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Lesson 4 Jazz

Terms in this set (26)

Bebop
A style of jazz, developed from about 1945 to 1955, that emphasized far-reaching and seriously complicated improvisational passages; also known as bop. Bebop also rebelled against the commercialism and written arrangements of the swing bands of that era. With a smaller ensemble and an emphasis on intricate improvisation, bebop was written for an attentive listening audience rather than a dancing audience.
Boogie-Woogie
A rhythmic blues piano style in which the left hand repeats a rhythmic melodic pattern (ostinato) that supplies the harmony. The left-hand pattern can be a walking bass of broken octaves, or chords that are played in a constant "eight-to-the-bar" rhythm. The highly syncopated and independent right hand improvises above (and can also include repeating "eight-to-the-bar" chords). The style eventually became popular with such early rockers as Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard.
Boom-Chuck Pattern
Refers to a characteristic feature of the ragtime piano style, in which the player's left hand reaches down to a low bass note and then jumps back up to play a chord.
Coda
A passage added to the end of a section or to an entire piece. It may or may not be related to the main theme.
Cutting Contest
A "battle of the bands," or a battle between soloists, to determine who is the best. In the ragtime era, it would be between two ragtime piano players, and a "rag" was often hung from the window to indicate where the cutting contest was taking place. In early New Orleans jazz, two bands that met by chance on the streets might engage in a spontaneous cutting contest.
Dixieland
A type of interweaving multilayered jazz that flowed from African-American and "colored-Creole" New Orleans in the early 1900s and was made nationally popular initially by white bands as dance music. Dixieland was adapted from popular marches, and the Dixieland bands usually consisted of cornet or trumpet, trombone, and clarinet over a rhythm section that would include some combination of piano, drums, bass (string or brass bass), and banjo (or guitar), each with an established role. The original early New Orleans style emphasized ensemble playing, while the Chicago style had a cleaner approach that emphasized soloists, along with some differences in rhythmic feel and instrumentation.
Improvisation
The process of creating a work as it is being performed. The performer spontaneously creates a melody, harmony, rhythm, and/or bass line, as well as texture. It can be entirely new, based on an existing piece or musical form, or inspired by something someone else just played.
Laid Back
Playing melodies or parts in an arrangements slightly behind the beat. Purposely delaying the beat gives a feeling of relaxation to an arrangement and of improvisation to a solo instrument or singer.
Minuet
A classical music dance form in 3/4 time, based on early suites.
Ostinato
Derived from the Italian term for stubborn, this is a classical term for a short melody, rhythmic pattern, or chord progression that is repeated continuously for an entire piece or section.
Piano
The dominant instrument in music since the end of the eighteenth century. The instrument is sometimes considered to be a member of the percussion family since it produces sound by being struck, though it also has strings. Originally called a pianoforte, it was named for its ability to produce both soft (piano) and loud (forte) sounds. It is a key instrument in jazz and has served as a solo or accompanying instrument in virtually all styles. It allows a performer a wide range of expressions, volumes, and moods. And, with its more than seven-octave range, it can play a melody and harmony or bass line simultaneously, supplying the musical information of a small band or orchestra.
Quadrille
Essentially a lively square dance with several musical sections and elaborate steps done by four, six, or eight couples. It came from France and was very popular in the United States in the nineteenth century. Military bands adapted this form for marches, and it was eventually used for ragtime and Dixieland.
Ragtime
A compositional form based on European dance forms that later became a style used for improvisation on the piano. In ragtime, shortened from the term ragged time, syncopated melody lines hang over the regular beat like a "rag," as the bass line plays in strict rhythm. Frequently a written style, ragtime was influential in shaping the direction of solo and group improvisation in early jazz.
Ragtime Style
A more improvisational form of ragtime. The performance is often more relaxed with a more swinging dance feel. Though improvising may be on ragtime pieces, there is little concern for remaining true to the written notation or form.
Song Form (AABA, etc.)
The basic form of songs (melody and harmony), usually 16 or 32 bars long, and usually made of a limited number of four- or eight-bar phrases that either repeat or differ. Letter names are used to describe how these phrases are grouped into melodic and harmonic sections, and help musicians see the pattern of repeating and differing phrases (AABA, ABAB, ABAC, etc.). In AABA form, the B section is sometimes called the "bridge," "middle eight," "release," "channel," or other names, and is a change from the A sections both melodically and harmonically. Many jazz pieces are in AABA. (Letter names can also be used to describe the four to eight-measure patterns within each section.)
Stop Time
A technique that focuses attention on a singer or soloist, in which an ensemble or pianist repeats a simple pattern or chords in unison, punctuated with rests, which allows the soloist to be the main feature. The meter and tempo are the same as before, it is only the texture of the accompaniment changes.
Storyville
A brothel district in New Orleans around the turn of the century. The name comes from New Orleans Alderman Sidney Story, who sponsored a resolution that set up a special district to separate vice activity from the rest of the city (a tenderloin district). The best musicians--both black and "colored Creole" (generally light-skinned black people of French rather than African/slave heritage)--eventually found their way to the area, and the two cultures shared their knowledge with each other; the Creoles sharing more formal music knowledge and the blacks sharing ragtime and blues. Basin Street was the main street in the district
Stride
A piano style that grew out of ragtime and was developed by such pianists as James P. Johnson, Fats Waller, and Art Tatum. The stride bass, which moves in a "striding" motion in large intervals of a tenth or more, was adapted from the left-hand patterns of ragtime. Other features of the style include fast tempos, a use of the piano's full range, and some aspects of classical piano (many of the Harlem pianists were classically trained). Pieces performed by stride pianists were fully composed but were the bases of extensive improvisation and required considerable technique.
Swing
A jazz style of playing two normally equal notes so that the first note lasts longer than the second. (A classical musician might interpret the duration of each note more equally.) The result is a swinging, dancelike feeling of long-short, long-short. It is also the name given to a jazz style and a related phase of popular music in the 1930s that favored solo improvisation, larger ensembles/big bands--though not always--and a rhythm that gave relatively equal weight to the four beats of the bar. (This other aspect of the term is found well beyond the music of the Swing Era. The way each period swings helps to define it stylistically.)
Syncopation
Shifting an accent to a normally unaccented part of the beat or measure.
Tin Pan Alley
An area of music publishing and songwriting in New York City that, from the 1890s to 1950s, provided a basis for lyric development in the popular songs of the day. (The name arose because the sound of the many pianos coming out of open windows in the area sounded like tin pans.) The term became associated with the types of songs that came out of that area in different eras. Much of the standard jazz repertory (jazz standards) is based on the songs of Tin Pan Alley.
12-Bar Blues
The most common underlying chord progression for blues (though there are others). The 12-bar pattern repeats throughout the song. It is made of three four-bar phrases that could coincide with two repeated lines of lyric and a third rhyming line. Though it can vary slightly, the chord pattern is known to all blues, jazz, and rock musicians--four bars based on the tonic/I chord (C in the key of C major), two bars on the subdominant/IV chord (F), two more bars on the tonic/I chord (C), two bars on the dominant seventh/V7 chord (G7), and two bars on the tonic/I chord (C). The example here is the key of C, but guitar players usually prefer E or A, and jazz/horn players like B-flat.
2/4 Jazz
A solid rhythmic feeling in which the first and third beats are accented. It is produced by the boom-chuck or oom-pah type of accompaniment--low note-chord, low note-chord. It was common in the marches and rags that early jazz grew out of, and is a feeling that endured in jazz for decades; also known as two-beat jazz. Even in 4/4 time, this feel is called 2/4 jazz. (In fact, as jazz progressed the feel was written almost solely in 4/4.)
Vamp
A simple repeating accompaniment figure played until a soloist or singer is ready to enter. The vamp figure may also be played during, after, or between solos. It is like an ostinato or a riff, but often the player will decide how long to use it.
Walking Bass
This is one of the common left-hand patterns in boogie-woogie piano, supplying the harmony in a forceful and ongoing pattern of broken octaves. The pattern is usually made of strict eighth notes or dotted eighth notes that "walk" up and down the accompaniment tones with a steady beat. The walking bass is also a jazz bass line played in even quarter notes on a double bass using a pizzicato (plucked) rather than bowed style. This walking bass supplies the ensemble with a beat, harmony, and countermelody, as it moves in either steps or intervals. This remains a basic style for jazz bass players.
Walking Lengths
One of the more difficult techniques in stride piano. Rather than using a boom-chuck technique to provide the bass note and chord, the left hand plays melodies that have a simultaneous distance of ten steps between the bass note and the thumb. This distance is quite large and many people can't reach it, let alone "walk" up and down the keyboard using it. Different from a simple walking bass, this sound developed into an important part of the swing style that both followed and paralleled stride.
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