar scales and non symmetrical rhythms. He was a great innovator in music and was a huge influence on other composers. His music has an irreverent, rhythmically unpredictable style. He was also a virtuoso pianist and gave concerts around the world.

Although the picture quality is not the greatest (it seems to be a dupe from a VHS tape) I found this documentary to be very good and well worth your time and patience. It has scenes of where Bartok grew up and has some great musical excerpts in including a different movement from his Concerto for Orchestra than you have in your CD pack.

CHARLES IVES (1874 -1954)

Charles Ives was born in Danbury, Connecticut. He attended Yale to study composition with Horatio Parker. He made his living as an insurance salesman and never heard some of

his works performed. He would come home from a long day at work and spend the night composing his totally original compositions that were way ahead of their time. Sometimes he would bring his compositions to New York City, where he would ask the Tin Pan Alley musicians if they would play his pieces so he could hear them. Near the ned of his life he finally appreciated by the general public. He is truly am American maverick.

His music was influenced by hymns, jazz and classical music as well. He went on to be a great influence on younger composers including Eliot Carter, whom he used to take to New York Philharmonic Orchestra concerts. After going to the concert they would discuss the m

usic they had just heard. Today Ives' music is discussed and analyzed in universities and conservatories all over the world and his music is an important part of the orchestral repertoire.

The following video is presented by the San Francisco Orchestra and Michael Tilson Thomas as part of their excellent Keeping Score series:

Watch Ives Holidays Symphony on PBS. See more from KEEPING SCORE.

Watch Ives Holidays Symphony on PBS. See more from KEEPING SCORE.

Watch Ives Holidays Symphony on PBS. See more from KEEPING SCORE.

Watch Ives Holidays Symphony on PBS. See more from KEEPING SCORE.

Watch Ives Holidays Symphony on PBS. See more from KEEPING SCORE.

You are now ready for this week's Music Quiz. Please click below.

Music Quiz

Music Appreciation Week 12 - Understanding Serial Music

MUSIC APPRECIATION WEEK: 12

UNDERSTANDING SERIAL MUSIC

This week I will attempt to give you a fairly simple explanation of how 12-tone serialist music works.

Let’s begin with a musical example. The person who really developed the idea of 12-tone composition was Arnold Schoenberg, who eventually codified it into a new method of writing music. He didn’t just have students, he had disciples. These included Anton Webern, Alban Berg and Pierre Boulez, to name just a few. Here is Schoenberg’s Variations for Orchestra Op. 34, written in 1934:

After hearing that, you are probably either convinced to never listen to Schoenberg’s music again or you are at least intrigued about a type of music you may not understand but may want to learn more about. This is music without a tonal center. Did you sense an over-all important note here? Most typical Classical or Romantic music has a tonal center. There is one note the music seems to resolve to. Click here to listen to an excerpt from Mozart:




Did you sense that there was one particular note that seemed to be most important? You don’t even have to know the name of the note to sense this. Usually the last note in a tonal composition is this note or the compositions’ tonal center. In tonal compositions, notes are not part of a democracy but notes are ranked in order of importance. That’s why most symphonies will tell you the key in their title. This was important to understanding the music.

Schoenberg wanted to break away from the idea of a tonal center. He sought to free music from what he saw as a system of the past that was stifling his creativity. Here is a video bio about Schoenberg’s life that includes some excellent samples of his music.







If you are at all familiar with the piano, you know there are 12 notes: Ab, A, Bb, B, C, C#, D, Eb, E, F, F# and G. Schoenberg sought to make all 12 of these notes equal. No “big cheese” of notes, everybody equal. This may be why when you listened to the above piece by Schoenberg that it may have seemed a bit directionless to you. To try to create a discernable pattern to the ear, Schoenberg arranged the 12 notes in a certain order. Say, A, Eb, D, C#, Bb, F, Ab, F#, B, E, C, C for example. As these notes are repeated in the same sequence over and over you can hopefully begin to recognize the pattern they make. Here is a video tutorial on 12-tone composition for you to look at:



I hope you will begin to give this music a chance and try to listen with open ears. It could be the beginning of a whole new musical adventure for you.

THIS WEEK'S ASSIGNMENT:

In your own words, do you best to describe Schoenberg's 12-tone system. Send this to my email at don@donpride.com. If you can't do that, then give me a brief biography for Schoenberg.