William Henry Bauer (November 14, 1915 – June 17, 2005) was an American jazz guitarist.
107-556: Leonard Joseph Tristano (March 19, 1919 – November 18, 1978) was an American jazz pianist, composer, arranger, and teacher of jazz improvisation. Tristano studied for bachelor's and master's degrees in music in Chicago before moving to New York City in 1946. He played with leading bebop musicians and formed his own small bands, which soon displayed some of his early interests – contrapuntal interaction of instruments, harmonic flexibility, and rhythmic complexity. His quintet in 1949 recorded
214-621: A "special relationship to time defined as 'swing ' ". Jazz involves "a spontaneity and vitality of musical production in which improvisation plays a role" and contains a "sonority and manner of phrasing which mirror the individuality of the performing jazz musician". A broader definition that encompasses different eras of jazz has been proposed by Travis Jackson: "it is music that includes qualities such as swing, improvising, group interaction, developing an 'individual voice', and being open to different musical possibilities". Krin Gibbard argued that "jazz
321-645: A consequence of his mother being affected by the 1918–19 flu pandemic during pregnancy. A bout of measles when aged six may have exacerbated his condition, and by the age of nine or ten he was totally blind as a result of glaucoma . He initially went to standard state schools, but attended the Illinois School for the Blind in Jacksonville for a decade from around 1928. During his school days he played several instruments, including saxophones, trumpet, guitar, and drums. At
428-467: A drum made by stretching skin over a flour-barrel. Lavish festivals with African-based dances to drums were organized on Sundays at Place Congo, or Congo Square, in New Orleans until 1843. There are historical accounts of other music and dance gatherings elsewhere in the southern United States. Robert Palmer said of percussive slave music: Usually such music was associated with annual festivals, when
535-456: A form of folk music which arose in part from the work songs and field hollers of African-American slaves on plantations. These work songs were commonly structured around a repetitive call-and-response pattern, but early blues was also improvisational. Classical music performance is evaluated more by its fidelity to the musical score , with less attention given to interpretation, ornamentation, and accompaniment. The classical performer's goal
642-410: A limited melodic range, sounding like a field holler, and the guitar accompaniment was slapped rather than strummed, like a small drum which responded in syncopated accents, functioning as another "voice". Handy and his band members were formally trained African-American musicians who had not grown up with the blues, yet he was able to adapt the blues to a larger band instrument format and arrange them in
749-460: A multi- strain ragtime march with four parts that feature recurring themes and a bass line with copious seventh chords . Its structure was the basis for many other rags, and the syncopations in the right hand, especially in the transition between the first and second strain, were novel at the time. The last four measures of Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag" (1899) are shown below. African-based rhythmic patterns such as tresillo and its variants,
856-417: A musician. Some describe his playing as cold and suggest that his innovations had little impact; others state that he was a bridge between bebop and later, freer forms of jazz, and assert that he is less appreciated than he should be because commentators found him hard to categorize and because he chose not to commercialize. Tristano was born in Chicago on March 19, 1919. His mother, Rose Tristano (née Malano),
963-509: A pitch which he called a 'jazz ball' "because it wobbles and you simply can't do anything with it". The use of the word in a musical context was documented as early as 1915 in the Chicago Daily Tribune . Its first documented use in a musical context in New Orleans was in a November 14, 1916, Times-Picayune article about "jas bands". In an interview with National Public Radio , musician Eubie Blake offered his recollections of
1070-652: A popular music form. Handy wrote about his adopting of the blues: The primitive southern Negro, as he sang, was sure to bear down on the third and seventh tone of the scale, slurring between major and minor. Whether in the cotton field of the Delta or on the Levee up St. Louis way, it was always the same. Till then, however, I had never heard this slur used by a more sophisticated Negro, or by any white man. I tried to convey this effect ... by introducing flat thirds and sevenths (now called blue notes) into my song, although its prevailing key
1177-997: A series of illnesses in the 1970s, including eye pain and emphysema (he smoked for most of his life). On November 18, 1978, he died of a heart attack at home in Jamaica, New York . In Ind's view, Tristano "was always so gentle, so charming and so quietly spoken that his directness could be unnerving." This directness was noted by others, including bassist Chubby Jackson , who commented that Tristano had almost no tact and would not worry about being rude or making others feel incompetent. Some of his students described Tristano as domineering, but others indicated that this impression came from his demanding discipline in training and attitude to music. Writer Barry Ulanov commented in 1946 that Tristano "was not content merely to feel something, ... he had to explore ideas, to experience them, to think them through carefully, thoroughly, logically until he could fully grasp them and then hold on to them." Tristano criticized
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#17328769294341284-575: A soloist in the bebop movement. In 1946, he began working with Lennie Tristano . Tristano and Bauer enjoyed a natural synergy in their style and approach. Their development of "intuitive music" led to the 1949 session (collected on Crosscurrents ) which included " Intuition ", and "Digression". He was a member of the NBC Tonight Show band in New York City and played in the Today Show band at
1391-438: A student's learning were having a concept of (principally diatonic ) scales as music and a basis for harmony. One of the teaching tools often used by Tristano, including for scales, was the metronome . The student set the metronome at or near its slowest setting initially, and gradually increased its speed, allowing a sense of time to develop, along with confidence in placing each note. Tristano encouraged his students to learn
1498-450: A thousand", tied to some of them going on to employ what they learned in their own playing and pedagogy, illustrate his influence. Tristano's teaching also affected the art of painter Robert Ryman , who had music lessons with the pianist: Ryman's "technique not only parallels music in general but shares the principles of kinesthetic and multisensorial attention to detail that characterized the teaching of Lennie Tristano." Shim suggested that
1605-454: Is a construct" which designates "a number of musics with enough in common to be understood as part of a coherent tradition". Duke Ellington , one of jazz's most famous figures, said, "It's all music." Although jazz is considered difficult to define, in part because it contains many subgenres, improvisation is one of its defining elements. The centrality of improvisation is attributed to the influence of earlier forms of music such as blues ,
1712-663: Is a fundamental rhythmic figure heard in many different slave musics of the Caribbean, as well as the Afro-Caribbean folk dances performed in New Orleans Congo Square and Gottschalk's compositions (for example "Souvenirs From Havana" (1859)). Tresillo (shown below) is the most basic and most prevalent duple-pulse rhythmic cell in sub-Saharan African music traditions and the music of the African Diaspora . Tresillo
1819-548: Is a reminder of "an oppressive and racist society and restrictions on their artistic visions". Amiri Baraka argues that there is a "white jazz" genre that expresses whiteness . White jazz musicians appeared in the Midwest and in other areas throughout the U.S. Papa Jack Laine , who ran the Reliance band in New Orleans in the 1910s, was called "the father of white jazz". The Original Dixieland Jazz Band , whose members were white, were
1926-486: Is heard prominently in New Orleans second line music and in other forms of popular music from that city from the turn of the 20th century to present. "By and large the simpler African rhythmic patterns survived in jazz ... because they could be adapted more readily to European rhythmic conceptions," jazz historian Gunther Schuller observed. "Some survived, others were discarded as the Europeanization progressed." In
2033-492: Is regarded as one of the first to teach jazz, particularly improvisation, in a structured way. He taught musicians irrespective of their instrument and structured lessons to meet the needs of each individual. Lessons were typically 15–20 minutes in length. He did not teach the reading of music or the characteristics of different styles of jazz, instead challenging students in ways that would allow them to find and express their own musical feelings, or style. Foundational elements for
2140-437: Is to play the composition as it was written. In contrast, jazz is often characterized by the product of interaction and collaboration, placing less value on the contribution of the composer, if there is one, and more on the performer. The jazz performer interprets a tune in individual ways, never playing the same composition twice. Depending on the performer's mood, experience, and interaction with band members or audience members,
2247-605: The African-American communities of New Orleans , Louisiana , in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues , ragtime , European harmony , African rhythmic rituals, spirituals , hymns , marches , vaudeville song, and dance music . Since the 1920s Jazz Age , it has been recognized as a major form of musical expression in traditional and popular music . Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes , complex chords , call and response vocals , polyrhythms and improvisation . As jazz spread around
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#17328769294342354-620: The Atlantic slave trade had brought nearly 400,000 Africans to North America. The slaves came largely from West Africa and the greater Congo River basin and brought strong musical traditions with them. The African traditions primarily use a single-line melody and call-and-response pattern, and the rhythms have a counter-metric structure and reflect African speech patterns. An 1885 account says that they were making strange music (Creole) on an equally strange variety of 'instruments'—washboards, washtubs, jugs, boxes beaten with sticks or bones and
2461-612: The Dixieland jazz revival of the 1940s, Black musicians rejected it as being shallow nostalgia entertainment for white audiences. On the other hand, traditional jazz enthusiasts have dismissed bebop, free jazz, and jazz fusion as forms of debasement and betrayal. An alternative view is that jazz can absorb and transform diverse musical styles. By avoiding the creation of norms, jazz allows avant-garde styles to emerge. For some African Americans, jazz has drawn attention to African-American contributions to culture and history. For others, jazz
2568-451: The 1950s, many women jazz instrumentalists were prominent, some sustaining long careers. Some of the most distinctive improvisers, composers, and bandleaders in jazz have been women. Trombonist Melba Liston is acknowledged as the first female horn player to work in major bands and to make a real impact on jazz, not only as a musician but also as a respected composer and arranger, particularly through her collaborations with Randy Weston from
2675-465: The 1960s[.] Grove Music commented on some aspects of Tristano's style that were different from most modern jazz: "Rather than the irregular accents of bop, Tristano preferred an even rhythmic background against which to concentrate on line and focus his complex changes of time signature. Typically, his solos consisted of extraordinarily long, angular strings of almost even quavers provided with subtle rhythmic deviations and abrasive polytonal effects. He
2782-468: The 21st century, such as Latin and Afro-Cuban jazz . The origin of the word jazz has resulted in considerable research, and its history is well documented. It is believed to be related to jasm , a slang term dating back to 1860 meaning ' pep, energy ' . The earliest written record of the word is in a 1912 article in the Los Angeles Times in which a minor league baseball pitcher described
2889-555: The Black middle-class. Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre, which originated in African-American communities of primarily the Deep South of the United States at the end of the 19th century from their spirituals , work songs , field hollers , shouts and chants and rhymed simple narrative ballads . The African use of pentatonic scales contributed to
2996-460: The Caribbean. African-based rhythmic patterns were retained in the United States in large part through "body rhythms" such as stomping, clapping, and patting juba dancing . In the opinion of jazz historian Ernest Borneman , what preceded New Orleans jazz before 1890 was "Afro-Latin music", similar to what was played in the Caribbean at the time. A three-stroke pattern known in Cuban music as tresillo
3103-628: The Cellar Club in Toronto two years later. Tristano played on occasion at the Half Note Club until the mid-1960s, and toured Europe in 1965. His European tour was mainly as a solo pianist, and the playing was in the style of his The New Tristano recordings. He performed with Ind and others in concerts in the UK in 1968; they were well received, and Tristano returned the following year. His last public performance in
3210-480: The Maelstrom" was another innovation. It was a musical portrayal of Edgar Allan Poe 's story of the same title , and was an improvised solo piano piece that used multitracking and had no preconceived harmonic structure, being based instead on the development of motifs. Its atonality anticipated the much later work of pianists such as Cecil Taylor and Borah Bergman . In the following year Tristano's sextet played at
3317-658: The Starlight Roof at the famed Waldorf-Astoria Hotel . He entertained audiences with a light elegant musical style which remained popular with audiences for nearly three decades from the 1930s until the late 1950s. Jazz originated in the late-19th to early-20th century. It developed out of many forms of music, including blues , ragtime , European harmony , African rhythmic rituals, spirituals , hymns , marches , vaudeville song, and dance music . It also incorporated interpretations of American and European classical music, entwined with African and slave folk songs and
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3424-584: The U.S. Female jazz performers and composers have contributed to jazz throughout its history. Although Betty Carter , Ella Fitzgerald , Adelaide Hall , Billie Holiday , Peggy Lee , Abbey Lincoln , Anita O'Day , Dinah Washington , and Ethel Waters were recognized for their vocal talent, less familiar were bandleaders, composers, and instrumentalists such as pianist Lil Hardin Armstrong , trumpeter Valaida Snow , and songwriters Irene Higginbotham and Dorothy Fields . Women began playing instruments in jazz in
3531-499: The US was in 1968. Tristano declined offers to perform in the 1970s; he explained that he did not like to travel, and that the requirement for a career-minded musician to play concerts was not something that he wanted to follow. He continued teaching, and helped to organize concerts for some of his students. Another album, Descent into the Maelstrom , was released in the 1970s; it consisted of recordings made between 1951 and 1966. Tristano had
3638-463: The age of eleven he had his first gigs, playing clarinet in a brothel. Tristano studied for a bachelor's degree in music in performance at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago from 1938 until 1941, and stayed for another two years for further studies, although he left before completing his master's degree. One of his aunts assisted Tristano by taking notes for him at university. In
3745-552: The blues are undocumented, though they can be seen as the secular counterpart of the spirituals. However, as Gerhard Kubik points out, whereas the spirituals are homophonic , rural blues and early jazz "was largely based on concepts of heterophony ". During the early 19th century an increasing number of black musicians learned to play European instruments, particularly the violin, which they used to parody European dance music in their own cakewalk dances. In turn, European American minstrel show performers in blackface popularized
3852-465: The commercialization of jazz and what he perceived to be the requirement to abandon the artistic part of playing in order to earn a living from performing. Later commentators have suggested that these complaints ignored the freedom that he was given by Atlantic and blamed others for what in many cases were the outcomes of his own career decisions. Saxophonists Parker and Lester Young were important influences on Tristano's development. Another major figure
3959-411: The common under-appreciation of Tristano is attributable in part to his style being unusual and too difficult for jazz commentators to categorize. Ind also believed that Tristano's reputation became less than was deserved – "He stuck with his convictions and would not commercialize. His dedication, plus the lack of general appreciation by many jazz critics, led inevitably to his being sidelined." Tristano
4066-541: The development of blue notes in blues and jazz. As Kubik explains: Many of the rural blues of the Deep South are stylistically an extension and merger of basically two broad accompanied song-style traditions in the west central Sudanic belt: W. C. Handy became interested in folk blues of the Deep South while traveling through the Mississippi Delta. In this folk blues form, the singer would improvise freely within
4173-506: The early 1920s, drawing particular recognition on piano. When male jazz musicians were drafted during World War II, many all-female bands replaced them. The International Sweethearts of Rhythm , which was founded in 1937, was a popular band that became the first all-female integrated band in the U.S. and the first to travel with the USO , touring Europe in 1945. Women were members of the big bands of Woody Herman and Gerald Wilson . Beginning in
4280-880: The early 1940s Tristano played tenor saxophone and piano for a variety of engagements, including in a rumba band. He began giving private music lessons at around the same time, including to saxophonist Lee Konitz . From 1943 Tristano also taught at the Axel Christensen School of Popular Music. He first received press coverage for his piano playing in early 1944, appearing in Metronome ' s summary of music in Chicago from that year, and then in Down Beat from 1945. He recorded with some musicians from Woody Herman 's band in 1945; Tristano's playing on these tracks "is characterized by his extended harmonies, fast single-line runs, and block chords ." He also recorded solo piano pieces in
4387-420: The early 1940s, and by the mid-1950s was concentrating on teaching in preference to performing. He taught in a structured and disciplined manner, which was unusual in jazz education when he began. His educational role over three decades meant that he exerted an influence on jazz through his students, including saxophonists Lee Konitz and Warne Marsh . Musicians and critics vary in their appraisal of Tristano as
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4494-522: The early 1960s. His second wife was Carol Miller, one of his students. They had a son, Bud, and two daughters, Tania and Carol. The couple divorced in 1964, and Tristano later lost a custody battle with his ex-wife over the children. In 1964 the pianist reformed his quintet with Konitz and Marsh for a two-month engagement at the Half Note and performances at the Coq D'Or in Toronto. The quartet, missing Konitz, played
4601-480: The education of freed African Americans. Although strict segregation limited employment opportunities for most blacks, many were able to find work in entertainment. Black musicians were able to provide entertainment in dances, minstrel shows , and in vaudeville , during which time many marching bands were formed. Black pianists played in bars, clubs, and brothels, as ragtime developed. Ragtime appeared as sheet music, popularized by African-American musicians such as
4708-556: The entertainer Ernest Hogan , whose hit songs appeared in 1895. Two years later, Vess Ossman recorded a medley of these songs as a banjo solo known as "Rag Time Medley". Also in 1897, the white composer William Krell published his " Mississippi Rag " as the first written piano instrumental ragtime piece, and Tom Turpin published his "Harlem Rag", the first rag published by an African-American. Classically trained pianist Scott Joplin produced his " Original Rags " in 1898 and, in 1899, had an international hit with " Maple Leaf Rag ",
4815-547: The first Newport Jazz Festival . This may have been his only jazz festival appearance – he considered them to be too commercial. Marsh left the band in the summer of 1955. Tristano recorded his first album for Atlantic Records in 1955; he was allowed control over the recording process and what to release. The eponymous album included solo and trio tracks that contained further experiments with multitracking ("Requiem" and "Turkish Mambo") and altered tape-speed ("Line Up" and "East 32nd"). The use of overdubbing and tape manipulation
4922-454: The first free group improvisations. Tristano's innovations continued in 1951, with the first overdubbed , improvised jazz recordings, and two years later, when he recorded an atonal improvised solo piano piece that was based on the development of motifs rather than on harmonies. He developed further via polyrhythms and chromaticism into the 1960s, but was infrequently recorded. Tristano started teaching music, especially improvisation, in
5029-459: The first jazz group to record, and Bix Beiderbecke was one of the most prominent jazz soloists of the 1920s. The Chicago Style was developed by white musicians such as Eddie Condon , Bud Freeman , Jimmy McPartland , and Dave Tough . Others from Chicago such as Benny Goodman and Gene Krupa became leading members of swing during the 1930s. Many bands included both Black and white musicians. These musicians helped change attitudes toward race in
5136-410: The first of what were sometimes lengthy engagements at New York's Half Note Club , after the owners persuaded him to perform, in part by replacing their club's Steinway piano with a new Bechstein of Tristano's choosing. They later reported that, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the musicians who were the most popular at their club were John Coltrane , Zoot Sims , and Tristano: "Coltrane brought in
5243-415: The first written music which was rhythmically based on an African motif (1803). From the perspective of African-American music, the "habanera rhythm" (also known as "congo"), "tango-congo", or tango . can be thought of as a combination of tresillo and the backbeat . The habanera was the first of many Cuban music genres which enjoyed periods of popularity in the United States and reinforced and inspired
5350-421: The free group improvisations based on spontaneous group interactions and the contrapuntal principle. In the 1950s Tristano employed an advanced concept in jazz improvisation called side-slipping, or outside playing , which creates a form of temporary bitonality when chromatic harmony is superimposed over the standard harmonic progressions. Tristano intensified his use of counterpoint, polyrhythm, and chromaticism in
5457-459: The free jazz that began in the 1960s for its lack of musical logic as well as its expression of negative emotions. "If you feel angry with somebody you hit him on the nose – not try to play angry music", he commented; "Express all that is positive. Beauty is a positive thing." He expanded on this by distinguishing emotion from feeling, and suggested that playing a particular emotion was egotistical and lacking in feeling. Tristano also complained about
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#17328769294345564-532: The habanera rhythm and cinquillo , are heard in the ragtime compositions of Joplin and Turpin. Joplin's " Solace " (1909) is generally considered to be in the habanera genre: both of the pianist's hands play in a syncopated fashion, completely abandoning any sense of a march rhythm. Ned Sublette postulates that the tresillo/habanera rhythm "found its way into ragtime and the cakewalk," whilst Roberts suggests that "the habanera influence may have been part of what freed black music from ragtime's European bass". In
5671-424: The influences of West African culture. Its composition and style have changed many times throughout the years with each performer's personal interpretation and improvisation, which is also one of the greatest appeals of the genre. By the 18th century, slaves in the New Orleans area gathered socially at a special market, in an area which later became known as Congo Square , famous for its African dances. By 1866,
5778-455: The instruments of jazz: brass, drums, and reeds tuned in the European 12-tone scale. Small bands contained a combination of self-taught and formally educated musicians, many from the funeral procession tradition. These bands traveled in black communities in the deep south. Beginning in 1914, Louisiana Creole and African-American musicians played in vaudeville shows which carried jazz to cities in
5885-567: The late 1950s into the 1990s. Jewish Americans played a significant role in jazz. As jazz spread, it developed to encompass many different cultures, and the work of Jewish composers in Tin Pan Alley helped shape the many different sounds that jazz came to incorporate. Jewish Americans were able to thrive in Jazz because of the probationary whiteness that they were allotted at the time. George Bornstein wrote that African Americans were sympathetic to
5992-539: The late 1950s, using the mode , or musical scale, as the basis of musical structure and improvisation, as did free jazz , which explored playing without regular meter, beat and formal structures. Jazz-rock fusion appeared in the late 1960s and early 1970s, combining jazz improvisation with rock music 's rhythms, electric instruments, and highly amplified stage sound. In the early 1980s, a commercial form of jazz fusion called smooth jazz became successful, garnering significant radio airplay. Other styles and genres abound in
6099-414: The linearity of the playing and its departure from bebop. Without a drummer, the other musicians also recorded the first free improvisations by a group – " Intuition " and "Digression". For these tracks, the sequence in which the musicians would join in the ensemble playing, and the approximate timing of those entrances, were planned, but nothing else – harmony, key, time signature, tempo, melody or rhythm –
6206-874: The many top players he employed, such as George Brunies , Sharkey Bonano , and future members of the Original Dixieland Jass Band . During the early 1900s, jazz was mostly performed in African-American and mulatto communities due to segregation laws. Storyville brought jazz to a wider audience through tourists who visited the port city of New Orleans. Many jazz musicians from African-American communities were hired to perform in bars and brothels. These included Buddy Bolden and Jelly Roll Morton in addition to those from other communities, such as Lorenzo Tio and Alcide Nunez . Louis Armstrong started his career in Storyville and found success in Chicago. Storyville
6313-453: The masses, Zoot brought in the musicians and Lennie brought in the intellectuals." In 1959 Tristano's quintet again performed in Toronto, this time at the Famous Door. Tristano's second album for Atlantic was recorded in 1961 and released the following year. The New Tristano , as was stressed on the album cover, consisted entirely of piano solos and no overdubbing or tape-speed manipulation
6420-423: The melodies of jazz standards by singing them, then playing them, before working on playing them in all keys. He also often had his students learn to sing and play the improvised solos of some of the best-known names in jazz, including Parker and Young. Some students first sang solos from a recording slowed to half the normal speed; eventually they learned to sing and play them at normal speed. Tristano stressed that
6527-413: The melody was stated briefly at the beginning and most of the piece was improvised. Modal jazz abandoned chord progressions to allow musicians to improvise even more. In many forms of jazz, a soloist is supported by a rhythm section of one or more chordal instruments (piano, guitar), double bass, and drums. The rhythm section plays chords and rhythms that outline the composition structure and complement
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#17328769294346634-558: The mid-1950s Tristano focused his energies more on music education. In 1956 he had to leave his Manhattan studio; he established a new one in Hollis, Queens . Some of his core students moved to California after Tristano's base was relocated. This, coupled with a separation from his wife in the same year due to his infidelity, meant that he was physically more isolated from the New York music scene. He gave fewer concerts than earlier, but in 1958 he had
6741-618: The modern jazz idiom." In Ind's opinion, Tristano's legacy "is what he added technically to the jazz vocabulary and his vision of jazz as a serious musical craft". Grove Music ' s summary is that "Tristano's influence is felt most strongly in the work of his best pupils ... and in his example of high-mindedness and perfectionism, characteristics which presupposed for jazz the highest standards of music as art." Shim too identified his teaching as part of his legacy: parts of his approach to teaching jazz have become standard practice; and "the sheer number of students he taught, which may easily exceed
6848-679: The music internationally, combining syncopation with European harmonic accompaniment. In the mid-1800s the white New Orleans composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk adapted slave rhythms and melodies from Cuba and other Caribbean islands into piano salon music. New Orleans was the main nexus between the Afro-Caribbean and African American cultures. The Black Codes outlawed drumming by slaves, which meant that African drumming traditions were not preserved in North America, unlike in Cuba, Haiti, and elsewhere in
6955-578: The music of New Orleans with the music of Cuba, Wynton Marsalis observes that tresillo is the New Orleans "clavé", a Spanish word meaning "code" or "key", as in the key to a puzzle, or mystery. Although the pattern is only half a clave , Marsalis makes the point that the single-celled figure is the guide-pattern of New Orleans music. Jelly Roll Morton called the rhythmic figure the Spanish tinge and considered it an essential ingredient of jazz. The abolition of slavery in 1865 led to new opportunities for
7062-475: The music. Elements of Tristano's early playing – counterpoint, reharmonizing, and strict time – influenced Miles Davis ' Birth of the Cool , and the playing of saxophonist Gerry Mulligan and pianist Dave Brubeck . Tristano's early, more feelings-based performances also influenced the style of pianist Bill Evans , who also used overdubbing and multitracking in his own recordings after Tristano had experimented with
7169-404: The northeastern United States, a "hot" style of playing ragtime had developed, notably James Reese Europe 's symphonic Clef Club orchestra in New York City, which played a benefit concert at Carnegie Hall in 1912. The Baltimore rag style of Eubie Blake influenced James P. Johnson 's development of stride piano playing, in which the right hand plays the melody, while the left hand provides
7276-596: The northern and western parts of the U.S. Jazz became international in 1914, when the Creole Band with cornettist Freddie Keppard performed the first ever jazz concert outside the United States, at the Pantages Playhouse Theatre in Winnipeg , Canada. In New Orleans, a white bandleader named Papa Jack Laine integrated blacks and whites in his marching band. He was known as "the father of white jazz" because of
7383-470: The performer may change melodies, harmonies, and time signatures. In early Dixieland , a.k.a. New Orleans jazz, performers took turns playing melodies and improvising countermelodies . In the swing era of the 1920s–40s, big bands relied more on arrangements which were written or learned by ear and memorized. Soloists improvised within these arrangements. In the bebop era of the 1940s, big bands gave way to small groups and minimal arrangements in which
7490-495: The period 1820–1850. Some of the earliest [Mississippi] Delta settlers came from the vicinity of New Orleans, where drumming was never actively discouraged for very long and homemade drums were used to accompany public dancing until the outbreak of the Civil War. Another influence came from the harmonic style of hymns of the church, which black slaves had learned and incorporated into their own music as spirituals . The origins of
7597-454: The perspective of other musical traditions, such as European music history or African music. But critic Joachim-Ernst Berendt argues that its terms of reference and its definition should be broader, defining jazz as a "form of art music which originated in the United States through the confrontation of the Negro with European music" and arguing that it differs from European music in that jazz has
7704-409: The pianist had limited influence outside his own group of affiliated musicians; Robert Palmer , who pointed out that only one of Tristano's albums was in print at the time of his death, suggested that he was pivotal in the change from 1940s modern jazz to the freer styles of subsequent decades; and Thomas Albright similarly believed that his improvising prepared and developed new ground in the history of
7811-487: The plight of the Jewish American and vice versa. As disenfranchised minorities themselves, Jewish composers of popular music saw themselves as natural allies with African Americans. The Jazz Singer with Al Jolson is one example of how Jewish Americans were able to bring jazz, music that African Americans developed, into popular culture. Benny Goodman was a vital Jewish American to the progression of Jazz. Goodman
7918-459: The post-Civil War period (after 1865), African Americans were able to obtain surplus military bass drums, snare drums and fifes, and an original African-American drum and fife music emerged, featuring tresillo and related syncopated rhythmic figures. This was a drumming tradition that was distinct from its Caribbean counterparts, expressing a uniquely African-American sensibility. "The snare and bass drummers played syncopated cross-rhythms ," observed
8025-672: The pre-jazz era and contributed to the codification of jazz through the publication of some of the first jazz sheet music. The music of New Orleans , Louisiana had a profound effect on the creation of early jazz. In New Orleans, slaves could practice elements of their culture such as voodoo and playing drums. Many early jazz musicians played in the bars and brothels of the red-light district around Basin Street called Storyville . In addition to dance bands, there were marching bands which played at lavish funerals (later called jazz funerals ). The instruments used by marching bands and dance bands became
8132-537: The prominent styles. Bebop emerged in the 1940s, shifting jazz from danceable popular music toward a more challenging "musician's music" which was played at faster tempos and used more chord-based improvisation. Cool jazz developed near the end of the 1940s, introducing calmer, smoother sounds and long, linear melodic lines. The mid-1950s saw the emergence of hard bop , which introduced influences from rhythm and blues , gospel , and blues to small groups and particularly to saxophone and piano. Modal jazz developed in
8239-451: The public. The sextet struggled to find enough work, but did play at Birdland 's opening night "A Journey Through Jazz", a subsequent five-week engagement at that club, and at various other venues in the north-east of the US late in 1949. They performed free pieces in these concerts, as well as Bach fugues, but found it difficult over time to continue to play with the freedom that they had initially felt. With occasional personnel changes,
8346-410: The rhythm and bassline. In Ohio and elsewhere in the mid-west the major influence was ragtime, until about 1919. Around 1912, when the four-string banjo and saxophone came in, musicians began to improvise the melody line, but the harmony and rhythm remained unchanged. A contemporary account states that blues could only be heard in jazz in the gut-bucket cabarets, which were generally looked down upon by
8453-526: The role of jazz guitar. Bauer made one album under his own name, Plectrist , in 1956. The CD reissue has been described as "demand[ing] the attention of anyone even remotely interested in jazz guitar". Later, he arranged the song "No One" that appeared on the CD Henry Golis Presents Good Music with Friends , which was released on Park Lane Drive Records in 2007. He died of pneumonia in New York, aged 89. In later life Bauer taught at
8560-571: The same time, Tristano started a record label named Jazz Records. It released "Ju-ju" and "Pastime" on a 45 record in 1952, before Tristano abandoned the project because of time demands and distribution problems. The two tracks were from a trio session with bassist Peter Ind and drummer Roy Haynes , and contained overdubbed second piano parts added later by Tristano. Ind described them as the first improvised, overdubbed recordings in jazz. Early reviewers largely failed to realize that overdubbing had been used. Tristano's recording studio remained in use, and
8667-497: The same year. Tristano also married in 1945; his wife was Judy Moore, a musician who sang to his piano accompaniment in Chicago in the mid-1940s. Tristano's interest in jazz inspired a move to New York City in 1946. As a preliminary step to moving there, he stayed in Freeport, Long Island , where he played in a restaurant with Arnold Fishkind (bass) and Billy Bauer (guitar). This trio, with an assortment of bassists replacing Fishkind,
8774-461: The sextet continued performing into 1951. In the same year, the location for Tristano's lessons shifted from his home in Flushing, Queens to a Manhattan loft property, part of which he had converted into a recording studio. This also served as the location for frequent jam sessions with various invited musicians. The address became the title of one of his compositions – "317 East 32nd Street". At around
8881-552: The slang connotations of the term, saying: "When Broadway picked it up, they called it 'J-A-Z-Z'. It wasn't called that. It was spelled 'J-A-S-S'. That was dirty, and if you knew what it was, you wouldn't say it in front of ladies." The American Dialect Society named it the Word of the 20th Century . Jazz is difficult to define because it encompasses a wide range of music spanning a period of over 100 years, from ragtime to rock -infused fusion . Attempts have been made to define jazz from
8988-444: The soloist. In avant-garde and free jazz , the separation of soloist and band is reduced, and there is license, or even a requirement, for the abandoning of chords, scales, and meters. Since the emergence of bebop, forms of jazz that are commercially oriented or influenced by popular music have been criticized. According to Bruce Johnson, there has always been a "tension between jazz as a commercial music and an art form". Regarding
9095-467: The start of early television. Bauer continued his pioneering guitar work in a partnership with Lee Konitz , whose avant-garde saxophone work was a perfect match for Bauer's guitar. The two musicians' dialogue crossed styles from bop and cool to the avant-garde. Their recordings have been described as "some of the most beautiful duet recordings in jazz". "Duet For Saxophone and Guitar" was an unusual instrument pairing which has been described as redefining
9202-413: The student was not learning to imitate the artist, but should use the experience to gain insight into the musical feeling conveyed. Such activities stressed the value of ear training , and the idea of feeling being fundamental to musical expression. All of this preceded having the opportunity to improvise during lessons. Critics disagree on Tristano's importance in jazz history. Max Harrison indicated that
9309-723: The techniques. Avant-garde musician Anthony Braxton has often mentioned Tristano and some of his students as influences. Pianist Mose Allison commented that Tristano and Powell "were the founders of modern piano playing, since nearly everyone was influenced by one or the other of them." Albright cited Tristano as an influence on the pianists Paul Bley , Andrew Hill , Mal Waldron , and Taylor. After Tristano's death, jazz piano increasingly adopted aspects of his early playing, in Ted Gioia 's view: "younger players were coming to these same end points not because they had listened to Tristano ... but because these developments were logical extensions of
9416-500: The twice-daily ferry between both cities to perform, and the habanera quickly took root in the musically fertile Crescent City. John Storm Roberts states that the musical genre habanera "reached the U.S. twenty years before the first rag was published." For the more than quarter-century in which the cakewalk , ragtime , and proto-jazz were forming and developing, the habanera was a consistent part of African-American popular music. Habaneras were widely available as sheet music and were
9523-537: The use of harmonies that were unusual for that period. His playing has been labeled " cool jazz ", but this fails to capture the range of his playing. Eunmi Shim summarized the changes in Tristano's playing during his career: The trio recordings of 1946 show a novel approach in the linear interaction between piano and guitar, resulting in counterpoint, polyrhythm, and superimposed harmonies. The sextet recordings of 1949 are notable for coherent ensemble playing and soloing, and
9630-566: The use of tresillo-based rhythms in African-American music. New Orleans native Louis Moreau Gottschalk 's piano piece "Ojos Criollos (Danse Cubaine)" (1860) was influenced by the composer's studies in Cuba: the habanera rhythm is clearly heard in the left hand. In Gottschalk's symphonic work "A Night in the Tropics" (1859), the tresillo variant cinquillo appears extensively. The figure was later used by Scott Joplin and other ragtime composers. Comparing
9737-569: The world, it drew on national, regional, and local musical cultures, which gave rise to different styles. New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass band marches, French quadrilles , biguine , ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation . However, jazz did not begin as a single musical tradition in New Orleans or elsewhere. In the 1930s, arranged dance-oriented swing big bands , Kansas City jazz (a hard-swinging, bluesy, improvisational style), and gypsy jazz (a style that emphasized musette waltzes) were
9844-498: The writer Robert Palmer, speculating that "this tradition must have dated back to the latter half of the nineteenth century, and it could have not have developed in the first place if there hadn't been a reservoir of polyrhythmic sophistication in the culture it nurtured." African-American music began incorporating Afro-Cuban rhythmic motifs in the 19th century when the habanera (Cuban contradanza ) gained international popularity. Musicians from Havana and New Orleans would take
9951-493: The year's crop was harvested and several days were set aside for celebration. As late as 1861, a traveler in North Carolina saw dancers dressed in costumes that included horned headdresses and cow tails and heard music provided by a sheepskin-covered "gumbo box", apparently a frame drum; triangles and jawbones furnished the auxiliary percussion. There are quite a few [accounts] from the southeastern states and Louisiana dating from
10058-510: Was Metronome ' s musician of the year in 1947. He was elected to Down Beat ' s Hall of Fame in 1979. In 2013 Tristano was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for Crosscurrents , an album of recordings from 1949. He was added to the Ertegun Hall of Fame in 2015. Only albums are listed. Main sources: Bibliography Jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in
10165-462: Was also born in Chicago. His father, Michael Joseph Tristano, was born in Italy and moved to the United States as a child. Lennie was the second of four brothers. Lennie started on the family's player piano at the age of two or three. He had classical piano lessons when he was eight, but indicated later that they had hindered, rather than helped, his development. He was born with weak eyesight, possibly as
10272-597: Was born in New York City . He played ukulele and banjo as a child before switching to guitar. He played with the Jerry Wald band and recorded with Carl Hoff and His Orchestra in 1941, before joining Woody Herman in 1944 as a member of the First Herd. In 1946, he played with Benny Goodman and Jack Teagarden . Working in small groups led by bassist Chubby Jackson and trombonist Bill Harris , Bauer established himself as
10379-410: Was controversial with some critics and musicians at the time. "Requiem", a tribute to Parker, who had died a short time earlier, has a deep blues feeling – a style not usually associated with Tristano. For "Line Up" and "East 32nd", Tristano's "use of chromatic harmony ... secures him a position of a pioneer in expanding the harmonic vocabulary of jazz improvisation", in biographer Eunmi Shim's words. By
10486-689: Was different from what Parker was accustomed to and did not copy the saxophonist's style. In 1948 Tristano played less often in clubs, and added Konitz and a drummer to his regular band, making it into a quintet. This band recorded the first sides for the New Jazz label, which later became Prestige Records . Later that year Warne Marsh , another saxophonist student of Tristano's, was added to the group. Tristano's band had two recording sessions in 1949 that proved to be significant. The sextet recorded original compositions, including his "Wow" and "Crosscurrent", that were based on familiar harmonies; reviewers commented on
10593-486: Was employed. The tracks contain left-hand bass lines that provide structure to each performance as well as counterpoint for the right-hand playing; block chords, unclear harmonies and contrasting rhythms also appear. Other solo piano recordings that Tristano made in 1961 were not released until the 1970s. Tristano and his wife formally divorced in 1962. Their son, Steve, who was born in 1952, met his father only once after their initial 1956 separation. Tristano married again in
10700-433: Was major ... , and I carried this device into my melody as well. The publication of his " Memphis Blues " sheet music in 1912 introduced the 12-bar blues to the world (although Gunther Schuller argues that it is not really a blues, but "more like a cakewalk"). This composition, as well as his later " St. Louis Blues " and others, included the habanera rhythm, and would become jazz standards . Handy's music career began in
10807-452: Was particularly adept in his use of different levels of double time and was a master of the block-chord style". Fellow piano player Ethan Iverson asserted that, "As a pianist, Tristano was in the top tier of technical accomplishment. He was born a prodigy and worked tirelessly to get better." Tristano "had seemingly small but extremely flexible hands, which could expand to a phenomenal degree", allowing him to reach large intervals. Tristano
10914-457: Was pianist Art Tatum : Tristano practiced solo Tatum pieces early in his career, before gradually moving away from this influence in search of his own style. Bebopper Bud Powell also affected Tristano's playing and teaching, as he admired the younger pianist's articulation and expression. Tristano's advanced grasp of harmony pushed his music beyond the complexities of the contemporary bebop movement: from his early recordings, he sought to develop
11021-457: Was prepared or set. Instead, the five musicians were held together by contrapuntal interaction. Both tracks were praised by critics, although their release was delayed – "Intuition" was released late in 1950, and "Digression" not until 1954. Parker and composer Aaron Copland were also impressed. Numerous other musicians of the time, however, thought Tristano's music too progressive and emotionally cold, and predicted that it would not be popular with
11128-545: Was recorded in 1946–47. Reviewers at the time commented on the originality of the piano–guitar counterpoint and the trio's approach to harmony. Gunther Schuller later described one of their recordings as "too far ahead of its time" in its harmonic freedom and rhythmic complexity. Tristano met saxophonist Charlie Parker in 1947. They played together in bands that included bebop musicians Dizzy Gillespie and Max Roach later that year for radio broadcasts. The pianist reported that Parker enjoyed his playing, in part because it
11235-412: Was shut down by the U.S. government in 1917. Cornetist Buddy Bolden played in New Orleans from 1895 to 1906. No recordings by him exist. His band is credited with creating the big four: the first syncopated bass drum pattern to deviate from the standard on-the-beat march. As the example below shows, the second half of the big four pattern is the habanera rhythm. Billy Bauer William Henry Bauer
11342-529: Was the leader of a racially integrated band named King of Swing. His jazz concert in the Carnegie Hall in 1938 was the first ever to be played there. The concert was described by Bruce Eder as "the single most important jazz or popular music concert in history". Shep Fields also helped to popularize "Sweet" Jazz music through his appearances and Big band remote broadcasts from such landmark venues as Chicago's Palmer House , Broadway's Paramount Theater and
11449-425: Was the scene of early sessions for Debut Records , co-founded by Roach and bassist Charles Mingus . In 1952 Tristano's band performed occasionally, including as a quintet in Toronto. In the summer of that year, Konitz joined Stan Kenton 's band, breaking up the core of Tristano's long-standing quintet/sextet, although the saxophonist did on occasion play with Tristano again. Tristano's 1953 recording "Descent into
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