¶ … Music appreciation [...] my personal attraction to jazz music and some of its composers and performers. Jazz music has been called a particularly American invention, and the many forms of jazz epitomize a successful and exciting country on the move. Jazz encompasses many facets of music, from be-bop to swing, and one testament to jazz's endurance is its continued popularity today. Jazz breathes life into the listener, and embodies life in America.
Jazz, a state of mind! " (Osgood 7)
Jazz is a uniquely American creation, and perhaps that is one reason I enjoy it so much. In the early part of the 20th century, the music we call jazz and blues were beginning to develop into popular songs people enjoyed. One critic writes, "Unquestionably, the most significant contribution made to music by the United States in the period under discussion lay in the field of popular music" (Hansen 84). Jazz used atypical syncopation and "blues notes," which included a complex variation on the major scale. Most music experts believe jazz and the blues developed from black spirituals and folk music of the South, and stretched from New Orleans to Chicago and then the East. In due course, jazz would influence later styles of music, such and be-bop and swing. In fact, jazz helped generate a popular music rage that seized the country. That passion for jazz continues today. Jazz also influenced other styles of music, as the uniquely American compositions of George Gershwin and Aaron Copland clearly illustrate. Nowhere is that influence more evident than in "Rhapsody in Blue," which deftly switches from bawdy all out jazz, to classical piano solo, and lush, romantic string orchestration in just a few bars. An early jazz writer attempts to define this music, "That word jazz is ambitious. [...] The origin of the word is uncertain. The term has been applied also to noisy proceedings, to loud writing, to eccentric and discordant coloring'" (Osgood 10). Jazz is loud, jazz is fine, and jazz has influenced much music that has come after. However, jazz lives on, which makes it an enduring American legend, and a darned fine listen on a Saturday night.
Jazz had humble beginnings in the "Harlem Renaissance," a creative group in New York's Harlem district. It was here such legendary musicians as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, "Jelly Roll" Morton, Earl "Fatha" Hines, James P. Johnson, Benny Moten, Leon Beiderbecke, and many others would become some of the most popular bands playing in nightclubs and on records. One of the most legendary Harlem nightclubs was the Cotton Club, immortalized in film, and the stage where Duke Ellington's band played for countless years. Ellington's sound, beat, and arrangements were all novel and unusual, and this music changed the way Americans listened and danced. Early jazz writer Osgood continues, "Jazz, in brief, is a compound of (a) the fox-trot rhythm (a four measure, alla breve, with a double accent), and (b) a syncopated melody over this rhythm'" (Osgood 20). Thus, jazz, while it might sound loud and brash, is really based on rhythm, rhythm, rhythm. One your toe starts tapping, it is hard to stop it, and even the blues induced jazz has a rhythmic quality that keeps me snapping my fingers and tapping my foot long after the music is over.
A legend in jazz, Duke Ellington's first band came together in 1923. Ellington became interested in the piano when he was young. At first, he tried to emulate local Washington D.C. ragtime piano players, but he soon developed his own style. His first band started in New York. He called it the "Washingtonians," and they performed in small clubs around Times Square. Growing in popularity, the orchestra soon moved to the celebrated Cotton Club. Ellington and his band played there almost consistently until 1931. It was during this time that Ellington truly began to explore composing. His music transported the "early jazz" of New Orleans in a far different direction, varying the beat and syncopation. Later, much of his work would advance into the "swing" style of jazz trendy with the Big Bands of popular bandleaders like Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, and Benny Goodman. Ellington also heavily contributed to be-bop, the jazz form some musicians scorned as "Chinese music." Be-bop really was a combination of swing, jazz, and blues, and it seized a life of its own in the 1940s.
Ellington's...
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