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World War II to the Civil Rights Movement

Overview

While no one knows the exact origins of jazz music, many say it began as the result of the first known recorded jazz music was by the Original Dixieland Jass Band, a White band from New Orleans. However, by studying the musical characteristics of the song "Livery Stable Blues (1917)," it's clear they borrowed (or stole) musical techniques practiced by African Americans in New Orleans. Swing music was the first jazz style that proved commercially successful, taking jazz out of the brothels of New Orleans into ballrooms.

Be ready to:

Draw musical comparisons with regard to prominent musical characteristics and performance practices between this lessons' noted jazz styles.

Relate this lesson's noted jazz styles to contemporaneous cultural, social, and political circumstances.

Identify innovators as well as noted performers that further advanced each jazz style.

Explain how certain jazz musicians did not merely see their music as an accompaniment for dancing, but instead as reflective and intellectual music accorded as art music.

Explain why improvisation is central to jazz performance.

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References

Soul Jazz

The term "soul jazz" refers to a style of jazz that emerged in the United States in the late 1950s and early 1960s, featuring simple rhythmic grooves with a prominent backbeat, blues-based harmonic progressions, and gritty soul-inflected melodies and soloing, as will be shown in the below musical examples. Just as one can think of jazz's "hardbop" genre that emerged in the mid-1950s as a simplified and more accessible version of bebop, soul jazz might be considered an even more accessible and streamlined version of hardbop. Hardbop retained from bebop a virtuosic style of soloing featuring lengthy streams of "running eighth notes" over harmonic changes and a fast tempo. However, in soul jazz, the soloing is less emphatically virtuosic, instead favoring blues-inflected phrasing over blues-derived harmonic progressions and more moderate tempi.

Hancock in 1976

Some of the more blues and gospel-oriented examples of hardbop from the 1950s can be seen as precursors of soul jazz, particularly those by artists such as Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, Horace Silver, and Clifford Brown. In the 1960s, several jazz musicians began to specialize in the slower tempos and more gospel and blues-inflected melodies of soul jazz. One of the most notable developments in this regard was the emergence of the Hammond organ as a featured instrument in soul jazz, particularly in organ trios with guitar and drums (the organ's bass pedals replacing the traditional upright bass).

Organists such as Richard "Groove" Holmes, Jimmy McGriff, Shirley Scott, Brother Jack McDuff, and Jimmy Smith all participated in the early development of organ-centered soul jazz as one of the most popular jazz styles in the 1960s. For example, here is a live performance of Smith's 1960 piece "Midnight Special."

Jimmy Smith - Midnight Special [ 00:00-00:00 ]

Grant Green's recording "Maybe Tomorrow"♫ (1971) and Lee Morgan with his recording "The Sidewinder"♫ (1963) are also considered soul jazz pioneers. Pianist Herbie Hancock wrote and recorded two of the most influential early soul jazz songs in "Watermelon Man" ♫ (1962) and "Canteloupe Island"♫ (1964). The former is explained and performed in this live video. His recordings are representative of soul jazz for these reasons:

Simple rhythmic grooves

A prominent backbeat

The blues-based harmonic progressions (the twelve-bar progression is used here)

Gritty soul-inflected melodies and soloing

Heebie Jeebies

Say, I've got the Heebies
I mean the Jeebies
Talking about
The dance, the Heebie Jeebies
Do, because they're boys
Because it pleases me to be joy

Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy

He was a famous trumpet man from out Chicago way
He had a boogie style that no one else could play
He was the top man at his craft
But then his number came up and he was gone with the draft
He's in the army now, a blowin' reveille
He's the boogie woogie bugle boy of Company B