The year 1917 became a turning point in the world and to some extent epoch-making. If for the Russian Empire it was marked by revolutionary events, then in France a bacteriophage was discovered by Felix d'Herellle, and in New York, the first revolutionary jazz record was recorded in 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 soon spread to prestigious and expensive restaurants. In a word, New Orleans jazz, emerging from the lower classes, subjugated high society and gradually began to be considered the music of the elite. However, it is considered to this day.
What is jazz?
This musical genre was formed on the basis of the tunes of black slaves, which were forcibly brought to the American continent to serve white planters. Therefore, for a long time jazz music was considered music of the lower race. Even after it gained popularity in white American society, in Nazi Germany, for example, it was banned because it was considered a conductor of Negro-Jewish dissonant cacophony. In the USSR, it was also banned for a long time, since the "top" believed that it was an apologist for the image of bourgeois life, as well as an agent-conductor of imperialism.
Features
Traditional jazz can be called revolutionary music with all responsibility, since this style is a kind of “fighter”. No musical genre has seen so many obstacles and barriers in the way of its formation. Jazz performers fought constantly for their right to exist, for their place under the sun. At first, they did not have the opportunity to speak to wide audiences, they were not provided with large concert venues and stadiums. However, this is one, and maybe more pluses. There are no random people among fans of this music. True lovers accepted jazz as a way of thinking and life in general. Jazz is improvisation, it is freedom! A person with a limited worldview, with standard ideas about life, cannot understand what New Orleans jazz is. Its features consist precisely in the fact that it has its own specific listener. They are always bright, intelligent and spiritually rich people who value quality and semantic music.
New Orleans Jazz: A Story
This musical style originated at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, as a result of the fusion of African and European music. The slaves who were brought to the American continent from Africa, missionary priests converted to Christianity, taught them to sing church hymns. And they mixed them with their religious songs, Spirituals. This musical cocktail also featured blues motifs that were widespread in all parts of the New World. In addition to drums, wind instruments and home-made accordions were also used for accompaniment. This music gradually won the sympathy of the white musicians of New Orleans, and as a result of all this, as already noted, in 1917 the first record was made with music in the style of jazz.
The Age of Jazz
This period in the history of music was called the 20s of the 20th century. Even the writers of this period today we call writers in the style of "New Orleans jazz." And these primarily include Francis Scott Fitzgerald. Nevertheless, during this period, the capital of jazz was considered not New Orleans, 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 its main listeners were gangsters and mafiosi who liked to spend evenings in restaurants. In many of them, scenes and orchestral pits began to appear, in which a jazz band consisting of a keyboard player, drummer, wind musicians and vocalists was arranged. Most of them played the 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 spectators too.
New Orleans Jazz Performers
There was a dark-skinned boy in Kansas named Charlie Parker. In the evenings, he liked to walk at the open windows of restaurants and eateries and listened to the music coming from them. Then he whistled all day under his nose and hummed his favorite tunes. Over the years, it was he who became the reformer of jazz music. Meanwhile, a great black musician appeared on the east coast - a trumpeter, keyboard player and vocalist. His name was Louis Armstrong. He had an unusual timbre of voice, besides he accompanied himself to himself. He constantly toured between Chicago and New York and considered himself the successor to the great New Orleans trumpeter King Oliver. Soon, another jazzman from the cradle of the genre, Jelly Roll Morton, arrived in The Big Apple. He masterfully played the piano, 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, a wonderful orchestra was created by Fletcher Henderson. Following this, another was formed, which was no less popular. Its leader was the young pianist Duke Ellington. He began to call his orchestra a big band.
30th
In the thirties, New Orleans jazz was transformed into a new musical style - swing. And he began to be performed by big bands, among which the Duke Ellinton Orchestra was especially notable. This musical group consisted of virtuoso musicians - masters of improvisation. Each concert was not like the next. Here were complex scores, roll calls, rhythmic phrases, repetitions, etc. A new position appeared in the orchestras - an arranger who wrote orchestrations, which became the key to the success of the whole big band. However, the main emphasis was still placed on the improviser, which could be a keyboard player, saxophonist, and trumpeter. The only thing he had to observe a clear number of "squares". The composition of the Duke Ellington Orchestra included such musicians as Babber Miley, Kuti Williams, Rex Stewart, Ben Webster, clarinet player Barney Bigard and others. Nevertheless, the "most swinging in the world" rhythm section was pianist Basie, drummer Joe Jones, double bass player Walter Paige and guitarist Freddy Green.
The phenomenon of "crystal sound"
Towards the 1940s, the Glenn Miller Orchestra became popular among fans of jazz music . Connoisseurs immediately noticed a certain feature that distinguished this big band from others. In his works some characteristic “crystal sound” was heard, 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 black music.
Decline in interest
With the outbreak of World War II, instead of serious music, "entertainment" began to flourish. This meant that the swing era had faded. The jazz musicians became discouraged, it seemed to them that they had lost their positions forever and that their music would never be as successful as in the dashing 30s. However, they were mistaken, as jazz lovers were and are both at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st centuries. True, this style today is not widespread, but is the music of the elite around the world.