America’s Special Music
I have loved Jazz (and Blues) music for as long as I can remember, virtually from first exposure. It has enriched my life more than I can say. Therefore, I take particular pleasure in explaining why and how this music is so special. I have done that for years in personal presentations and I’ll do so now in occasional posts. Since I’m covering a vast topic in manageable portions, this is the first in a periodic series.
In a well written piece for the Smithsonian (https://music.si.edu/story/jazz), Dr. John Edward Hasse says, “Often acclaimed as America’s greatest art form, jazz has become accepted as a living expression of the nation’s history and culture, still youthful, difficult to define and impossible to contain, a music of beauty, sensitivity, and brilliance that has produced (and been produced by) an extraordinary progression of talented artists.”
Agreeing that it is futile to attempt a formal definition of Jazz, I think of it as America’s ultimate melting-pot art form, with something for everyone. Rather than defining Jazz, I find it more useful to explore characteristics that enhance the music’s impact and the listener’s pleasure. Let’s consider seven of them.
1. Call and Response Patterns
A leader calls out a theme and a chorus responds. The response might reflect or amplify the call, or it might diminish or contradict. The pattern may repeat or change. The tone of the exchange can be worshipful or profane, affectionate or adversarial, calm or feisty.
There is something especially satisfying about call and response. It can occur in any setting – between a preacher and the congregation; the lead singer and the backups; the reeds and the brass; or a singer and his or her guitar – or someone else’s. The back-and-forth works so well because it reflects our human need to communicate, whether the content is intellectual (thoughts/ideas) or emotional (feelings/passions).
Even amid the glories of Louis Armstrong’s Hot 5 and Hot 7 recordings, “West End Blues” is above and beyond. One of several reasons I think of it as the most important three minutes of popular music ever recorded is an extraordinary call and response passage between Armstrong’s voice and a clarinet.
Jazz is not the first music form to benefit from call and response. Indeed, Jazz inherited the technique from field hollers, work songs, spirituals, and the Blues. The trail does not stop with Jazz, either.
I remember realizing one day why “Sincerely” by the Moonglows is one of my two or three favorite Doo Wop songs: the lead guitarist sets up an exquisite call and response with the vocal. It makes a good record truly great. It’s amazing what I learn when I really listen.
2. Tension and Release
Nearly equal to call and response in impact and pervasiveness within Jazz is tension and release. There are dozens of ways to create tension in the music and equal numbers of ways to satisfactorily resolve it. This is another remarkably effective way to engage the listener emotionally.
Devices utilized to achieve tension and release include: gradual increases or decreases in tempo, volume, or intensity; repetition; contrast; sudden changes in rhythm, key, or harmonic approach; dissonance; and almost anything unexpected that nevertheless works.
I love to play Duke Ellington’s masterpiece “Ko-Ko” in presentations not only for how many of the above techniques are used, but how well. The effectiveness of the dissonance is mind boggling, and it was recorded on May 6, 1940. Yes, 1940.
3. Rhythmically Compelling
It is generally difficult to listen to great Jazz without moving some part of your body. During the big band era of Jazz, so-called Swing was the most popular dance music in the world. Duke Ellington probably said it best with a song title: “It Don’t Mean a Thing If it Ain’t Got That Swing”.
So, why not just say “It’s got to swing” rather than “Jazz tends to be rhythmically compelling”? Because the pulse of the music can be thrilling even when it’s not the sort that lends itself to finger-snapping on that swinging 4/4 beat. (Though, that is exactly what happens when the music swings that way.)
An example is poly-rhythmic drumming. The great drummers who emerged during bebop and hard bop were masters in sustaining multiple rhythms simultaneously. It’s great fun trying to count how many different rhythms Art Blakey plays at once in his classic drum solos (as in “Free For All” on Blue Note or “I Mean You” with Thelonious Monk on Atlantic).
There are examples even post-bop, when the lines delineating measures were fading. Few sounds are more compelling than drummer Elvin Jones’s “circular rhythms”. He accents at the perfect moment given what the soloist is doing, rather than at predetermined intervals. So the listener does not tap every four beats, but sways with the music’s energy as one might with the ocean’s waves.
4. Instrument as Voice and Voice as Instrument
Great Jazz players consider the instruments they play extensions of their voices. There are many examples, of course. Eric Dolphy seemed particularly intent on “speaking” through his instruments, especially the bass clarinet. One of John Coltrane’s countless contributions to the music was to extend the “vocabulary” and the “syntax” available on the tenor and soprano saxophones.
Similarly, great Jazz singers consider their voices musical instruments. Horn players loved Sarah Vaughan, considering her one of their own. It’s not just the scat singing, by the way, although scatting (in which one sings wordless notes where words would be expected) has made the point most directly ever since Louis Armstrong’s “Heebie Jeebies”.
Then there is scat’s mirror image, vocalese, in which the vocalist inserts words while singing famous instrumental solos. Leading proponents include Eddie Jefferson, King Pleasure, and Lambert Hendricks and Ross.
Thus, the lines between the vocal and the instrumental blur in Jazz. Categorization is less important than effectiveness when it comes to communicating through music.
Whether singing or playing, though, having your own “voice” is critical to attaining greatness. One does not confuse other singers with Sarah, Ella Fitzgerald, Joe Williams, or Betty Carter. Charlie Parker and John Coltrane have innumerable followers and imitators; yet, it is almost impossible to mistake anyone for them after a few notes.
5. Improvisation
Composition and arrangement are vital to Jazz, and the genre has been blessed with many who are truly great at both. To this day, if one were to ask leading music critics from all fields to name America’s greatest composer, I believe Duke Ellington would win that poll.
Nevertheless, rare is the major work of Jazz in which improvisation is not an essential element. Improvisation is the lifeblood of Jazz; it is also the most misunderstood feature of the music. A friend, explaining why he does not like Jazz, did me the favor of articulating the perception: “Why would I want to listen to a group playing around with songs? Practice on your time, get it down pat, and let me know when you’re ready for me to listen.”
Improvisation is not a bunch of musicians with no familiarity with the material or each other just playing and hoping something good emerges, however. It is an approach that places the onus for developing all the best ideas inherent in a piece on the musicians as well as the composer. The performer has an opportunity, in fact a responsibility, to enhance the material provided. The player is creating, composing, on the spot. This requires tremendous technical skill (see Virtuosity, below), a nimble and fertile mind, and vast knowledge of the resources available for reference while improvising.
Astounding listening skills are also needed for artists improvising in a setting other than solo performance.
Legit Jazz musicians are almost always good at this, and often great. The potential for something special, profound even, always exists. When such magic happens, it’s unforgettable. Anyone who’s followed the music for a while has such stories to tell.
If the idea of composing on the spot seems puzzling, so (to a Jazz fan) does the notion of going to a concert hoping that an artist recreates a recent album without making “mistakes”. If that’s the goal, the best that can happen, why not listen to the beloved album in the comfort of one’s home and save the fortune it costs to attend a pop star’s concert?
6. Virtuosity
It is hard not to notice how good Jazz musicians generally are, technically, on their instruments. This is another area that is not as well understood as it could be, however. It is certainly true that all the greats have spent countless hours “wood shedding” (practicing) to attain their “chops” (skills/facility on their instruments). John Coltrane was famous among his peers for practicing incessantly, even between sets at gigs, and for falling asleep late at night with a sax on his chest.
It must be tempting after working so hard to get that good to simply show off with a blizzard of notes at every opportunity. While something like that can appear to be happening at times in a jam session, especially when it has turned into a can-you-top-this cutting session, virtuosity alone is never enough.
Virtuosity or near virtuosity, then, is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition of succeeding in Jazz. When we say someone “can play“, skill is a part of that, to be sure, but there is more.
Virtuosity is a means, not an end. The end sought is the creation of great music. (See Improvisation, above.) I have seen no better explanation of this than a quote from bassist/composer/arranger Charles Mingus: “Once you achieve technical facility, you’re either a musician or you’re not. You’re either a creative person or a stenographer.” He wasn’t kidding, by the way. Nicely playing cliches in the solos allotted was the surest way to get oneself fired by Mingus. This could occur not only in mid-concert, but in mid-solo.
One last thought: Virtuosity comes in many shapes, sizes, and flavors. When a true innovator comes along, critics and musicians alike can look foolish if they pounce before understanding. When Thelonious Monk first appeared on the scene, more than a few proclaimed that he couldn’t play. All Monk did was change our concepts of space and time in music. His oeuvre places him in the first rank of American composers, and the leading competition promoting excellence in playing for young musicians is named after him.
7. The Cry of the Blues
The last characteristic is hard to describe or even name. I know it when I hear it. Further, I miss it when it’s not there. I have wrestled with what to call it. Whether I read it some where, had it suggested to me in conversation, or simply came up with it, I have settled on the Cry of the Blues. (If appropriate, I’ll attribute in a future post.)
It’s a sound and a feeling, more than the song form known as the Blues with its typical characteristics (12 bar, AAB, etc.). Most of the material sung by Billie Holliday over the years was not, technically, the Blues, but our ears do not deceive us. Every note, every syllable, she ever sang was the essence of the Blues.
When the material being played or sung is felt and meant by the artists, a part of who and what they are, the music is more likely to be felt by, and mean something to, the listener. Hopes and dreams, frustrations and loss, triumphs and setbacks: it’s all in there. It’s the stuff of life.
Coda
These essential characteristics of Jazz came mostly or entirely from the cultures of Africa, especially West Africa. We know how they got here. Out of the suffering of a people emerged this magnificent art form. Its riches are always available for the taking – not just in April (Jazz Appreciation Month). And they deserve to be recognized and celebrated all the time – not just in February (Black History Month).
Ken Bossong
© 2019 Kenneth J. Bossong