Duke Ellington as Pianist: A Study of Styles by Matthew J. Cooper, and: Why Jazz Happened by Marc Myers (review)

Abstract

as Pianist: A Study of Styles. By Matthew J. Cooper. (Monographs and Bibliographies in American Music, no. 24.) Missoula, MT: College Music Society, 2013. [xvi, 127p. ISBN 9781881913610 (paperback), $45.] Music examples, appendices, bibliography, index. Why Jazz Happened. By Marc Myers. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013. [x, 267 p. ISBN 9780520268784 (hardcover); ISBN 9780520953987 (e-book), $34.95.] Bibliographic references, index. (1899-1974) is known to many Americans as the leader of a swing-era dance band as well as a writer of pop tunes. Some musicians and jazz fans also know him as a major composer--arranger. In fact, there are musicologists and journalists who consider to be America's greatest composer, which puts him in a league with Charles Ives and Aaron Copland. Though many jazz fans think of as a pianist too, few scholars have examined how unique and original his approach to the keyboard really was. Dr. Matthew J. Cooper of Eastern Oregon University wrote that Ellington surely stands as one of the great jazz pianists, and his work is worthy of greater recognition than it has been accorded in the past (p. 102). Responding to this need, he wrote as Pianist. A Study of Styles. It is a very welcome contribution because it not only touts the importance of the pianist, but it also explicates the unique techniques that made him original. This book may prove to be essential study for jazz pianists and jazz theory teachers, not just fans. Cooper is wonderfully conversant with a wide variety of commentaries that prove pivotal to our understanding of Ellington's piano styles. service that the author provides by doing this is commendable, particularly because he shares useful excerpts from writings that may be unknown to scholars and fans. For instance, observations by pianist Dick Katz, pianist-historian Mark Tucker, and composer-historian Gunther Schuller are particularly informative. Quotes from written remarks by himself are penetrating. Cooper is such a tenacious researcher that he even tracked down several strands of counter-evidence for an arcane discussion about whether ever made a piano roll. To help us understand the meat of Ellington's piano style, the author has undertaken the huge task of transcribing and analyzing solos from sources that range all the way from 1928 to 1972. For instance, he selected the obscure 1929 recording Lazy Duke to extract the pianist's work in accompanying a clarinet solo; used parallel triads in f cross rhythm. To refute the contention of some critics that not particularly good as a pianist, Cooper provides transcriptions of the 1932 recording Lots o' Fingers (at 288 beats per minute). Then, for chapter 5: The Later Years and the Atypical Style, Cooper takes quite seriously the odd matching of with avant-garde bassist Charles Mingus and bebop drummer Max Roach that led to the puzzling music on their Money Jungle album of 1962. (Coincidentally, the contemporary drummer-bandleader Terri Lyne Carrington is now using some of this strange music for her group's repertory.) Though we have long known that admired the work of James P. Johnson, the father of stride piano, we may not have known many specifics. We learn from Cooper that Part of Johnson's influence on the younger his exciting use of rhythmic displacement. Johnson never confined himself to a monotonous pattern of 'oom-pah' bass notes and chords; instead, he found graceful and imaginative ways to vary the left-hand accompaniment. In doing so, he created a range of surprising accents and regulated the rise and fall of tension masterfully within each of his phrases (p. 24). Among the historically-significant contributions that made as a pianist, the author alerts us to the fact that was among the first pianists to embrace the technique now known as 'comping. …