Traditional Jazz Research Articles

The Heritage of the Drumset

The drumset is a 20th-century American instrument whose historical development has largely been the result of African American creativity. It stands today as one of the most widely played, recognized, and powerful instruments used on the global stage. The trap drumset emerged in the late 1890s, when single percussionists were forced for economic and logistical reasons to operate a multitude of instruments. Snare and bass drums of the concert and marching bands in New Orleans provided a base to which, from 1900 to 1930, other accessories or trappings - hence the name traps - were added. This diverse sound palette enabled percussionists to accompany films, theater, and other stage shows and dances. Additions included whistles, cowbells, tympani, chimes, marimba, bells, bird calls, and many other instruments. Early drummers, in their search for sounds, also adopted the instruments they heard played by Chinese immigrants in urban areas in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, like the small Chinese cymbal (Bo), large gong (Da Luo), woodblock (Ban), temple blocks (Mu-Yu), and the first tom-tom (Bangu), usually a thick painted pigskin drum head tacked on to a red painted wooden shell. Later, during the 1920s and 1930s, high-hat cymbals - at first less than one foot high and called low boys (Papa Joe Jones told me in 1981 that he invented the longer rod which brought the high hat to its present, aptly named height, but the Leedy drum company stole his idea and took all the rewards) - bass drum pedals, manufactured mounted and floor tom-toms, and larger cymbals came to be included in the drumset. By the bebop innovation of the 1940s, the drumset had assumed the basic form still in use today - bass and snare drums, tom-toms, high-hat cymbals, and ride and crash cymbals. In addition to its physical history, I suggest that the drumset has a spiritual heritage traceable to the ancient drum orchestras of West Africa, especially in the coastal rain forest region from Ivory Coast through Ghana, Togo, and Benin to Nigeria, where drumming is highly diversified into variously pitched and timbred drums, bells, and rattles. In these areas there is a master drummer who directs the dynamic interplay of song, dance, and drumming with conversational dialogues (calls and responses). An ensemble of distinct personal drum voices, each with its own pitch range, timbre, and rhythm, specified by tradition, repertoire, and occasion of performance, comes together to make a composite statement. This dynamic living force creates a space for the gods to descend, for people to connect with each other, with nature, with life, and with themselves. An interplay of coordinated independent voices characterizes the function, sound, and feel of the drumset performer in the African American jazz tradition and West African drumming. The historical genocide of captive peoples and the radically different geographic, social, and political circumstances in the new world account for the evolution of this instrument, which produced an ensemble of multiple sounds, speaking in a composite voice, mirroring the dramatic action of an ensemble, soloist, or dance. Dancers at the Savoy ballroom or tap dancers on the sidewalks of 125th Street in New York interact with the music: Not only do they dance to the music, but they create rhythms, music, as a response to what they hear. Between the 17th and 19th centuries, when musical instruments, especially drums (which could be used for communication and revolt, as well as spiritual remembrances and affirmation), were forbidden, African American people used their bodies as instruments. The coordinated interdependence of multiple percussive instrumental voices in a composite statement is found in the Pattin' hand-clapping and foot-stomps of African American peoples throughout the South (Jones and Hawes 37-40). Juba is a clapping play similar to the hambone patting and movements many Americans learned in the 1950s and '60s. …

Jazz spoken here: conversations with twenty-two musicians

This book features interviews with 22 major jazz figures, including Art Blakey, Anthony Braxton, Dave Brubeck, Bill Evans, Gil Evans, Tommy Flanagan, Dizzy Gillespie, Chico Hamilton, Lee Konitz, Charles Mingus, Clark Terry and Henry Threadgill. These musicians reflect on their early influences and personal visions, the jazz tradition and the politics of survival in a country that historically has ignored one of its indigenous art forms. These improvisers and composers represent diverse generations and philosophies and a full range of styles, from swing to bop, fusion and free jazz. They speak eloquently about their work, and candidly about the current state of music in the US. These interviews describe what the life of a jazz musician is really like. Each interview begins with a brief biographical introduction and ends with a selected discography.

Stages in the evolution of music

Culture elaborates expressive forms by developing ever more differentiated control over patterns in the expressive medium. In Rank 1 culture (preliterate), music evolves through control over rhythm. Rank 2 culture (literacy) gains control over melodic structure, whereas Rank 3 culture (Renaissance and after) adds harmonic elaboration to rhythm and melody. Within the twentieth century, jazz has followed a similar course, with rhythmic elaboration coming first in traditional jazz, then melodic control emerging in swing, and harmonic control with bop. Both classical music and jazz have much straining beyond the limits of Rank 3 harmonic control, but no clear Rank 4 forms (typified in some aspects by the computer age) have yet evolved.

The great divide ‐ Australian traditional Jazz and the academies

The great divide ‐ Australian traditional Jazz and the academies

Literacy, Orality, and the Parry-Lord "Formula": Improvisation and the Afro-American Jazz Tradition

Literacy, Orality, and the Parry-Lord "Formula": Improvisation and the Afro-American Jazz Tradition

Constructing the Jazz Tradition: Jazz Historiography

Constructing the Jazz Tradition: Jazz Historiography

Tempo Preferences of Different Age Music Listeners

The purpose of this study was to measure the effect of four levels of tempo on the self-reported preferences of six different age-groups for traditional jazz music listening examples. The authors administered a listening test to 926 students in 45 classrooms from third grade through college level in Michigan and Pennsylvania. Test reliability was evaluated in terms of internal consistency, student behavior was observed during the test, and free-response feedback was solicited from the students at the end of the measurement procedure as an additional check on the validity of results. A Friedman analysis of variance disclosed a significant preference for increasingly faster tempi at every age level. These results confirm and extend those LeBlanc and McCrary obtained in a 1983 study that was limited to fifth- and sixth-grade students. Listener age exerted a strong influence on overall preference scores, which were highest with the youngest listeners (third grade), declined steadily to a low point at seventh grade, then rose again as age increased to the college level.

Jazz Style and Improvisation Codes

Every now and then it becomes fashionable to study the processes involved in improvisation or extemporization. Any renewed interest in improvisation, for whatever reason, is usually accompanied by a renewed interest in jazz, for it is within the jazz tradition that improvisation is generally presumed to be most manifest in Western culture. This importance of improvisation to jazz, though generally assumed, is by no means fully accepted. Jazz historian Max Harrison writes: Attempts at a concise-even a coherent-definition of jazz have invariably failed. Initial efforts to separate it from related forms of music resulted in a false primacy of certain aspects such as improvisation, which is neither unique nor essential to jazz . . . (Harrison 1980: 561).

Rhythm-A-Ning: Jazz Tradition and Innovation in the 80's

Rhythm-A-Ning: Jazz Tradition and Innovation in the 80's

How many schools of traditional jazz? A study of musicians and listeners.

How many schools of traditional jazz? A study of musicians and listeners.

Traditional Jazz resurgence is illustrated by representative profiles of current bands

(1985). Traditional Jazz resurgence is illustrated by representative profiles of current bands. Popular Music and Society: Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 47-57.

How many schools of traditional jazz? A study of musicians and listeners.

How many schools of traditional jazz? A study of musicians and listeners.

"And I Will Sing of Joy and Pain for You": Louis Armstrong and the Great Jazz Traditions: A Review-Essay

"And I Will Sing of Joy and Pain for You": Louis Armstrong and the Great Jazz Traditions: A Review-Essay

Effect of Tempo on Children's Music Preference

This study measured the effect of four levels of tempo on the expressed preference of fifth and sixth grade students for traditional jazz music listening examples. A listening test was administered to 163 students in seven classrooms in south central Michigan. Test reliability was evaluated in terms of common factor concentration, student behavior was observed during the test, and free response data were solicited from students at the end of the measurement procedure as an additional check on results. A one-way repeated measures analysis of variance disclosed a significant effect for tempo, and a priori comparisons showed significant differences between the slowest tempo level and each increasingly faster level of tempo. Students rated each faster level of tempo higher than slower levels. There was a strong positive correlation between increases of tempo and higher preference ratings. This study confirms the effect of tempo suggested in previous studies in the series, which were inconclusive because of interaction between independent variables.

Effects of Tempo and Performing Medium on Children's Music Preference

This study measured the effect of tempo and performing medium on the expressed preference of fifth- and sixth-grade students for traditional jazz music listening examples. A listening test was administered to 354 students in 14 classrooms in central Michigan. Test reliability was evaluated in terms of common factor concentration, student behavior observed during the test, and free response data solicited from students at the end of the measurement procedure as an additional check on results. A two-way repeated measures analysis of variance disclosed a significant interaction. Correlational analysis indicated that tempo was more influential than performing medium as a determinant of music preference, and an examination of cell means showed a consistent preference for faster tempos and for performance in the instrumental medium.

Remembering Song: Encounters with the New Orleans Jazz Tradition

This work covers turn-of-the-century New Orleans and the formative years for jazz, from Buddy Bolden's aboriginal rise and fall to Jim Robinson's funeral. The author writes of figures like Freddie Keppard and Bunk Johnson. This expanded edition includes 16 pages of rare photographs and a new chapter on Allan Jaffe and Preservation Hall.

This Is Ragtime

}In This Is Ragtime , Terry Waldo, musician and scholar, explores ragtime in detail, offering music lovers and social historians a unique view of the music from its inception through its colorful evolution. Waldo tells the story of Scott Joplin and his frustrating attempts to elevate his music to the status of the classics, from his first rags to the tragedy surrounding his operatic masterpiece Treemonisha. Waldo also depicts the exciting and often bawdy settings of the music: the earthly minstrel shows, the whorehouses, the cold and commercial publishers of Tin Pin Alley, the traditional jazz emporiums of Dixieland, and finally the prestigious concert halls of the world. Amplifying Waldo's accounts of how and why ragtime continues to fascinate the music world are pithy interviews with most of its enduring personalities: Eubie Blake, Max Morath, Turk Murphy, Lu Watters, Joe Fingers Carr, Johnny Maddox, Gunther Schuller, William Bolcom, and Joshua Rifkin. Illustrated with art work and artifacts, This Is Ragtime is an enduring classic for all ragtime and jazz enthusiasts. }

Mecca: The Magazine of Traditional Jazz

Mecca: The Magazine of Traditional Jazz

The Encyclopedia of Jazz

The first appearance of Leonard Feather's Encyclopedia of Jazz was heralded by critics, musicians, and record collectors as a major contribution to the literature of jazz. Never before had America's native music been treated so meticulously, objectively, and comprehensively. The appearance of two later volumes, The Encyclopedia of Jazz in the Sixties and The Encyclopedia of Jazz in the Seventies (with Ira Gitler) only confirmed the initial enthusiasm and the judgement that here were basic books for any music library. This marks the first paperback publication of this book, soon to be followed by paperback editions of the other two volumes. With more than 2,000 biographies and 200 photos, it spans the history of jazz from its origins to 1959. But more than a biographical dictionary, the book also features essays on the jazz tradition, its major players and composers, the relationship between jazz and classical music (written by Gunther Schuller), a social history of jazz in America, the jazzman as critic, and a grammar of jazz language that can serve as an ideal introduction for young listeners. In addition, Leonard Feather provides a chronology, list of international critic polls, musicians birthdays and birthplaces, a bibliography, and a discography of recommended recordings. For anyone seriously--or even casually--interested in the development of jazz and blues, this classic reference work can guide you unerringly through the many dimensions of the music's wonderful history.