This weekend I watched a great documentary on Lee Morgan. The film is not totally related with his musical life but more on his personal life and most importantly about his charisma and unfortunate death. The film takes the viewer to the New York of 50s, 60s and early 70s with some really good footage from those amazing times.
Just take a look at the trailer below, and if you are curious about the brilliant but damaged life of the Morgans, watch the film...
I Called Him Morgan:
The 2016 film is written and directed by a Swedish documentary filmmaker called Kasper Collin. He is also the director of another beautiful jazz documentary, "My Name is Albert Ayler".
"I called him Morgan" tells the viewers Lee Morgan's and his common-law wife Helen Morgan's lives in a dramatic way and depicts the tragic story how she had shot him in 1972.
In the film you can see many notable jazz musicians who were his colleagues and friends, such as Wayne Shorter, Bennie Maupin, Charli Persip, Billy Harper and Albert "Tootie" Heath speaking about Lee Morgan's life and his musical talent.
"The Sidewinder" by Lee Morgan
The story of the film is based on the interviews of Helen Morgan by a local Wilmington, North Carolina radio host, Larry Reni Thomas, who had the opportunity to meet Helen and hold a series of meetings just before her death in 1996.
You can see and hear the fascinating stories how Lee Morgan arrives in New York at a young age, how he became famous playing side by side with Dizzy Gillespie and Art Blakey, his drug related problems in the later years and amazingly how Helen Morgan saved him from totally going down and pulling him out of his heroin addiction.
At the same time the film very well reflects Helen Morgan's life since childhood, how she ended up in New York and her interactions with the jazz community.
The film is also a good opportunity to get to know Lee Morgan and his talent a little better and how he could easily become a trumpeter maybe bigger than Dizzy Gillespie or Miles Davis if he hadn't died so early. In one part of the movie, Lee Morgan talks about jazz music and says he does not like the word "jazz", finding it an imposed definition especially for the black people's music. He chooses to use the "black classical music"...Something else to ponder about, right?
I think it is a sad documentary. It is beautifully structured, blending very well the talent of a young jazz artist with a true crime and it does this in a very humane way. Everyone being interviewed is so sincere, mainly Helen Morgan. The director's concentration on specific emotional parts of the couple's intense relationship make the documentary a real pleasure to watch. But one cannot stop to think what would be of Lee Morgan if it hadn't snowed so heavily in New York that very night or the ambulance had arrived on time.
It is bittersweet and it is tragic but at the same time makes one to remember virtues like forgiveness and compassion which turns the film to a poetic and atmospheric one...
Japan has many talented jazz pianists like Tsuyoshi Yamamoto, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Aki Takase, Junko Onishi and Kei Akagi. But in my opinion, Hiromi Uehara is the wittiest of them all. I had the chance to see and listen to her live on stage couple of times and I can tell you that it is both a visual and a sonic experience. She is full of energy and talented in so many ways yet so humble. I have to confess that another reason I like her musically is that she also uses synthesizers during her performances.
Hiromi:
Born in Japan in 1979, she started her classical piano lessons at the age of 6. Later she was accepted to the Yamaha School of Music (maybe that's why she is so fond of Yamaha pianos) where she was introduced to jazz. She was a real child prodigy and played with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra at the age of 14 and with Chick Corea at the age of 17. Couple of years later she went to Boston to attend the Berklee School of Music where she graduated from with a jazz composition degree. During the school years she had the opportunity to study with Ahmad Jamal.
Hiromi Uehara & Chick Corea "Concierto de Aranjuez / Spain"
So what makes her such a special pianist and musician?
First of all, her dynamism takes her playing to a different level. She can even be extreme sometimes, where the listener feels more like attending a rock concert rather than a jazz concert. I am not saying this in a bad way, the audience loves it. In one interview she said she had always wished to be a member of Frank Zappa's band...
Her usage of uncommon parts of the piano (very low and high notes as well as the inside of the piano) is quite fascinating. She is obsessed with acoustics of the places she plays as she always tries extend the dynamic ranges of the piano. You can hear her playing Pachelbel's Canon with her very own authentic style and witness how she shapes the sound of the piano.
"Pachelbel's Canon" by Hiromi
Apart from being an excellent performer she is also a brilliant composer who can compose in many styles. Once can easily grasp the marvels of her pieces both with a classical and jazz perspectives.
When I listen to her music, especially the solo piano and her trio recordings, I often think about her cultural background and how different would her playing be if she'd been American or European...I think there is a commonality between Eastern musicians, especially between the ones from the Far East. They all have a high sense of responsibility both against the music and the audience. Her compositions and playing style are quite detailed, with an approach that will not tolerate a single slip or flaw and yet very humble, very similar to the Japanese culture. If you listen to her trio recordings, silence is also an important part of the music that expresses her serenity in contrast with her passionate physical performances on stage.
"Time Difference" by Hiromi's Sonicbloom
We can maybe classify her discography in 3 categories. Her recordings as the "Hiromi's Trio Project" with Anthony Jackson on bass and Simon Phillips on drums including the titles "Voice", "Move", "Alive" and "Spark".
Secondly her "Sonicbloom Project" with David Fiuczynski on guitar, Tony Grey on bass and Martin Valihora on drums with the titles "Time Control" and "Beyond Standard".
Lastly her initial recordings with various artists called "Another Mind", "Brain", "Spiral" and "Place to Be". She's also contributed to many notable musicians in their recordings such as Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke and Edmar Castaneda.
"Fire" by Hiromi and Edmar Castaneda
As you can also observe from all the videos, she is a free spirit with a deep respect to all her surroundings, be it the other musicians or the audience or the music itself. Always displaying an incredible amount of energy, amazing playing technique and profound composing aptitude will keep her very much in the forefront of the jazz scene for many years to come...
“I have to be in the best condition for my audiences.
I have to thank them that they have chosen to give two hours of their life to me.
I feel like the captain of the boat and I invited them along for a ride on the boat
so I have a great responsibility to provide the best possible ride on the boat!”
It's always been a wonder for me how Japan became a country that is so fond and appreciative of jazz with such a large proportion of jazz fans compared to the other parts of the world. I know some stories from my dad who was born and lived in Japan until the age of 22. He was more of a crooner guy, but always had told me how jazz had been the leading musical taste after the WWII. So I made a little research on this topic that I would like to share with you in this post with some fine examples of Japanese jazz figures and their music. Jazz in Japan:
Unlike general beliefs, jazz music in Japan goes way back than the WWII. In the early 1920s, cruising across the Pacific Ocean was quite popular, making Kobe, Osaka, Shanghai and Manila important ports of the time on the Asian side along with San Francisco and Seattle on the US side. These cruise lines, especially the luxurious ones, always had musical bands on them either consisting of Asian or American musicians. When the Asian musicians arrived in the US, first thing they did was to go ashore looking for sheet music and records in order to dig the latest music and musical trends. This was one of the first explanations how jazz music arrived in Japan. Another main reason was the Filipinos. At that time Philippines was like a US colony with a lot of US corps stationed there. Filipinos learned how to play jazz and blues from the US soldiers and these Filipinos traveled to Japan to work in hotel lobbies and clubs.
"My Blue Heaven" 1928
Maybe the first usage of the word "jazz" was in the below song that was used for a 1929 silent movie called "The Tokyo March". The lyrics to the song speak about modern life and things like jazz music and cinema.
"Tokyo March" by Sato Chiyoko
Busy ports such as Osaka and Kobe were the leading cities in Japan for entertainment. This was partly due to those cities attracted the cruise traffic hence tourists, and the 1923 big earthquake in Tokyo and the city needed a vast rebuilding. Even in the first half of the 1920s, Osaka had a vibrant nightlife with many dance halls and music clubs.
The "Satchmo of Japan", trumpeter Fumio Nanri from Osaka (later moved to Shanghai and San Francisco), is considered to be the first jazz musician of Japan.
One amazing story from the Osaka nightlife is that the dance halls had sold tickets to their customers per song. One ticket covered one dance to one song. Therefore the club owners hired musicians that would only play short songs without adding any touch to the original short composition and restricting the players from long improvisations. Obviously this meant short songs but many songs and many songs equaled more tickets...
In the beginning of the 1930s, exactly like what happened in Germany, jazz music started to be seen as an inferior music that was contradictory to the Japanese traditions and moral values. One by one the dance halls and clubs began to close down especially in Osaka. This led the musicians to flee to Tokyo where it was still less conservative. They found recording opportunities in many American record companies had already entered the Japanese market by establishing branches in Tokyo. Some jazz musicians such as Ryoichi Hattori combined Japanese sounds with jazz in order to avoid the controversies of pure jazz.
"Oiwake" by Ryoichi Hattori's Columbia Jazz Band
Another interesting story is related with the Japanese "Jazu Kissa" concept. This is a jazz cafe where people can go and listen to a jazz record while sipping their coffees. The main difference is that the audience in these Jazu Kissas are more like concert goers rather than coffee goers. They sat and quietly listened to the music just like they were attending a live concert.
I am following an instagram account about the current "Jazu Kissas" and they share wonderful posts. Here is the link if you would like to follow them.
Obviously jazz music during the WWII was considered as the music of the enemy and was banned to be played publicly. However on the contrary, jazz had become so popular to be banned by then. Music continued in different forms and mostly in the underground but never lost its popularity during those tragic years.
By the end of the war and with the US occupation in Japan, jazz again began to be widely acclaimed. The US troops were looking for dancing halls and these dancing halls were looking for musicians.
Oasis of the Ginza Dancehall in Tokyo after the WWII
Between the years of the Allied Occupation in Japan (1945-1952) thanks to the American Forces, jazz music became amazingly popular, very parallel to the developments in the Western world, but there was such a shortage on jazz players. Many American army members used every means to bring up new musicians for the Japanese jazz scene to entertain their troops stationed there. I have read many memoirs of notable jazz players saying that they had learned the jazz music with the help of American soldiers and officers in the army barracks. One of the main jazz figures of Japan, Toshiko Akiyoshi was discovered during these years. She was only at the age of 20 when she moved to Tokyo with a passion in bebop. Couple of years later she met Oscar Peterson and that's how her life changed. She went to Berklee College of Music and after that became a notable bob pianist and a big-band leader.
Toshiko Akiyoshi Trio (including Eddie Safranski and Ed Thigpen)
Japanese jazz scene expanded immensely during the occupation years and following the end of the occupation, a lot of new artists began to develop their own sounds and styles and kept jazz music very much alive until today. Leading musicians are, sax player Sadao Watanabe (who started his career as a member of Toshiko Akiyoshi's band), trumpet player Tiger Okoshi, pianists Masahiko Satoh, Aki Takase and Tsuyoshi Yamamoto.
"Hank Jones Trio feat. Sadao Watanabe and Hiromi"
I have intentionally picked the video above in order to introduce you one of the greatest young Japanese pianists around, Hiromi. I believe she deserves a post just for herself which will come soon on this blog. I have to confess that I am a big fan...
The main problem of the Japanese jazz especially after the 1960s was that its image, most of the critics saw a little authenticity in the artists and calling the Japanese jazz as an imitation of the American jazz. I believe this was partly true due to the fact that jazz was not in the DNA of Japanese people and secondly all the musicians had been trained with American material. Just around these times and in response to these comments, a majority of the musicians tried to combine the Japanese traditional sounds (including instruments) to their music.
"Children in the Temple Ground" by Toshiko Akiyoshi/Lew Tabackin Big Band
"Yamanaka Bushi" by Hideo Shiraki Quintet & 3 Koto Girls
Japan still continues to be a leading country where jazz appreciation is relatively significant with its notable young musicians gaining global reputation just like the pianist Hiromi and trumpeter Takuya Kuroda.
"I Got Rhythm" by Hiromi
One additional info here is that most probably Japan is the Mecca for Hi-Fi enthusiasts and audiophiles. Today the Japanese LP pressings are the most sought after pressings.The country is still dynamic in terms of sales and full of record shops (both new & used) where the listeners have all the resources and means to reach all kinds of recorded physical music.
Let's finish with a video that explains a lot about where this audiophile obsession can lead a man especially if you are in Japan...
"She blinded me with science" was one of my favorite songs in the early 80s.
We were familiar with pure synthesizer music of Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Jean Michel Jarre and Vangelis and also appreciated the usage of synths in progressive and psychedelic rock such as Pink Floyd and Yes.
However with Giorgio Moroder and Donna Summer collaboration on "I feel love", I remember something was starting to change and a new sound was being developed. Thanks to declining prices and wider availability of synthesizers in the beginning of the 80s, a lot of bands began to make music with such electronic instruments, thus leading the way to New Wave and Synth Pop.
Then came the video games, perms and big hairs, shoulder pads and neon make-ups, thin leather neckties and jean jackets. The world witnessed the emergence of disco and New Wave. The 80s are commonly remembered for an increase in the use of digital recording, associated with the usage of synthesizers, with Synth Pop and New Wave music and other electronic genres featuring non-traditional instruments.
As it has always been the case, my generation's musical idols had completely changed (don't get me wrong, 70s were great as well, but the world needed another sound to dance to). In a very short period of time New Wave popularized many artists and bands such as Yazoo, Ultravox, Depeche Mode, Human League, Soft Cell, New Order, Thompson Twins, Alphaville, etc...
"She Blinded me with Science" by Thomas Dolby
Thomas Dolby had made a brilliant entry to the New Wave scene with his famous song "She blinded me with science". Unfortunately this song had been on the very top of the charts only in Canada and surprisingly not in his home country, the UK. I remember him making another song called "Hyperactive!" couple of years later than his most well-known song. But that was it for me. I had forgotten about him in the second part of the 1980s until I recently came across his book "The Speed of Sound: Breaking the Barriers between Music and Technology: A Memoir"...
I picked up the book with a smile on my face thinking what the hell he had written about. I was truly shocked when I read the inner sleeve that mentioned the things he had done and had been doing since the 80s. I was shocked because I felt ashamed how I had missed his achievements in the last 30 years.
Since I had listened to him last on my tape recorder, he had been a technology entrepreneur in Silicon Valley, musical director for the TED conferences and a professor at the Johns Hopkins University.
Oh man, how I had missed so many details about him. Of course with much remorse I immediately purchased the book from Rough Trade East in London and started to read...
First of all, it is a very well written book. From the first pages on you can feel that it is not solely a musician's life story. You don't feel like you are reading an autobiography but rather a fiction novel about a hero and his adventures. It is a very sincere book telling the reader total ups and downs of Thomas Dolby throughout his musical and technological journey. The reader can grasp the technological developments throughout the last 30 years and not only limited to musical technology but also developments about internet, art in general and digital revolution.
It is fun and amusing to read his interactions with other artists like Michael Jackson, Joni Mitchell and David Bowie as well as tech gurus such as Steve Jobs and George Lucas.
"I Scare Myself" by Thomas Dolby - A bit different sound huh?
The way he describes his younger years that he refused to go to university and working in a green grocer is quite enjoyable to read. How his parents (his dad was an internationally acclaimed professor teaching classical Greek art in Oxford and Cambridge) raised him with self-confidence and supported his desire for a musical career is fascinating. The musical environment that he is born and raised into is also a smashing one as he speaks about going to shows of Police, Elvis Costello and Talking Heads one after the other. The story how he acquired (thrown in a trash bin) and repaired his first synth is inspiring.
If you are interested in the musical evolution starting from the 80s along with the development of synthesizers, record labels, recording industry and technology in general, this is definitely a book for you.
One spoiler here; did you know that it was Thomas Dolby who programmed the melody of Grand Vals by Tarrega into Nokia phones, calling it the Nokia Waltz? He is the true pioneer responsible for the development of ring tones in the mobile phones.Please visit the below website for further information.
During the creation of this blog, I was not planning to publish any posts dedicated to a single jazz figure. I do not wish to write biographical pieces, as you might most probably find much more informative and well written articles elsewhere. However there are certain musicians whom I have a great deal of admiration because of their works, their ideas, their approach and contributions to the music world. I can already hear you grumbling about the choice of this post's jazz figure. And it is exactly this dissatisfaction of yours that motivated me to write about John Zorn. I promise to publish posts also on more conventional (according to what?) jazz artists in the future but today please bear with me and John Zorn. I am sure you will appreciate him enormously once you understand and feel his genius. John ZORN:
"My music is ideal for impatient people,
because it is packed full of information
that changes very rapidly"
A young and restless soul from New York aged 64 who has made more than 400 ground breaking albums either as a composer, arranger, producer and performer. His main instrument is the saxophone but he is a true multi-instrumentalist playing guitar, flute, clarinet, keyboards, bass, percussion along with many unconventional sound producing instruments like duck calls and horn mouthpieces. He is the founder of Tzadik Records (Tzadik), the label specializes in avant-garde and experimental music. He also runs a club called The Stone (The Stone) in New York.
I find him so very different than all the jazz musicians, maybe not only jazz, but different than all musicians. He is way above styles and genres. You can hear him playing pure jazz, rock, modern classical, heavy metal, noise music, klezmer, film music and ambient. He is constantly experimenting in a highly prolific way and his versatility changed the perception of the listeners about the musical diversity. "What I completely reject," says John Zorn "is the idea that music is a hierarchy: the so-called more complex forms, such as classical music, are higher than jazz, which in turn is more complex and therefore higher than the blues, which is higher than rock music or whatever. All of them are on the same level! And all of them deserve the same respect." Thanks to his point of view, we can feel and hear "Looney Tunes"(Bugs Bunny) music next to Ornette Coleman, surf music next to 12 tone music, trash metal next to Stravinsky and Beatles next to Beethoven while listening to his music... It is extremely difficult to catch John Zorn's ideas both in his performances and his compositions. Don't get me wrong, I definitely do not mean that one needs to be trained or be highly familiar with all the avant-garde styles of the 20th century to grasp his music. I think we can somewhat start to grasp his music just by being open-minded and letting go off our harmonic, melodic and rhythmic cliches. So how come John Zorn's music evolved in the way it did? He was born into a music loving family, he learned how to play the piano, guitar and flute when he was a kid. He attended the United Nations International School and met a lot of friends from different cultures, he even played bass guitar in the school band. This might be one reason explaining his multi-cultural approach. He was a keen listener of classical music and film music. I must highlight here that he is also an avid record collector which he was poisoned with the passion during his high school years. He began to acquire a taste in avant-garde and experimental music with Mauricio Kagel recording in 1968 when he was only 15. He thought himself counterpoint and orchestration and studied composition during those years. He was a musical genius after all... One other and maybe a more important thing that influenced his musical development was his admiration in the cartoon music, especially Bugs Bunny's and Tom & Jerry's music. He speaks about this music being hectic and somewhat anarchic without any direction and slow build-up. He says he always wanted to make music in the same manner where there is a discontinuity and lacking a linear relation with time.
In one interview he said he always watched the cartoons with eyes closed so he could disassociate the music with the pictures. Most probably this enabled him to develop his unique style where he mentions being "fast evolving, cinematic, contradictory just like zapping from one channel to another"... He started to play alto saxophone during his college years after listening to the "For Alto" record by Anthony Braxton. After dropping out of college he returned to New York and immersed himself in the underground experimental art scene where he began performing, producing and composing.
John Zorn Documentary Part I
John Zorn Documentary Part II
In order to get acquainted with John Zorn, it might be wiser to divide his musical journey into certain categories (not to be treated chronologically but more overlapping in a stylistic fashion);
Early Compositions: Zorn as a creator of "game pieces" where he was influenced by new classical music composers like Boulez, Xenakis and Stockhausen. He made these compositions in which the musicians, using a predefined symbolic language, play according to the rules taken from various sports and/or games. The main element of these compositions were improvisation but with the help of signals or written signs, musicians had the opportunity to intervene in the development of the music. His compositions like the one below, called Cobra and it is one of his most complex pieces. Others are Lacrosse, Hockey, Baseball, Curling and Track & Field.
"Cobra" composed by John Zorn performed by NEC Cobra Ensemble
Free Improvisation: This category includes his first albums. "Classic Guide to Strategy Volume 1 and Volume 2". He played alto and soprano saxophones, clarinet and game calls (whistles hunters use to attract the game) and various saxophone mouthpieces in these 2 recordings.
"Part 2 (Cartoon Music)" a.k.a. "The Moon In The Cold Stream Like A Mirror" by John Zorn
Card File Compositions: Within this category, Zorn's compositional approach was rather enigmatic. He composed his pieces on file cards as opposed to conventional scoring on sheet paper. These cards included vague instructions leaving the progress of the music to the imagination of the musician. The cards mostly contained verbal instructions such as "noise of a car accident while someone plays a flute" and "try to avoid the paths with energy units until you are ready to attack the monster"... His two greatest recordings of this category are "Spillane" and "Godard". On "Spillane" the inspiration is Mike Hammer (Mickey Spillane's private detective character) and on "Godard" the French director Jean-Luc Godard.
"Spillane" by John Zorn
Naked City: In 1988 John Zorn decided to form a band as a compositional workshop featuring Bill Frisell (electric guitar), Fred Frith (bass guitar), Wayne Horvitz (keyboards), Joey Baron (drums) and Yamatsuka Eye (vocal). The music was close to thrash metal and hardcore punk with fast changes and jumps from one genre to another even between a couple of measures. These recordings are still being used for cinematic purposes.
"A Shot In the Dark" by Naked City
Painkiller: This is another Zorn band featuring Bill Laswell on bass and Mick Harris on drums (Napalm Death drummer). This was probably the noisiest band of John Zorn. The band's involvement with hardcore, punk, noise and trash metal, Zorn's t-shirt's print " Die, Yuppie Scum" and the usage of shocking pictures gave us clues how controversial Zorn could get.
"Live in NY" - Painkiller
Jazz Interpretation: Surprisingly John Zorn made a couple of albums that are relatively closer to the jazz tradition. These works were mostly project based and brought together key jazz musicians such as Bill Frisell, George Lewis and Big John Patton. Two main recordings under this category are "News for Lulu" that honored the hard-boppers Hank Mobley, Kenny Dorham and Freddy Redd, and the other being Voodoo, dedicated to Sonny Clark. Obviously as you can imagine Zorn did not play in a traditional bebop sound in these albums. This was the period that Zorn had criticized the Wynton Marsalis approach in which he was trying to sound as close as possible to the traditional bebop.
"Funk in Deep Freeze" from the album News for Lulu
Film Music: Zorn has written music for documentaries, underground films, television advertisements and cartoons which were released in his Filmworks series. As can be imagined, he mostly worked with indie filmmakers.
"Shaolin Bossa" by John Zorn
New Music Compositions: John Zorn created a series of classical works especially in the chamber music arena. He made several compositions based on influences from Messiaen and Schoenberg.
"Eleven" from the Chimeras album
Masada Books: Following his composition of "Kristallnacht" (his work regarding the infamous "Night of Broken Glass", a pogrom against Jews in Nazi Germany of 1938), Zorn started to concentrate on his Jewish roots throughout music. He formed the band Masada with a klezmer and jazz sound. The band members other than Zorn were Dave Douglas on trumpet, Greg Cohen on bass and Joey Baron on drums. The project Masada initiated with John Zorn's idea of composing 100 short tunes in order to create something positive for the Jewish musical tradition. However the tunes dramatically increased and the number of Masada books went up to three. The original Masada albums were named after the first ten letters of the Hebrew alphabet and contained compositions with Hebrew titles.
"Tahah" from the 1st Masada album Alef
The music of John Zorn is so versatile and diverse that even nine categories are not enough to explain him. There are 2 additional albums that I would like to mention in this post but could not place them in above mentioned categories.
First one is "The Big Gundown" recorded in 1985 that comprises the covers of Ennio Morricone. I think it is one of the best albums of Zorn.
"Once Upon a Time in the West"
The other recording is "Spy vs Spy: The Music of Ornette Coleman" from 1989 featuring the compositions of Ornette Coleman performed in the brief intense style of Zorn's hardcore miniatures.
"Mob Job" from the album Spy vs. Spy
John Zorn is an important composer and performer, because he is the living proof of the fact that everything in this world whether be it sound or style or culture is available to composers today to use as musical material.
I find him and his music extremely inspiring and structurally deep. When I reviewed the post before publishing I must confess that I found it a bit shallowly written compared to Zorn’s genius, but that's Zorn, no one knows a great deal about his musical mind and yet he never ceases to surprise us...
I have been posting about jazz for some time now and I noticed that I have barely mentioned anything about the European jazz scene. Well maybe a little in my "Free Improvisation" post and by only mentioning some key European musicians who had pioneered in the development of this creative music.
European Jazz:
First things first, can we argue that the European jazz is a distinctive jazz style? Maybe yes, maybe not. I do not like to make definitive classifications especially in something as broad as jazz. And we must never forget that none of the musical genres in the world has evolved just like that out of the blue. Each and every one of them is an evolution based on a vast amount of factors.
So what about European jazz? Is it a different jazz style compared to the jazz forms coming back from the 1910s till the 1980s? Surely not. Anyhow as I have mentioned in the previous posts, starting from the 1950s, jazz styles started to become more and more intertwined and the interactive.
However jazz music became widespread and popular in Europe after the World War II. It is true that many jazz legends had toured across Europe in the 1920s and 1930s (i.e. Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet and Coleman Hawkins) but that was only a limited relation of American musicians coming to play for the European audience. On the other hand, with the second touring wave of the American artists just after the war, when jazz was losing its popularity due to fading swing and soaring bebop in the US, American musicians believing that they were receiving more respect than their own country decided to settle in Europe. This also created a means for Europeans to embrace jazz...
On the artistic part, real interest to jazz showed itself after the end of the war. The post-war generation exposed to bebop took the first steps in order to generate a jazz scene in Europe. First by imitating their American counterparts and then very quickly cultivating a rather different sound based on their own backgrounds, experiences and traditions.
We can easily say that jazz is not indigenous to Europe. It is an American thing. Therefore for Europeans, it is not their own music. And in my opinion, that is why they could be so successful with it in their own ways.
How could the European jazz musicians create such an authentic sound on their own? There are various answers to this question but most probably we could argue that;
they liberated themselves from the pure jazz tradition
they did not try to emulate the American jazz sound
they were genetically nourished by the classical music and repertoire
they were culturally creative enough not to be overwhelmed by the institutionalization of jazz...
Each culture or even country has an authentic contribution in the development of jazz in Europe. Given the rich classical tradition and musicians' trainings, one can imagine what a diverse set of characteristics jazz can embed in the old continent's jazz scene. One interesting highlight is that the missing element of African-American roots of jazz that the performer/listener takes for granted in the American jazz is never an obstacle in Europe, on the contrary maybe a factor that epitomizes the beauty of jazz in Europe. Besides in Europe, there is a richness deriving from the historical relations with Asia, Middle East and North Africa similar to the West African influences over the American sound.
Here maybe we can mention about two significant contributors of the European jazz scene. First one is Ronnie Scott, an English tenor sax player but maybe even better known by his famous London jazz club. Following his trip to New York in 1946 and after listening Charlie Parker and other bebop legends, he saw the opportunity to invite such legends to his hometown in order to popularize jazz in England. Due to financial obstacles, he only could open the world famous "Ronnie Scott's" in 1959 and since then the club is a mecca for jazz musicians from all over the world.
The second guy is a producer from Germany, Manfred Eicher. He is the founder of the ECM records (Edition of Contemporary Music) that probably have issued the finest examples of European jazz since 1969. His non-compromising and perfectionist side combined with his vision and musical expertise allowed to foster the creativity of not only European but American jazz musicians as well.
When speaking about European jazz, I always find it difficult to make a musical generalization that covers the whole continent, therefore I prefer to talk about certain predominant cultures that have shaped the jazz sound of Europe. Even though in terms of land mass, US and Europe are similar in size, culturally Europe is much more diverse and rich. Obviously this leads to a versatility in the jazz sound.
So what I will propose is that we discuss some of the main leading jazz schools of Europe along with their notable musicians.
Scandinavian Jazz: A distinctive sound on its own thanks to many open-minded American musicians residing in Sweden, Denmark and Norway influencing the local jazz scene. Maybe another important point to mention regarding the development of the Scandinavian sound is the famous 1974 Keith Jarrett recording "Belonging", where he was accompanied by Scandinavian musicians like Jan Garbarek on saxophones, Palle Danielsson on bass and Jon Christensen on drums. This recording is also from the ECM catalogue. This recording played a significant role in the popularization of the "Nordic" sound. I find this sound quite melancholic but interestingly at the same time rather far away from the bluesy melancholy. Maybe it emanates from long winters and dark days instead of long hours and sunny days on the cotton fields...Other main characteristics of the Scandinavian sound are the abundant usage of minor tones, influences from its folk culture and relatively longer melodies. I find the sound quite distinct and euphonic. The atmospheric components are always there but can be twisted in a pleasant way by different musicians. I also remember reading an article about the excellency of musical training especially in Sweden and the vast opportunities their governments have been providing for many years. As far as I know, only Sweden has more than 100 jazz clubs all operational. I believe the situation is very similar in other Nordic countries such as Norway, Denmark and Finland. On top of the leading Scandinavian musicians I mentioned above there are a lot of others as well; like the pianists Bobo Stenson, Ketil Bjornstad, Jon Balke, Tord Gustavsen and Esbjörn Svensson, guitarist Terje Rypdal, bassists Arild Andersen and Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen, drummer Edward Vesala, trumpet player Palle Mikkelborg.
"Long As You Know You're Living Yours" by Keith Jarrett's European Quartet
Terje Rypdal & Ketil Bjornstad "Live in Istanbul"
German Jazz: Even though having an extensive musical culture, Germany has been a relatively unlucky country for the development of jazz due to the fact that during the Third Reich (Nazi Germany) from 1933 till 1945, jazz was seen as a degenerate musical form. Furthermore circles that are close to the government went as far as to call it an American trap designed to introduce obscenities to the high German aesthetic society. Therefore there was not much jazz in Germany until the end of the war. Initially, with the impact of the allied forces, swing became popular in cities like Berlin and Frankfurt. It was also the beginning of the cold war era where the USA began to promote and insinuate its own culture. As it was the case all over Europe, with the touring American musicians, Germans also started to mingle with jazz, and they developed their own sound. Some notable musicians of the German jazz scene are; trombonist Albert Mangelsdorff, bassist Eberhard Weber, sax player Peter Brötzmann and pianist Joachim Kühn.
"More Colours" by Eberhard Weber
English Jazz: UK was a rather fortunate country in terms of jazz, being a close ally to the US, the island constantly attracted notable jazz musicians. Therefore jazz music was always popular thus leading to the development of a jazz tradition of their own. One of the great pianists of all jazz scene, George Shearing (composer of the jazz standard Lullaby of Birdland) is a leading figure. As you will remember from the "Free Improvisation" post, English artists had made a great deal of contribution to jazz. Especially guitarist Derek Bailey had been a true innovator along with saxophone/bass clarinet player John Surman.
"Lullaby of Birdland" by George Shearing and Neil Swainson
When speaking of European jazz, it would not be fair not to mention the name of American pianist George Russell. His book called the "Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization" written in 1953 is considered to be one of the main cornerstones of the European jazz. His playing technique and his theories have been embraced by the European artists and have been vastly used during the development of this specific jazz sound.
"Freein' Up" by the George Russell Sextet
Obviously there jazz figures are not the only ones that have shaped the European jazz scene. There are many others from Italy, France, Holland and Eastern European countries etc. However in my opinion the ones that I mentioned in the post can be defined having a distinctive sound of their own.
I would like to end the post with a Turkish jazz recording by Erol Pekcan (drums), Tuna Otenel (Piano and Saxophone) and Kudret Oztoprak (bass) called "Jazz Semai".
I have been meaning to write a post about the "Blue Note" in music for some time but I could not clear it in my mind how to structure it without going too much into theoretical details. I am aware that it is such a concept not too easy to explain without referring to a certain degree of music theory but here I am giving it a shot, so please bear with me.
Blue Note: I think one should approach the "Blue Note" in two different angles. The first angle could be defined as a more musical or theoretical angle which is maybe easier to grasp even though the explanation would be more technical. However the second angle is more focused on cultural, anthropological and sociological elements and in my opinion this second angle is the true idiosyncrasy of the "Blue Note". It is mostly a feeling, rather than a tone shift in the scale. Please watch the below video and do not concentrate on the musical theory part, just listen the difference of the sound of the added blue note.
Let me try to explain the first angle of the "Blue Note" as simple as possible, without too much musical theory. If you are more interested on this aspect of the "Blue Note" there is a vast amount of information on the internet that you can check out. A basic definition could be that a "Blue Note" is a pitch that is played slightly out of the usual scale that is being played. The origin goes back to African music and its reflection in the birth of the blues and jazz. As I had mentioned in the previous posts, the Western music is built on the concept of equal temperament that divides a scale into 12 equally distant pitches. However the African music (i.e. especially the African vocal music) did not work like that. Just like the Eastern music, it had microtonal elements (not in a chromatic sense but harmonic sense) embedded in the musical forms. Therefore with the arrival of the African people to the New World, a different structure was also introduced which evolved to blues and jazz in the later periods.
Here’s a guide to the blues notes in the scale of C
C major scale: C, D, E, F, G, A, B
C blues scale: C, E-flat, F, F-sharp, G, B-flat
C major plus C blues: C, D, E-flat, E, F, F-sharp, G, A, B-flat, B
The notes that are highlighted as bold are the blues notes.
The blues notes are usually said to be the lowered third, lowered fifth, and lowered seventh scale degrees.The lowered fifth is also known as the raised fourth.
Pay close attention, I am not referring these notes as "Blue Notes". They are only blues notes and they are created so that the piano players can also approximate to the sound of the blue notes (one technique or cheat is sliding between the keys). Since real "Blue Notes" fall between the keys of the piano, they can not be played 100% true to the proper sound. If you remember the post on "Sound", you will recall the pitches and their frequencies. On the piano you can not generate a sound let's say between the note E and the note F simply because there is no key to hit in-between. But this does not mean that there is not a sound between these two notes.
However with guitar (via bending), or horns (overblowing), or fretless instruments and vocal, it is much easier to create the real sound of a "Blue Note". You can also do it on a keyboard/synth that allows pitch bending.
"Boom boom boom" by John Lee Hooker (listen how he bends the notes to create blue notes)
"Chameleon Pt.1" by Herbie Hancock (listen the solo between 5:10-5.45 for blue notes)
On the other hand we should understand that, during a performance, the "Blue Notes" are passing notes. They are played or sung to express a momentary feeling. One should be careful not to rest on these notes as the sound generated could be dissonant with the on-going scale. You can try it if you have a keyboard or basically any instrument. First try to play the C major plus C blues scale and listen to how pleasant it sounds. Now this time play a music that you know is C major and while the music is playing, you play one of the blue notes and listen how out of tune you sound altogether.
So what purpose do these notes serve? Historically, if you listen to a bluesy song or even the sound of the blue note in the above first video, you immediately start to feel like you are listening to a minor scale. If you hit the keys of E flat and B flat during playing a C major scale, you convert the sound of the C major scale into a minor scale sound. And what is the feeling of a minor scale? Sadness, blues and despair right...
Obviously with the evolving of jazz and other musical genres, the use of the blue notes became wider as you can hear from the Herbie Hancock video above.
I hope the notion of "Blue Note" is clear on your minds, at least on a technical level. If so, we can now start to speak about the feelings that are created with these notes.
The "Blue Notes" are notes that can impose a certain degree of grief, melancholy and sadness on a piece of music.
Imagine African people brought to America as slaves. They are being forced to work under inhumane conditions and at the same time being forced to an assimilation. They are being converted to Christianity, making them sing mostly major scale gospels and spirituals in the churches. Naturally, they were willing to express their own feelings in some way. Under these unfavorable circumstances they developed a new form of singing by using microtones. These tiny details transformed the sound of the music massively without changing its original tonality. In my opinion it is an incredible innovation that highlights the feelings of its originators.
I remember reading an article about the blue notes that included an amazing example that illustrates the feeling of a blue note. It was something like this; imagine calling your mom from a distance to give her a very good news and on the contrary again calling your mom for a bad news. Try to imagine how the two different sounding "mom"s will come out of your mouth. I always thought that this was a simple and good explanation of the "Blue Note"...
"I believe I will Dust my Broom" by Robert Johnson
We mustn't always think that the "Blue Notes" totally convert a song to a tart and sour sound. The authenticity lies in the fact that they can add a certain degree of tartness to the overall tone of the song without touching its sweet parts. If it were only tart or only sweet, the song would be boring right?
"How Blue Can You Get" by B.B. King
Overall we can say that the "Blue Notes" are the notes that give the blues its bluesy sound. However keep in mind that such notes are not limited to blues but also widely used in jazz, rock, funk, folk and country musical genres as well.
One homework for you, try to catch the "Blue Notes" when you are listening to music next time, believe me it is a fun exercise...
You might be thinking why on earth I did not write about vocal jazz earlier. Well, you are right, I should have. I should have, because human voice is probably the first instrument in music history, meaning there was human voice and singing way earlier than all the jazz styles that I published posts about in this blog.
So here is a chance to redeem myself.
Vocal Jazz:
I guess it would be a fair statement to say that the human voice is the earliest musical instrument and vocal music or singing can be considered as the oldest form of music. Obviously there was a fair amount of "vocal music" or "music that included vocal elements" from the early ages of Christianity in the forms of hymns or chants to the late 19th century with opera and bel canto. However since we are going to analyze vocal music within the jazz idiom, we can maybe concentrate on a period that started with the first examples of African-American work songs that paved the way to blues and in later years, jazz...
In my opinion the unofficial history of jazz music started with vocal music. We can say that vocal music's message in its earlier days was quite parallel with jazz music in general: "to communicate individual reaction to life in that moment of time". The first examples were mostly work songs that were the extension of West African chants. This tradition continued in cotton fields, railroad constructions and prisons both as work songs and spirituals that eventually evolved to Blues.
Singing fishermen of Ghana
The desire of self-expression through singing was also a part of the holy places. A musical form on its own, Gospel music with religious lyrics accompanied with hand claps or foot stomps was also an important vocal music style at that time.
A Gospel song "Ain't But Me One" by Beatie Gay
With the turn of the century, all these different singing approaches led to one of the greatest musical styles: Blues. It incorporated all I mentioned above and more. One could hear the sounds of work songs, spirituals, hollers, shouts, ceremonial chants and gospels. It was a more structured type of music, with its call and response format and specific chord progressions (i.e. 12 bar blues, blues scale and blue notes). The term "Blues" was almost always associated with melancholy and sadness that reflected the social conditions of the African-Americans.
"Mama's Got the Blues" by Lillian Harris
One important note here. As we have stated various times that the human voice was probably the first musical instrument, it was again the case for blues and jazz musicians. Initially, it was the instrument players who copied the sounds of the singers. This was going to change in the more matured years of jazz and it would be the singers now who would want to copy the sounds of the instruments.
As you can remember from the earlier posts, we had stated that "Dixieland" was the first form of jazz as we know it. By the 1920s, singing was also a part of jazz music however not in a creative way until Louis Armstrong introduced something totally new to the jazz world.
He established a distinctive way of singing called "scat". It was an improvised technique that was performed by the singer via using his/her voice like an instrument rather than a speaking medium. Use of syllables that do not make any sense at all or hums without words was the common practice in scat singing.
"Dinah" by Louis Armstrong
There is a false belief claiming that Louis Armstrong had to invent scat singing because he had dropped the lyrics sheet during a concert, however it is true that he occasionally resorted to scat upon forgetting the lyrics.
After the 1930s during the "Swing Era", the jazz music was at its top form. Almost all orchestras had taken on singers and singing was one of the key elements of an orchestra to succeed. Naturally, this tendency created an opportunity for many great vocalists to take place in the jazz scene. Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Cab Calloway, Anita O'Day, Billy Eckstine and many others have all started their careers during this period.
However with the fading glamour of swing jazz, the importance of vocal was interrupted for some time due to the fact that bebop was not a musical style to embrace the vocalists. Obviously the new jazz style did not totally suppress the vocal artists. Whoever could break the barriers with the past became even more successful.
As you will remember from the earlier posts, jazz styles had evolved quite distinctively until the 1950s. Jazz forms such as Dixieland, Swing and Bebop, roughly followed one another. However in the second half of the 20th century, as it was the case for almost all art forms, jazz music also began to intertwine. Obvious trends among the increasingly varied substyles of jazz began to break down. The vocalists were primarily interested in developing their own voice without regard for any perceived direction that jazz as a whole might be taking. New vocal styles evolved simultaneously with different inspirations from the past. This process is still valid today which keeps vocal jazz as one of the true inspiring elements of jazz music...
Now I will try to introduce you some of the earlier key figures in vocal jazz with some of their best performances.
Louis Armstrong: Nicknamed as "Satchmo" thanks to his wide grim who played his horn with unprecedented technique. At the same time a true pioneer in vocal jazz with scat singing.His singing was also very authentic just like his playing. He can be considered as the real inventor of the swing feel.
"Heebie Jeebies" by Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five
Billie Holiday: Nicknamed "Lady Day", almost no formal music education and a limited voice scale, a great jazz vocalist jazz thanks to her phrasing and tempo skills. Even though she sang very little blues, she could transform each song to a bluesy sound. Her technique allowed her to be an extension of the band rather than the traditional vocalist and accompanying band form. She could turn any simple song to an artistic highlight. One can easily understand how she struggled in life through her songs. She has been an inspiration to many jazz instrumentalists. For all these reasons her style is still called "Holiday mystique"..
"Strange Fruit" by Billie Holiday
Ella Fitzgerald: Powerful,bright and a clear voice, capable of great precision. Many nicknames, "First Lady of Song", "Queen of Jazz" and "Lady Ella". Incredible vocal abilities made her a legend.
Anita O'Day: Probably the greatest jazz singer who was not African-American. She had to develop an authentic style due to an uvula illness during childhood. A true feminist who refused the traditional stage attire and introducing the rebel look.
"Beautiful Love" by Anita O'Day
Sarah Vaughan: Nicknamed "Sassy", strangely never as popular as Ella Fitzgerald or Billie Holiday but in my opinion a very authentic voice similar to opera singers.
"Lullaby of Birdland" by Sarah Vaughan
Nat King Cole: Pianist and vocalist. A lot of people do not know what a great pianist he was.
"Straighten Up and Fly Right" by Nat King Cole
Carmen McRae: One of the most influential jazz vocalists of all time. Originally a pianist.
"Lover Man" by Carmen McRae
Dinah Washington: Queen of the Blues.
"What a Difference A Day Makes" by Dinah Washington
Betty Carter: Known for her sophisticated improvisation technique.
"Sounds" by Betty Carter
Chet Baker: Trumpet player and vocalist. He sang just like he played, silent, not playing around between registers and cool.
"Let's Get Lost" by Chet Baker
Johnny Hartman: King of ballads.
"My One and Only Love" by Johnny Hartman and John Coltrane
