The Complete Idiot's Guide to Jazz [antikvár]

ForewordJazz has been called "America's classical music." And, as any jazz fan can tell you, your enjoyment of the music is greatly enhanced when you know something about it.It's been a hundred years since Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag" first appearedand sold a million copies in sheet musicchanging American music forever. The "Maple Leaf Rag" is in the form of a four-part march, one of the most popular musical styles of the day. But there's a difference between John Philip Sousa and Scott Joplin's works-syncopation. The oom-pah emphasis of the march is still there, but the melody dances around it, like a slightly drunken soldier. They called the result "ragtime," which in turn gave birth to something called "jazz."Dr. Alan Axelrod takes you through this history step-by-step, beginning with the roots of jazz in African and African-American traditional music. Then, you'll swing through New Orleans, where Buddy Bolden and Joseph "King" Oliver created the first real jazz bands. You'll meet the young guns who spread the message, including trombonist Kid Ory, the Dodds brothers (clarinetist johnny and his younger brother, nicknamed Baby, who played the drums), and, of course, a young orphan named Louis Armstrong.Then hop a freight and follow the thousands of immigrants to Chicago, where you'll encounter the first great bands, black and whiteensembles led by Oliver and Armstrong, and the first band to make a recording, the all-white Original Dixieland Jass Band. You'll also meet the first great jazz fans, who adopted the music themselvesa group of college and high-school age Midwesterners led by a cornet player with a sound that was clearer than a bell: Leon "Bix" Beiderbecke.In the "Big-Band Era," from the mid-'30s through the mid-'40s, jazz became America's most popular music. Zoot suits, cool cats, crazy gals, jitterbugging to the beatit's all here, along with a discussion of the legendary bands of Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, and Count Basie.And just when you think you've got the beatit changes! After World War II, a group of young outlaws decided that jazz had become too popular, and lost its original direction as an improvised, creative music. Playing after hours in small Harlem clubs like Minton's, musicians like Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, and Charlie Parker created a high-paced, angular, intense music that perfectly suited the times. As Gillespie said, the question was, "To be or not to bop"and, although the old guard resisted, bebop soon went downtown to become the sound of the day.The generation that wanted to "do their own thing" added another dimension to jazz in the 1960stotal freedom. Ornette Coleman ushered in "free jazz," where each musician could improvise without the constraints of melody, rhythm, or harmony and jazz stretched to its ultimate limits. While players like John Coltrane and Sun Ra explored the outer limits of the musical universe, many listeners were left scratching their heads, wondering if jazz would ever return to earth.