JAZZ, A MUSIC WITHOUT BOUNDARIES
October 19, 2007 by Josh
It was around 1917 in New Orleans that Louis Armstrong acquired his first Victrola and began collecting records. He once recalled it this way: “Big event for me then was buying a wind-up Victrola. Most of my records were the Original Dixieland Jazz Band–Larry Shields and his bunch. They were the first to record the music I played. I had Caruso records too, and Henry Burr, Galli-Curci, Tetrazzini–they were all my favorites. Then there was the Irish tenor, McCormack–beautiful phrasing.”
These operatic influences were a critically important element in shaping Armstrong’s whole cognitive process during his formative years. They help explain much of the bravura of his brilliant playing. Even more fascinating is how sound bites from such operas as Verdi’s RIGOLETTO, Bizet’s CARMEN, or Leoncavallo’s PAGLIACCI can be found embedded in his improvisations. In fact, in one of his interviews he spontaneously burst out singing an excerpt from the “Quartet” from RIGOLETTO, saying “that was the first thing I used to make all the time”–meaning that early on he practiced this “lick” in different keys.
In addition, there is a unique piece performed by Armstrong called “Skid-Dat-De-Dat.” In all fairness, most of the credit for the creation of this number should go to Armstrong’s second wife, Lil Hardin. The structure of this piece is totally unique in that it is organized in modules of four measures, with an underpinning of four chords moving in whole notes, one per measure. The reason I say that it is “totally unique” is simply that the form of most jazz pieces from this period is based on the twelve-bar blues or the thirty-bar structure of the popular song–sometimes called “Broadway song form.” In any event, basing my research on very compelling circumstantial evidence, I have concluded that this structural detail is explained by Lil Hardin’s classical music studies at the time, including her earning a diploma from the Chicago College of Music and giving a recital of music by Mozart, Chopin, Debussy, and others. Specifically, I have argued that “Skid-Dat-De-Dat” owes a huge debt to the fugue subject with which the finale of Mozart’s last symphony, the “Jupiter,” begins.
Later jazz musicians, like Charlie Parker, J.J. Johnson, and the Modern Jazz Quartet also borrowed ideas from such composers as Stravinsky, Ravel, Bartok, Hindemith and J.S. Bach–a topic too vast to pursue for now in any detail.
For those interested in pursuing this topic further, a good place to start are some of my own publications:
“Louis Armstrong and Opera” THE MUSICAL QUARTERLY, Summer 1992.
THE MUSICAL WORLD OF J.J. JOHNSON (Scarecrow Press and Institute of Jazz Studies, paperback edition, 2002)
LOUIS ARMSTRONG AND PAUL WHITEMAN: TWO KINGS OF JAZZ (Yale University Press, 2004)
As a music without boundaries jazz clearly fosters a spirit of openness and a receptivity to ideas coming from many different sources, some of which might be surprising to many listeners.
A MAGICAL BEETHOVEN MOMENT–ONE OF MY DESERT ISLAND CHOICES
October 14, 2007 by Josh
I have had a love affair with a piece of music for almost sixty years. I am talking about Beethoven’s Piano Concerto no. 4 in G. There are so many details in this masterwork that transport me to a very special place of sheer joy, especially the opening fourteen measures–a magical introduction to a very great work that in performance lasts some 38 precious seconds.
Like the genius he is, Beethoven breaks with tradition by having the piano begin with a solo. What he uses–something conclusively known from his sketchbooks and clearly audible to anyone familiar with Beethoven’s music–is a serene, gentle version of the fate motive with which his Symphony no. 5 begins.
At the very start, we hear the pitch of b as a melody note supported by G major chord. But when the orchestra softly and sweetly comes in, that same pitch of b is now part of a B major chord–an absolutely magical touch. And before we know it, we have been brought back ever so gently to the home key of G.
There are some wonderful recordings of this piece. The one I first heard, in the 1940’s, features a performance by the great Artur Schnabel and the Philharmonia Orchestra under Issay Dobrowen. A more recent performance that I own and treasure is part of the Complete Piano Concertos with Alfred Brendel and the Chicago Symphony conducted by James Levine. Another performance, whose opening takes my breath away, is by Krystian Zimerman and the Vienna Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein, near the end of his life.
Any one of these would be an asset to own and listen to repeatedly.
JAZZ IMPROVISATION–WHAT IT REALLY IS.
October 14, 2007 by Josh
I have heard people say so many times “when jazz people improvise, they make things up as they go along.” Even some music appreciation textbooks that I’ve seen say pretty much the same thing.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Think about it. Very few jazz performers work completely alone. To “make things up as they go along” would only invite chaos. Instead, every player in the group improvises on the underlying structure of each piece of music played, sharing an understanding of this with all the other musicians in the group.
In fact, a huge body of jazz depends on working with what are called “standards.” These can be blues like “St. Louis Blues,” or songs like “I Got Rhythm,” “Body and Soul,” or “Summertime.” All of this music has a definite form and phrase structure as well as a pattern of chords that serve as the underlying skeleton upon which the improvisation is built.
In most live performances of jazz, the reason the audience applauds after various musicians’ solos–that is, their improvisations on the bones of the original piece–is that a good improvisation is such a source of real satisfaction, indeed happiness, to both performers and to any perceptive listener as we hear a new “take” on an old melody.
LUCIANO PAVAROTTI, KING OF THE HIGH C’S
September 11, 2007 by Josh
Music, happiness, and thrilling vocalism–an unbeatable combination. Luciano Pavarotti, King of the High C’s, who succumbed to pancreatic cancer on September 6, 2007, represented all of that in spades. Millions who saw him on TV found his expansive personality and generous figure irresistible.
Pavarotti was the superstar in The Three Tenors, sharing the international spotlight with Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras. Together they sold recordings and videos by the millions.
The sobriquet, King of the High C’s, became attached to Luciano Pavarotti with good reason. No other tenor of his generation, and relatively few of the past, could hit that note, an octave above middle c, with such spine-tingling brilliance. Some have even gone so far as to say that hitting this note with such power is unnatural for a man, that it is almost freakish.
Then there are those who hear the experience of that sound as tapping into some deep memory. Maitland Peters, chairman of the voice department at the Manhattan School of Music, was quoted in a New York Times article as saying: “The reason it’s so exciting to people is, it’s based on the human cry. It’s instinctual. It’s like a baby. You’re pulled into it…there’s nothing in his way.”
It turns out that the runaway top choice on iTunes for Luciano Pavarotti is the aria “Pour mon ame” from Donizetti’s opera FILLE DU REGIMENT. It climaxes in no fewer nine consecutive octave leaps to the high c, bringing the piece to a spectacular conclusion.
Some questions:
1) What memories do you have of hearing, and perhaps seeing, Luciano Pavarotti?
2) Is he your favorite tenor?
3) Do you feel yourself drawn to the tenor voice or do you have other vocal preferences?
4) Do you yourself sing, and what are your personal memories of singing?
HURRICANE KATRINA AND NEW ORLEANS FUNERALS
August 22, 2007 by Josh
It is now almost two years to the day since hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and surrounding areas with such devastating force in August 2005. I am still shaken by the fact that I was in New Orleans giving a talk at the Louis Armstrong conference early in the month, and the good times seemed to be rolling without end. Now, although many in the city are still struggling with basic survival needs, the French Quarter–the heart and soul of New Orleans jazz–seems to be returning to its former vibrancy.
This fact highlights for me the amazing message of resilience which, paradoxically, the traditional African-American music of the New Orleans funeral communicates so powerfully. This music flows from a unique set of beliefs and many famous quips.
For instance, the jazzman, Jelly Roll Morton has been credited with the hair-raising pun about the end of someone’s life: “It was the end of a perfect death.”
Or how about: “Rejoice at the death and cry at the birth.”
In a traditional New Orleans funeral march, the music is sad and slow on the way to the cemetery as mourners march to the poignant strains of the band playing “Flee As a Bird,” inspired by the opening verse of Ps. 11–”Flee as a bird to your mountain.” But on the way back to town, usually to the lodge or home of the fraternal order, which has traditionally paid burial expenses, sick benefits, and small amounts to beneficiaries, the musicians break loose with a lively number like “Oh Didn’t He Ramble.”
Lynne asks, Why do we write about funeral music on a site called Music and Happiness? Because we believe that this ability to move from sorrow to joy is an essential aspect of human resilience in the face of its greatest challenges–destruction and death. So listening to music with this awareness in mind can lead each of us through our own moments of despair into the knowledge that hope still exists. Hope is one of the great virtues connected to happiness.
What music carries you from a place of sadness into one that arouses your sense of hope?
FROM DARKNESS TO LIGHT
August 22, 2007 by Josh
“..what a humiliation for me when someone standing next to me heard a flute in the distance, and I heard nothing, or someone heard a shepherd singing, and again I heard nothing. Such incidents drove me almost to despair; a little more of that and I would have ended my life; it was only my art that held me back.”
These poignant words are from Beethoven’s “Heiligenstadt Testament” of 1802, half suicide note and half artistic credo. They come from a period of severe crisis during the summer of that year while he was trying to desperately to recuperate in this country village outside of Vienna. But that summer provided little comfort as he became acutely aware of the extent of his deafness, an affliction that would plague him for the rest of his life. He was only 31 at the time!
What is absolutely astounding is how, during this general period, he completed his Symphony no. 2, an amazing composition combining elements of serenity–in the words of a fellow composer, “a delineation of innocent happiness hardly unclouded by a few melancholy accents”– and utter exuberance, even mischief. He even anticipates musical ideas that later re-appear more fully formed in his Ninth Symphony.
In fact, the narrative of moving from a sense of conflict to victory, from darkness to light, carries through many of Beethoven’s most famous compositions. Among them are his only opera FIDELIO, the Symphony no. 5, and his final symphonic masterpiece, the Ninth (”Choral”) and its “Ode to Joy.”
Lynne suggests: when you listen to these pieces we hope that giving you a sense of the context in which they were written will increase your appreciation of them and touch your own life in some way.
How was it possible for a brilliant young musician, threatened by loss of the very faculty that he most treasured, to transcend his fear and despair and find the energy to write a piece filled with exuberance and mischief? What does this have to teach us?
BLUES AIN’T NECESSARILY BLUE
August 7, 2007 by Josh
“My whole life has been happiness. Through all the misfortunes…I did not plan anything. Life was there for me and I accepted it.” Louis Armstrong.
The word “blues” or feeling blue is, for many people, inseparable from feeling sad and depressed. Certainly, looking at the word historically, one can trace it to Elizabethan times when it was a synonym for feeling melancholy.
But when it is applied to music, specifically, jazz, blues takes on a far richer, more nuanced meaning. In fact, surprisingly often the lyrics are about being resilient, about having the capacity to survive and move on.
When blues records were first commercially released in 1920 the collective memory of train travel was a very powerful one. Some thirty thousand miles of train track were laid after the American Civil War, north to south, and east to west. The image of the train taking one to a better place became irresistible, representing a certain independence of movement. Thus we find titles like “Goin’ Away Blues,” “Up the Way Bound,” Frisco Whistle Blues, ” and many more.
For example, in perhaps the most famous and most widely recorded blues of all time, W.C. Handy’s 1914 “St. Louis Blues,” we have the following lyrics in the opening choruses :
I hate to see de evenin’ sun go down (twice)
It makes me think I’m on my last go-round
Feeling tomorrrow like I feel today (twice)
I’ll pack my crib and make my getaway.
Sometimes, as in “Empty Bed Blues,” we have a song filled with puns about the sexual prowess of a lover, as when Bessie Smith sings:
He’s a deep sea diver with a stroke that can’t go wrong (twice)
He can touch the bottom and his breath holds out so long.
Or what about W.C. Handy’s “Memphis Blues” ?
Folks I’ve just been down, down to Memphis Town
That’s where the people smile, smile on you all the while,
Hospitality, they were good to me
I couldn’t spend a dime, and had the grandest time
I went out to dancing with a Tennessee dear
They had a fellow named Handy with a band you should hear
and while the folks generally sway, all the boys begin to play
real harmony.
I never will forget the tune they call Handy’s “Memphis Blues.
Lynne says, When you listen to blues closely, you may be surprised at how often the messages are about resilience and the pursuit of happiness.
What are your favorite blues? What do you hear in them?
WHAT DOES MUSIC HAVE TO DO WITH HAPPINESS?
July 26, 2007 by Lynne
What does music have to do with happiness?
The simple answer is that music is part of our DNA. When we don’t make music, we are incomplete and unhappy.
The more complex answer is that music has power to connect us to our deepest selves, our greatest sense of purpose, and transcendent beauty.
Music is a democratic art, available to everyone. Even tone-deaf people love music. Even deaf people can feel the vibrations of music in the reverberations under their feet.
Think of human life without music. You can’t.
The awareness of music’s–and other arts’–central importance in our lives opens up many areas of possibility that we want to explore in these pages.
For example, how do different types of music affect us and why?
How can we use music to enhance our moods in more than temporary ways?
What questions would you like us to explore for you?