New Orleans jazz: history, performers. jazz music

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

1917 was a turning point and to some extent epochal year all over the world. If for the Russian Empire it was marked by revolutionary events, then in France, Felix d'Herelle discovered a bacteriophage, and in New York, the first revolutionary jazz record was recorded at the Victor recording studio. It was New Orleans jazz, although the performers were white musicians who had heard and passionately loved "black music" since childhood. Their record Original Dixieland Jazz Band quickly spread to prestigious and expensive restaurants. In a word, New Orleans jazz, coming from the bottom, conquered high society and gradually began to be considered the music of the elite. However, it is considered as such to this day.

What is Jazz?

This musical genre was formed on the basis of the melodies of black slaves who were forcibly brought tothe American continent to serve the white planters. Therefore, for a long time, jazz music was considered the music of an inferior race. Even after she gained popularity in white American society, in Nazi Germany, for example, she was banned because she was considered a conductor of a Negro-Jewish dissonant cacophony. In the USSR, she was also banned for a long time, because the "top" believed that she was an apologist for the way of bourgeois life, as well as an agent-guide of imperialism.

Features

Traditional jazz can rightly be called revolutionary music, as this style is a "fighter" in its own way. No musical genre has seen so many obstacles and obstacles on the way of its formation. Jazz performers were constantly fighting for the right to exist, for their place under the sun. At first, they did not have the opportunity to perform in front of wide audiences, they were not provided with large concert venues and stadiums. However, this has one, and maybe more advantages. There are no random people among the fans of this music. True amateurs have accepted jazz as a way of thinking and living in general. Jazz is improvisation, it's freedom! A person with a limited outlook, with standard ideas about life, cannot understand what New Orleans jazz is. Its features lie precisely in the fact that it has its own specific listener. These are always bright, intellectual and spiritually rich people who appreciate high-quality and semanticmusic.

New Orleans Jazz History

This musical style originated at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, as a result of the fusion of African and European music. Slaves brought to the American continent from Africa were converted to Christianity by missionary priests and taught them to sing church hymns. And they mixed them with their religious songs "spirituals". This musical cocktail also included blues motifs that were widespread in all parts of the New World. For accompaniment, in addition to drums, wind instruments and homemade harmonicas were also used. This music gradually won the sympathy of the white musicians of New Orleans, and as a result of all this, as already noted, the first gramophone record with music in the style of jazz was made in 1917.

Jazz Age

The 20s of the 20th century were called this period in the history of music. Even the writers of this period are now called "New Orleans Jazz" writers. And Francis Scott Fitzgerald is one of them. Nevertheless, during this period, it was not New Orleans that was considered the capital of jazz, but Kansas City. Here, this musical direction spread with incredible speed, and this was facilitated by numerous restaurants and cafes, where jazz music sounded in the evenings. It so happened that gangsters and mafiosi, who liked to spend evenings in restaurants, became its main listeners. In many of them, scenes began to appear andorchestra pits in which a jazz group consisting of a keyboardist, drummer, wind musicians and vocalists arranged. Most of them played blues, and not only slow, classical, but also fast. Then many of the musicians decided to try their luck and went to big cities - Chicago and New York. There were more restaurants and more spectators.

New Orleans Jazz Artists

There lived a black boy named Charlie Parker in Kansas. In the evenings, he liked to walk at the open windows of restaurants and eateries and listen to the music coming from them. Then he whistled under his breath for days on end and hummed his favorite tunes. Years later, it was he who became the reformer of jazz music. Meanwhile, a great black musician appeared on the east coast - a trumpeter, keyboardist and vocalist. His name was Louis Armstrong. He had an unusual timbre of voice, besides, he accompanied himself. He constantly toured between Chicago and New York and considered himself the successor to the great New Orleans trumpet player King Oliver. Soon another jazzman from the cradle of the genre arrived at the Big Apple - Jelly Roll Morton. He played the piano virtuoso, and also had amazing vocals. On all posters, he demanded that it be written that he was the founder of jazz. Many thought so. Meanwhile, in New York, Fletcher Henderson created a wonderful orchestra. Following this, another one was formed, which was no less popular. Its leader wasyoung pianist Duke Ellington. He began to call his orchestra a big band.

30s

In the 1930s, New Orleans jazz evolved into a new musical style - swing. And it began to be performed by big bands, among which Duke Ellinton's orchestra stood out in particular. This musical group consisted of virtuoso musicians - masters of improvisation. Each concert was different from the next. There were complex scores, roll calls, rhythmic phrases, repetitions, and so on. A new position appeared in the orchestras - an arranger who wrote orchestrations, which became the key to the success of the entire big band. However, the main emphasis was still placed on the improviser, who could be a keyboardist, a saxophonist, and a trumpeter. The only thing, he had to observe a clear number of "squares". Duke Ellington's orchestra included such musicians as Bubber Miley, Cootie Williams, Rex Stewart, Ben Webster, clarinetist Barney Bigard and others. Nevertheless, the "most swing in the world" rhythm section was pianist Basie, drummer Joe Jones, double bassist W alter Page and guitarist Freddie Green.

The "crystal sound" phenomenon

Closer to the 40s, the Glenn Miller Orchestra became popular among fans of jazz music. Connoisseurs immediately noticed a certain feature that distinguished this big band from others. Some characteristic "crystal sound" was heard in his works, besides, it was felt that the orchestra had an incredibly successful arrangement. However, the rhythms of New Orleans jazz were no longer felt in their music. It was something special, but very far from Negro music.

Declining interest

With the outbreak of the Second World War, instead of serious music, "entertainment" began to flourish. This meant that the swing era was over. Jazz musicians were discouraged, it seemed to them that they had lost their positions forever and that their music could never again have the same success as in the dashing 30s. However, they were wrong, because jazz lovers were and are in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. True, today this style is not mass-produced, but is the music of the elite all over the world.