Posted: May 1st, 2015

Jazz styles

Jazz styles

Your text describes jazz as American music that has a simple, repetitive, poetic-musical structure.  In order to create more interest, improvisation becomes a key element in jazz.  Using the songs from your Listening List 6 and some tunes from the external links for this week, why are the editors correct in their assessment that jazz fits the bill as a poetic-musical structure?  Use your ears to find the answer.  Listen to phrasing, lyrics, and the instrumental improvisations in these numbers to find your answers.  You do not have to reference every song that I have given you access to, but please work through at least three or four different numbers.  Please cite these specific songs as examples, and feel free to state opinions about the tunes.

Songs from the listening list 6:
1.  Scott Joplin      Maple Leaf Rag                               CD 4: 35-39

2.  Billie Holliday    Billie’s Blues                                     CD 4: 40-46

3.  Ellington           Take the A Train                               CD 4: 47-51

4.  Gershwin          Summertime                                    CD  4: 52-53

5.  Leonard Bernstein  West Side Story                               CD 4: 54-62

6.  George Crumb               Little Black Horse                            CD 4: 71-73

7.  John Cage            Sonatas and Interludes                 CD 4: 74-75

8.  Bright Sheng          China Dreams                                  CD 4: 76-81

9.  Arvo Part               Cantate Domino Canticum           CD 4:89-92

10.  John Adams         Doctor Atomic                                 CD 4: 93-95

Some tunes from the external link:

Louis Armstrong– All of Me
One Note Samba
Ella Fitzgerald scats One Note Samba
Miles Davis– Summertime
Modern Jazz Ensemble