Jazz & Blues on Music Theory Print

Acid house

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

Acid house’s minimalist sound combined house music’s ubiquitous programmed four-on-the-floor 4/4 beat with the electronic squelch sound produced by the Roland TB-303 electronic synthesizer-sequencer. The sound is commonly produced by raising the filter resonance and lowering the cutoff frequency of the synthesizer, along with programming the 303’s accent, slide, and octave parameters, to create variation in otherwise simple bass patterns. “Exploration of texture” is preferred over melody; “a refusal of the metaphysical priorities of western music discourse”. Other elements, such as synthetic strings and stabs, were usually minimal. Sometimes tracks were instrumentals, such as Phuture’s “Acid Tracks”, or contained full vocal performances, such as DJ Pierre’s Pfantasy Club’s “Fantasy Girl”, while others were essentially instrumentals complemented by the odd spoken word “drop-in”, such as Phuture’s “Slam”.

Acid jazz

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

The genre’s name was likely coined by Gilles Peterson, and the record label with the name was started by Chris Bangs, Eddie Piller, and Gilles. However, acid jazz is not an electronic music genre and has no relationship with the music genres named “acid” (acid house, acid trance, acid techno, etc.), which are heavily based on the “acid-like” sound, produced by the Roland TB-303 electronic music synthesizer. DJs Femi Williams and Marco Nelson from Young Disciples claimed in a recently unearthed 1992 TV interview that they coined the term because they had a club with acid playing downstairs and jazz upstairs, so they thought it would be amusing to name the upstairs room “The Acid Jazz Room”. The veracity of this claim predating Peterson’s is dubious, as the interview in question took place five years after the Acid Jazz label was created, and Young Disciples were first active three years after the formation of the label.

African blues

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Notable artists#

Ali Farka Toure
Boubacar Traoré
Ramon Goose
Corey Harris
Vieux Farka Toure
Ry Cooder
Taj Mahal
Robert Plant
Rokia Traore
Baaba Maal
Nuru Kane
Justin Adams

External links#

Article on African Blues

Afro-Cuban jazz

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

“Spanish tinge”—the Cuban influence in early jazz#

Although clave-based Afro-Cuban jazz did not appear until the mid-20th century, the Cuban influence was present at the birth of jazz. African-American music began incorporating Afro-Cuban musical motifs in the 19th century when the habanera gained international popularity. The habanera was the first written music to be rhythmically based on an African motif. The habanera rhythm (also known as “congo” can be thought of as a combination of tresillo and the backbeat. Musicians from Havana and New Orleans took the twice-daily ferry between both cities to perform, and the habanera took root. John Storm Roberts states that the musical genre habanera “reached the U.S. 20 years before the first rag was published”. For more than a quarter-century in which the cakewalk, ragtime, and jazz were forming, the habanera was a consistent part of African-American popular music. “St. Louis Blues” (1914) by W. C. Handy has a habanera/tresillo bass line. The first measures are shown below. Handy noted a reaction to the habanera rhythm included in Will H. Tyler’s “Maori”: “I observed that there was a sudden, proud and graceful reaction to the rhythm…White dancers, as I had observed them, took the number in stride. I began to suspect that there was something Negroid in that beat.” After noting a similar reaction to the same rhythm in “La Paloma”, Handy included this rhythm in his “St. Louis Blues,” the instrumental copy of “Memphis Blues,” the chorus of “Beale Street Blues,” and other compositions." Jelly Roll Morton considered the tresillo/habanera (which he called the Spanish tinge) to be an essential ingredient of jazz. Morton stated, “Now in one of my earliest tunes, ‘New Orleans Blues’, you can notice the Spanish tinge. In fact, if you can’t manage to put tinges of Spanish in your tunes, you will never be able to get the right seasoning, I call it, for jazz—Morton (1938: Library of Congress Recording).” An excerpt of “New Orleans Blues” is shown below. In the excerpt, the left hand plays the tresillo rhythm, while the right hand plays variations on cinquillo. Although the origin of jazz syncopation may never be known, there’s evidence that the habanera/tresillo existed at its conception. Buddy Bolden, the first known jazz musician, is credited with creating the big four, a habanera-based pattern. The big four (below) was the first syncopated bass drum pattern to deviate from the standard on-the-beat march. As the example below shows, the second half of the big four pattern is the habanera rhythm. In Early Jazz: Its Roots and Musical Development, Gunther Schuller states, The Cuban influence is evident in many pre-1940s jazz tunes, but rhythmically they are all based on single-celled motifs such as tresillo, and do not contain an overt two-celled, clave-based structure. “Caravan”, written by Juan Tizol and first performed in 1936, is an example of an early pre-Latin jazz composition. It is not clave-based. On the other hand, jazzy renditions of Don Azpiazú’s “The Peanut Vendor” (“El manicero”) by Louis Armstrong (1930), Duke Ellington (1931), and Stan Kenton (1948), are all firmly in-clave since the 2-3 guajeo provides the primary counterpoint to the melody throughout the entire song.

Afro-punk

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The term originated from the 2003 documentary Afro-Punk directed by James Spooner and Matthew Morgan. But, Afro-punk music has been around since the mid-70s with Pure Hell. Pure Hell was the first all-black punk band that originated in Philadelphia, PA. In addition, black people have been intertwined in the punk scene since its birth in the 1970s, with black-led bands such as X Ray Spex having connections and associations with key figures in the scene such as Johnny Rotten. During the late 90s, a series of feminist black punk concerts, under the moniker “Sista Grrrl Riots”, were performed in response to the lack of intersectionality found in the punk Riot Grrrl subculture. In the early 21st century, Afro-punks made up a minority in the North American punk scene. Notable bands that can be linked to the Afro-punk community include: Death, Pure Hell, Bad Brains, Suicidal Tendencies, Dead Kennedys, Fishbone, Wesley Willis Fiasco, Suffrajett, The Templars, Unlocking the Truth, Rough Francis, MAAFA, Rebelmatic, WinterWolf, Meet Me at the Altar and The Paradox. In the United Kingdom, influential black musicians associated with the late 1970s punk scene included Poly Styrene of X-Ray Spex, Don Letts, and Basement 5. Afro-punk has become a movement, comparable to the early hip-hop movement of the 1980s. The Afropunk Music Festival was founded in 2005 by James Spooner and Matthew Morgan.

Afro-soul

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Notable musicians#

Brymo, Nigerian singer
Miriam Makeba, a Grammy Award-winning South African singer and civil rights activist
Zahara, South African singer
Efya, Ghanaian singer
Amanda Black, multi award-winning songstress from South Africa
Simphiwe Dana, praised as “the best thing to happen to Afro-soul music since Miriam Makeba”
Libianca, Cameroonian-American singer
Lira (singer)
Muma Gee, Nigerian singer
Scelo Gowane, South African singer
Siphokazi, a South African artist
Les Nubians, the French born sisters who are Afropean music singers
The Budos Band
K’naan
Ginger Johnson
Doug Kazé, Nigerian singer-songwriter
Manu Dibango, from Cameroon
Nomfusi, South African artist
Lekan Babalola
Grace Matata, Tanzanian singer
Kumbie, Zimbabwean singer-songwriter
Joe Nina, South Africa singer-Songwriter
Jabulile Majola, South African singer-songwriter

Alternative R&B

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

“Alternative R&B” was once used by the music industry during the late 1990s to market neo soul artists, such as D’Angelo, Erykah Badu, and Maxwell. There has been a variety of discussion about the differing genre terms, with several critics describing the music under the broad category of “alternative R&B” or “indie R&B”. The term “hipster R&B” has been commonly used, as has the term “PBR&B”—a combination of “PBR” (the abbreviation for Pabst Blue Ribbon, a beer most recently associated with the hipster subculture) Three years later, amazed and distressed at how far the term—meant as a joke—had traveled, Harvey wrote an extensive essay about it for Pitchfork. Slate suggests the name “R-Neg-B”, as a reference to “negging”. The genre has sometimes been called “noir&B”. However, the terms are often criticized for “pigeonholing” artists into hipster subculture and being used in a derisive manner.

Anatolian blues

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

After the 1970s, blues and jazz music became more common and have been started to use with the traditional folk music, Türküs, this has led to the Anatolian blues genre to born in Turkey.

Musicians and musical groups#

Yavuz Çetin
Can Gox
Murat Ertel
Asım Can Gündüz
Evrencan Gündüz ;Groups
Blue Blues Band
Gevende
Eis Ten Polin
Bangkok B.B.
Better Blues Band
Bluesaint Blues Band
Blues-Mobil
Bluestaff
Fötr Blues Band
Kingus Blues Band
Lackawanna Soul & Blues Band
Tarık Değirmenci Blues Band
Sahte Rakı Blues Band
Yiğitcan Sağır Trio

Avant-funk

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

Artists described as “avant-funk” or “mutant disco” have blended elements from styles such as funk, punk, disco, freeform jazz and dub. Reynolds described avant-funk as “difficult dance music” and a kind of psychedelia in which “oblivion was to be attained not through rising above the body, rather through immersion in the physical, self loss through animalism.”

History#

Early acts who have retrospectively been described with the term include German krautrock band Can, American funk artists Sly Stone and George Clinton, and jazz trumpeter Miles Davis. Herbie Hancock’s 1973 album Sextant was called an “uncompromising avant-funk masterpiece” by Paste. Jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman led the avant-funk band Prime Time in the 1970s and 1980s. Guitarist James “Blood” Ulmer, who performed with Coleman in the 1970s, was described by The New Yorker as “one of avant-funk’s masters.” According to Reynolds, a pioneering wave of avant-funk artists came in the late 1970s, when post-punk artists (including A Certain Ratio, the Pop Group, Gang of Four, Bush Tetras, Defunkt, Public Image Ltd, Liquid Liquid, and James Chance, as well as Arthur Russell, Cabaret Voltaire, Talking Heads, DAF, and 23 Skidoo) embraced black dance music styles such as funk and disco. Reynolds noted these artists’ preoccupations with issues such as alienation, repression and the technocracy of Western modernity. The artists of the late 1970s New York no wave scene, including James Chance, explored avant-funk influenced by Ornette Coleman. The 1981 album My Life in the Bush of Ghosts by Brian Eno and David Byrne was described as a masterpiece of avant-funk by Paste. The New York label ZE Records released the influential compilation Mutant Disco: A Subtle Discolation of the Norm in 1981, coining a new label for this style of hybridized dance music blending punk and disco. Later groups such as Skinny Puppy, Chakk, and 400 Blows represented later waves of the style. By the mid-1980s, avant-funk had dissipated as white alternative groups turned away from the dancefloor.

Avant-garde jazz

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

1950s#

While some avant-garde jazz concepts were originally developed in the late 1940s (such as the collective free improvisation on Lennie Tristano’s 1949 works of “Intuition” and “Digression”), the advent of avant-garde jazz (synonymous with free jazz at the time) is usually considered to be sometime in the mid- to late 1950s. As a genre, avant-garde jazz was founded among a group of improvisors who rejected the conventions of bebop and post bop in an effort to blur the division between the written and the spontaneous aspects of these genres. In addition to continuing the tradition of experimentation within jazz (a phenomenon evidenced by the development of earlier offshoots of bebop, such as cool jazz, modal jazz, and hard bop), jazz artists would also begin incorporating modernist ideas, such as atonality and serialism. With the release of The Shape of Jazz to Come in 1959, saxophonist Ornette Coleman paved the way for free (and avant-garde) jazz.

Barbershop music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Ringing chords#

The defining characteristic of the barbershop style is the ringing chord, one in which certain overtones of the four voices reinforce each other, sometimes so strongly that the overtone is perceived by the listener as a distinct tone, even though none of the voices are perceived as singing that tone. This effect occurs when the chord, as voiced, contains intervals which have strongly reinforcing overtones (fifths and octaves, for example) that fall in the audible range; and when the chord is sung in perfect just tuning without excessive vibrato. Both of these characteristics are important in many styles of singing, but in barbershop there is an extreme emphasis on them that tends to override other musical values. For example, favored chords in the jazz style are characterized by intervals which do not audibly ring, such as diminished or augmented fifths. For another example, barbershop music is always a cappella, because the presence of fixed-pitch instruments (tuned to equal-temperament rather than just temperament), which is so highly prized in other choral styles, makes perfect just tuning of chords impossible. The physics and psychophysics of the effect are fairly well understood; it occurs when the upper harmonics in the individual voice notes, and the sum and difference frequencies resulting from nonlinear combinations within the ear, reinforce each other at a particular frequency, strengthening it so that it stands out separately above the blended sound. The effect is audible only on certain kinds of chords, and only when all voices are equally rich in harmonics and justly tuned and balanced. It is not heard in chords sounded on modern keyboard instruments, due to the slight tuning imperfection of the equal-tempered scale. Gage Averill writes that “Barbershoppers have become partisans of this acoustic phenomenon” and that “the more experienced singers of the barbershop revival (at least after 1938) have self-consciously tuned their dominant seventh and tonic chords in just intonation to maximize the overlap of common overtones.” However, “In practice, it seems that most leads rely on an approximation of an equal-tempered scale for the melody, to which the other voices adjust vertically in just intonation.” What is prized is not so much the “overtone” itself, but a unique sound whose achievement is most easily recognized by the presence of the “overtone”. The precise synchrony of the waveforms of the four voices simultaneously creates the perception of a “fifth voice” while at the same time melding the four voices into a unified sound. The ringing chord is qualitatively different in sound from an ordinary musical chord e.g. as sounded on a tempered-scale keyboard instrument. Most elements of the “revivalist” style are related to the desire to produce these ringing chords. Performance is a cappella to prevent the distracting introduction of equal-tempered intonation, and because listening to anything but the other three voices interferes with a performer’s ability to tune with the precision required. Barbershop arrangements stress chords and chord progressions that favor “ringing”, at the expense of suspended and diminished chords and other harmonic vocabulary of the ragtime and jazz forms. The dominant seventh-type chord is so important to barbershop harmony that it is called the “barbershop seventh”. BHS arrangers believe that a song should contain dominant seventh chords anywhere from 35 to 60 percent of the time (measured as a percentage of the duration of the song rather than a percentage of the chords present) to sound “barbershop”. Historically barbershoppers may have used the word “minor chord” in a way that is confusing to those with musical training. Averill suggests that it was “a shorthand for chord types other than major triads”, and says that the use of the word for “dominant seventh-type chords and diminished chords” was common in the late nineteenth century. A 1910 song called “Play That Barber Shop Chord” (often cited as an early example of “barbershop” in reference to music) contains the lines: ‘Cause Mister when you start that minor part I feel your fingers slipping and a grasping at my heart, Oh Lord play that Barber shop chord! Averill notes the hints of rapture, “quasi-religion” and erotic passion in the language used by barbershoppers to describe the emotional effect. He quotes Jim Ewin as reporting “a tingling of the spine, the raising of the hairs on the back of the neck, the spontaneous arrival of goose flesh on the forearm … the fifth note has almost mysterious propensities. It’s the consummation devoutly wished by those of us who love Barbershop harmony. If you ask us to explain why we love it so, we are hard put to answer; that’s where our faith takes over.” Averill notes too the use of the language of addiction, “there’s this great big chord that gets people hooked.” An early manual was entitled “A Handbook for Adeline Addicts”. He notes too that “barbershoppers almost never speak of ‘singing’ a chord, but almost always draw on a discourse of physical work and exertion; thus, they ‘hit’, ‘chop’, ‘ring’, ‘crack’, ‘swipe’, and ‘bust.’ Vocal harmony is interpreted as an embodied musicking. Barbershoppers never lose sight (or sound) of its physicality.”

Bebop

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

The term “bebop” is derived from nonsense syllables (vocables) used in scat singing; the first known example of “bebop” being used was in McKinney’s Cotton Pickers’ “Four or Five Times”, recorded in 1928. It appears again in a 1936 recording of “I’se a Muggin’” by Jack Teagarden. Some researchers speculate that it was a term used by Charlie Christian because it sounded like something he hummed along with his playing. Dizzy Gillespie stated that the audiences coined the name after hearing him scat the then-nameless compositions to his players and the press ultimately picked it up, using it as an official term: “People, when they’d wanna ask for those numbers and didn’t know the name, would ask for bebop.” Another theory is that it derives from the cry of “Arriba! Arriba!” used by Latin American bandleaders of the period to encourage their bands. At times, the terms “bebop” and “rebop” were used interchangeably. (Although rebop differed from bebop with its more impressionist use of discordant chords.) By 1945, the use of “bebop”/“rebop” as nonsense syllables was widespread in R&B music, for instance Lionel Hampton’s “Hey! Ba-Ba-Re-Bop”. The bebop musician or bopper became a stock character in jokes of the 1950s, overlapping with the beatnik.

Black Gospel music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background: 18th century–late 19th century#

Black gospel music has roots in the Black oral tradition—the passing down of history via the spoken word rather than in writing. Griots performed in West Africa. In colonial America, where enslaved Africans were prevented from being formally educated, oral and otherwise non-written communication became the method not only for cultural patrimony, but for virtually all communication. Some of this communication (including work songs sung in the fields) was used to organize, including plans for retaliation against their enslavers and for escape. This eventually led to the banning of drums in many parts of colonial America, as well as other instruments related to West African patrimony. As such, most Black churches relied on hand- clapping and foot-stomping as rhythmic accompaniment. West African dance and ring shout traditions developed among early Black Christians into shouting, in which fast-paced gospel music is accompanied by equally rapid (often frenzied) dancing. (In its modern form, this is also known as a “praise break”.) This, along with the repetition and “call and response” elements familiar to West African music, helped to engender an ecstatic, trance-like state and to strengthen communal bonds. These elements also enabled illiterate members the opportunity to participate. Useful in the fields and in the church house, Negro spirituals (and the traditions associated with them) were the earliest form of Black gospel. In 1867, a compendium of slave songs titled Slaves Songs of the United States was issued by a group of Northern abolitionists. It is also the first such collection of African-American music of any kind, and included a number of early Black gospel songs, including “Down in the River to Pray” (then titled “The Good Old Way”). In 1871, the Fisk Jubilee Singers were formed, an a-cappella Black gospel ensemble formed to fundraise for Fisk University, an HBCU in Nashville.

Blue-eyed soul

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

1960s#

Georgie Woods, a Philadelphia radio DJ, is thought to have coined the term “blue-eyed soul” in 1964, initially to describe the Righteous Brothers, then white artists in general who received airplay on rhythm and blues radio stations. The Righteous Brothers in turn named their 1964 LP Some Blue-Eyed Soul. According to Bill Medley of the Righteous Brothers, R&B radio stations who played their songs were surprised to find them to be white when they turned up for interviews, and one DJ in Philadelphia (unnamed by Medley but probably Georgie Woods) started saying “Here’s my blue-eyed soul brothers”, and it became a code to signal to the audience that they were white singers. The popularity of the Righteous Brothers who had a hit with “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’” is thought to have started the trend of R&B radio stations to play songs by white artists in the mid-1960s, a more integrative approach that was then popular with their audience. The term blue-eyed soul was then applied to such artists as Sonny & Cher, Tom Jones, Barry McGuire, and Roy Head. White musicians playing R&B music, however, began before the term blue-eyed soul was coined. For instance, in the early 1960s, one of the rare female blue-eyed soul singers was Timi Yuro, whose vocal delivery and repertoire were influenced by African-American singers such as Dinah Washington. Lonnie Mack’s 1963 gospel-infused vocals earned him widespread critical acclaim as a blue-eyed soul singer. Len Barry, former lead singer on the Dovells, recorded blue-eyed soul hits in 1965 and 1966 for Decca Records in the US and released by Brunswick Records: “1-2-3”, “Like a Baby”, and “I Struck It Rich”, a song he wrote with Leon Huff of the Philadelphia International Records producers, Gamble and Huff. Groups such as the Rascals had soul-tinged pop songs, but it was the soulful vocals of Felix Cavaliere that gave them the blue-eyed soul sound. By the mid-1960s, British singers Dusty Springfield, Eric Burdon, and Tom Jones had become leading vocal stars of the emerging style. Other notable UK exponents of blue-eyed soul included the Spencer Davis Group (featuring Steve Winwood), Van Morrison, and archetypal mod band the Small Faces, whose sound was heavily influenced by the Stax label’s house band Booker T. & the M.G.’s. Blonde, blue-eyed soul singer Chris Clark became the first white singer to have an R&B hit with “Love’s Gone Bad” with Motown Records in 1966. In 1969, Kiki Dee became the first British artist to sign and record with Motown. Some British rock groups of the 1960s – such as the Spencer Davis Group, the Rolling Stones (“My Girl”), and the Who (“Heat Wave”) – covered Motown and rhythm and blues tracks. In 1967, Jerry Lee Lewis, whose latter days at Sun Records (1961–63) had been characterized by R&B covers, recorded an album for Smash entitled Soul My Way. In the late 1960s, Elvis Presley began embracing soul music in his recordings, and released From Elvis in Memphis in 1969, an album of blue-eyed soul, southern soul and country soul. Delaney and Bonnie (Bramlett) produced the blue-eyed soul album Home on Stax in 1969. Michael Sembello, who left home at age 17 to tour with Stevie Wonder, wrote and performed on numerous blue-eyed soul hits for Wonder, Brian McKnight, David Sanborn, Bill Champlin, and Bobby Caldwell. Todd Rundgren began his career in Woody’s Truck Stop, a group based on the model of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. After splitting from Big Brother and the Holding Company, Janis Joplin formed a new backup group, the Kozmic Blues Band, composed of session musicians like keyboardist Stephen Ryder and saxophonist Cornelius “Snooky” Flowers, as well as former Big Brother and the Holding Company guitarist Sam Andrew and future Full Tilt Boogie Band bassist Brad Campbell. The band was influenced by the Stax-Volt rhythm and blues (R&B) and soul bands of the 1960s, as exemplified by Otis Redding and the Bar-Kays. Joe Cocker, who sang soul-oriented covers of songs such as “With a Little Help from My Friends”, was said by the Chicago Sun Times to have “opened the door for all blue-eyed soul singers after him”.

Bluegrass music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Instrumentation#

The violin (also known as the fiddle), five-string banjo, guitar, mandolin, and upright bass (string bass) are often joined by the resonator guitar (also referred to as a Dobro) and (occasionally) harmonica or Jew’s harp. This instrumentation originated in rural dance bands and is the basis on which the earliest bluegrass bands were formed. The fiddle, made by Italians and first used in sixteenth century Europe, was one of the first instruments to be brought into America. It became popular due to its small size and versatility. They began receiving attention from white Americans when minstrel shows incorporated the banjo as part of their acts. The “clawhammer”, or two finger style playing, was popular before the Civil War. Now, however, banjo players use mainly the three-finger picking style made popular by banjoists such as Earl Scruggs. Meanwhile, a polyphonic pair of instruments playing in conversation, double banjos or twin banjos, is a bluegrass tradition upheld by artists like Tony Trischka. Guitars are used primarily for rhythmic purposes. Other instruments may provide a solo on top of the guitar during breaks, guitarists may also provide these solos on occasion. The instrument originates from eighteenth century Spain, but there were no American-made models until the C.F. Martin Company started to manufacture them in the 1830s. The guitar is now most commonly played with a style referred to as flatpicking, unlike the style of early bluegrass guitarists such as Lester Flatt, who used a thumb pick and finger pick. Bassists almost always play pizzicato, occasionally adopting the “slap-style” to accentuate the beat. A bluegrass bass line is generally a rhythmic alternation between the root and fifth of each chord, with occasional walking bass excursions. Instrumentation has been a continuing topic of debate. Traditional bluegrass performers believe the “correct” instrumentation is that used by Bill Monroe’s band, the Blue Grass Boys (guitar, mandolin, fiddle, banjo, and bass). Departures from the traditional instrumentation have included dobro, accordion, harmonica, piano, autoharp, drums, electric guitar, and electric versions of other common bluegrass instruments, resulting in what has been referred to as “new grass.” Despite this debate, even Monroe himself was known to experiment with instrumentation; he once even used a string orchestra, choir, and pre-recorded bird-song track.

Blues

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

The term ‘Blues’ may have originated from “blue devils”, meaning melancholy and sadness. An early use of the term in this sense is in George Colman’s one-act farce Blue Devils (1798). The phrase ‘blue devils’ may also have been derived from a British usage of the 1600s referring to the “intense visual hallucinations that can accompany severe alcohol withdrawal”. As time went on, the phrase lost the reference to devils and came to mean a state of agitation or depression. By the 1800s in the United States, the term “blues” was associated with drinking alcohol, a meaning which survives in the phrase ‘blue law’, which prohibits the sale of alcohol on Sunday. In Henry David Thoreau’s book Walden, he mentions “the blues” in the chapter reflecting on his time in solitude. He wrote his account of his personal quest in 1845, although it was not published until 1854. The phrase “the blues” was written by Charlotte Forten, then aged 25, in her diary on December 14, 1862. She was a free-born black woman from Pennsylvania who was working as a schoolteacher in South Carolina, instructing both slaves and freedmen, and wrote that she “came home with the blues” because she felt lonesome and pitied herself. She overcame her depression and later noted a number of songs, such as “Poor Rosy”, that were popular among the slaves. Although she admitted being unable to describe the manner of singing she heard, Forten wrote that the songs “can’t be sung without a full heart and a troubled spirit”, conditions that have inspired countless blues songs. Though the use of the phrase in African-American music may be older, it has been attested to in print since 1912, when Hart Wand’s “Dallas Blues” became the first copyrighted blues composition. In lyrics, the phrase is often used to describe a depressed mood.

Blues ballad

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure and variations#

The blues ballad often uses the Thirty-two-bar form of verse-verse-bridge-verse, in contrast to the 12-bar or 8-bar blues forms.

Popular blues ballads#

The first blues ballads tended to deal with active protagonists, often anti-heroes, resisting adversity and authority, often in the context of industrialisation. They usually lacked the strong narrative common in European ballads, and emphasised instead individual character. They were often accompanied by banjo and guitar and often followed a standard 12-bar the blues format, with a repeated refrain in the last line of every verse. Blues ballads are usually anonymously authored and were performed by both black and white musicians in the early 20th century. Ballads about anti-heroes include “Wild Bill Jones”, “Stagger Lee” and “John Hardy”. The most famous blues ballads that deal with heroes in the context of industrialisation include those about John Henry and Casey Jones.

Blues rock

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

Blues rock can be characterized by bluesy improvisation, extended boogie jams typically focused on electric guitar solos, and often a heavier, riff-oriented sound and feel to the songs than found in typical Chicago-style blues. Blues rock bands “borrow ed the idea of an instrumental combo and loud amplification from rock & roll”. It is also often played at a fast tempo, again distinguishing it from the blues. Blues rock songs often follow typical blues structures, such as twelve-bar blues, sixteen-bar blues, etc. They also use the I-IV-V progression, though there are exceptions, some pieces having a “B” section, while others remain on the I. The Allman Brothers Band’s version of “Stormy Monday”, which uses chord substitutions based on Bobby “Blue” Bland’s 1961 rendition, adds a solo section where “the rhythm shifts effortlessly into an uptempo -time jazz feel”. The key is usually major, but can also be minor, such as in “Black Magic Woman”. One notable difference is the frequent use of a straight eighth-note or rock rhythm instead of triplets usually found in blues. An example is Cream’s “Crossroads”. Although it was adapted from Robert Johnson’s “Cross Road Blues”, the bass “combines with drums to create and continually emphasize continuity in the regular metric drive”.

Boogaloo

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

In the 1950s and 1960s, African Americans in the United States listened to various styles of music including rock and roll, jump blues, R&B and doo-wop and jazz. Latinos in New York City shared these tastes, but they also listened to genres like mambo or cha cha chá. There was a mixing of Puerto Ricans, Cubans and African Americans and others in clubs, whose bands tried to find common musical ground. Boogaloo was a result of this search, a marriage of many styles including Cuban son montuno, guaguancó, guajira, guaracha, mambo, and American R&B and soul. Styles like doo wop also left a sizable influence, through Tony Pabón (of the Pete Rodríguez Band), Bobby Marín, King Nando, and Johnny Colon. Boogaloo has been called by Izzy Sanabria “the greatest potential that Cuban rhythms had to really cross over in terms of music”. Though boogaloo did not become mainstream nationwide until later in the decade, two early Top 20 hits came in 1963: Mongo Santamaría’s cover version of the Herbie Hancock’s “Watermelon Man” and Ray Barretto’s “El Watusi”. Inspired by these successes, a number of bands began imitating their infectious rhythms (which were Latinized R&B), intense conga rhythms and clever novelty lyrics. Boogaloo was the only Cuban-style rhythm which occasionally acquired English lyrics. Established Cuban-influenced orchestras also recorded the occasional boogaloo, including Tito Rodríguez, Willie Bobo, Tito Puente and arranger, composer Ray Santos and his orchestra, which recorded “Cindy’s Boogaloo” in 1968. Most of the other groups were young musicians – some were teenagers – the Latin Souls, the Lat-Teens, the Latinaires, Pucho & His Latin Soul Brothers, and Joe Bataan. Use of the term boogaloo in referring to a musical style was probably coined in about 1966 by Richie Ray and Bobby Cruz. The biggest boogaloo hit of the 1960s was “Bang Bang” by the Joe Cuba Sextet, which sold over one million copies in 1966. “El Pito” was another hit by this popular combo. Hits by other groups included Johnny Colón’s “Boogaloo Blues”, Pete Rodríguez’s “I Like It like That”, The closing marked the end of mainstream mambo, and boogaloo ruled the Latin charts for several years before salsa began to take over. At the same time, several other rhythmical inventions came to notice: the dengue, the jala-jala and the shing-a-ling were all offshoots of the mambo and chachachá. The craze was mostly over by 1970, perhaps because of the hostility of established bands and key booking agents; the reason is uncertain. It had been an intense, if brief, musical movement, and the music is still highly regarded today. In the 2000s, Latin boogaloo has seen a resurgence in popularity, with artists like Bataan experiencing renewed interest in their Latin boogaloo output, and new groups emerging to form a Latin boogaloo revival. In Cali, Colombia, boogaloo, salsa and pachanga are played by disc jockeys like Heynar Alonso and others in FM and AM radio stations and dance clubs.

Boogie (genre)

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Characteristics#

Boogie, following the example of post-disco, generally lacks the four-on-the-floor beat, the “traditional” rhythm of disco music; instead, the genre has a strong accent on the second and fourth beats, and tempo generally in the 110 to 116 beats-per-minute range. and predominantly draws from funk music. Other influences from a completely different music landscape include jazz. The term, coined by British DJs Norman Jay and Dez Parkes, had been used on eBay to refer a specific form of early-1980s dance music of African-American origin.

Boogie rock

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John Lee Hooker-style#

In 1948, American blues artist John Lee Hooker recorded “Boogie Chillen’”, an urban electric blues tune derived from early North Mississippi Hill country blues. Musicologist Robert Palmer notes “Hooker wasn’t copying piano boogie. He was playing something else—a rocking one-chord ostinato with accents that fell fractionally ahead of the beat.” Hooker’s “repeated monochord riff” on guitar was adapted by the American rock group Canned Heat for “Fried Hockey Boogie”, first released in 1968 on their Boogie with Canned Heat album. Other artists soon followed, with Norman Greenbaum’s “Spirit in the Sky” (1969, Spirit in the Sky) and ZZ Top’s “La Grange” (1973, Tres Hombres) being two of the earlier popular songs in the style. The English group Foghat reworked Hooker’s boogie for their popular “Slow Ride” (1975, Fool for the City): “they help interject some breath into the riff and help give it more rhythmic propulsion”. In the 1980s, it was updated further by Van Halen for “Hot for Teacher” (1984, 1984) and by Joe Satriani in “Satch Boogie” (1987, Surfing with the Alien): “John Lee Hooker may not have recognized the roots of his Satriani’s pioneering efforts, but it still contains the spirit of the genre, albeit in an exceptionally contemporary vein”.

Boogie-woogie

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Musical features#

Boogie-woogie is characterized by a regular left-hand bass figure, which is transposed following the chord changes. : : Boogie-woogie is not strictly a solo piano style; it can accompany singers and be featured in orchestras and small combos. It is sometimes called “eight to the bar”, as much of it is written in common time () time using eighth notes (quavers) (see time signature). The chord progressions are typically based on I–IV–V–I (with many formal variations of it, such as I/i–IV/iv–v/I, as well as chords that lead into these ones). For the most part, boogie-woogie tunes are twelve-bar blues, although the style has been applied to popular songs such as “Swanee River” and hymns such as “Just a Closer Walk with Thee”. Typical boogie-woogie bassline: : :

Brit funk

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Name and characteristics#

The term Brit funk evolved from the club DJs and James Hamilton of Record Mirror whose column had a major influence in launching new records. Brit funk was a fusion of R&B, funk, soul music rhythms. Pioneers of this sound, groups Hi-Tension and Light of the World, had a British twist to their instrumentation and vocals, avoiding American accents. The emerging punk rock scene has also been cited as an influence by Brit funk musicians: Jean-Paul ‘Bluey’ Maunick, guitarist with Light of the World and subsequently leader of Incognito, said that the energy of punk and a lack of musical experience led to his attempts to emulate the “slick funk” of 1970s American soul and jazz-funk acts turning into a sound “somewhere between that and a guy that’s just thrashing a guitar”, whilst John Rocca of Freeez - who were signed by punk label Beggars Banquet Records - also drew parallels between the two scenes. Hi-Tension co-founder Paul McLean has also suggested that the Caribbean roots of many Brit funk musicians also influenced their music, resulting in “a looser rhythm (and) hints of reggae in the sound”.

British blues

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Origins#

American blues became known in Britain from the 1930s onwards through a number of routes, including records brought to Britain, particularly by African-American GIs stationed there in the Second World War and Cold War, merchant seamen visiting ports such as London, Liverpool, Newcastle upon Tyne and Belfast, and through a trickle of (illegal) imports. From 1955 major British record labels His Master’s Voice and EMI, the latter, particularly through their subsidiary Decca Records, began to distribute American jazz and increasingly blues records to what was an emerging market. Among these were guitarist and blues harpist Cyril Davies, who ran the London Skiffle Club at the Roundhouse public house in London’s Soho, and guitarist Alexis Korner, both of whom worked for jazz band leader Chris Barber, playing in the R&B segment he introduced to his show. To this point British blues was acoustically played emulating Delta blues and country blues styles and often part of the emerging second British folk revival. Critical in changing this was the visit of Muddy Waters in 1958, who initially shocked British audiences by playing amplified electric blues, but who was soon playing to ecstatic crowds and rave reviews. Davies and Korner, having already split with Barber, now plugged in and began to play high-powered electric blues that became the model for the subgenre, forming the band Blues Incorporated. came with John Mayall, who moved to London in the early 1960s, eventually forming the Bluesbreakers, whose members at various times included, Jack Bruce, Aynsley Dunbar, Eric Clapton, Peter Green and Mick Taylor.

British dance band

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Notable band leaders#

In the mid-1930s, Lambert & Butler issued a series of cigarette cards depicting dance band leaders. The British leaders included are listed below. * Bert Ambrose * Billy Cotton * Roy Fox * Geraldo * Carroll Gibbons * Nat Gonella * Henry Hall * Jack Hylton * Jack Jackson * Charlie Kunz * Sydney Kyte * Brian Lawrance * Sydney Lipton * Joe Loss * Ray Noble * Jack Payne * Harry Roy * Debroy Somers * Lew Stone * Maurice Winnick * Lou Preager See List of British dance band leaders for a more comprehensive listing.

British rhythm and blues

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Characteristics#

Commentators often distinguish British rhythm and blues bands from beat bands (who were influenced by rock and roll and rockabilly) on the one hand, and, from “purist” British blues (which particularly emulated Chicago electric blues artists), on the other, although there was considerable crossover between the three sets of musicians. However, vocalists such as Van Morrison, Mick Jagger, Eric Burdon and Steve Winwood did not attempt to emulate a particular singer and were seen by critics as able to sing the blues convincingly and with some power. In cover versions of R&B songs, riffs were often simplified or used less frequently. The object of the music was usually to whip up energy, rather than to produce musical finesse. and as a result arrangements tended to be guitar-oriented and at higher tempos than the originals. Amplification of guitars to the highest levels of underpowered amplifiers created the over-driven guitar sound that would become characteristic of rock music.

British soul

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Origins#

Widespread British interest in soul music developed after the advent of rock and roll from the mid-1950s and the subsequent interest in American music. In the early 1960s, rhythm and blues, including soul, was particularly popular among some members of the beat music boom, including the Beatles, and among bands of who contributed to the blues rock, British blues boom, including the Spencer Davis Group, Alexis Korner, John Mayall, the Rolling Stones, the Animals, Them and Van Morrison. Most of these were popular with members of the Mod subculture, out of which grew the Northern soul movement, in which northern English youths avidly collected and played rare soul records.

Brown-eyed soul

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History#

Critic Ruben Molina said roots of chicano soul music were from the 1950s jazz, blues, doo wop, jump blues, latin jazz, rock, ranchera, norteno, and conjunto music in the West Coast, Texas Latino communities. Latino artists drew inspiration from African American R&B hits, and as a result, Latino soul came out of African American soul music; Latino soul and R & B were further influenced by Afro-Latin American music, including but not limited to Afro-Spanish-Caribbean origin. Early artists owed little to traditional Latino and rarely performed in Spanish. Hispanic rock and roll singer Ritchie Valens, also became one of the first artists to bridge traditional music and rock and roll. Valens recorded “Donna”, " La Bamba", “Come On, Let’s Go”, and “Donna” reached #2 on Billboard pop chart in 1959. 1960s and 1970s bands such as Cannibal & the Headhunters (“Land of a Thousand Dances”) and Thee Midniters played R&B music with a rebellious rock and roll edge. Sunny and the Sunliners were also popular in the 1960s. However, the large Latino population on the West Coast began gradually moving away from energetic R&B to romantic soul, and the results were “some of the sweetest soul music heard during the late ’60s and ’70s.” Latino groups on the West Coast and Texas also drew from the doo wop-influenced Philadelphia soul (“Philly” soul). The West Coast Latin rock scene continued to influence other Latino soul musicians as well.

Cape jazz

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History#

Although there are strong influences from the American jazz, the development of Cape jazz ran in a similar way to the course of American jazz but in the early 20th century. Being born in a similar political climate to that in New Orleans, Louisiana, at the end of the 19th century, the blues songs that inspired this genre told of local occurrences in Cape Town. An example is the inspiration of the visits of the southern confederate raider CSS Alabama to the Cape in 1863 and 1864, resulting in the folk song “Daar kom die Alibama”. The leading exponents of this style of music in the 1970s are pianist Abdullah Ibrahim (then known as Dollar Brand) and saxophonists Basil Coetzee and Robbie Jansen. These three, together with bassist Paul Michaels, drummer the late Monty Weber and sax man Morris Goldberg, recorded the seminal Cape jazz song “Mannenberg”. Composed by Brand/Ibrahim, the song takes its name from the notoriously crime-ridden creole working-class township on the Cape Flats of Cape Town. The township was one of several created by the apartheid regime following the clearing of the urban slum quarter known as District Six, home to many artists and musicians. Their US American contemporaries in the jazz field were taking on board rock and funk influences. Brand and his group were still being influenced by the more ethnic blues music. Like the comparable music of New Orleans, Cape jazz was mainly inspired by the blues and folk songs sung by creole people descended from the former slave communities living in the Western Cape, known loosely as the Cape Coloured or Cape Malay people. A street carnival parade or Mardi Gras (also called the Coon Carnival) is held each year peaking on 2 January. This event is the culmination of months of musical and dance rehearsal and community-based competitions, by various mostly mixed-race folk, and was known as Tweede Nuwe Jaar (Afrikaans). The performers, known as Klopse, borrowed the painted faces and bright consumes of the minstrel show style of New Orleans and combined this with African and European music that was to be heard in the taverns and night clubs of the port city. Some of this music is also more recently known as Goema, or Ghoema jazz (also written “guma” – Jonas Gwangwa), referring to a particular wooden barrel-shaped Asian-style drum (also known in the Cape as a Ghomma) played by the revelers in the almost totally creole troupes in the aforementioned parade. There is a new generation of Cape jazz musicians of which the band called The Goema Captains are a good example. The group featured Mac McKenzie, Alex van Heerden and Hilton Schilder, who have brought greater improvisational elements to this music. They have literally re-arranged Cape traditional songs and jazzed them up. The young Van Heerden was killed in a motor accident in 2009, but not before releasing two very modern albums of his own, inspired by this genre and his time spent under Robbie Jansen’s teaching. Another example is The Cape Jazz Band, an all-star ensemble drawing its players from different groups performing in Cape Town. Other leading names in the genre are pianist Tony Schilder, guitarist Errol Dyers, bass player and composer Stephen Erasmus and the Gugulethu-based saxophonist the late Winston Mankunku. The first commercial reference to Cape jazz in South African music is on the record label compilation of Mountain Records artists released in 1993. The album collected the work of several of the label’s acts over a 12-year period beginning in 1981. The thematic similarity in the instrumental compositions, all of which are original, very clearly illustrates this genre. The album contained another Cape Jazz gem in the Jonathan Butler track “7th Avenue”. The compilation was the inspiration for the collation and publication of a sheet music collection of Cape Jazz composers (see below). In September 2006, the Cape Town Jazz Orchestra was launched with a concert promoted by the Arts and Culture department of the South African government. This project brought together 16 musicians from all over South Africa to perform arrangements of works by different jazz composers including Abdullah Ibrahim, who also performed at the concert, and a piece dedicated to and inspired by the late Basil Coetzee. Since the launch, the orchestra has changed from being one with performers from the whole of South Africa to a collection of Cape-based players. From 2008 they became known as the Cape Jazz Orchestra under the musical leadership of Alvin Dyers. This should not be confused with The Cape Jazz Band, a group under the leadership of jazz drummer Jack Momple, who contributed to many of the most famous Cape jazz recordings. An international breakthrough for the genre came when a compilation of recordings entitled Cape Jazz 3 - Goema entered the prestige European World Music Charts in May 2008. Until this point this music was seen as jazz, although many songs performed by the exponents are jazzed-up folk music standards from the Cape and thus justify being considered as “world music”. The album contains work from Robbie Jansen, Dollar Brand, Chris McGregor, Basil Coetzee, Errol Dyers and others. In 2010 the aforementioned Mac McKenzie composed and scored his orchestral piece entitled “Goema Symphony number 1”, a Cape jazz-inspired piece that was given its debut with a full orchestra in Cape Town in 2011. A new name in the genre is the young pianist Kyle Shepherd, a student of the late Robbie Jansen and past member of Jack Momple’s ensemble, who issued three solo albums with very strong roots material in 2008, 2010 and 2012. Momple’s own ensemble, the Cape Jazz Band (CJB), got together in 2013 to make a new album of purely Cape jazz songs composed by him and his band members, entitled Musical Democracy. Since then in 2018 a collection of Cape Town-based pianists have come together to perform some of the classics of the genre under the title of Cape Jazz Piano. Among those names on the credits are Ibrahim Khalil Shihab (Chris Schilder), Ramon Alexander, Mike Perry, Kyle Shepherd, Hilton Schilder and Mervyn Africa.

Chamber jazz

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Notable musicians linked to chamber jazz music#

The following have sources describing them as musicians who have performed chamber jazz. In some cases it is unclear if they agree with that description. Further many or most of these musicians are primarily known for other genres of jazz or other genres of music. * Billy Childs * Eddie Daniels * Dave Douglas * Mark Feldman * Jimmy Giuffre * Chico Hamilton – An early proponent. * Mark Isham * John Kirby - perhaps the first chamber jazz musician. * Brad Mehldau * Meg Okura – She has been dubbed “The Queen of Chamber Jazz.” * Peter Sprague * Russel Walder

Chicago blues

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Origins and Influences#

Chicago blues evolved from rural Delta blues following the Great Migration, or the Great Northern Drive, which was both forced and voluntary at times, of African Americans from the southern U.S. to the industrial cities of the north, such as Chicago. Big Bill Broonzy and Muddy Waters directly joined that migration, like many others, escaping the harsher southern Jim Crow laws and in search of better jobs and a more promising life in the North. Bruce Iglauer, founder of Alligator Records stated that, “Chicago blues is the music of the industrial city, and has an industrial sense about it.” Additionally, recognizing the shift in blues, Chicago blues singer and guitarist Kevin Moore expressed the blues transition stating, “You have to put some new life into it, new blood, new perspectives. You can’t keep talking about mules, workin’ on the levee.” Chicago blues was heavily influenced by Mississippi bluesmen who traveled to Chicago in the early 1940s. Moving from the rural, agrarian South to the urban, industrial North, the country style of Delta blues was no longer suited to the metropolitan culture of Chicago or the modern, working-class African American audiences. Thus, the formation of a new sound in the Chicago blues was a direct product of the Great Migration.

Chicago soul

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Notable labels#

A variety of labels in the city during the 1960s and 1970s contributed to the Chicago soul sound, most notably Vee-Jay, Constellation Records, Chess Records, Mercury Records, OKeh, ABC-Paramount, One-derful, Brunswick and its Dakar Records subsidiary, and Curtis Mayfield’s Curtom label.

Vee-Jay#

Vee-Jay Records was Chicago’s pioneer soul label. In 1958 it produced the first recognized soul hit in Chicago, Jerry Butler and The Impressions’ “For Your Precious Love.” The company, before it went bankrupt in 1966, produced under A&R director Calvin Carter, many notable soul acts in the Chicago soft soul idiom, notably Butler (best known for “He Will Break Your Heart”), Betty Everett (“The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s in His Kiss)”), Dee Clark (“Raindrops”), and Gene Chandler (“Duke of Earl”). Vee Jay was also the first American record label to sign and record The Beatles in the U.S in 1962. The label released several singles but were unsuccessful in scoring a major hit. In 1964 Vee-Jay released The Beatles’ first U.S. album titled Introducing… The Beatles. After having management issues at the label and a shortage of funds, the label could not promote the record and give it the push that was needed. So the label was forced to release the group.

Christian country music

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Characteristic#

Christian country musicians are artists who blend traditional country music with faith of Christian music. Like other forms of music, the creation, performance, significance, and even the definition of Christian country music varies according to culture and social context. It is composed and performed for many purposes, ranging from aesthetic pleasure, religious or ceremonial purposes with a positive message, or as an entertainment product for the marketplace. A common theme as with most Christian music is praise, worship or thanks to God and/or Christ.

Christian R&B

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Origin and musical style#

Gospel music is one of the roots or influences of R&B music. While it might seem as if Christian R&B should be the subgenre of gospel music, R&B is rooted in several music genres and has developed over the decades, making its musical characteristics audibly different from the musical nuances of gospel music. Yet some modern musicians mix R&B elements with gospel music elements. R&B originated between the 1940s and 1950s, and Christian R&B followed close behind. Christian rhythm and blues have the same musical characteristics heard in regular or secular R&B music, with the only major difference between the two being the lyrics. Some Christians who perform R&B may not explicitly mention God, Jesus Christ, or other overtly religious terms, but their lyrics still fit within the Christian moral standards, or may be ethically neutral. A few early gospel R&B musicians can be found as far back as the 1950s. One R&B vocal group, for example, known as the Orioles, sang “gospel-styled reworkings of songs that had been popular country, blues, or R&B songs.” In 1953, the Orioles recorded a gospel song called “Crying in the Chapel”; yet the band was considered to be R&B. A strong influence on the merging of gospel and R&B came from Sam Cooke. He started out as the lead singer for the gospel group Soul Stirrers, but had always loved blues and jazz. He would incorporate elements from these two musical styles into his gospel recordings. Even though he was making a nice living, he wanted to venture into secular music. In 1956, for fear he would upset his fans, bandmates, and his record label, he released his first R&B single (called “Lovable”) under the assumed name ‘Dale Cooke’. Because his voice is distinctive, people were not fooled by the name Dale Cooke. Soon, other singers followed Cooke’s footsteps, crossing over from gospel to R&B/soul and merging the two. Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin and James Brown are other important figures who combined gospel and R&B. In the early age of R&B, the musicality distinguishing gospel from R&B was blurred. There was little or no way to tell whether a person was listening to gospel music or R&B music, unless they paid close attention to the lyrics.

Cinematic soul

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Style#

Cinematic soul builds on the foundations of soul music. The backing track can include drums, bass guitar, clavinet and electric guitar played with a wah-wah pedal. On top of this are orchestral instruments including a string section and brass, similar to that heard on a movie soundtrack.

History#

During their psychedelic soul period of 1968–1973, The Temptations created what is described as “cinematic soul”, songs, often long in length, with longer instrumental introductions and detailed orchestration. Two such examples are the Temptations’ 1972 recording of “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone”, and their follow-up single, “Masterpiece”. Isaac Hayes’ “Theme from Shaft” was considered another good example of cinematic soul, and subsequently influenced David Bowie’s “Stay”, released several years later. Curtis Mayfield’s “Superfly” was a top ten Billboard hit, and praised as an archetypical example of the genre.

Classic female blues

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Origin#

Blues, a type of black folk music originating in the American South, were mainly in the form of work songs until about 1900. Gertrude “Ma” Rainey (1886–1939), known as “The Mother of the Blues”, is credited as the first to perform the blues on stage as popular entertainment when she began incorporating blues into her act of show songs and comedy around 1902. Rainey had heard a woman singing about the man she had lost, learned the song, and began using it as her closing number, calling it “the blues”. Rainey’s example was followed by other young women who followed her path in the tent show circuit, one of the few venues available to black performers. Most toured through a circuit established by the black-owned Theatre Owners Booking Association (T.O.B.A.) on the East Coast and through the South as far west as Oklahoma. A key figure in popularizing the blues was the composer W. C. Handy, who published the first of his blues songs in 1912. His compositions, notably “The Memphis Blues” and “St. Louis Blues”, quickly became standards for blues singers. By the end of the 1910s, blues songs had become staples of Black stage shows. Songs modeled on Handy’s were also performed and recorded by white vaudevillians, such as Sophie Tucker.

Contemporary R&B

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Precursors#

According to Geoffrey Himes speaking in 1989, the progressive soul movement of the early 1970s “expanded the musical and lyrical boundaries of R&B in ways that haven’t been equaled since”. This movement was led by soul singers, songwriters and producers such as Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye, and Stevie Wonder. Norman Whitfield’s productions at Motown, the record label of Gaye, were also pioneering for setting the soul vocals and simple hooks of earlier rhythm and blues records against strong backbeats, vocal harmonies, and orchestral sounds, all of which thickened the texture of the music. Gaye’s own music on albums such as What’s Going On (1971) incorporated jazz influences that led the genre into a looser musical direction. The first result was Off the Wall (1979), which—according to Stephen Thomas Erlewine from AllMusic—“was a visionary album, that found a way to break disco wide open into a new world where the beat was undeniable, but not the primary focus” and “was part of a colorful tapestry of lush ballads and strings, smooth soul and pop, soft rock, and alluring funk”. Richard J. Ripani wrote that Janet Jackson’s Control (1986) was “important to the development of R&B for several reasons”, as she and her producers, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, “crafted a new sound that fuses the rhythmic elements of funk and disco, along with heavy doses of synthesizers, percussion, sound effects, and a rap music sensibility.” Ripani wrote that “the success of “Control” led to the incorporation of stylistic traits of rap over the next few years, and Janet Jackson was to continue to be one of the leaders in that development.”

Cool jazz

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Characteristics#

Cool jazz emerged as a reaction to bop, and is characterized by more moderate tempos and “a more reflective attitude”. Ted Gioia and Lee Konitz have each identified cornetist Bix Beiderbecke and saxophonist Frankie Trumbauer as early progenitors of the cool aesthetic in jazz. Gioia cites Beiderbecke’s softening of jazz’s strong rhythmic impact in favor of maintaining melodic flow, while also employing complex techniques such as unusual harmonies and whole tone scales. Trumbauer, through “his smooth and seemingly effortless saxophone work,” greatly affected tenor saxophonist Lester Young, who prefigured – and influenced – cool jazz more than any other musician. Young’s saxophone playing employed a light sound, in contrast to the “full-bodied” approach of players such as Coleman Hawkins. Young also had a tendency to play behind the beat, instead of driving it. He more strongly emphasized melodic development in his improvisation, rather than “hot” phrases or chord changes. While Young’s style initially alienated some observers, the cool school embraced it. (Young would also influence bebop through Charlie Parker’s emulation of Young’s playing style.) Tanner, Gerow, and Megill point out that “cool developed gradually, as did previous styles.” In addition to Lester Young’s approach, cool had other antecedents:

Country blues

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History#

Artists such as Blind Lemon Jefferson (Texas), Charley Patton (Mississippi), Blind Willie McTell (Georgia) were among the first to record blues songs in the 1920s. Country blues ran parallel to urban blues, which was popular in cities. In 1959, music historian Samuel Charters wrote The Country Blues, an influential scholarly work on the subject. He also produced an album, also titled The Country Blues, with early recordings by Jefferson, McTell, Sleepy John Estes, Bukka White, and Robert Johnson. Charters’s works helped to introduce the then-nearly forgotten music to the American folk music revival of the late 1950s and 1960s. The acoustic roots-focused movement also gave rise to the terms “folk blues” and “acoustic blues”, especially being applied to performances and recordings made around this period. “Country blues” has also been used to describe regional acoustic styles, such as Delta blues, Piedmont blues, Hill country blues or the earliest Chicago, Texas, and Memphis blues.

Delta blues

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Origin#

Although Delta blues certainly existed in some form or another at the turn of the twentieth century, it was first recorded in the late 1920s, when record companies realized the potential African-American market for “race records”. Alan Lomax was a key figure in these remote early recordings. The major labels produced the earliest recordings, consisting mostly of one person singing and playing an instrument. Live performances, however, more commonly involved a group of musicians. Record company talent scouts made some of the early recordings on field trips to the South, and some performers were invited to travel to northern cities to record. Current research suggests that Freddie Spruell is the first Delta blues artist to have been recorded; his “Milk Cow Blues” was recorded in Chicago in June 1926. According to Dixon and Godrich (1981), Tommy Johnson and Ishmon Bracey were recorded by Victor on that company’s second field trip to Memphis, in 1928. Robert Wilkins was first recorded by Victor in Memphis in 1928, and Big Joe Williams and Garfield Akers by Brunswick/Vocalion, also in Memphis, in 1929. Charley Patton recorded for Paramount in Grafton, in June 1929 and May 1930. He also traveled to New York City for recording sessions in January and February 1934. Son House first recorded in Grafton, Wisconsin, in 1930 for Paramount Records. Robert Johnson recorded his only sessions, in San Antonio in 1936 and in Dallas in 1937, for ARC. Many other artists were recorded during this period. Subsequently, the early Delta blues (as well as other genres) were extensively recorded by John Lomax and his son Alan Lomax, who crisscrossed the southern U.S. recording music played and sung by ordinary people, helping establish the canon of genres known today as American folk music. Their recordings, numbering in the thousands, now reside in the Smithsonian Institution. According to Dixon and Godrich (1981) and Leadbitter and Slaven (1968), Alan Lomax and the Library of Congress researchers did not record any Delta bluesmen or blueswomen prior to 1941, when he recorded Son House and Willie Brown near Lake Cormorant, Mississippi, and Muddy Waters at Stovall, Mississippi. However, among others, John and Alan Lomax recorded Lead Belly in 1933, and Bukka White in 1939.

Desert blues

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Historical background#

The Tuareg people live in a region of North and West Africa that covers large portions of the Sahara across the modern-day national boundaries of Mali, Algeria, Niger, Libya, and Chad, and to a lesser extent, reaching into Burkina Faso and Nigeria. They had been nomadic pastoralists involved in trans-Saharan trade for many hundreds of years. At the turn of the 20th century, the Tuareg were subjected to French colonial rule, after a lengthy resistance movement and defeated rebellion. With the departure of colonial powers in the 1950s and 1960s, the lands inhabited by the Tuareg population were split primarily between the six new countries of Mali, Algeria, Niger, Libya, Burkina Faso and Chad, making them ethnic minorities across the region. For the next few decades, natural resources diminished due to increasing desertification and the Tuareg minorities have since been involved in a series of conflicts and rebellions, creating hardship for the survival of Tuareg people and their culture. In 1973, a major drought forced many of the Tamasheq-speaking people throughout the deserts to reconsider their traditional way of life as nomadic herders. Many took refuge in urban centers across the region, but with many lacking formal education, the Tamasheq were largely unemployed. The term ishumar began to be used describing young Tamasheq. A unique culture began to arise among many of the economically and politically marginalized youths, sometimes rebellious or revolutionary in nature, reasserting a cultural pride. Many young men, including future members of Tinariwen, took employment in a Tamasheq military unit being assembled by Libyan military leader Muammar al-Gaddafi. Besides receiving military training and weapons in the Gaddafi-sponsored camps, many of the young Tamasheq men were also exposed to revolutionary ideas, pan-Africanism, and popular music. In the decades to follow, the Tamasheq were involved in extended episodes of violence and rebellion against the various governments in the region, both as victim and perpetrator. The stories of socio-political unrest have been relayed through music, contributing to and partially shaping the Tamasheq people’s culture and ideals.

Detroit techno

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The Belleville Three#

The three individuals most closely associated with the birth of Detroit techno as a genre are Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson and Derrick May, also known as the “Belleville Three”. The three, who were high school friends from Belleville, Michigan, created electronic music tracks in their basement(s). Derrick May once described Detroit techno music as being a “complete mistake … like George Clinton and Kraftwerk caught in an elevator, with only a sequencer to keep them company.” While attending Washtenaw Community College, Atkins met Rick Davis and formed Cybotron with him. Their first single “Alleys of Your Mind”, recorded on their Deep Space label in 1981, sold 15,000 copies, and the success of two follow-up singles, “Cosmic Cars” and “Clear”, led the California-based label Fantasy to sign the duo and release their album, Enter. After Cybotron split due to creative differences, Atkins began recording as Model 500 on his own label, Metroplex, in 1985. His landmark single, “No UFO’s”, soon arrived. Eddie Fowlkes, Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson, and Robert Hood also recorded on Metroplex. May said that the suburban setting afforded a different setting in which to experience the music. “We perceived the music differently than you would if you encountered it in dance clubs. We’d sit back with the lights off and listen to records by Bootsy and Yellow Magic Orchestra. We never took it as just entertainment, we took it as a serious philosophy,” recalls May. The three teenage friends bonded while listening to an eclectic mix of music: Yellow Magic Orchestra, Kraftwerk, Bootsy, Parliament, Prince, Depeche Mode, and The B-52’s. Juan Atkins was inspired to buy a synthesizer after hearing Parliament. Under the name Deep Space Soundworks, Atkins and May began to DJ on Detroit’s party circuit. By 1981, Mojo was playing the record mixes recorded by the Belleville Three, who were also branching out to work with other musicians. The trio traveled to Chicago to investigate the house music scene there, particularly the Chicago DJs Ron Hardy and Frankie Knuckles. Juan Atkins has been lauded as the “Godfather of Techno” (or “Originator”), while Derrick May is thought of as the “Innovator” and Kevin Saunderson is often referred to as the “Elevator”

Dirty blues

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Notable songs#

*NB. According to AllMusic, this list of dirty blues songs also included “What the Blues Is All About” by Chick Willis, “Cigarette” by Backwards Sam Firk, and “Georgia Grind” (1926). The latter’s music was written by Spencer Williams and recorded by Blue Lu Barker and Louis Armstrong among others.

Dirty rap

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Late 1980s and early 1990s dirty rap#

The genre had been around since at least the 1970s or the 1980s, with Blowfly’s Rapp Dirty release. However, it was not until later that decade, when Oakland rapper Too Short released the 1985 album Don’t Stop Rappin containing multiple dirty sex subjects, that sex became a central focus. Although the release did not see much attention outside of his hometown of Oakland, he would continue to use provocative and sexual lyrics throughout his career, gaining him six platinum albums and three gold. The controversial rap group 2 Live Crew brought “dirty rap” to the mainstream with their Miami bass debut 2 Live Crew Is What We Are. With the graphic sexual content of their X-rated party rhymes, 2 Live Crew garnered much negative publicity. However, it was not until their 1989 album, As Nasty as They Wanna Be, that dirty rap became a legitimate genre. After being attacked by conservative critics, censors, and attorneys, 2 Live Crew responded with the 1990 album Banned in the USA, a much more political and angry album. 2 Live Crew returned to their utterly pornographic roots with 1991’s Sports Weekend: As Nasty as They Wanna Be, Pt. 2, which was lambasted by many critics as running the sexually deviant lyrics of As Nasty As They Wanna Be into the ground. From Sport’s Weekend onward, the Crew continued to make dirty rap and party rap. Various rappers followed with dirty rap in the wake of 2 Live Crew’s popularity. The group Poison Clan became widely successful, as did the group Bytches With Problems. Sir Mix-A-Lot’s 1992 hit single “Baby Got Back” could arguably be considered within the dirty rap genre; however, the majority of Mix-A-Lot’s work is not sexually explicit enough for him to be considered a true dirty rap artist. Similarly, the new jack swing hip hop group Wreckx-n-Effect scored a dirty rap hit with their 1992 single “Rump Shaker”. In the early 1990s, the Baltimore club scene first began gaining an identity separate from house music and mainstream hip hop. Baltimore club, or gutter music, often features sexually explicit lyrics, and has influenced many current dirty rappers. Both ghettotech and ghetto house (or “booty house”) also evolved around the same time, and, to an even greater extent than Baltimore club, frequently contain pornographic and sexually explicit content, as exemplified by DJ Assault and DJ Funk, two artists who pioneered ghettotech and ghetto house, respectively.

Disco

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

The term “disco” is shorthand for the word discothèque, a French word for “library of phonograph records” derived from “bibliothèque”. The word “discotheque” had the same meaning in English in the 1950s. “Discothèque” became used in French for a type of nightclub in Paris, after they had resorted to playing records during the Nazi occupation in the early 1940s. Some clubs used it as their proper name. In 1960, it was also used to describe a Parisian nightclub in an English magazine. The Oxford English Dictionary defines Discotheque as “A dance hall, nightclub, or similar venue where recorded music is played for dancing, typically equipped with a large dance floor, an elaborate system of flashing coloured lights, and a powerful amplified sound system. " Its earliest example is use as the name of a particular venue in 1952, and other examples date from 1960 onwards. The entry is annotated as “Now somewhat dated”. It defines Disco as “A genre of strongly rhythmical pop music mainly intended for dancing in nightclubs and particularly popular in the mid to late 1970s.”, with use from 1975 onwards, describing the origin of the word as a shortened form of discotheque. In the summer of 1964, a short sleeveless dress called the “discotheque dress” was briefly very popular in the United States. The earliest known use for the abbreviated form “disco” described this dress and has been found in The Salt Lake Tribune on July 12, 1964; Playboy magazine used it in September of the same year to describe Los Angeles nightclubs. Vince Aletti was one of the first to describe disco as a sound or a music genre. He wrote the 13 September 1973 feature article Discotheque Rock ‘72: Paaaaarty! that appeared in Rolling Stone magazine.

Dixieland jazz

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The Original Dixieland Jazz Band, recording its first disc in 1917, was the first instance of jazz music being called “Dixieland”, though at the time, the term referred to the band, not the genre. The band’s sound was a combination of African American/New Orleans ragtime and Sicilian music. The music of Sicily was one of the many genres in the New Orleans music scene during the 1910s, alongside sanctified church music, brass band music and blues. Much later, the term “Dixieland” was applied to early jazz by traditional jazz revivalists, starting in the 1940s and 1950s. In his book Jazz, the critic Rex Harris defined Dixieland as “Jazz played in a quasi-New Orleans manner by white musicians.” The name is a reference to the “Old South”, specifically anything south of the Mason-Dixon line. The term encompasses earlier brass band marches, French Quadrilles, beguine, ragtime, and blues with collective, polyphonic improvisation. While instrumentation and size of bands can be very flexible, the “standard” band consists of a “front line” of trumpet (or cornet), trombone, and clarinet, with a “rhythm section” of at least two of the following instruments: guitar or banjo, string bass or tuba, piano, and drums. Led by the Assunto brothers’ original Dukes of Dixieland, a band known for its virtuoso improvisation and recording history’s first stereo record, the movement brought semi-retired musicians a measure of fame late in their lives, as well as bringing retired musicians back onto the jazz circuit after years of not playing (including Kid Ory and Red Nichols). Many Dixieland groups of the revival era consciously imitated the recordings and bands of decades earlier. Other musicians continued to create fresh performances and new tunes. In the 1950s a style called “Progressive Dixieland” sought to blend polyphonic improvisation with bebop-style rhythm. Spike Jones & His New Band and Steve Lacy played with such bands. This style is sometimes called “Dixie-bop”. Lacy went on to apply that approach to the music of Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, Duke Ellington, and Herbie Nichols.

Doo-wop

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins#

Doo-wop has complex musical, social, and commercial origins.

Musical precedents#

Doo-wop’s style is a mixture of precedents in composition, orchestration, and vocals that figured in American popular music created by songwriters and vocal groups, both black and white, from the 1930s to the 1940s. Composers such as Rodgers and Hart (in their 1934 song “Blue Moon”), and Hoagy Carmichael and Frank Loesser (in their 1938 “Heart and Soul”) used a I–vi–ii–V-loop chord progression in those hit songs; composers of doo-wop songs varied this slightly but significantly to the chord progression I–vi–IV–V, so influential that it is sometimes referred to as the ’50s progression. This characteristic harmonic layout was combined with the AABA chorus form typical for Tin Pan Alley songs. Hit songs by black groups such as the Ink Spots (“If I Didn’t Care”, one of the best selling singles worldwide of all time, and “Address Unknown”) and the Mills Brothers (“Paper Doll”, “You Always Hurt the One You Love” and “Glow Worm”) were generally slow songs in swing time with simple instrumentation. Doo-wop street singers generally performed without instrumentation, but made their musical style distinctive, whether using fast or slow tempos, by keeping time with a swing-like off-beat, while using the “doo-wop” syllables as a substitute for drums and a bass vocalist as a substitute for a bass instrument. whose close four-part harmony derived from the vocal harmonies of the earlier barbershop quartet. The Four Knights’ “Take Me Right Back to the Track” (1945), the Cats and the Fiddle’s song “I Miss You So” (1939), and the Triangle Quartette’s even earlier record “Doodlin’ Back” (1929) prefigured doo-wop’s rhythm and blues sound long before doo-wop became popular.

Drill music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Lyrics#

Drill lyrics tend to be adversarial and aggressive, sometimes with a “combative energy”. Drill lyrics strongly contrast with the subject matter of earlier Chicago rappers and contemporary mainstream hip hop which at the time of drill’s emergence tended to glorify and celebrate a rise to wealth. Drill rappers use a grim, deadpan delivery, often filtered through Auto-Tune, influenced by the “stoned, aimless warbling of Soulja Boy (one of the earliest non-local Keef collaborators) and Lil Wayne before him.” Atlanta-based rappers Gucci Mane and Waka Flocka Flame were important influences on the early drill rappers.

Electric blues

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Early development (1930s-1940s)#

The blues, like jazz, probably began to be amplified in the late 1930s. The first star of the electric blues is generally recognized as being T-Bone Walker; born in Texas but moving to Los Angeles in the mid-1930s, he combined blues with elements of swing music and jazz in a long and prolific career. By the late 1940s several Chicago-based blues artists had begun to use amplification, including John Lee Williamson and Johnny Shines. Early recordings in the new style were made in 1947 and 1948 by musicians such as Johnny Young, Floyd Jones, and Snooky Pryor. The format was perfected by Muddy Waters, who utilized various small groups that provided a strong rhythm section and powerful harmonica. His “I Can’t Be Satisfied” (1948) was followed by a series of ground-breaking recordings. Chicago blues was influenced to a large extent by the Mississippi blues style, because many performers had migrated from the Mississippi region. Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon and Jimmy Reed were all born in Mississippi and moved to Chicago during the Great Migration. In addition to electric guitar, harmonica, and a rhythm section of bass and drums, some performers such as J. T. Brown who played in Elmore James’s bands or J. B. Lenoir’s also used saxophones, largely as a supporting instrument. Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson (Rice Miller) and Big Walter Horton were among the best-known harmonica (called “blues harp” by blues musicians) players of the early Chicago blues scene and the sound of electric instruments and harmonica is often seen as characteristic of electric Chicago blues. Muddy Waters and Elmore James were known for their innovative use of slide electric guitar. Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters were known for their deep, “gravelly” voices. Bassist and composer Willie Dixon played a major role on the Chicago blues scene. He composed and wrote many standard blues songs of the period, such as “Hoochie Coochie Man”, “I Just Want to Make Love to You” (both penned for Muddy Waters) and, “Wang Dang Doodle”, “Spoonful” and “Back Door Man” for Howlin’ Wolf. Most artists of the Chicago blues style recorded for the Chicago-based Chess Records and Checker Records labels; there were also smaller blues labels in this era including Vee-Jay Records and J.O.B. Records.

Electro (music)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Definition and characteristics#

From its inception, one of the defining characteristics of the electro sound was the use of drum machines, particularly the Roland TR-808, as the rhythmic basis of the track. As the genre evolved, computers and sampling replaced drum machines in electronic music, and are now used by the majority of electro producers. Although the electro of the 1980s and contemporary electro (electronic dance music) both grew out of the dissolution of disco, they are now different genres. Classic (1980s) electro drum patterns tend to be electronic emulations of breakbeats with a syncopated kick drum, and usually a snare or clap accenting the backbeat. The difference between electro drumbeats and breakbeats (or breaks) is that electro tends to be more mechanical, while breakbeats tend to have more of a human-like feel, like that of a live drummer. The definition however is somewhat ambiguous in nature due to the various uses of the term. The Roland TR-808 drum machine was released in 1980, defining early electro with its immediately recognizable sound. Staccato, percussive drumbeats tended to dominate electro, almost exclusively provided by the TR-808. As an inexpensive way of producing a drum sound, the TR-808 caught on quickly with the producers of early electro because of the ability of its bass drum to generate extreme low-frequencies. This aspect of the Roland TR-808 was especially appealing to producers who would test drive their tracks in nightclubs (like NYC’s Funhouse), where the bass drum sound was essential for a record’s success. Its unique percussion sounds like handclaps, open and closed high-hat, clave and cowbell became integral to the electro sound. A number of popular songs in the early 1980s employed the TR-808, including Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing,” Cybotron’s “Clear,” and Afrika Bambaataa’s “Planet Rock.” The Roland TR-808 has attained iconic status, eventually being used on more hits than any other drum machine. Through the use of samples, the Roland TR-808 remains popular in electro and other genres to the present day. Other electro instrumentation was generally electronic, favoring analog synthesis, programmed bass lines, sequenced or arpeggiated synthetic riffs, and atonal sound effects all created with synthesizers. Heavy use of effects such as reverbs, delays, chorus or phasers along with eerie synthetic ensemble strings or pad sounds emphasized the science fiction or futuristic themes of classic (1980s) electro, represented in the lyrics and/or music. Electro hip hop group Warp 9’s 1983 single, Light Years Away, produced and written by Lotti Golden and Richard Scher, exemplifies the Sci-Fi, afrofuturist aspect of electro, reflected in both the lyrics and instrumentation. The imagery of its lyrical refrain space is the place for the human race pays homage to Sun Ra’s 1974 film of the same name, while its synth lines and sound effects are informed by sci-fi, computer games, and cartoons,“born of a science-fiction revival.”. Although primarily instrumental, early electro utilized rap. Male rap dominated the genre, however female rappers are an integral part of the electro tradition, whether featured in a group as in Warp 9 or as solo performers like Roxanne Shante. The lyrical style that emerged along with electro became less popular by the 1990s, as rapping continued to evolve, becoming the domain of hip hop music. About electro origins:

Ethio-jazz

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Nerses Nalbandian#

The origin of Ethio-jazz can be traced to the 1950s with Nerses Nalbandian, a musician of Armenian descent whose family (including his uncle Kevork Nalbandian, composer of Ethiopia, Be Happy) migrated to Ethiopia in 1915. Nalbandian became the leader of Ethiopia’s National Opera after his uncle, Kervok Nalbandian, retired. When Emperor Haile Selassie commissioned Nalbandian to compose music for the Ethiopian National Theatre, he created a fusion of traditional Ethiopian music and Western instrumentation. This was considered the basis of the evolution of Ethio-jazz music.

Ethno jazz

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Globalization#

Globalization allowed for the rise of ethno jazz. The Industrial Revolution of the 19th century created new global trade networks that facilitated the spread of cross-cultural phenomena. Philip Bohlman, ethnomusicologist at the University of Chicago, described jazz as the “music of the African Diaspora,” describing the movement of ideas between the Caribbean, the United States, and Western Europe. Jazz in America grew out of racial tensions, and was seen by African Americans as a form of resistance. These ideas of resistance were spread and redefined through globalization. Globalization brought jazz to larger audiences through recordings and touring performances. Examples include a New Orleans band, the “Original Creole Orchestra”, which toured Canada for the first time during the fall of 1914, performing at the Pantages Playhouse Theatre in Winnipeg, the first jazz performance outside the United States and the beginning of jazz as an international movement. The Original Dixieland Jazz Band toured Europe in 1919 and was popular enough to continue touring England for a year. Their music spread around the globe. Countries like China began jazz festivals with enough public support to become annual traditions. Traveling to and learning from other cultures was another factor that influenced the development of ethno jazz. For example, a variety of musicians like pianist Randy Weston, trumpeter Lester Bowie, drummer Max Roach, and multi-instrumentalists Yusef Lateef and Ornette Coleman had a fascination with other cultures’ music. They went to Africa and studied different countries’ melodies, rhythms, and harmonies, and adapted them into their jazz playing and compositions. Intercultural musical exchange was well received internationally, inspiring many musicians to take on cross-cultural influences. Many of these musicians brought foreign artists as well as their musical styles back to their home countries, which resulted in a number of big jazz names hiring immigrants to perform in their ethno jazz projects.

European free jazz

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

American origin#

Free jazz got its name from the album Free Jazz (Atlantic, 1961) by Ornette Coleman to describe American avant-garde jazz of the 1960s. Besides “avant-garde”, it was called “the New Wave”, “the New Thing”, “action jazz”, and in Europe “improvised music”. Due to the lack of commercial success of the free jazz music as well as the racial issues, like the Civil Rights Movement, many American free jazz musicians began touring the European continent, playing and spreading their new avant-garde style throughout Europe. Jazz musicians like Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler, Don Cherry, Bud Powell, Don Byas traveled and performed throughout Europe. In contrast to the lack of commercial success in America, many American free jazz musicians experienced both commercial success and acceptance in Europe, leading to tours of Europe and extended residencies. “A number of jazz musicians migrated to other parts of the world, where they received an opposite response, being considered the ultimate expression of high culture. Thus, many of them remained in exile, and they enjoyed unparalleled success in France, Germany, Japan, Scandinavia, and the Netherlands after the world wars”. Although much of American public believed this music to be structure-less, provocative, and ridiculous, some European listeners enjoyed the “dissonant and seemingly chaotic music”. “Many Europeans viewed free jazz as the descriptor most used by the media on both sides of the Atlantic for a musical movement that ignited like a flare in the African-American… and Western European…jazz communities. The social context in both cases included a reaction by musicians against a mainstream jazz culture they felt to be colluding with an oppressive Western hegemony that was intrinsically racist, historically imperialistic and exploitive, venally decadent and vicious as its power was challenged”. Due in part to the provocative nature of the music as well as the freedom it granted both the musician and the listener, many Europeans associated the backlash toward American society conveyed in free jazz with the counter-culture and anti-imperialist movements in Europe during the late 1960s.

Field holler

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Description#

It was described by Frederick Law Olmsted in 1853 as a “long, loud, musical shout, rising and falling and breaking into falsetto”, a description that would also have fitted examples recorded a century later. Some hollers are wordless, like the field call by Annie Grace Horn Dodson. Some have elaborated syllables and melismas, such as the long example recorded at the Parchman Farm penitentiary in Mississippi in 1947, by “Bama”, of a Levee Camp Holler. Verbal, improvised lines were used as cries for water and food and cries about what was happening in their daily lives, as expressions of religious devotion, a source of motivation in repetitive work, and a way of presenting oneself over across the fields. They described the labor being done (e.g., corn shucking songs, mule-skinning songs) recounted personal experiences or the singer’s thoughts, subtly insulted white work attendants, or used folk themes. An unidentified singer of a Camp Holler was urged on with shouts and comments by his friends, suggesting that the holler could also have a social role. Call and response arose as sometimes a lone caller would be heard and answered with another laborer’s holler from a distant field. Some street cries might be considered an urban form of holler, though they serve a different function (like advertising a seller’s product); an example is the call of ‘The Blackberry Woman’, Dora Bliggen, in New Orleans.

Fife and drum blues

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Pre-American Civil War military fife and drum bands provided a rough framework which black musicians would fill with African and African-American influences to create a new music. Black fife and drum music persists in a stretch of Southern states stretching from northwest Georgia to an area south of Memphis, namely North Mississippi. The music is infused with Euro-American military drum tradition and distinctly African polyrhythms, talking drum influence, and call and response patterns. Performers play blues, marches, minstrel show pieces, popular music, instrumentals, and spirituals such as “When the Saints Go Marching In”, “When I Lay My Burden Down”, “My Babe” and “Sitting on Top of the World”. A “march” becomes more of a swaying dance, sometimes led by a dancer, and singing comes in sporadic shouts, whoops, and moans from the different players. While spirituals are sometimes played, gatherings of drum and fife music are not religious in nature and not held on Sundays or in church. Alan Lomax first recorded black fife and drum music in 1942. He found a group, including Sid Hemphill, near Sledge, Mississippi consisting of a cane fife, two snare drums, and a bass drum. These same musicians constituted themselves as a string band, using violin, banjo, guitar, and bass drum. Notable performers include Napoleon Strickland, Othar Turner, Turner’s granddaughter Shardé Thomas, Turner’s daughter, Bernice, Jessie Mae Hemphill, Ed and Lonnie Young, and the Mitchel Brothers from Georgia.

Folk jazz

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Free improvisation

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

In the context of music theory, free improvisation denotes the shift from a focus on harmony and structure to other dimensions of music, such as timbre, texture, melodic intervals, rhythm and spontaneous musical interactions between performers. This can give free improvised music abstract and nondescript qualities. Although individual performers may choose to play in a certain style or key, or at certain tempos, conventions such as song structures are highly uncommon; more emphasis is generally placed on the mood of the music, or on performative gestures, than on preset forms of melody, harmony or rhythm. These elements are improvised at will as the music progresses, and performers will often intuitively react to each other based on the elements of their performance. English guitarist Derek Bailey described free improvisation as “playing without memory”. In his book Improvisation, Bailey wrote that free improvisation “has no stylistic or idiomatic commitment. It has no prescribed idiomatic sound. The characteristics of freely improvised music are established only by the sonic musical identity of the person or persons playing it.” Free music performers from disparate backgrounds often engage musically with other genres. For example, Italian composer Ennio Morricone was a member of the free improvisation group Nuova Consonanza. Anthony Braxton has written opera, and John Zorn has written acclaimed orchestral pieces.

Free jazz

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

Free jazz was a reaction to the convolution of bop. Conductor and jazz writer Loren Schoenberg wrote that free jazz “gave up on functional harmony altogether, relying instead on a far ranging, stream-of-consciousness approach to melodic variation”. The style was largely inspired by the work of jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman. Some jazz musicians resist any attempt at classification. One difficulty is that most jazz has an element of improvisation. Many musicians draw on free jazz concepts and idioms, and free jazz was never entirely distinct from other genres, but free jazz does have some unique characteristics. Pharoah Sanders and John Coltrane used harsh overblowing or other extended techniques to elicit unconventional sounds from their instruments. Like other forms of jazz it places an aesthetic premium on expressing the “voice” or “sound” of the musician, as opposed to the classical tradition in which the performer is seen more as expressing the thoughts of the composer. Earlier jazz styles typically were built on a framework of song forms, such as twelve-bar blues or the 32-bar AABA popular song form with chord changes. In free jazz, however, the dependence on a fixed and pre-established form is often eliminated, and the role of improvisation is correspondingly increased. Other forms of jazz use regular meters and pulsed rhythms, usually in 4/4 or (less often) 3/4. Free jazz retains pulsation and sometimes swings but without regular meter. Frequent accelerando and ritardando give an impression of rhythm that moves like a wave. Previous jazz forms used harmonic structures, usually cycles of diatonic chords. When improvisation occurred, it was founded on the notes in the chords. Free jazz almost by definition is free of such structures, but also by definition (it is, after all, “jazz” as much as it is “free”) it retains much of the language of earlier jazz playing. It is therefore very common to hear diatonic, altered dominant and blues phrases in this music. Guitarist Marc Ribot commented that Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler “although they were freeing up certain strictures of bebop, were in fact each developing new structures of composition.” Some forms use composed melodies as the basis for group performance and improvisation. Free jazz practitioners sometimes use such material. Other compositional structures are employed, some detailed and complex. Rejection of the bop aesthetic was combined with a fascination with earlier styles of jazz, such as dixieland with its collective improvisation, as well as African music. Interest in ethnic music resulted in the use of instruments from around the world, such as Ed Blackwell’s West African talking drum, and Leon Thomas’s interpretation of pygmy yodeling. Ideas and inspiration were found in the music of John Cage, Musica Elettronica Viva, and the Fluxus movement. Many critics, particularly at the music’s inception, suspected that abandonment of familiar elements of jazz pointed to a lack of technique on the part of the musicians. By 1974, such views were more marginal, and the music had built a body of critical writing. Many critics have drawn connections between the term “free jazz” and the American social setting during the late 1950s and 1960s, especially the emerging social tensions of racial integration and the civil rights movement. Many argue those recent phenomena such as the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954, the emergence of the Freedom Riders in 1961, the 1963 Freedom Summer of activist-supported black voter registration, and the free alternative black Freedom Schools demonstrate the political implications of the word “free” in context of free jazz. Thus many consider free jazz to be not only a rejection of certain musical credos and ideas, but a musical reaction to the oppression and experience of black Americans.

Funk

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

The word funk initially referred (and still refers) to a strong odor. It is originally derived from Latin (which means “to smoke”) via Old French and, in this sense, it was first documented in English in 1620. In 1784, funky meaning “musty” was first documented, which, in turn, led to a sense of “earthy” that was taken up around 1900 in early jazz slang for something “deeply or strongly felt”. Even though in white culture, the term funk can have negative connotations of odor or being in a bad mood (in a funk), in African communities, the term funk, while still linked to body odor, had the positive sense that a musician’s hard-working, honest effort led to sweat, and from their “physical exertion” came an “exquisite” and “superlative” performance. In early jam sessions, musicians would encourage one another to “get down” by telling one another, “Now, put some stank on it!” At least as early as 1907, jazz songs carried titles such as Funky. The first example is an unrecorded number by Buddy Bolden, remembered as either “Funky Butt” or “Buddy Bolden’s Blues”, with improvised lyrics that were, according to Donald M. Marquis, either “comical and light” or “crude and downright obscene” but, in one way or another, referring to the sweaty atmosphere at dances where Bolden’s band played. As late as the 1950s and early 1960s, when funk and funky were used increasingly in the context of jazz music, the terms still were considered indelicate and inappropriate for use in polite company. According to one source, New Orleans-born drummer Earl Palmer “was the first to use the word ‘funky’ to explain to other musicians that their music should be made more syncopated and danceable.” The style later evolved into a rather hard-driving, insistent rhythm, implying a more carnal quality. This early form of the music set the pattern for later musicians. The music was identified as slow, sexy, loose, riff-oriented and danceable. The meaning of funk continues to captivate the genre of black music, feeling, and knowledge. Recent scholarship in black studies has taken the term funk in its many iterations to consider the range of black movement and culture. In particular, L.H. Stallings’s Funk the Erotic: Transaesthetics and Black Sexual Cultures explores these multiple meanings of funk as a way to theorize sexuality, culture, and western hegemony within the many locations of funk: “street parties, drama/theater, strippers and strip clubs, pornography, and self-published fiction.”

Funk metal

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

Funk metal has also been called thrash-funk or punk-funk. It was most prevalent in the American state of California, particularly in Los Angeles and San Francisco. According to AllMusic, funk metal “takes the loud guitars and riffs of heavy metal and melds them to the popping bass lines and syncopated rhythms of funk”. Faith No More, another Californian alternative group who emerged in the mid-1980s, have been described as a funk metal band that also dabbled in rap metal. Rage Against the Machine’s mix of funk and metal not only included rap, but also elements of hardcore. AllMusic formerly categorized funk metal as a style of alternative rock, in spite of the genre’s name. The website currently categorizes it as a style of heavy metal. Bands such as Primus and Mordred emerged from the thrash metal underground. Roy Shuker described the genre in his 1994 book Understanding Popular Music, writing: “the ‘classic’ distinction between rock and pop runs into some difficulties when we consider various forms of ‘alternative’ music, illustrating the difficulties of forcing genres into too rigid a typology. For example, where would we place the wild musical genre called ’thrash funk’, a fusion of 1970s funk, punk rock, rap, California surf, skateboard and hippy cultures, which, according to press reports, swept San Francisco clubs in 1990.” Shuker wrote about the genre again in the 2005 edition of his book Popular Music: The Key Concepts, calling it “less structured than earlier forms of metal, with the bass guitar relied on more than the lead.” The genre managed to gain some international popularity through foreign acts such as British groups Atom Seed and Scat Opera, as well as Super Junky Monkey, an all-female funk metal/avant-garde band from Japan. Although never breaking through in the United States, Swedish band Electric Boys attracted recognition throughout Europe, Funk metal’s prevalence in the late 1980s and 1990–91 predated the rise of grunge music in late 1991, which hurt the popularity of more traditional forms of hard rock/metal. In a January 1991 Spin article, Electric Boys singer Conny Bloom claimed funk metal had become a trend since people thought other hard rock of that era was “boring”.

Funk ostentação

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Funk ousadia

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Description#

The genre has been called by several media outlets the successor of funk ostentação, which, following its initial boom in the late 2000s, was beginning to decline in popularity by 2013–14. The presence of humor in the songs differentiate this genre from songs by Mr. Catra and MC Magrinho, which have a clearer and more evident sex appeal. Some of the genre’s principal exponents are MC Pikachu, MC 2K, MC Bin Laden, MC Pedrinho and MC Brinquedo.

Funk rock

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

1960s and 1970s#

Sly and the Family Stone gained funk rock hits such as “Sing a Simple Song” and “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)”. The Jimi Hendrix Experience album Electric Ladyland also included a couple of funk rock songs, such as “Gypsy Eyes” and “Still Raining, Still Dreaming”. George Clinton has been considered the godfather of this genre since 1970. Clinton created the name “P-Funk” include Funkadelic and Parliament for the innovative new concepts of funk that he culled from former members of James Brown’s band (such as Maceo Parker, Bootsy Collins and Fred Wesley) and new young players such as Eddie Hazel. His groups, Funkadelic and Parliament, practically defined funk since the release of the influential funk rock Funkadelic classic Maggot Brain (1971). Later funk rock albums by the group include Cosmic Slop, Standing on the Verge of Getting It On, Hardcore Jollies and Let’s Take It to the Stage. Later albums such as One Nation Under a Groove and Electric Spanking of War Babies had a bit more radio-friendly sound but still preserved much of group’s funk rock approach. Grand Funk Railroad pioneered the bass driven hard rock funk style in 1970 so well portrayed in their cover of the Animals song Inside-Looking Out and later picked up by Rage Against the Machine. Composer and guitarist Frank Zappa demonstrated the merge of styles in albums like Overnite Sensation, in themes such as “I’m the Slime”, covered in concert decades later by Funkadelic. Other pioneers evolved in the 1970s are American artists Rick Derringer, Redbone, the Bar-Kays, and Mother’s Finest. “We called ourselves funk rock”, recalled Mother’s Finest singer Glenn “Doc” Murdock. “I think we invented that. We even had a house where we all lived and we named it ‘Funk Rock, Georgia’. We felt that we were headlining that whole genre. We played with Lynyrd Skynyrd and AC/DC. Those bands had a lot of funk in their music. The real problem for us was when we played in black clubs. They told us we were too loud.” Funk rock acts were not favored by R&B recording companies. For example, Nile Rodgers, guitarist of Chic, wanted to be a rock band like Roxy Music, but they eventually became a disco act after being turned down by recording companies. Despite its considerable influence on later popular music, funk rock was not a very visible phenomenon during the 1970s. Only a few funk rock acts could be seen on record charts, notably David Bowie (“Fame”, 1975), Aerosmith (“Last Child”, 1976), The Rolling Stones (“Hot Stuff”, 1975), Gary Wright (“Love Is Alive”, 1976) and Steve Winwood (“I’m A Man”). When Glenn Hughes left Trapeze and joined Deep Purple along with David Coverdale, Deep Purple’s next two albums contained elements of funk and soul. When Ritchie Blackmore left Deep Purple in 1975, the band’s next album Come Taste the Band with Tommy Bolin was even more funky than its predecessor Stormbringer. However, Deep Purple broke up in 1976 and Tommy Bolin died from a drug overdose.

Future soul

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

G-funk

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

G-funk, which uses funk with an artificially altered tempo, incorporates multi-layered and melodic synthesizers, slow hypnotic grooves, a deep bass, heavy use of the snare drum, background female vocals, the extensive sampling of P-Funk tunes, and a high-pitched portamento saw wave synthesizer lead. G-funk is typically set at between 90 and 100 BPM. The lyrical content depended on the artist; it could consist of sex, drug use (especially marijuana), love for a city, and love for friends. There was also a slurred “lazy” or “smooth” way of rapping in order to clarify words and stay in rhythmic cadence. Many R&B and pop singles of the 1990s incorporated the G-funk sound to their music. The trademark West Coast G-funk style of hip-hop was a very defining element of the region’s music. The genre helped distinguish West Coast hip-hop from the rivaling rap scene on the East Coast. In essence, the smooth, slow-tempo sound of G-funk accompanied the perceived “laid-back” stereotype of Californian culture whereas East Coast hip-hop typically featured more aggressive attitudes alongside a fast-paced tempo (e.g. hardcore hip-hop). Unlike other earlier rap acts that also utilized funk samples (such as EPMD and the Bomb Squad), G-funk often utilized fewer, unaltered samples per song. Music theorist Adam Krims has described G-funk as “a style of generally West Coast rap whose musical tracks tend to deploy live instrumentation, heavy on bass and keyboards, with minimal (sometimes no) sampling and often highly conventional harmonic progressions and harmonies”. Dr. Dre, a pioneer of the G-funk genre, normally uses live musicians to replay the original music of sampled records. This enabled him to produce music that had his own sounds, rather than a direct copy of the sample.

Go-go

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Description#

In technical terms, “go-go’s essential beat is characterized by a five through four syncopated rhythm that is underscored prominently by the bass drum and snare drum, and the hi-hat… and is ornamented by the other percussion instruments, especially by the conga drums, rototoms, and hand-held cowbells.” Unique to go-go is instrumentation with two standard congas and two junior congas, 8" and 9" wide and about half as tall as the standard congas, a size rare outside go-go. They were introduced to Rare Essence by Tyrone “Jungle Boogie” Williams in the early days when they couldn’t afford full-sized congas and are ubiquitous ever since. Its name arises from the persistent percussive beat, but it incorporates elements of many other genres.

Golden age hip-hop

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

The golden age is noted for its innovation—a time “when it seemed that every new single reinvented the genre”, Spin ’ s editor-in-chief Sia Michel said, “there were so many important, groundbreaking albums coming out right about that time”, Jelani Cobb wrote, “what made the era they inaugurated worthy of the term golden was the sheer number of stylistic innovations that came into existence… in these golden years, a critical mass of mic prodigies were literally creating themselves and their art form at the same time”. The term golden age hip-hop frames the late 1980s in mainstream hip-hop, said to be characterized by its diversity, quality, innovation, and influence, and associated with Public Enemy, KRS-One and his Boogie Down Productions, Eric B. & Rakim, Ultramagnetic MCs, De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, and the Jungle Brothers with their themes of Afrocentricity and political militancy, experimental music, and eclectic sampling. This period is sometimes called “mid-school” or a “middle school” in hip-hop and covers acts such as Gang Starr, the UMC’s, Main Source, Lord Finesse, EPMD, Just Ice, Stetsasonic, True Mathematics, and Mantronix. The innovations of Run-DMC, LL Cool J, Beastie Boys, and new-school producers such as Larry Smith and Rick Rubin were built upon by Marley Marl and his Juice Crew MCs, Boogie Down Productions, Public Enemy, and Eric B. & Rakim. Hip-hop production became denser and rhymes and beats faster as the drum machine was augmented with sampler technology. Rakim took lyrics about the art of rapping to new heights, while KRS-One and Chuck D pushed “message rap” toward black activism. Native Tongues artists’ inclusive, sample-crowded music accompanied their positivity, Afrocentricity, and playfulness. Samples were heavily used during the golden age. The ability to sample beats, riffs, and patterns from a wide variety of sources birthed a new breed of producers and DJs who did not need formal musical training or instruments, just a good ear for sound collages. These samples came from various genres, ranging from jazz, funk and soul to rock and roll. For example, Paul’s Boutique, Beastie Boys’ second studio album, drew from over 200 individual samples, 24 of which were on the album’s last track. Many of hip-hop’s biggest artists were also at their creative peak. AllMusic said the golden age “witnessed the best recordings from some of the biggest rappers in the genre’s history… overwhelmingly based in New York City, golden age rap is characterized by skeletal beats, samples cribbed from hard rock or soul tracks, and tough dis raps… rhymers like PE’s Chuck D, Big Daddy Kane, KRS-One, Rakim, and LL Cool J basically invented the complex wordplay and lyrical kung-fu of later hip-hop”. In addition to lyrical self-glorification, hip-hop was also used as a form of social protest. Lyrical content often drew attention to social issues, including Afrocentric living, drug use, crime and violence, religion, culture, the U.S. economy, and the modern man’s struggle. Conscious and political hip-hop tracks were a response to the effects of U.S. capitalism and President Ronald Reagan’s conservative political economy. According to Tricia Rose, “In rap, relationships between black cultural practice, social and economic conditions, technology, sexual and racial politics, and the institution policing of the popular terrain are complex and in constant motion. Even though hip-hop was used as a mechanism for different social issues it was still very complex with issues within the movement itself. There was also often an emphasis on black nationalism. Hip-hop scholar Michael Eric Dyson wrote, “during the golden age of hip hop, from 1987 to 1993, Afrocentric and black nationalist rap were prominent”, and critic Scott Thill wrote that during this period “the form most capably fused the militancy of its Black Panther and Watts Prophets forebears with the wide-open cultural experimentalism of De La Soul and others”. Stylistic variety was also prominent; MSNBC wrote, “rappers had an individual sound that was dictated by their region and their communities, not by a marketing strategist,” and Ben Duinker and Denis Martin of Empirical Musicology Review wrote, “The constant flow of new, boundary-pushing Golden Age album releases exemplifies this era’s unprecedented stylistic fluidity.”

Gospel blues

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

External links#

The Gospel Blues Society

Gospel music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

According to Yale University music professor Willie Ruff, the singing of psalms in Scottish Gaelic by Presbyterians of the Scottish Hebrides evolved from “lining out”—where one person sang a solo and others followed—into the call and response of gospel music of the American South.

18th century#

Perhaps the most famous gospel-based hymns were composed in the 1760s and 1770s by English writers John Newton (“Amazing Grace”) and Augustus Toplady (“Rock of Ages”), members of the Anglican Church. Starting out as lyrics only, decades were needed for standardized tunes to be added to them. Although not directly connected with African-American gospel music, they were adopted by African Americans as well as white Americans, and Newton’s connection with the abolition movement provided cross-fertilization.

Gospel reggae

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Groove (music)

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Musicians’ perspectives#

Like the term “swing”, which is used to describe a cohesive rhythmic “feel” in a jazz context, the concept of “groove” can be hard to define. Marc Sabatella’s article Establishing The Groove argues that “groove is a completely subjective thing.” He claims that “one person may think a given drummer has a great feel, while another person may think the same drummer sounds too stiff, and another may think he is too loose.” Similarly, a bass educator states that while “groove is an elusive thing” it can be defined as “what makes the music breathe” and the “sense of motion in the context of a song”. In a musical context, general dictionaries define a groove as “a pronounced, enjoyable rhythm” or the act of “creat ing , danc ing to, or enjoy ing rhythmic music”. Steve Van Telejuice explains the “groove” as the point in this sense when he defines it as a point in a song or performance when “even the people who can’t dance wanna feel like dancing…” due to the effect of the music. The composer Bernard Coquelet argues that the “groove is the way an experienced musician will play a rhythm compared with the way it is written (or would be written)” by playing slightly “before or after the beat”. Coquelet claims that the “notion of groove actually has to do with aesthetics and style”; “groove is an artistic element, that is to say human,…and “it will evolve depending on the harmonic context, the place in the song, the sound of the musician’s instrument, and, in interaction with the groove of the other musicians”, which he calls “collective” groove”. Minute rhythmic variations by the rhythm section members such as the bass player can dramatically change the feel as a band plays a song, even for a simple singer-songwriter groove.

Gypsy jazz

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Terminology#

The musical style was first named jazz tsigane in the French language, which translates to “gypsy jazz” in English. It is also known as sinti jazz, gypsy swing, jazz manouche or hot club-style jazz. Some scholars have noted that the name “manouche jazz” began to be used around the late 1990s as a replacement term. The term “gypsy jazz” may be considered offensive, as the word “gypsy” has historically been used as a slur against Romani people.

Hard bop

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

Hard bop is sometimes referred to as “funky hard bop”. Jazz critic Scott Yanow distinguished hard bop from the broader world of bop by saying that " t empos could be just as blazing but the melodies were generally simpler, the musicians (particularly the saxophonists and pianists) tended to be familiar with (and open to the influence of) rhythm & blues and the bass players (rather than always being stuck in the role of a metronome) were beginning to gain a little more freedom and solo space." Hard bop has been seen by some critics as a response to cool jazz and West Coast jazz. As Paul Tanner, Maurice Gerow, and David Megill explain, “the hard bop school…saw the new instrumentation and compositional devices used by cool musicians as gimmicks rather than valid developments of the jazz tradition.” However, Shelly Manne suggested that cool jazz and hard bop simply reflected their respective geographic environments: the relaxed cool jazz style reflected a more relaxed lifestyle in California, while driving bop typified the hectic atmosphere of New York City. Some writers, such as James Lincoln Collier, suggest that the style was an attempt to recapture jazz as a form of African-American expression. Whether or not this was the intent, many musicians quickly adopted the style, regardless of race.

Hill country blues

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins#

Musical scholars have traced the style’s affinity for percussion to influences from West Africa, brought to the American colonies by African slaves. Before the American Civil War, planters restricted slaves’ access to drums and other percussion instruments, fearing the use of drums in arousing rebellion. The music writer Robert Palmer believed that after the Civil War, African Americans quickly renewed their long-suppressed percussion traditions: “the passage of the Black Codes, which in most states actually predated the Revolutionary War, did not automatically stamp out all slave drumming”. Palmer also noted: The style could not have developed in the first place if there hadn’t been a reservoir of polyrhythmic sophistication in the culture that nurtured it. David Evans, an anthropologist who has done extensive fieldwork in the hill country of northern Mississippi, recorded black families there who play polyrhythmic music in their homes on chairs, tin cans, and empty bottles. He reports that among the area’s older black fife and drum musicians, making the drums “talk it”—that is, playing rhythm patterns that conform to proverbial phrases or the words of popular fife and drum tunes—“is considered the sign of a good drummer.” This enduring tradition of folk polyrhythm played an important part in the development of Mississippi blues.

Hip-hop

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

“Hip-hop” has been in use since the 17th century to mean a succession of hops. In George Villiers’s 1671 play The Rehearsal, Prince Volscius exits a scene awkwardly with one boot on and the other off. The director of the scene exclaims, “to go off hip hop, hip hop, upon this occasion, is a thousand times better than any conclusion in the world”. A common variation on “hip hop” is “hippity hop”, which was in wide usage by the 19th century. It appears in works like a poem from 1882 where four children sing, " h ippity hop to the candy shop!" It was a common refrain in skipping games. Many dance steps include a hop. By the 18th century, “hop” began to be used interchangeably with “dance” as both a noun and a verb.

Hip-hop soul

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Description#

Hip-hop soul evolved directly from new jack swing, a form of contemporary R&B popularized by artists and producers such as Teddy Riley and his group Guy, Keith Sweat, and Bobby Brown. Hip-hop soul shifted from new jack swing’s reliance on synth-heavy production and took the hip-hop/R&B synthesis further by having R&B singers sing directly over the types of sample-heavy backing tracks typically found in contemporary hip-hop recordings like boom bap. It also increased the popularity of hip-hop music and culture with older audiences and corporations looking to market urban music.

Hokum

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Terminology#

“Hokum”, originally a vaudeville term used for a simple performance bordering on vulgarity, “old and sure-fire comedy”, but hinting at a smart wordplay, was first used to describe the genre of black music in a billing of a race record for Tampa Red’s Hokum Jug Band (Tampa Red and Georgia Tom, 1929). After producing a big hit, “It’s Tight Like That”, with Vocalion Records (and its sequel) in 1928, the musicians went on to Paramount Records where they were called The Hokum Boys. Other recording studios joined the fray using similarly named ensembles. The application of “hokum” to describe the musical approach of these bands was fostered by Papa Charlie Jackson with his “Shake That Thing” (1925). The meaning of the stage slang word “hokum” was a subject of an extensive debate in the 1920s (“most discussed word in the entire vernacular”, right next to the “jazz”). The term “hokum blues” did not become a formal designation of a style until 1960s. “Hokum” is also used to describe the low comedy acts that were used at the turn of the 20th century to lure audiences to musical performances. In the words of W. C. Handy, a veteran of a minstrel troupe, “Our hokum hooked ’em” outside the opera house, so that “ticket sellers would go to work”. King applies the term to the early short slapstick films.

House music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

In its most typical form, the genre is characterized by repetitive 4/4 rhythms including bass drums, off-beat hi-hats, snare drums, claps, and/or snaps at a tempo of between 120 and 130 beats per minute (bpm); synthesizer riffs; deep basslines; and often, but not necessarily, sung, spoken or sampled vocals. In house, the bass drum is usually played on beats one, two, three, and four, and the snare drum, claps, or other higher-pitched percussion on beats two and four. The drumbeats in house music are almost always provided by an electronic drum machine, often a Roland TR-808, TR-909, or a TR-707. Claps, shakers, snare drum, or hi-hat sounds are used to add syncopation. One of the signature rhythm riffs, especially in early Chicago house, is built on the clave pattern. Congas and bongos may be added for an African sound, or metallic percussion for a Latin feel. The electronic drum machines and other gear used by house DJs and producers were formerly considered “too cheap-sounding” by “proper” musicians. House music producers typically use sampled instruments, rather than bringing session musicians into a recording studio. Even though a key element of house production is layering sounds, such as drum machine beats, samples, synth basslines, and so on, the overall “texture…is relatively sparse”. Unlike pop songs, which emphasize higher-pitched sounds like melody, in house music, the lower-pitched bass register is most important. jazz-funk, or funk House tracks build up slowly, by adding layers of sound and texture, and by increasing the volume. House tracks may have vocals like a pop song, but some are “completely minimal instrumental music”. If a house track does have vocals, the vocal lines may also be simple “words or phrases” that are repeated.

Jazz

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology and definition#

The origin of the word jazz has resulted in considerable research, and its history is well documented. It is believed to be related to jasm, a slang term dating back to 1860 meaning . The earliest written record of the word is in a 1912 article in the Los Angeles Times in which a minor league baseball pitcher described a pitch which he called a ‘jazz ball’ “because it wobbles and you simply can’t do anything with it”. Its first documented use in a musical context in New Orleans was in a November 14, 1916, Times-Picayune article about “jas bands”. In an interview with National Public Radio, musician Eubie Blake offered his recollections of the slang connotations of the term, saying: “When Broadway picked it up, they called it ‘J-A-Z-Z’. It wasn’t called that. It was spelled ‘J-A-S-S’. That was dirty, and if you knew what it was, you wouldn’t say it in front of ladies.” The American Dialect Society named it the Word of the 20th Century. Jazz is difficult to define because it encompasses a wide range of music spanning a period of over 100 years, from ragtime to rock-infused fusion. Attempts have been made to define jazz from the perspective of other musical traditions, such as European music history or African music. But critic Joachim-Ernst Berendt argues that its terms of reference and its definition should be broader, defining jazz as a “form of art music which originated in the United States through the confrontation of the Negro with European music” and arguing that it differs from European music in that jazz has a “special relationship to time defined as ‘swing. Jazz involves “a spontaneity and vitality of musical production in which improvisation plays a role” and contains a “sonority and manner of phrasing which mirror the individuality of the performing jazz musician”. Duke Ellington, one of jazz’s most famous figures, said, “It’s all music.”

Jazz fusion

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins#

When John Coltrane died in 1967, rock was the most popular music in America, and DownBeat magazine went so far as to declare in a headline that: “Jazz as We Know It Is Dead”. AllMusic states that “until around 1967, the worlds of jazz and rock were nearly completely separate”, although the Daevid Allen Trio which later became the Soft Machine formed in 1963, while the jazz label Verve released the influential debut album, Freak Out!, by artist and composer Frank Zappa in 1966. In 1966, he started the band the Free Spirits with Bob Moses on drums and recorded the band’s first album, Axelrod said Davis had played the album before conceiving Bitches Brew.

Jazz rap

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

In 1989, Gang Starr released the debut single “Words I Manifest”, sampling Dizzy Gillespie’s 1952 “Night in Tunisia”, and Stetsasonic released “Talkin’ All That Jazz”, sampling Lonnie Liston Smith. Gang Starr’s debut LP, No More Mr. Nice Guy (Wild Pitch, 1989), and their track “Jazz Thing” (CBS, 1990) for the soundtrack of Mo’ Better Blues, further popularized the jazz rap style. In 1992, Eric B & Rakim used wood bass on “Don’t Sweat the Technique”. Digable Planets’ 1993 release Reachin’ (A New Refutation of Time and Space) was a hit jazz rap record. It sampled the likes of Don Cherry, Sonny Rollins, Art Blakey, Herbie Mann, Herbie Hancock, Grant Green, and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. Additionally, it spawned the hit single “Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)”. In 1993, Us3 released Hand on the Torch on Blue Note Records. All samples were from the Blue Note catalogue. The single “Cantaloop” was Blue Note’s first gold record. Post-WWII swing and modern jazz had fused with the introduction of Black appeal radio, which attracted a younger audience through its reliance on jive idioms, rhyming, and cadence-laden rap verses. Dizzy Gillespie had pointed to The Jives of Dr. Hepcat and rhyming D.J. Daddy-O Daylie as key to popularizing modern jazz. The rise of Top-40 radio on the strength of the rapping DJs in this period of radio’s rebirth among black youth led to the wider use of language and syntax popularizing rap. Muhammad Ali’s phrasing to the press in the early part of his career was born of listening to black radio of the 1950s, which was often white radio announcers speaking slang “jive” and imitating black announcers while withholding the fact on air of their backgrounds. Pioneering DJs Al Benson, Nat D., and Jack the Rapper all used rhyming, the dozens, and jive talk to pepper their broadcasts and were widely copied by white DJs like John Richbourg, Gene Nobles, and Bill Allen during the 1950s, whose influence on James Brown and other godfathers of rap was formative. Bebop was the backing track that modern jazz credits with being the foundation of black appeal, radio is based on.

Jazz-funk

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Jazz-funk generally exhibits a simple structure based around one or two riffs, and a harmonic structure that allows musicians to improvise. Modern jazz funk music was influenced by Herbie Hancock. The Mizell Brothers were producers for many jazz and soul artists. Examples of early jazz funk albums include Miles Davis’ On the Corner (1972) and Jimmy Smith’s Root Down (1972). The Last Poets, Gil Scott-Heron, Lightnin’ Rod, T.S. Monk, Pleasure, Boogaloo Joe Jones, Lenny White, Don Blackman, Monk Higgins, Wilbur Bascomb, the Blackbyrds, Donald Byrd and Les DeMerle and Michael Henderson released jazz funk albums. Jazz funk musicians used electric instruments, such as the Rhodes Piano or electric guitar, bass guitar, organ, particularly in jazz fusion. Herbie Hancock played ARP Odyssey synthesizer and clavinet on album Head Hunters (1973). may have helped jazz find a larger audience. By contrast, pop audiences found it “too jazzy” and, therefore, too complex. Some mainstream artists in jazz used specialist producers to commercial success. Larry and Fonce Mizell produced jazz-funk artists such as Johnny “Hammond” Smith, Gary Bartz, Roger Glenn, the Blackbyrds, and Donald Byrd.

Jug band

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Early jug bands were typically made up of African-American vaudeville and medicine show musicians. Beginning in the urban South (namely, Louisville, Kentucky, and Memphis, Tennessee), they played a mixture of blues, ragtime, and jazz. The history of jug bands is related to the development of the blues. The informal and energetic music of the jug bands also contributed to the development of rock and roll. The jug sound is made by taking a jug (usually made of glass or stoneware) and buzzing the lips into its mouth from about an inch away. As with brass instruments, changes in pitch are controlled by altering lip tension, and an accomplished jug player could have a two-octave range. The stovepipe (usually a section of tin pipe, three or four inches in diameter) is played in much the same manner, with the pipe rather than the jug serving as the resonating chamber. There is some similarity to the didgeridoo, but there is no contact between the stovepipe and the player’s lips. Some jug and stovepipe players utilize throat vocalization along with lip buzzing, as with the didgeridoo. The swooping sounds of the jug fill a musical role halfway between the trombone and sousaphone or tuba in Dixieland bands, playing mid- and lower-range harmonies in rhythm. In the early days of jug band music, homemade guitars and mandolins were sometimes made from the necks of discarded manufactured guitars fastened to large gourds that were flattened on one side, with a sound-hole cut into the flat side, before drying. Banjos were sometimes made from a discarded guitar neck and a metal pie plate.

Jump blues

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins#

Jump blues evolved from the music of big bands such as those of Lionel Hampton and Lucky Millinder in the early 1940s. The typical jump blues lineup consisted of between five and seven members, including sax, bass, drums and piano and/or guitar. The genre produced musicians including Louis Jordan, Earl Bostic, Arnett Cobb, Roy Brown, Amos Milburn, and Joe Liggins, as well as sax soloists Jack McVea, Big Jay McNeely, and Bull Moose Jackson. Jordan was the most popular of the jump blues stars. Hits included Jordan’s “Saturday Night Fish Fry”, Brown’s “Good Rockin’ Tonight” and McNeely’s “Deacon’s Hop”. One important stylistic prototype in the development of R&B was jump blues, pioneered by Louis Jordan, with … His Tympany Five … three horns and a rhythm section, while stylistically his music melded elements of swing and blues, incorporating the shuffle rhythm, boogie-woogie bass lines, and short horn patterns or riffs. The songs featured the use of African American vernacular language, humor, and vocal call-and-response sections between Jordan and the band. Jordan’s music appealed to both African American and white audiences, and he had broad success with hit songs like “Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby” (1944). Blues and jazz were part of the same musical world, with many musicians straddling both genres. Jump bands such as the Tympany Five, which came into being at the same time as the boogie-woogie revival, achieved maximum effect with an eight-to-the-bar boogie-woogie style. Jordan’s “raucous recordings” with the Tympany Five like “Saturday Night Fish Fry”, one of the first to feature a distorted electric guitar, “literally made its listeners jump to its pulsing beat”. At least two other Jordan records are viewed as jump blues: “Caldonia” and “Choo Choo Ch’Boogie”. Jordan’s jump blues combined good-natured novelty lyrics (some with suggestive double meanings); pushing the tempo; strengthening the beat; layering the sound with his bluesy saxophone and playful melodies. Lionel Hampton recorded the stomping big-band blues song “Flying Home” in 1942. Billboard described “Flying Home” as “an unusually swingy side…with a bright bounce in the medium tempo and a steady drive maintained, it’s a jumper that defies standing still”. Both Hampton and Jordan combined the popular boogie-woogie rhythm, a grittier version of swing-era saxophone styles as exemplified by Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster, and playful, humorous lyrics or verbal asides laced with jive talk. Jump groups, employed to play for jitterbug dances at a much lower cost than big bands, became popular with agents and ballroom owners. The saxophonist Art Chaney said " w e were insulted when an audience wouldn’t dance". Less frequently mentioned, Goree Carter also recorded some jump blues; his “Rock Awhile” is said by Robert Palmer to be an appropriate candidate for the title of first rock and roll record. By the mid-1950s, some jump blues songs had become core standards, with songs like “Train Kept a Rollin” later played by rock groups including the Rock and Roll Trio, the Yardbirds, Aerosmith, Motörhead, and Twisted Sister. “Five Guys Named Moe” was covered in the 1980s by the Honeydrippers. File:Louis Jordan, New York, N.Y., ca. July 1946 (William P. Gottlieb 04731).jpg Alto saxophonist Louis Jordan in New York, July 1946 File:Louis Jordan’s Typany Five, New York, N.Y., between 1946 and 1948 (William P. Gottlieb 04751).jpg Jordan with his Tympany Five File:Drummer-and-Vibrafonist-Lionel-Hampton-during-a-show-in-Stockholm-consert-hall-142452987990.jpg Lionel Hampton

Kansas City jazz

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

The first band from Kansas City, Missouri, to acquire a national reputation was the Coon-Sanders Original Nighthawk Orchestra, a white group which broadcast nationally in the 1920s. However, the Kansas City jazz school is identified with the black bands of the 1920s and 1930s, including those led by Bennie Moten, Andy Kirk, Harlan Leonard, George E. Lee, Count Basie, and Jay McShann. Bennie Moten was born in Kansas City on December 13, 1893, the beginning of the story of the 1923 recording session. During his first gigs, Moten played house rent parties and brothels operating from private homes, according to long-time Kansas City native Fred Hicks. Between 1916 and 1918, Moten began performing with the drummer Dude Langford. According to Langford, " When I first met Bennie, he was playing around town, little old joints here, some of ’em just little fronts, a bar and a gambling room in the back." The success of Count Basie nationally and internationally led bookers, managers, and record producers to come to Kansas City in search of similar talent. According to Gray Giddins, Basie “is the only major jazz figure to realize his individuality by paring down his technique” because he discovered his style through a search for identity. “From his first session with Bennie Moten to those with his own band in the late 1930s, Basie could be heard in various settings responding to musical challenges as a committed ensemble player, making choices that might serve others as well”. Born in Kansas City, Kansas, Charlie Parker learned about music by spending time in the alleyways behind nightclubs that lined Twelfth Street. Due to Parker’s dubious musical reputation, Oliver Todd reluctantly allowed him to join his Hottentots band: “I tried to take him under my wing. He was very green. If you had told me then that he would be famous I wouldn’t have believed it. He had a lot to learn. He was very determined. … He worked hard.” In the 1930s, Kansas City was very much the crossroads of the United States, resulting in a mix of cultures. Transcontinental trips by plane or train often necessitated a stop in the city. The era marked the zenith of power of political boss Tom Pendergast. Kansas City was a wide open town with prohibition era liquor laws and hours totally ignored, and was called the new Storyville. Most of the jazz musicians associated with the style were born in other places but got caught up in the friendly musical competitions among performers that could keep a single song being performed in variations for an entire night. Often members of the big bands would perform at regular venues earlier in the evening and go to the jazz clubs later to jam for the rest of the night. During the 1930s, a hybrid style between Kansas City jazz and big band was the most popular form of jazz music in the United States, often being played in popular venues and ballrooms. In 1936, Kansas City’s influence overtly transferred to the national scene, when record producer John Hammond discovered Count Basie on his car radio. Pendergast was convicted of income tax fraud in 1940, and the city cracked down on the clubs effectively ending the era. Jay McShann told the Associated Press in 2003: “You’d hear some cat play, and somebody would say ‘This cat, he sounds like he is from Kansas City.’ It was Kansas City Style. They knew it on the East Coast. They knew it on the West Coast. They knew it up North and they knew it down South.” Claude “Fiddler” Williams described the scene: “Kansas City was different from all other places because we’d be jamming all night. And if you come up here … playing the wrong thing, we’d straighten you out.” Tenor saxophonist Lester Young was a hero among writers and musicians. “Known as ‘president’ of the saxophone, he gained recognition for his musical genius while playing leading swing bands of the 1930s, including the 13 Original Blue Devils and the King Oliver and Count Basie bands”. He gained recognition for his signature whistling sound and his impact on jazz has been recognized by jazz historians. Redefining the role of the tenor sax was only the first of Young’s achievements. In this way, he profoundly changed jazz melodic improvisation, offering a counterpoint to Armstrong’s hot, syncopated style. In the Southwest, a tradition of storytelling is as strong in music as it is in speech, according to bassist Gene Ramey of Kansas City. When he explained how Young dethroned Coleman Hawkins in a legendary tenor-saxophone battle at the Cherry Blossom, he noted that the Kansas City musician played more creatively.

Latin jazz

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

“Spanish tinge”—The Cuban influence in early jazz and proto-Latin jazz#

African American music began incorporating Afro-Cuban musical motifs in the 19th century, when the habanera (Cuban contradanza) gained international popularity. The habanera was the first written music to be rhythmically based on an African motif. The habanera rhythm (also known as congo, tango-congo, or tango ) can be thought of as a combination of tresillo and the backbeat. Wynton Marsalis considers tresillo to be the New Orleans “clave,” although technically, the pattern is only half a clave. “St. Louis Blues” (1914) by W. C. Handy has a habanera-tresillo bass line. Handy noted a reaction to the habanera rhythm included in Will H. Tyler’s “Maori”: “I observed that there was a sudden, proud and graceful reaction to the rhythm…White dancers, as I had observed them, took the number in stride. I began to suspect that there was something Negroid in that beat.” After noting a similar reaction to the same rhythm in “La Paloma”, Handy included this rhythm in his “St. Louis Blues”, the instrumental copy of “Memphis Blues”, the chorus of “Beale Street Blues”, and other compositions. Jelly Roll Morton considered the tresillo-habanera (which he called the Spanish tinge) to be an essential ingredient of jazz. The habanera rhythm can be heard in his left hand on songs like “The Crave” (1910, recorded 1938). Now in one of my earliest tunes, “New Orleans Blues,” you can notice the Spanish tinge. In fact, if you can’t manage to put tinges of Spanish in your tunes, you will never be able to get the right seasoning, I call it, for jazz—Morton (1938: Library of Congress Recording). Although the exact origins of jazz syncopation may never be known, there is evidence that the habanera-tresillo was there at its conception. Buddy Bolden, the first known jazz musician, is credited with creating the big four, a habanera-based pattern. The big four (below) was the first syncopated bass drum pattern to deviate from the standard on-the-beat march. As the example below shows, the second half of the big four pattern is the habanera rhythm. It is probably safe to say that by and large the simpler African rhythmic patterns survived in jazz … because they could be adapted more readily to European rhythmic conceptions. Some survived, others were discarded as the Europeanization progressed. It may also account for the fact that patterns such as tresillo have . . . remained one of the most useful and common syncopated patterns in jazz—Schuller (1968). The Cuban influence is evident in many pre-1940s jazz tunes, but rhythmically, they are all based on single-celled motifs such as tresillo, and not do not contain an overt two-celled, clave-based structure. “Caravan”, written by Juan Tizol and first performed in 1936, is an early proto-Latin jazz composition. Mongo Santamaría recorded ever green “Watermelon Man” in 1962. Hank Mobley, Kenny Dorham, and Willie Bobo released latin jazz albums. Willie Bobo fused jazz, latin, and R&B music.

Louisiana blues

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

New Orleans blues#

The blues that developed in the 1940s and 1950s in and around the city of New Orleans was strongly influenced by jazz and incorporated Caribbean influences, it is dominated by piano and saxophone but has also produced major guitar bluesmen. Major figures in the genre include Professor Longhair and Guitar Slim, who both produced major regional, national R&B chart and even mainstream hits.

Swamp blues#

Swamp blues developed around Baton Rouge in the 1950s and which reached a peak of popularity in the 1960s. It generally has a slow tempo and incorporates influences from other genres of music, particularly the regional styles of zydeco and Cajun music. Its most successful proponents included Slim Harpo and Lightnin’ Slim, who enjoyed a number of rhythm and blues and national hits and whose work was frequently covered by bands of the British Invasion.

M-Base

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Music associated with the term “M-Base”#

In 1991 a significant number of M-Base participants labelled as “M-Base Collective” recorded the CD Anatomy of a Groove. Most of them previously contributed to CDs by alto saxophonist Steve Coleman, whose creativity has been a pivotal factor in that movement, although he refused to be called its leader or founder. Coleman and his friend Greg Osby, who plays alto saxophone in a related style, together led the group Strata Institute, which recorded two CDs (the second with tenor saxophonist Von Freeman as a further leader). Under the name of Osby, a number of CDs with a specific character have been released starting in 1987, which also coined the perception of “M-Base” jazz. Tenor saxophonist and flutist Gary Thomas admittedly didn’t take part in the M-Base initiative, but joined them, and there were similarities in his way of playing. He can be heard on recordings of Coleman and Osby, and his own CDs are also labelled as “M-Base-style”. All three saxophonists contributed to the CD Jumpworld by singer Cassandra Wilson. Pianist Andrew Hill said about Greg Osby: “He has an incredible sense of rhythm and harmonic accuracy, and picks the right notes with a precision that isn’t common to people with his technical versatility. He’s developed into a fully rounded artist who can play various styles extremely well – better than most.” Greg Osby said about Gary Thomas: “He’s extremely intelligent and has a capacity for absorption that exceeds that of most people that I know … He has his own compositional and improvisational method that is peerless in my opinion. He’s my favourite tenor saxophone player on the contemporary scene.” Clarinettist and composer Don Byron called Steve Coleman “an exceptional personality of American music history.” Antecedents to M-Base were identified by jazz critic Bill Milkowski as the Miles Davis-led band featured on recordings like 1975’s Agharta; he noted the combination of Sonny Fortune’s acerbic saxophone lines atop the syncopated grooves performed by the rhythm section of drummer Al Foster, bassist Michael Henderson, and rhythm guitarist Reggie Lucas.

Mainstream jazz

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Jazz in the mainstream#

After Dance defined mainstream jazz in the 1950s, the definition changed with the evolution and progression of jazz music. What was mainstream then would not be considered mainstream now. In a general sense, mainstream jazz can be considered what was most popular at the time: For example, during the Swing era, swing and big band music were in their prime and what target audiences were looking for. Although bebop was introduced into jazz during that time, audiences had not developed an ear for it.

Marabi

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External links#

South African Music: Marabi

Memphis blues

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

In addition to guitar-based blues, jug bands, such as Gus Cannon’s Jug Stompers and the Memphis Jug Band, were extremely popular practitioners of Memphis blues. The jug band style emphasized the danceable, syncopated rhythms of early jazz and a range of other folk styles. It was played on simple, sometimes homemade, instruments such as harmonicas, violins, mandolins, banjos, and guitars, backed by washboards, kazoo, guimbarde and jugs blown to supply the bass. After World War II, as African Americans left the Mississippi Delta and other impoverished areas of the South for urban areas, many musicians gravitated to the blues scene in Memphis, changing the classic Memphis blues sound. Musicians such as Howlin’ Wolf, Willie Nix, Ike Turner, and B. B. King performed on Beale Street and in West Memphis and recorded some of the classic electric blues, rhythm-and-blues and rock-and-roll records for labels such as Sam Phillips’s Sun Records. Sun recorded Howlin’ Wolf (before he moved to Chicago), Willie Nix, Ike Turner, B. B. King and others. Electric Memphis blues featured “explosive, distorted electric guitar work, thunderous drumming, and fierce, declamatory vocals.” Musicians associated with Sun Records included Joe Hill Louis, Willie Johnson and Pat Hare.

Memphis soul

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Overview/Memphis Soul#

Soul music is an emotional genre that began by expression of the struggles within the African American community. Soul is similar to genres like Motown or Rhythm and Blues but is unique because of its tonality and origin. Memphis musicians Willie Mitchell and Al Green collaborated to produce the basic sound of all soul music to emerge from Memphis. To this day, the entire genre of Memphis soul music is in accordance with their perfected sound of the 70s.

Mumble rap

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology and characteristics#

The earliest known usage of the term “mumble rap” was in 2014 by VladTV battle rap journalist Michael Hughes, in an interview with battle rapper Loaded Lux about the style’s emergence in mainstream hip-hop. There is disagreement over who first rapped in such a style, although its creation has been attributed to rappers such as Lil Wayne, Gucci Mane, Chief Keef, Young Thug, Rich Homie Quan, Migos, Sahbabii, Playboi Carti, Ken Carson, and most notably Future, whose 2011 single “Tony Montana” is often cited as the first mumble rap song; however, there have been sources dating as far back as October 2011 of even older releases by other artists. Artists such as Das EFX and Fu-Schnickens may have rapped in a similar style years before the term was created. The term was first used to describe rappers whose lyrics were unclear, but the use of the term has expanded to include rappers that some critics claim “generally put little emphasis on lyricism or lyrical quality”. Mumble rap is used mostly as a derogatory term, in reference to a perceived incoherence of the artist’s lyrics. Oscar Harold of the Cardinal Times stated that “mumble rap” is misleading, arguing that the rappers such as Future rely more upon pop melodies and vocal effects, such as auto tune, than mumbling. Justin Charity, a staff writer at The Ringer, argues that the term is unnecessarily reductive and does not in fact refer to one specific type of rapping. He wrote that many of the artists often scapegoated in conversations about the subgenre do not actually mumble, which “is the red flag that the term isn’t a useful subcategorization.” There are disputes as to whether some rappers are mumble rappers or not. There is also conflation between mumble/SoundCloud rap and other new generation-led evolutions or niches such as trap and cloud rap. The Cleveland Plain Dealers Troy L. Smith writes that 21 Savage unfairly gets classified as a mumble rapper.

Music of the African diaspora

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

Many genres of music originate from communities that have visible roots in Africa. In North America, it was a way that the early slaves could express themselves and communicate when they were being forcibly relocated and when there were restrictions on what cultural activities they could pursue. The sorrows of song were the only freedom slaves had working on cotton fields, and overall through labor tactics. This burden of slavery became a gateway for other genres of music such as the blues. For example, Black music does not just encompass sounds of the U.S. black experience but also a global black experience that stretches from Africa to Americas. The term for many coming from places of “Black” origin can be perceived in a derogatory manner by cultures who see the term as a blurring of lines which ignores the true roots of certain peoples and their specific traditions. To refer to musical genres with strong African-American influence, such as hip hop music, is very limited in scope and is not adopted by academic institutions as a true category of music. The individual aspects and collectively of black music is surrounded by the culture in itself as well as experience. Black music is centered around a story and origin. Many artists sing about the things they have experienced firsthand. Music was a tool black people used to communicate and express themselves during hard times such as slavery. Their songs were used to give guidance to one another and tell stories. The varieties of sounds and expressions used in the music helped stress their emotions. Black music began to reflect urban environments through amplified sounds, social concerns, and cultural pride expressed through music. It combined blues, jazz, boogie-woogie and gospel, taking the form of fast paced dance music with highly energized guitar work appealing to young audiences across racial divides.

Neo soul

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Etymology#

As a term, neo soul was coined by Kedar Massenburg of Motown Records in the late 1990s as a marketing category following the commercial breakthroughs of artists such as D’Angelo, Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill, and Maxwell. The success of D’Angelo’s 1995 debut album Brown Sugar has been regarded by several writers and music critics as the inspiration behind the term’s origin. In a 2002 interview for Billboard, Massenburg said that genre classifications are often unpopular because they may be suggestive of a short-lived trend. However Massenburg felt there was a need to market artists of the genre for listeners to have an understanding of what they were listening to. Jason Anderson of CBC News compares the etymology of neo soul to that of “new wave” and comments: “neo-soul is still an effective tag to describe the mix of chic modernity and time-honoured tradition that distinguished the genre’s best examples. Neo-soul artists tried to look both backward and forward, acting in the belief that a continuum might exist.”

Neo-bop

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Musical style#

Neo-bop contains elements of bebop, post-bop, hard bop, and modal jazz. As both “neo-bop” and “post-bop” refer to eclectic mixtures of styles from the bebop and post-bebop eras, the precise differences in musical style between the two are not clearly defined from an academic standpoint. In the United States, Wynton Marsalis and “The Young Lions” have been associated with both neo-bop and post-bop. Neo-bop was also embraced by established straight-ahead jazz musicians who either abstained from the avant-garde and fusion movements or subsequently returned to music based on more traditional styles. This return to more traditional styles earned both praise and criticism, with Miles Davis derisively calling it “warmed over turkey” and others deeming it too dependent on the past. The movement, however, received praise from Time magazine and others who welcomed the return of more accessible forms of jazz.

New jack swing

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

The term “new jack swing” was coined in an October 18, 1987, Village Voice profile of Teddy Riley by Barry Michael Cooper. “New Jack” was a slang term (meaning “Johnny-come-lately”) used in a song by Grandmaster Caz of the Cold Crush Brothers, and “swing” was intended by Cooper to draw an “analogy between the music played at the speak easies of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s time to the crack-houses of Teddy Riley’s time”. The term “new jack swing” describes the sound produced and engineered by R&B/hip hop artist and producer Teddy Riley. Riley is an American R&B and hip hop singer-songwriter, musician, and record producer, who led the band Guy in the late 1980s and Blackstreet in the 1990s. Riley said, “I define the term new jack swing as a new kid on the block who’s swinging it.” The defining feature of Riley’s music was the introduction of swingbeats, “a rhythmic pattern using offbeat accented 16th note triplets”. In an interview with Revolt TV in 2017, Andre Harrell called Riley the inventor of the sound, hailing him “the king of New Jack Swing, because he invented it”.

New Orleans blues

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

As a style, New Orleans blues is primarily driven by piano and enlivened by Caribbean rhythms and Dixieland music. It is generally cheerful in delivery regardless of the subject, with a laidback tempo and complex rhythms falling just behind the beat. Vocals range from laidback crooning to full-throated gospel shouting.

History#

New Orleans is generally credited as the birthplace of jazz music, but has attracted less attention as a center of the blues. The 12-bar blues were well known in the city before most of the rest of the country. Buddy Bolden’s band was remembered at excelling on playing blues before 1906. Anthony Maggio’s “I Got the Blues” was an early example of published blues sheet music from 1908. The Original Dixieland Jass Band’s “Livery Stable Blues”, generally considered the first jazz record, is in a fast blues form. Although New Orleans has drawn to it and produced fewer blues musicians than other major US urban centers with large African-American populations, it has been the center of a distinctive form of blues music, which has been pursued by some notable musicians and produced important recordings, such as Professor Longhair and Guitar Slim, who both had regional, R&B and even mainstream chart hits. In the period after World War II, a very large number of recordings were produced in the city that were informed by the blues, but had strong R&B and pop influences that anticipated rock and roll and are difficult to classify. Other significant figures playing keyboard-based blues include James Booker, whose organ instrumental “Gonzo” reached the top 50 in the Billboard chart in 1960 and was followed by a series of minor single hits. The most significant blues guitarist to emerge from the city in the post-World War II period was Guitar Slim, originally from the Delta. His “The Things That I Used to Do”, which combined gospel, blues and R&B, was a major R&B hit in 1954 and may have influenced the development of later soul music. featuring an electric guitar solo with distorted overtones. Other important blues guitarists from the city include Snooks Eaglin, who recorded both acoustic folk and electric-based R&B, Also among the major figures of the genre was Dr. John, who began as a guitarist and enjoyed regional success with the Bo Diddley–influenced “Storm Warning” in 1959, and had a highly successful career from the 1960s after moving to Los Angeles, mixing R&B with psychedelic rock and using New Orleans-themed aesthetics. The careers of many New Orleans bluesmen declined in the 1960s, as rock and roll and soul began to dominate popular music, but revived in the 1970s, when there was renewed interest in their recordings.

New Orleans hip-hop

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins and early development#

New Orleans hip hop originated from a decade of local musical activity in the late 1980s, culminating in the distinct style known as “bounce” in the early 1990s. The genre is profoundly influenced by New Orleans’ traditional African-American musical forms. These include Mardi Gras Indian chants, brass band music, and second-line parades, which are frequently integrated into bounce tracks through sampling or live instrumentation. For example, the incorporation of the Rebirth Brass Band’s “I Feel Like Funkin’ It Up” on Da Sha Ra’s “I Feel Like Bootin’ Up” (1993) exemplifies this direct musical integration. While intensely local in its expression, foundational elements of bounce music also drew from external influences. Key examples include the “Triggaman bells” and 808 drum-machine beats sampled from The Showboys’ 1986 single “Drag Rap”, a track by a New York group, and instrumentals like “Brown Beats” from California DJ Cameron Paul. The “Cheeky Blakk beat”, a variation on “Brown Beats” created by Mannie Fresh for New Orleans rapper Cheeky Blakk in the mid-1990s, became another frequently utilized signature sound of early bounce. Pioneering tracks include MC T. Tucker’s “Where Dey At” (1991), performed over a DJ Irv backing track that sampled “Drag Rap”. This song gained significant local popularity at clubs such as Uptown Hollygrove’s Ghost Town. DJ Jimi subsequently recorded his own version, “Where They At”, which was studio-recorded into a full-length album in 1992. Proto-bounce tracks, such as Gregory D and DJ Mannie Fresh’s “Buck Jump Time (Project Rapp)” (1989), are recognized for their hyper-specific lyrical references to New Orleans neighborhoods and a distinctive sousaphone-driven bass line. The origins of New Orleans bounce reveal a unique synthesis of globally circulating hip hop elements with deeply localized New Orleans musical traditions. This fusion created a distinct sound that, despite its regional dominance, initially faced challenges in gaining broader national recognition. The distinctiveness of New Orleans hip hop was not solely about inventing entirely new sounds but rather about recontextualizing, reinterpreting, and localizing existing hip hop elements through a unique New Orleans cultural lens. The genre’s local character was powerfully forged through the integration of indigenous New Orleans musical forms, lyrical themes (such as roll calls of wards and neighborhoods), and participatory performance styles onto these imported rhythmic foundations. This exemplifies a dynamic process of cultural adaptation and innovation, where global musical trends are localized and imbued with specific regional identity, creating something uniquely New Orleanian. The initial regional limitation, despite internal popularity, suggests that this intensely local nature, while a strength for community identity and authenticity, might have initially hindered broader mainstream appeal until artists like Big Freedia achieved crossover international audiences. This highlights the tension between local cultural preservation and global commercial viability.

New Orleans rhythm and blues

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

New Orleans rhythm and blues can be characterized by predominant piano, “singing” horns, and call-and-response elements. Clear influences of Kansas City Swing bands can be heard through the extensive use of trumpet and saxophone solos. A “double” bass line, when the guitar and bass play in unison, was combined with a strong backbeat to make the music easy to dance to. In addition, the usage of blue notes is characteristic. Like most blues, New Orleans R&B typically follows a standard three-stanza form that contains tonic, subdominant, and dominant chords. Within these chords, the three “blue notes”, also known as flatted notes, are the third, fifth, and seventh scale degrees. In New Orleans R&B, the flatted third is particularly notable.

New Orleans soul

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins#

The initial songs in this soul style emerged from the talents of songwriter and producer Allen Toussaint in 1960. Subsequently, this musical style gained significant traction among other local and regional artists. By the 1990s, New Orleans Soul had captured the interest of many singers from various soul music genres. Originally cultivated in New Orleans, its influence remained relatively contained within the city boundaries. However, some musicians from Memphis acknowledged the genre as a significant influence on the development of their own style of soul. Moreover, it left an imprint on Northern Soul and British soul. Around 1965, Toussaint, a pivotal figure in this genre, produced a slower variation that played a crucial role in the birth of funk.

New York soul

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Labels#

While there were a number of New York soul labels, including Scepter, Sue, Shout and Colla, the most well-known label was Atlantic Records, which dominated 1960s soul. Atlantic Records singers included Solomon Burke, Doris Troy and Aretha Franklin. 1967-68 was a peak period for Atlantic, as the string of hits coming from the Stax roster was augmented by the tremendous crossover success of Franklin, who shot to fame, becoming the preeminent female soul artist of the era, and earning the title “Queen of Soul”. Jerry Wexler signed Franklin to Atlantic in January 1967 after the expiry of her contract with Columbia Records. She had a run of seven consecutive singles that made both the US pop and soul Top 10, and of which five were million-sellers; “I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You)” (b/w “Do Right Woman”) (soul #1, pop #9), “Respect” (soul and pop #1), “Baby, I Love You” (soul #1, pop #4), “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” (soul #2, pop #8), “Chain of Fools” (soul #1, pop #2), “Since You’ve Been Gone” (1968, soul #1, pop #5) and “Think” (1968, soul #1, pop #7).

New-school hip-hop

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

Elements of new school had existed in some form in the popular culture since hip-hop’s birth. The first MC’s rapped over DJs swapping back and forth between two copies of the same record playing the same drum break, or playing instrumental portions or versions of a broad range of records. This part of the culture was initiated by DJ Kool Herc in 1973 using breaks from James Brown, the Incredible Bongo Band and English rock group Babe Ruth in his block parties. Brown’s music—“extensive vamps” in which his voice was “a percussive instrument with frequent rhythmic grunts”, and “with rhythm-section patterns … resembling West African polyrhythms”—was a keynote of hip-hop’s early days. By 1975, Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambaataa had taken up Kool Herc’s breakbeat style of DJing, each with their own accompanying rappers. Flash was especially associated with an important break known as “The Bells”—a cut-up of the intro to Bob James’s jazz cover of Paul Simon’s “Take Me To The Mardi Gras”—while Bambaataa delighted in springing occasional rock music breaks from records like “Mary, Mary”, “Honky Tonk Women”, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and Grand Funk Railroad’s “Inside Looking Out” on unsuspecting b-boys. The earliest hip-hop records replaced the DJ with a live band playing funk and disco influenced tunes, or “interpolating” the tunes themselves, as in “Rapper’s Delight” (Sugar Hill, 1979) and “King Tim III (Personality Jock)” (Spring, 1979). It was the soft, futuristic funk closely tied to disco that ruled hip-hop’s early days on record, to the exclusion of the hard James Brown beats so beloved of the first b-boys. Figures such as Flash and Bambaataa were involved in some early instances of moving the sound away from that of a live band, as in Flash’s DJ track “The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel” (Sugar Hill, 1981), and even innovating popular new sounds and subgenres, as in the synthesizer-laden electro of Bambaataa’s “Planet Rock” (Tommy Boy, 1982). Often though the rawer elements present in live shows did not make it past the recording studio. Bambaataa’s first records, for instance, two versions of “Zulu Nation Throwdown” (Winley, 1980), were recorded with just drums and rhymes. When Bambaataa heard the released records, a complete live band had been added. Something closer to his intentions can be heard on a portion of Death Mix, a low-quality bootleg of a Zulu Nation night at James Monroe High School in the Bronx, released without his permission on Winley Records in 1983. Likewise on the bootleg Live Convention ‘82 (Disco Wax, 1982), Grand Wizard Theodore cuts the first six bars of Rufus Thomas’s “Do the Funky Penguin” together for five and a half minutes while an MC raps over the top. Grandmaster Flash’s “Superrappin’” (Enjoy, 1979) had a pumping syncopated rhythm and The Furious Five emulating his spinbacks and needle drops and chanting that “that Flash is on the beatbox going …” The beatbox itself however, a drum machine which Flash had added to his turntable set-up some time earlier, was absent on the record, the drums being produced by a live drummer. Kool Moe Dee’s verbal personal attacks on Busy Bee Starski live at Harlem World in 1982 caused a popular sensation in hip-hop circles. In the same way, groups like the Cold Crush Brothers and The Force MCs were known for their routines, competitive attitude, and battle rhymes. Tapes of battles like these circulated widely, even without them becoming viable recordings. Apart from some social commentary like Melle Mel’s one verse on “Superrappin’”, Kurtis Blow’s ruefully comedic “The Breaks” (Mercury, 1980) and a spurt of records following the success of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s “The Message” (Sugar Hill, 1982), the old school specialized lyrically in party rhymes.

Nigerian gospel

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origin of Nigerian gospel songs#

The act of singing gospel songs is a practice that was brought into Nigeria about late 15th century, by Portuguese Catholic who had arrived Benin city at this time for missionary work. These songs were mostly rendered then during Church worship service. They took the form of monophonic liturgy like the Gregorian chant - these are songs without polyphony and not written (rendered in parts) but having only one line of melody. By mid-19th century, missionary activities (which had diminished earlier) had revived in Nigeria. This time around, it was championed by the Church Missionary Society (CMS), which is owned and funded by the Church of England (Anglican Communion). At this time, the activities of CMS centered mostly around South-west, Nigeria. The CMS introduced a different genre of Church music that involved congregational singing of hymns led by a choir. Incidentally (and not surprising), the first known Nigerian to have recorded gospel songs was a product of the Anglican Communion’s CMS. He is the late Reverend Josiah Jesse Ransome-Kuti.

Nordic jazz

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

The distinctive Nordic jazz sound emerged in the 1960s, influenced significantly by American composer George Russell, who lived in Scandinavia from 1964 to 1969. Russell taught his Lydian Chromatic Concept at Lund University and worked with young Nordic musicians including Jan Garbarek, Terje Rypdal, Arild Andersen, and Jon Christensen, who would become central figures in Nordic jazz. The establishment of ECM Records in 1969 by German producer Manfred Eicher proved crucial for Nordic jazz’s international recognition. Jan Garbarek’s “Afric Pepperbird” (1971) became the first Norwegian jazz album on ECM, followed by Keith Jarrett’s “Belonging” (1974) featuring Garbarek and other Nordic musicians. These recordings established what became known as the “ECM sound,” characterized by spacious production and atmospheric qualities. Nordic jazz typically employs modal harmonies and minor-based tonality, often incorporating elements from Scandinavian folk music. Production characteristics include extensive use of reverb and emphasis on natural acoustics, creating what critics describe as a “crystalline” or “ethereal” sound quality. The aesthetic has been described as reflecting a “state of being” rather than “state of becoming,” distinguishing it from more rhythmically driven jazz styles.

Nu jazz

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Nu jazz began with the use of electronic instruments in the 1970s, with contributions from artists like Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, and Ornette Coleman. Herbie Hancock’s work in the early 1980s, particularly his collaboration with Bill Laswell on the album Future Shock, played a pivotal role in defining the genre by incorporating electro and hip-hop rhythms. By the late 1980s, many hip-hop musicians were exploring jazz-rap, including groups like Gang Starr, The Roots, A Tribe Called Quest, and Nas. Concurrently, in the 1980s, numerous house musicians drew inspiration from jazz, especially post-bop and jazz-funk. In the mid-1990s and early 2000s, downtempo artists such as Jazztronik, St Germain, Trüby Trio, DJ Takemura, Perry Hemus, and Jazzanova delved deeper into jazz. During the same period, producers of intelligent dance music, including notable names like Squarepusher and Spring Heel Jack, and later London Elektricity and Landslide, also showed interest in nu jazz. Techno musicians like Carl Craig and his Innerzone Orchestra project demonstrated interest in the genre. Figures from hardcore and breakcore scenes, such as Alec Empire, Nic Endo, and Venetian Snares, experimented with a harsher and more noisy variant of nu jazz. A decade later, some dubstep producers, like Boxcutter, also explored electronic jazz. While maintaining traditional jazz forms, pianist Bugge Wesseltoft and trumpeter Nils Petter Molvær are known for their improvisations in the nu jazz style. The Cinematic Orchestra is recognized for incorporating traditional jazz elements into their musical productions alongside electronic elements. St Germain, a prominent figure in nu jazz, even sold 1.5 million copies of his album “Tourist.”

Old-school hip-hop

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Musical characteristics and themes#

Old-school hip-hop is noted for its relatively simple rapping techniques, compared to later hip-hop. with simple rhythms Much of the subject matter of old-school hip-hop centers around partying and having a good time. Busy Bee Starski’s defeat by the more complex raps of Kool Moe Dee meant that “no longer was an MC just a crowd-pleasing comedian with a slick tongue; he was a commentator and a storyteller”. Sci-fi/Afrofuturism was another theme introduced into hip-hop. The release of Planet Rock in 1982 was a game-changer, like “a light being switched on.” The combination of electronic percussive propulsion and Afrika Bambaataa’s rap sounded like “an orchestra being rocketed into outer space.” “Light Years Away”, by Warp 9 (1983), produced and written by Lotti Golden and Richard Scher, explored social commentary from a sci-fi perspective. A “cornerstone of early 80’s beatbox afrofuturism”, “Light Years Away” is characterized as “a brilliantly spare and sparse piece of electro hip-hop traversing inner and outer space.” Freestyle rap during hip-hop’s old-school era was defined differently than today. Kool Moe Dee refers to this earlier definition in his book There’s a God on the Mic: “There are two types of freestyle. There’s an old-school freestyle that’s basically rhymes that you’ve written that may not have anything to do with any subject or that goes all over the place. Then there’s freestyle where you come off the top of the head”. This is in contrast to the more recent definition which usually defines freestyle rap as “improvisational rap like a jazz solo”. In old-school hip-hop, Kool Moe Dee says that improvisational rapping was instead called “coming off the top of the head”. Old-school hip-hop often sampled disco and funk tracks, such as “Good Times” by Chic, when performed live in the 1970s. Recorded hip-hop (such as Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight”) would use a live band to do covers of the famous breaks from the 1970s block parties. However, after “Planet Rock”, electro-funk (the electronic Roland TR-808 drum machine recreation of the original 1970s breakbeat sound from the now infamous block parties) became the staple production technique between 1982 and 1986 (the invention of the sampler later in the 80s and Eric B. & Rakim’s “Eric B. Is President” brought the original 1970s breakbeat sound back to hip-hop, referred to today as the “boom bap” sound). The use of extended percussion breaks led to the development of mixing and scratching techniques. Scratching pioneered by Grand Wizard Theodore in 1975, and the technique was further developed by other prominent DJs, such as Grandmaster Flash. One example is “Adventures on the Wheels of Steel”, which was composed entirely by Flash on the turntables. During the period years of 1984–1987, beatbox was a common thing to rap with someone making a beat with their mouth. Doug E. Fresh and The Human Beat Box made this popular. Doug E. Fresh was with “The Get Fresh Crew”, and The Human Beatbox was with “The Fat Boys”. Quincy Jones was an influential figure in hip-hop as a record producer for Mercury Records, and eventually became its vice president, which made him popular in hip-hop culture. He went on to publish Vibe magazine, which became a cornerstone in hip-hop history. Five Elements of Hip Hop Hip Hop is a culture that is made up of five elements. One is MCing, this is when you can talk or rap on the microphone and make an impact on the audience. The second element is DJing. This is one of the ways that hip hop started out by a Disc Jockey playing beats from earlier artist. The DJ would stop in the song where the beat was broken down, which was called breakbeats. The third element is Break dancing and this is where the person gets to express their dancing through songs. This is made popular by The Bronx group “The Rock Steady Crew.” Some consider break dancing a part of b-boying and b-girling. Next we have graffiti, which is expressed through a form of writing, and it is a way that the letters come together with style. The last one is knowledge, and it goes with the mental side of Hip Hop. This includes the knowledge of self, culture, and style.

Orchestral jazz

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Orchestral jazz developed from early New Orleans jazz. The African-American musicians who pioneered the genre prior to 1920, and who migrated from New Orleans to Chicago and New York in the early 1920s, brought jazz north; in time, the African-American neighborhood of Harlem became the genre’s cultural center. In New York, the entertainment and arts industries thrived and jazz found a fitting home, becoming an important part of the cultural landscape. But before the widespread popularity of big bands, which developed in tandem with the growing dance craze, jazz was generally regarded by the white mainstream as a rather crude variety of music. It was not widely listened to for its artistic value, as music critic Richard Hadlock writes: :“In the twenties, most of those who listened at all regarded jazz as merely an energetic background for dancers; the few who sought more profound values in the music tended to accept Paul Whiteman’s concert productions… as the only jazz worth taking seriously. A movement emerged during the 1920s, however, indebted in part to Paul Whiteman’s musical influence. This movement led to the more stylized, and more formal variety of jazz that would become orchestral jazz, imagined first by Whiteman as symphonic jazz. This stylization of jazz had elements of classical European composing, coupled with the rhythmic and instrumental sound of New Orleans jazz. Orchestral jazz was musically distinct from its southern predecessor for a variety of reasons: not only were the bands bigger, creating a certain richness of sound, but also the music was structurally more sophisticated. While New Orleans jazz was characterized by collective improvisation and the spontaneous reinterpretation of standard tunes, jazz orchestras played head arrangements that were composed and arranged prior to the performance in which they were executed. The busy, raucous style of early jazz did not hold the same kind of popular appeal that the comparative restraint of orchestral jazz did. In particular, the implementation of measured rhythm accounted for much of its popular appeal. The two-beat groove reminiscent of New Orleans jazz was replaced during the transition into the swing era by the bass innovations of Jimmy Blanton and Walter Page, both of whom are credited for developing the walking bass line. This would make four beats to the bar a jazz standard; furthermore, this rhythm was conducive to the kind of dancing audiences desired. Prearranged music had a particular commercial appeal, since audiences were familiar with the songs they saw performed live from the recordings they purchased. Furthermore, exposure to musical innovation—and jazz, in all its varieties, was certainly innovative—had never before reached the same breadth of American audience. Given the commercial availability of music—which, in addition to records, was aided by the proliferation of broadcast radio—a platform was thus created that accounted for the popularization of jazz. But the mass consumption of jazz simultaneously allowed the audience an inverted influence on its development, and consumer demands dictated that orchestral jazz adopted a structure similar to traditionally accessible popular music.

Philadelphia soul

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Style#

Due to the emphasis on sound and arrangement and the relative anonymity of many of its artists, Philadelphia soul is often considered a producers’ genre. Songwriters and producers Bunny Sigler, Kenny Gamble, and Leon Huff are credited with developing the genre. Other notable Philadelphia soul songwriters and producers included Bobby Martin, Thom Bell, Linda Creed, Norman Harris, Dexter Wansel, and McFadden & Whitehead of Gamble and Huff’s Philadelphia International Records, who worked with a stable of studio musicians to develop the unique Philadelphia sound. Many of these musicians would also record as MFSB, which had a hit with the seminal Philadelphia soul song “TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia)” in 1974. Written and produced by Gamble and Huff, “TSOP” also became the theme song for the musical variety show Soul Train. Notable session musicians of the Philadelphia sound were bassist Ronald Baker, guitarist Norman Harris and drummer Earl Young (B-H-Y), who also worked as a songwriting and production team and recorded as the Trammps. These three were the base rhythm section for MFSB and created a sub-label of Philadelphia International Records called Golden Fleece, distributed by CBS Records (now Sony Music). Soon after, Harris created the Gold Mind label in conjunction with Salsoul Records. Gold Mind’s roster included First Choice, Loleatta Holloway, and Love Committee, all of whom would feature Baker/Harris/Young productions of their material. Their 1976 hit by Double Exposure, “Ten Percent”, was the first commercial 12-inch single. Philadelphia soul was popular throughout the 1970s, and it set the stage for the styles of disco and R&B that would emerge later in the decade. The style also influenced many other Philadelphia acts, such as Hall and Oates, the Roots, Vivian Green, Jill Scott, and Musiq Soulchild. David Bowie’s 1975 album Young Americans was partially recorded at Philadelphia’s Sigma Sound Studios and influenced by Philadelphia soul.

Piedmont blues

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins#

The basis of the Piedmont style began with the older “frailing” or “framming” guitar styles that may have been universal throughout the South, and was also based, at least to some extent, on formal “parlor guitar” techniques as well as earlier banjo playing, string band, and ragtime. What was particular to the Piedmont was that a generation of players adapted these older, ragtime-based techniques to blues in a singular and popular fashion, influenced by guitarists such as Blind Blake and Gary Davis.

Pinoy jazz

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Filipinos in America#

In the early 20th century, many Filipinos were migrating to the United States, specifically the West Coast, for musical labor. Filipino musicians were widely connected to the colonial project. Some performed as part of the Philippine Constabulary Band for American expositions, led by Walter H. Loving, an African American soldier and conductor. They played mostly Western military and classical music or tunes, but it proved their musical skills to the Americans. Scholar Mary Talusan argued that American audiences did not appreciate it for the artistry or hard work of Filipinos, but rather because they were gaining success in assimilation and U.S. tutelage through their attempts of colonizing the Philippines. In fact, Filipinos have been well influenced by Westernization for centuries, as they were colonized by the Spanish and had developed their own style for bands. Filipino musicians and laborers also became frequents in taxi-dance halls, where patrons would pay for dances with American jazz and swing music. Though these became sites of intense racial conflict, it gave working-class Filipinos to engage with jazz culture. Through the 1940-50s, Filipinos soon gained active recognition in the Fillmore district of San Francisco, or the “Harlem of the West,” as stated by Carlos Zialcita, a prominent figure in the San Francisco Filipino American Jazz Festival. Notable Filipino musicians like Flip Nuñez (pianist) and Vince Gomez (bassist) performed alongside African American musicians in the neighborhood.

Post-bop

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Definitions and uses#

The term post-bop has a variety of usages which vary widely. Some writers have defined post-bop with specificity, but these sources conflict with one another. Others have written that post-bop is not a musical period but a specific body of music that emerged in the late 1950s and 1960s that combined principles of bebop, hard bop, modal jazz, avant-garde and free jazz, but also departed from earlier traditions in jazz. Still other writers have defined post-bop as a genre of small-combo jazz that evolved in the early to mid 1960s in the United States that was pioneered by Miles Davis (the central figure in the development of this genre), in conjunction with Charles Mingus, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, John Coltrane and Jackie McLean, which crafted syntheses of hard bop with contemporaneous developments in avant-garde jazz, modal jazz and free jazz that resulted in music with a complex and experimental flavor though still rooted in bop tradition, featuring less of the blues and soul leanings predominant in hard bop. The movement had a significant impact on subsequent generations of both acoustic jazz and fusion musicians. According to musicologist Jeremy Yudkin, post-bop does not follow “the conventions of bop or the apparently formless freedom of the new jazz”. He wrote in his definition of the subgenre: According to scholar Keith Waters, some of the traits found in post-bop recordings are: a slower harmonic rhythm characteristic of modal jazz, techniques for playing “inside” and “outside” the underlying harmonic structure, an interactive (or conversational) approach to rhythm section accompaniment, unusual harmonic progressions, use of harmonic or metric superimposition, unusual underlying formal designs for head statements and chorus structure improvisation, or the abandonment entirely of underlying chorus structure beneath improvisation. Miles Davis was particularly influential in the development of small-combo jazz post-bop in the 1960s. His second quintet was active during 1964 to 1968 and featured pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Ron Carter, saxophonist Wayne Shorter, and drummer Tony Williams. They recorded six studio albums that, according to All About Jazz’s C. Michael Bailey, introduced post-bop: E.S.P. (1965), Miles Smiles (1967), Sorcerer (1967), Nefertiti (1968), Miles in the Sky (1968), and Filles de Kilimanjaro (1968).

Post-disco

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

Drum machines, synthesizers, sequencers were either partly or entirely dominant in a composition or mixed up with various acoustic instruments, depending on the artist and on the year. Electronic instruments became more and more prevalent for each year during the period and dominated the genre completely by the mid 1980s. Darryl Payne argued about the minimal approach of post-disco, saying: The main forces in post-disco were the 12" single format and short-lived collaborations (many of them one-hit wonders) while indie record producers were instrumental in the musical direction of what the scene was headed to. The music that mostly catered to dance and urban audiences later managed to influence more popular and mainstream acts like Madonna, New Order or Pet Shop Boys.

Preaching chords

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The exact origin of preaching chords being played in African American Baptist and Pentecostal churches is relatively unknown, but is mostly believed to have started in either the early or mid-20th Century, at a time when many African-American clergymen and pastors began preaching in a charismatic, musical call-and-response style. They would encourage their congregations to shout out vocal catchphrases (based on whatever they were preaching about) along with them as they preached their sermons. Church musicians began playing different soul and blues music-inspired chords, chord progressions, and musical riffs on pianos and Hammond organs. These were improvised to imitate the voices of the preachers and the calls-and-responses of the congregations because it audibly sounded almost as if the preachers and congregations were singing. This type of call-and-response preaching is also colloquially referred to by many as “whooping pronounced like ‘hooping and hollering,” or “hooting and hollering.” On October 20, 2010, CNN featured Baptist megachurch pastor E. Dewey Smith Jr., where he talked about this type of call-and-response preaching that he incorporates into his sermons and referred to it as “whooping”/“hooping,” giving an explanation of its cultural significance to African-American Christianity and gospel music, saying, “Hooping is delivering and celebrating the Gospel message of Jesus Christ in an exuberant, musical style with a call-and-response type of synergy…it’s almost like an improvisation of Jazz music meeting Gospel music with a little bit of Blues and Soul.” Today, preaching chords have become a staple part of Baptist and Pentecostal musical worship, particularly in the Black Church tradition. They have also become a staple part of Traditional black gospel music and urban contemporary gospel music in the United States, and even in other countries as well where Black Gospel music and culture is prevalent among Black Christians, such as in different countries in sub-Saharan Africa and in Europe.

Progressive soul

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins in early R&B and rock#

By the mid-1950s, rhythm and blues was transitioning from its blues and big band-based jazz origins toward the musical forms that would be known more broadly as rock music. This trend was expedited by the exposure of young white listeners and musicians to African-American music played by ambitious disc jockeys on radio stations in the Northern United States. However, partly in response to jealousy among veteran performers and prejudice in general, recording acts in the early rock era generally gravitated toward either one of the three stylistic influences from which the genre had primarily originated – R&B, country, and pop. In the mid-1960s, several new musical forms arose that diversified rock. Among them was the Motown sound of Detroit-based Motown Records, which released more refined and slick productions distinct from other R&B-leaning rock. The music academic Bill Martin traces the origins of progressive soul to Motown as well as Ray Charles and James Brown, whose recordings altogether span as early as the 1950s, while the jazz writer Rob Backus cites an early example in the Impressions’ 1964 song “Keep On Pushing”. Progressive rock, another emerging subgenre, utilized an eclectic range of elements such as exotic instrumentation from classical and folk, along with highly developed lyrical concepts composed across album-length works. This trend emphasized the album format over the single and reached mainstream culture with the Beatles’ 1967 album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Concurrently, psychedelic rock utilized electronic innovations with a harder sound primarily intended to induce or enhance the listener’s consciousness rather than for relaxation, dance, or analytical listening. In the late 1960s, the structural and stylistic boundaries of African-American music were pushed further by the psychedelic experimentation of black rock acts like Jimi Hendrix, Arthur Lee’s Love, and the Chambers Brothers. The jazz trumpeter-bandleader Miles Davis also made an impact with his wide-ranging fusion experiments, which incorporated elements from rock, electronic, avant-garde, and Eastern music. As with folk rock earlier in the decade, jazz fusion was another emerging subform to concede rock influences in a parent genre that had otherwise been exclusive to a cultural elite. These events inspired greater musical sophistication and diversity of influences, ambitious lyricism, and conceptual album-oriented approaches in black popular music, leading to the development of progressive soul.

Proibidão

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Psychedelic funk

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins: Late 1960s#

Inspired by Jimi Hendrix and psychedelic culture, the psychedelic soul group Sly and the Family Stone borrowed techniques from psychedelic rock music, including wah pedals, fuzz boxes, echo chambers, and vocal distorters. This psychedelic sound would also be reflected in the late 1960s output of iconic Detroit label Motown.

Development: 1970s–1980s#

In 1970, Hendrix released the trio album Band of Gypsys, described as “ground zero” for psychedelic funk. The Parliament-Funkadelic collective developed the sensibility, employing acid rock-oriented guitar and synthesizers into open-ended funk jams. Funkadelic’s 1971 album Maggot Brain was labeled a monument in the genre by Pitchfork. Led by George Clinton, P-Funk would shift the genre away from song-form and toward groove and texture, emphasizing the abject elements of psychedelia. The Isley Brothers and Bobby Womack would be influenced by Funkadelic and draw on this sound. During the early 1970s, the main elements of psychedelic funk were adopted as signifiers of “urban blackness” and incorporated into blaxploitation films. Jazz musician Miles Davis, newly influenced by Sly Stone and Brown, explored the genre on his 1972 album On the Corner. The group War recorded in a psychedelic funk-rock style alongside lyrics protesting racism and police brutality. The 1974 album Inspiration Information by Shuggie Otis explored psychedelic funk and soul, and despite receiving little attention upon release, it later achieved acclaim when it was reissued by the Luaka Bop label. In the late 1970s, new wave band Talking Heads explored psychedelic funk, influenced by George Clinton and P-Funk, on a trilogy of acclaimed albums. Prince drew on the style, Author Michaelangelo Matos described Prince’s 1987 track “The Ballad of Dorothy Parker” as psychedelic funk, “not in the sense of Funkadelic or Hendrix’s Band of Gypsys, but in the sense that its rhythms and textures achieve a molten-lava sense without surrendering the groove.

Psychedelic soul

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

In 1967, New York band the Freak Scene used the phrase “psychedelic soul” as the title of their debut album, Psychedelic Psoul, stylized as “psoul”. However, the term “psychedelic soul” to refer to a style of music would be coined the following year in 1968. In 1972, British magazine Beat Instrumental wrote a piece on the Temptations, stating that when Dennis Edwards replaced David Ruffin in 1968, the group began branching out into “what was then christened ‘psychedelic soul’ by the media.”

Punk blues

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins#

Before the beginning of the punk movement of the late 1970s, several important forerunners such as the MC5, the Stooges, the Rolling Stones, the Who, the Sonics, Captain Beefheart, and the New York Dolls displayed a fascination with American blues. AllMusic states that punk blues draws on the influence of the “garage rock sound of the mid-’60s, the primal howl of early Captain Beefheart, and especially in the raw and desperate sound of the Gun Club’s landmark Fire of Love LP from 1981”.

Punk funk

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Punk funk emerged in the late 1970s, however, it was eclipsed in the 1980s by dance-punk, avant-funk, and funk metal later in the 1980s, all of which are also alternatively described as punk funk. Despite this, punk funk has been occasionally used in more recent years to describe bands such as CSS and their 2005 album Cansei de Ser Sexy.

1970s#

Ian Dury and the Blockheads, formed in 1977, have been described as punk funk. The earliest punk funk band is probably Talking Heads, having formed in 1975. Their track “Psycho Killer” opens with a funky bassline, and following this, they brought in Bernie Worrell from Funkadelic into their live band.

Punk jazz

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

1970s–1980s#

The first band to approach the genre were The Stooges, more specifically on three songs from their second album, Fun House: “1970”, “Fun House”, and “L.A. Blues”. Those songs featured saxophone played by Steve Mackay, and were released in 1970, several years before the genre expanded. Late 1970s New York no wave bands broke with blues rock-influenced punk in a style that instead combined elements such as free jazz noise, experimental drone rock, and other avant-garde influences. Examples of this style include Lydia Lunch’s album Queen of Siam, the work of James Chance and the Contortions, who mixed funk with free jazz and punk rock. In London, the Pop Group began to mix free jazz, along with dub reggae, into their brand of punk rock. The Birthday Party’s sound on Junkyard (1982) was described by one journalist as a mix of “no-wave guitar, free-jazz craziness, and punk-processed Captain Beefheart angularity”. The Lounge Lizards was the first group to call themselves punk jazz. Bill Laswell and his band Material mixed funk, jazz, and punk while his band Massacre added improvisation to rock. James Blood Ulmer applied Coleman’s harmolodic style to guitar and sought out links to no wave. Bad Brains, widely acknowledged to have established the rudiments of the hardcore style, began by attempting jazz fusion. Guitarist Joe Baiza executed his blend of punk and free jazz with Saccharine Trust and in Universal Congress Of, a group influenced by the work of Albert Ayler. Henry Rollins has praised free jazz, releasing albums by Matthew Shipp on his record label and collaborating with Charles Gayle. The Minutemen were influenced by jazz, folk and funk. Mike Watt of the band has spoken about being inspired by listening to John Coltrane. Dutch anarcho-punk group the Ex incorporated elements of free jazz and particularly European free improvisation, collaborating with Han Bennink and other members of the Instant Composers Pool.

Quiet storm

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins#

Melvin Lindsey, a student at Howard University, with his classmate Jack Shuler, began as disc jockeys for WHUR in June 1976, performing as stand-ins for an absentee employee. Lindsey’s on-air voice was silky smooth, and the music selections were initially old, slow romantic songs from black artists of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, a form of easy listening which Lindsey called “beautiful black music” for African Americans. The response from listeners was positive, and WHUR station manager Cathy Hughes soon gave Lindsey and Shuler their own show. The name of the show came from the Smokey Robinson song “Quiet Storm”, from his 1975 album A Quiet Storm. The song developed into Lindsey’s theme music which introduced his time slot every night. “The Quiet Storm” was four hours of melodically soulful music that provided an intimate, laid-back mood for late-night listening, and that was the key to its tremendous appeal among adult audiences. The format was an immediate success, becoming so popular that within a few years, virtually every station in the U.S. with a core black, urban listenership adopted a similar format for its graveyard slot. Philadelphia’s WDAS-FM had begun a similar format in 1972, where Tony Brown hosted “The Extrasensory Connection.” That program was renamed to “The Quiet Storm” in 1976, and is still on the air. In the San Francisco Bay Area, KBLX-FM expanded the night-time concept into a 24-hour quiet storm format in 1979. In the New York tri-state late night market, Vaughn Harper deejayed the quiet storm graveyard program for WBLS-FM which he developed with co-host Champaine in mid-1983. In 1993, Harper took ill and Champaine continued the program as Quiet Storm II. Lawrence Tanter of KUTE in Greater Los Angeles replicated the KBLX format and changed his station to an all-day quiet storm format from January 1984 until September 1987, playing “a hybrid that incorporates pop, jazz, fusion, international, and urban music”. Addressing the misconception that quiet storm was only for blacks, Tanter said his listenership was 40% black, 40% white, and 20% other races. WLNR-FM in Chicago also changed in August 1985 to a 24-hour quiet storm program called “The Soft Touch”, featuring more instrumental music and even straight-ahead jazz, a mix which sales manager Gregory Brown described as “not so laid-back” as other quiet storm shows. A notable feature of WLNR was that the four regular deejays were women.

Ragtime

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

While the word ragtime was first recorded in 1896, the term probably originates in the dance events known as “rags”, hosted by enslaved black folk bound to the plantation system. The first recorded use of the term ragtime was by vaudeville musician Ben Harney who in 1896 used it to describe the piano music he played (which he had extracted from banjo and fiddle players) and first published the year prior.

Retro-soul

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

Retro soul started in the late 1990s in New York City, with the vintage focused recordings from Desco (now Daptone Records). Hip hop producers craved sampling material, and the small label presented vinyl recordings emulating the style of 1960s and 1970s soul and music. This music was initially released to represent that the music may be rare or lost recordings that were somehow unearthed, although they were technically brand new recordings. The popularity grew, finding the music being played frequently on US college radio. In addition, some of these recordings were used as material for sampling in hip hop and electronic recordings.

Rhythm and blues

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology, definitions and description#

Although Jerry Wexler of Billboard magazine is credited with coining the term “rhythm and blues” as a musical term in the United States in 1948, the term had been used in Billboard as early as 1943. However, the company’s first list of songs popular among African Americans was named Harlem Hit Parade; created in 1942, it listed the “most popular records in Harlem,” and is the predecessor to the Billboard RnB chart. “Rhythm and Blues” replaced the common term “race music”, a term coined by Okeh producer Ralph Peer based on the common self description by the African American press as “people of race.” The term “rhythm and blues” was then used by Billboard in its chart listings from June 1949 until August 1969, when its “Hot Rhythm & Blues Singles” chart was renamed as “Best Selling Soul Singles”. Before the term “rhythm and Blues” was popularized, various record companies had already begun replacing the term “race music” with the term “sepia series”. “Rhythm and blues” is often abbreviated as “R&B” or “R’n’B”. In subsequent decades, the abbreviation “R&B” evolved to encompass a broad range of popular music styles, including soul, funk, disco, and later contemporary R&B, reflecting shifts in production, audience, and industry marketing. In the early 1950s, the term “rhythm & blues” was frequently applied to blues records. Writer and producer Robert Palmer defined rhythm & blues as “a catchall term referring to any music that was made by and for black Americans”. He has also used the term “R&B” as a synonym for jump blues. However, AllMusic separates it from jump blues because of R&B’s stronger gospel influences. Lawrence Cohn, author of Nothing but the Blues, writes that “rhythm and blues” was an umbrella term invented for industry convenience. According to him, the term embraced all black music except classical music and religious music, unless a gospel song sold enough to break into the charts. R&B lyrical themes often encapsulate the African-American experience of pain and the quest for freedom and joy, as well as triumphs and failures in terms of relationships, economics, and aspirations. One publication of the Smithsonian Institution provided this summary of the origins of the genre in 2016. “A distinctly African-American music drawing from the deep tributaries of African American expressive culture, it is an amalgam of jump blues, big band swing, gospel, boogie, and blues that was initially developed during a thirty-year period that bridges the era of legally sanctioned racial segregation, international conflicts, and the struggle for civil rights”. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame defines some of the originators of R&B, including Joe Turner’s big band, Louis Jordan’s Tympany Five, James Brown and LaVern Baker. In fact, this source states that “Louis Jordan joined Turner in laying the foundation for R&B in the 1940s, cutting one swinging rhythm & blues masterpiece after another”. Other artists who were “cornerstones of R&B and its transformation into rock & roll” include Etta James, Fats Domino, Roy Brown, Little Richard and Ruth Brown. The “doo wop” groups were also noteworthy, including the Orioles, the Ravens and the Dominoes. The term “rock and roll” had a strong sexual connotation in jump blues and R&B, but when DJ Alan Freed referred to rock and roll on mainstream radio in the mid-1950s, “the sexual component had been dialed down enough that it simply became an acceptable term for dancing”.

Rock and roll

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Terminology#

The term “rock and roll” is defined by Greg Kot in Encyclopædia Britannica as the music that originated in the mid-1950s and later developed “into the more encompassing international style known as rock music”. The words rock and roll had become associated in the late eighteenth century, when “Rock and Roll” brimstone (i.e. sulfur) was advertised ; rock brimstone being the naturally-occurring form and roll brimstone being in the form of sticks or blocks, made by allowing liquid sulfur to solidify in (esp. cylindrical) moulds. The phrase “rocking and rolling” originally described the movement of a ship on the ocean, but by the early 20th century was used both to describe the spiritual fervor of black church rituals and as a sexual analogy. A retired Welsh seaman named William Fender can be heard singing the phrase “rock and roll” when describing a sexual encounter in his performance of the traditional song “The Baffled Knight” to the folklorist James Madison Carpenter in the early 1930s, which he would have learned at sea in the 1800s; the recording can be heard on the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library website. Various gospel, blues and swing recordings used the phrase before it became widely popular. “Bosom of Abraham”, an African-American spiritual that was documented no later than 1867 (just after the Civil War), uses the phrase “rock my soul” frequently in a religious sense; this song was later recorded by musicians from various genres, including various gospel musicians and groups (including The Jordanaires), Louis Armstrong (jazz/swing), Lonnie Donegan (skiffle), and Elvis Presley (rock and roll/pop/country). Blues singer Trixie Smith recorded “My Man Rocks Me with One Steady Roll” in 1922. It was used in 1940s recordings and reviews of what became known as “rhythm and blues” music aimed at a black audience. In 1934, the song “Rock and Roll” by the Boswell Sisters appeared in the film Transatlantic Merry-Go-Round. In 1942, before the concept of rock and roll had been defined, Billboard magazine columnist Maurie Orodenker started to use the term to describe upbeat recordings such as “Rock Me” by Sister Rosetta Tharpe; her style on that recording was described as “rock-and-roll spiritual singing”. By 1943, the “Rock and Roll Inn” in South Merchantville, New Jersey, was established as a music venue. In 1951, Cleveland, Ohio, disc jockey Alan Freed began playing this music style, and referring to it as “rock and roll” on his mainstream radio program, which popularized the phrase. Several sources suggest that Freed found the term, used as a synonym for sexual intercourse, on the record “Sixty Minute Man” by Billy Ward and his Dominoes. The lyrics include the line, “I rock ’em, roll ’em all night long”. Freed did not acknowledge the suggestion about that source in interviews, and explained the term as follows: “Rock ’n roll is really swing with a modern name. It began on the levees and plantations, took in folk songs, and features blues and rhythm”. In discussing Alan Freed’s contribution to the genre, two significant sources emphasized the importance of African-American rhythm and blues. Greg Harris, then the executive director of the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame, offered this comment to CNN: “Freed’s role in breaking down racial barriers in American pop culture in the 1950s, by leading white and black kids to listen to the same music, put the radio personality ‘at the vanguard’ and made him ‘a really important figure. After Freed was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the organization’s Web site offered this comment: “He became internationally known for promoting African-American rhythm and blues music on the radio in the United States and Europe under the name of rock and roll”. Not often acknowledged in the history of rock and roll, Todd Storz, the owner of radio station KOWH in Omaha, Nebraska, was the first to adopt the Top 40 format (in 1953), playing only the most popular records in rotation. His station, and the numerous others which adopted the concept, helped to promote the genre: by the mid 50s, the playlist included artists such as “Presley, Lewis, Haley, Berry and Domino”.

Rock music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

The sound of rock is traditionally centered on the amplified electric guitar, which emerged in its modern form in the 1950s with the popularity of rock and roll. It was also greatly influenced by the sounds of electric blues guitarists. The sound of an electric guitar in rock music is typically supported by an electric bass guitar, which pioneered jazz music in the same era, and by percussion produced from a drum kit that combines drums and cymbals. This trio of instruments has often been complemented by the inclusion of other instruments, particularly keyboards such as the piano, the Hammond organ, and the synthesizer. The basic rock instrumentation was derived from the basic electric blues band instrumentation (prominent lead guitar, second chordal instrument, bass, and drums). Rock music is traditionally built on a foundation of simple syncopated rhythms in a meter, with a repetitive snare drum back beat on beats two and four. Melodies often originate from older musical modes such as the Dorian and Mixolydian, as well as the major and minor scales. Harmonies range from the common triad to parallel perfect fourths and fifths and dissonant harmonic progressions. and particularly from the mid-1960s onwards, rock music often used the verse–refrain structure derived from blues and folk music, but there has been considerable variation from this model. Critics have stressed the eclecticism and stylistic diversity of rock. Because of its complex history and its tendency to borrow from other musical and cultural forms, it has been argued that “it is impossible to bind rock music to a rigidly delineated musical definition.” In 1981, music journalist Robert Christgau said, “the best rock jolts folk-art virtues—directness, utility, natural audience—into the present with shots of modern technology”. Unlike many earlier styles of popular music, rock lyrics have dealt with a wide range of themes, including romantic love, sex, rebellion against the establishment, social concerns, and life styles. Christgau characterizes rock lyrics as a “cool medium” with simple diction and repeated refrains, and asserts that rock’s primary “function” “pertains to music, or, more generally, noise.” The predominance of white, male, and often middle class musicians in rock music has often been noted, and rock has been seen as an appropriation of Black musical forms for a young, white and largely male audience. As a result, it has also been seen to articulate the concerns of this group in both style and lyrics. Christgau, writing in 1972, said in spite of some exceptions, “rock and roll usually implies an identification of male sexuality and aggression”. Since the term “rock” started being used in preference to “rock and roll” from the late 1960s, it has usually been contrasted with pop music, with which it has shared many characteristics. However, rock is often distanced from pop: the former has an emphasis on musicianship, live performance, and a focus on serious and progressive themes as part of an ideology of authenticity that is frequently combined with an awareness of the genre’s history and development. According to Simon Frith, rock was “something more than pop, something more than rock and roll” and “rock musicians combined an emphasis on skill and technique with the romantic concept of art as artistic expression, original and sincere”. Christgau has used the term broadly to refer to popular and semipopular music that caters to his sensibility as “a rock-and-roller”, including a fondness for a good beat, a meaningful lyric with some wit, and the theme of youth, which holds an “eternal attraction” so objective “that all youth music partakes of sociology and the field report.”

Rock violin

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Early history#

The emergence of rock music in the 1950s and 1960s is rooted in the basic instrumentation of drum kit, electric bass guitar and lead electric guitar; all of this instrumentation was fed into tube amplifiers until the emergence of the transistor. Building on this basic setup, other instruments were added as transistor technology advanced, typically the electric keyboard, which became popular after the introduction of the Moog synthesizer. Rock violin emerged in the art rock movement, which had experimented with classical instruments and musical influences associated with early music. Examples include Jethro Tull, King Crimson, Velvet Underground, and later Kansas. In the same era that Ian Anderson popularized the use of flute in rock, others added violin to their line up. These bands included Jefferson Airplane, Fairport Convention, Mahavishnu Orchestra and John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers.

Roots rock

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

In 1966, as many rock artists moved towards expansive and experimental psychedelia, Bob Dylan spearheaded the back-to-basics roots revival when he went to Nashville to record the album Blonde on Blonde, using notable local musicians like Charlie McCoy. Other acts that followed the back to basics trend in different ways were the Canadian/American group The Band and the California-based Creedence Clearwater Revival, both of which mixed basic rock and roll with folk, country, and blues, to be among the most successful and influential bands of the late 1960s. At the same time the Grateful Dead, a band previously associated with the San Francisco sound and known for ferocious psychedelic improvisation, followed in the footsteps of Crosby, Stills & Nash to focus on Americana-styled songwriting for their 1970 albums Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty. The same movement saw the beginning of the recording careers of Californian solo artists like Ry Cooder, Bonnie Raitt, and Lowell George.

Sacred jazz

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Jazz has always incorporated aspects of African American sacred music including spirituals and hymns, which jazz musicians often performed renditions of as part of their repertoire. Many other jazz artists also borrowed from black gospel music. Before World War II, American churches, black and white, regarded jazz and blues with suspicion or outright hostility as “the devil’s music”. It was only after World War II that a few jazz musicians began to compose and perform extended works intended for religious settings or expression. Since the 1950s, sacred and liturgical music has been performed and recorded by many jazz composers and musicians,

Samba funk

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

Samba funk is a hybrid musical subgenre that combines elements of Brazilian samba with American funk, its rhythm mostly composed by keyboards, electric guitar, bass guitar, drums and percussion, creating a hybrid and contagious sound. The bass, drums and guitar lines transition between the two styles. Samba funk uses instrumentation, timbres, and effects common in 1970s American funk bands, such as the Rhodes electric piano, clavinet, and Moog and Oberheim analog synthesizers. Musical effects such as the wah-wah on the guitar also contribute to the genre’s sound.

Samba rock

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins#

Samba rock’s origins lie in the predominantly black favelas of São Paulo during the late 1950s, when Brazilian radio and dance halls were reached by the global spread of American rock and roll and related African-American music such as blues and jazz. Its first incarnation was as a dance phenomenon at community block parties that began to play these styles alongside traditional samba and bolero music. These parties eventually moved to larger venues hosted by disc jockeys. The first known samba-rock deejay Osvaldo Pereira—known by his stage name “Orquestra Invisível (Invisible Orchestra) Let’s Dance”—debuted in 1958 in downtown São Paulo. “The parties started to get crowded, and the rooms for the parties started to get larger”, Pereira recounted. “Then, I thought of building my own equipment, which had to be powerful, and faithful to the sound of the live orchestras.” His early equipment included a 100-watt sound system featuring a rudimentary version of a crossover, which allowed Pereira to control the frequencies of the music.

Sentimental ballad

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Early history#

Sentimental ballads have their roots from medieval French chanson balladée or ballade, which were originally “danced songs”. Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and song of the British Isles from the later medieval period until the 19th century. They were widely used across Europe, and later in the Americas, Australia and North Africa. As a narrative song, their theme and function may originate from Scandinavian and Germanic traditions of storytelling. Musically they were influenced by the Minnesinger. The earliest example of a recognizable ballad in form in England is “Judas” in a 13th-century manuscript. A reference in William Langland’s Piers Plowman indicates that ballads about Robin Hood were being sung from at least the late 14th century and the oldest detailed material is Wynkyn de Worde’s collection of Robin Hood ballads printed about 1495.

Shout (Black gospel music)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The shout music tradition originated within the church music of the Black church, parts of which derive from the ring shout tradition of enslaved people from Central and West Africa. As these enslaved Africans, who were concentrated in the southeastern United States, incorporated Kongo shout traditions into their newfound Christianity, the black Christian shout tradition emerged—albeit not in all black churches or in every part of the country. Even so, after the dawn of the Azusa Street Revival and the rise of Pentecostalism in 1906, many African-American Christians began to incorporate more modern Charismatic Christian practices into their worship, including speaking in tongues and various other bodily anomalies said to be caused by the Holy Spirit. The shout tradition fit well into this framework and became ever more popular across the spectrum of Pentecostalism and, eventually, the larger charismatic Evangelical world. As time passed, the influence spread from church music to secular music. It influenced the rhythms found in genres like early rock and roll, soul, and funk. The 1959 the Isley Brothers released Shout!, which took influence from the gospel music. Church groups wrote into radio stations to request the song no longer be played. As Southern black Christians migrated north in large numbers after the end of Reconstruction, they began to found churches of their own that had different styles of worship than the aforementioned Northern black churches. Soon, the center of power shifted in the direction of the newcomers, who in many represented a more authentically African-American (and lively) church experience. At the same time, a new form of black gospel music emerged, influenced both by the black spiritual tradition as well as the growing Pentecostal/Holiness movements. This eventually led to the high-energy, fast-paced shouts and praise breaks seen among contemporary practitioners. It is common now for gospel recording artists to include shouts and praise breaks on their albums, either recorded in a studio or live during a recorded show. This has had an outsize influence on the spread (and musical structure) of the tradition in modern times, in addition to the popularity of videos on social media depicting the practice.

Ska jazz

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins#

The term Ska-Jazz was coined by Rock Steady Freddie (Fred Reiter) of the New York Ska-Jazz Ensemble in 1994. Ska jazz is sometimes considered a subgenre of third wave ska, but early artists such as Tommy McCook considered themselves jazz musicians foremost. Before Rock Steady Freddie, Ska-Jazz was just another flare of jazz without its own name. Jazz improvisation is commonly used in Ska jazz. Ska Jazz bands usually contain one or two electric guitars, a bass guitar, keyboards, a drum kit and a horn section (composed of any combination of the following: trumpet, trombone, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, and baritone saxophone). Occasionally there may be one or more vocalists, but the genre is primarily focused on instrumental tunes. The brass instruments usually carry the melody, and there are many improvised solos. The rhythm section places accents on the off beats, thus giving the music a different feel than straight jazz. Ever since its birth in the late 1950s, ska has been a genre marked by physical and cultural diasporas and an openness to borrowing from outside its origins. The history of ska and jazz combined travels across national borders and integrates with other musical styles, making it one of the most hybrid, transnational forms of postwar popular music.

Skiffle

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins in the United States#

Skiffle is often said to have developed from New Orleans jazz, but this claim has been disputed. Improvised jug bands playing blues and jazz were common across the American South in the early decades of the 20th century. They used instruments such as the washboard, jugs, washtub bass, cigar-box fiddle, musical saw and comb-and-paper kazoos, as well as more conventional instruments, such as acoustic guitar and banjo. The origin of the English word skiffle is unknown. However, in the dialect of the west of England to make a skiffle, meaning to make a mess of any business, is attested from 1873. In early 20th century America the term skiffle was one of many slang phrases for a rent party, a social event with a small charge designed to pay rent on a house. It was first recorded in Chicago in the 1920s and may have been brought there as part of the African-American migration to northern industrial cities. It was used by Ma Rainey (1886–1939) to describe her repertoire to rural audiences. The term skiffle disappeared from American music in the 1940s.

Slow jam

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

In radio#

In 1983, Kevin “Slow Jammin’” James created the radio show Slow Jam on WKYS, named after the Midnight Star song, then later the Weekend Slow Jam show. In 1994, R Dub! created the radio show Sunday Night Slow Jams on Power 1490 KJYK in Tucson, AZ. Today, Sunday Night Slow Jams can be heard on over 200 radio stations in 17 countries. In 2024, the mayors of San Diego, California and Tucson, Arizona proclaimed the date of June 21 to be “Slow Jams Day”, honoring the debut broadcast of Sunday Night Slow Jams with R Dub!.

Smooth jazz

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Description#

In general, a smooth jazz track is downtempo (the most widely played track are in the 90-105 BPM range), layering a lead, melody-playing instrument (saxophones – especially soprano and tenor – are the most popular with guitars a close second) over a backdrop that typically consists of programmed rhythms and various pads and/or samples. Smooth jazz groups or recording artists tend to play their instruments in a melodic fashion that they are recognizable within just a few measures; this category includes names such as saxophonists Kenny G, Najee, the late David Sanborn, George Howard and Art Porter Jr.; guitarists George Benson, Earl Klugh, Marc Antonie, Peter White, Jonathan Butler, Ray Parker Jr., Norman Brown, Ronny Jordan, and Yves Vincent; keyboardist/pianists Joe Sample, David Benoit, and Bradley Joseph. Some performers, such as Dave Koz, Bob James, and Nathan East are notable for their numerous collaborations with many of the genre’s big names. Groups include Fourplay, Pieces of a Dream, Acoustic Alchemy, Airborne and the Rippingtons. Female performers includes Keiko Matsui, Joyce Cooling, Mindi Abair, Candy Dulfer, Sade, Brenda Russell, Pamela Williams, Regina Belle and Anita Baker.

Smooth soul

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Style#

Smooth soul is characterized by melodic hooks, funk influence and smooth production style. Allmusic describes smooth soul as “smooth, stylish, and romantic.” Unlike pop-soul, which predominantly featured dance-oriented music at the time, smooth soul was more ballad-oriented with generally romantic and seductive lyrical themes. However, its melodic hooks were ideal for crossover play, much like the former. The funk influence of smooth soul’s beats also gave the subgenre its distinction from pop.

Snap music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

It is suggested that snap music appeared around 2000 in a crime-infested neighborhood of Bankhead, Atlanta, Georgia. Bankhead was a place where the difference between poor and rich was striking, and, as it has been described, “a lighter sound” of snap was born “in the midst of all the aggression.” Another Atlanta based group, D4L, were performing at Atlanta’s Vision Nightclub and Lounge alongside 8Ball, Keyshia Cole and Slim Thug at the time. In 2005, they produced “Laffy Taffy”, which occupied the number one position on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Their debut album, Down for Life, was certified gold by RIAA. D4L and Dem Franchize Boys started a rivalry over who started snap. As Fabo of D4L mentioned, Dem Franchize Boys were looked down upon by members of the community, and were referred to as “label prostitutes” there. Crunk producer Lil Jon also increased exposure of the snap genre to the mainstream by releasing his single “Snap Yo Fingers”, which peaked at number 7 on the Billboard Hot 100. Snap continued to maintain a strong presence on the mainstream Billboard charts in 2007. In late 2007, then 17-year-old American rapper Soulja Boy released his hit “Crank That”, which enjoyed the number one position on the Billboard Hot 100 for 7 weeks, and was nominated for a Grammy and became one of the biggest hits of the year, advancing the influence of snap music on the Billboard charts, as well as furthering delving into the crunk genre. During the same year, a number of websites specializing in crunk mixtapes opened, increasing exposure to the genre. R&B singer T-Pain’s snap song “Buy U a Drank (Shawty Snappin’)” ranks #63 on Rolling Stones list of the 100 Best Songs of 2007. It was also a number-one on the Hot 100 and was number 68 in Rolling Stones “Best Songs of 2007” list. In February 2008, Atlanta rapper V.I.C. released his hit snap single “Get Silly” which peaked at #29 on the Billboard Hot 100 and garnered single sales of 500,000 copies sold. In 2020, then Egyptian singer Ramage released his hit while maintaining her signature pop-R&B sound. She furthered trap experimentation in “Ya Lil (Al Anisa Farah)”, from the MBC4 and Dubai One show Miss Farahs soundtrack album Al Anesa Farah (Music from the Original TV Series) (2020). During the same year, a number of websites specializing in crunk mixtapes opened, increasing exposure to the genre. This popularity even spilled over into comedy, as The Boondocks portrayed “The Story of Gangstalicious”, a rapper whose hit within the show was “Homies Over Hoes”, a clear homage to “Laffy Taffy”.

Soul jazz

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Musical style#

Soul jazz is often associated with hard bop. Jazz pianist Horace Silver stated that " f unky means earthy and blues-based. It might not be blues itself, but it does have that ‘down-home’ feel to it. Soul is basically the same, but there’s an added dimension of feeling and spirit."

Origins#

Roy Carr has described soul jazz as an outgrowth of hard bop, with the terms “funk” and “soul” appearing in a jazz context as early as the mid-1950s to describe “gospel-informed, down-home, call-and-response blues”. Carr has also noted the influence of Ray Charles’ small group recordings (which included saxophonists David “Fathead” Newman and Hank Crawford) on Horace Silver, Art Blakey, Cannonball Adderley. For this and his “full bodied yet reedy tone that was equally at home in rhythm & blues settings as more modern contexts,” he “provided a link” between big band swing and soul jazz. Soul jazz continued to develop in the late 1950s, reaching public awareness with the release of The Cannonball Adderley Quintet in San Francisco. Cannonball Adderley noted: “We were pressured quite heavily by Riverside Records when they discovered there was a word called ‘soul’. We became, from an image point of view, soul jazz artists. They kept promoting us that way and I kept deliberately fighting it, to the extent that it became a game.” Late 1950s, soul jazz artist Curtis Fuller recorded “Five Spot after Dark”.

Soul music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins#

Soul music has its roots in traditional African-American gospel music and rhythm and blues and as the hybridization of their respective religious and secular styles – in both lyrical content and instrumentation – that began in the 1950s. The term “soul” had been used among African-American musicians to emphasize the feeling of being an African American in the United States. According to musicologist Barry Hansen, Though this hybrid produced a clutch of hits in the R&B market in the early 1950s, only the most adventurous white fans felt its impact at the time; the rest had to wait for the coming of soul music in the 1960s to feel the rush of rock and roll sung gospel-style. According to AllMusic, “Soul music was the result of the urbanization and commercialization of rhythm and blues in the ’60s.” The phrase “soul music” itself, referring to gospel-style music with secular lyrics, was first attested in 1961. The term “soul” in African-American parlance has connotations of African-American pride and culture. Gospel groups in the 1940s and ’50s occasionally used the term as part of their names. The jazz style that originated from gospel became known as soul jazz. As singers and arrangers began using techniques from both gospel and soul jazz in African-American popular music during the 1960s, soul music gradually functioned as an umbrella term for African-American popular music at the time. According to the Acoustic Music Organization, the “first clear evidence of soul music shows up with the “5” Royales, an ex-gospel group that turned to R&B and in Faye Adams, whose “Shake A Hand” becomes an R&B standard”. Important innovators whose recordings in the 1950s contributed to the emergence of soul music included Clyde McPhatter, Hank Ballard, and Etta James. Singer Bobby Womack said, “Ray was the genius. He turned the world onto soul music.” Charles was open in acknowledging the influence of Pilgrim Travelers vocalist Jesse Whitaker on his singing style. Little Richard, who inspired Otis Redding, and James Brown both were equally influential. Brown was nicknamed the “Godfather of Soul Music”, Sam Cooke and Jackie Wilson also are often acknowledged as soul forefathers. Cooke became popular as the lead singer of the gospel group the Soul Stirrers, before controversially moving into secular music. His recording of “You Send Me” in 1957 launched a successful pop music career. Furthermore, his 1962 recording of “Bring It On Home to Me” has been described as “perhaps the first record to define the soul experience”. Jackie Wilson, a contemporary of both Cooke and James Brown, also achieved crossover success, especially with his 1957 hit “Reet Petite”. He even was particularly influential for his dramatic delivery and performances.

Southern gospel

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins#

The date of southern gospel’s establishment, as a distinct genre, is generally considered to be 1910, the year the first professional quartet was formed for the purpose of selling songbooks for the James D. Vaughan Music Publishing Company in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee. Nonetheless, the style of the music itself had existed for at least 35 years prior—although the traditional wisdom that southern gospel was “invented” in the 1870s by circuit preacher Everett Beverly is spurious. The existence of the genre prior to 1910 is evident in the work of Charles Davis Tillman (1861–1943), who popularized “The Old Time Religion”, wrote “Life’s Railway to Heaven” and published 22 songbooks. Some of the genre’s roots can be found in the publishing work and “normal schools” or singing schools of Aldine S. Kieffer and Ephraim Ruebush. Southern gospel was promoted by traveling singing school teachers, quartets, and shape note music publishing companies such as the A. J. Showalter Company (1879) and the Stamps-Baxter Music and Printing Company. Over time, southern gospel came to be an eclectic musical form with groups singing traditional hymns, a capella (jazz-style singing with no instruments) songs, country, bluegrass, spirituals, and “convention songs”. Because it grew out of the musical traditions of white musicians from the American South, the name Southern gospel was used to differentiate it from the black gospel tradition. Convention songs typically have contrasting homophonic and contrapuntal sections. In the homophonic sections, the four parts sing the same words and rhythms. In the contrapuntal sections, each group member has a unique lyric and rhythm. These songs are called “convention songs” because various conventions were organized across the United States for the purpose of getting together regularly and singing songs in this style. Convention songs were employed by training centers like the Stamps-Baxter School Of Music as a way to teach quartet members how to concentrate on singing their own part. Examples of convention songs include “Heavenly Parade”, “I’m Living In Canaan Now”, “Give the World a Smile”, and “Heaven’s Jubilee”.

Southern hip-hop

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Overall characteristics#

Although Southern hip-hop includes a number of localized scenes with distinct styles, there are nevertheless stylistic commonalities that have been observed throughout the region. Most Southern hip-hop music places less emphasis on lyrical complexity than other regions do, instead prioritizing vocal styles that encourage audience participation, such as call-and-response chants or catchy choruses that can be sung along with. At the same time, other branches of Southern hip-hop embraced gangsta rap and have been described as pioneers of hardcore hip-hop. Musically, Southern hip-hop displays inspiration from other Southern music styles, such as gospel and blues. Influential artists from throughout the South have also been described as incorporating elements of funk. Bass-heavy percussion, especially that produced by the Roland TR-808 drum machine, is viewed as a cornerstone of much Southern hip-hop. According to some performers, Southern hip-hop is also more likely than other regions to use live instrumentation rather than samples.

Southern soul

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1960s–1980s#

Some soul musicians were from southern states: these included Georgia natives Otis Redding and James Brown, Rufus Thomas and Bobby “Blue” Bland (from Tennessee), Eddie Floyd (from Alabama), Johnnie Taylor, Al Green (from Arkansas). Southern soul was at its peak through the 1960s, when Memphis soul and the Muscle Shoals sound were popular. In 1963, Stan Lewis founded Jewel Records in Shreveport, Louisiana, along with two subsidiary labels, Paula and Ronn. Lewis signed soul and blues artists such as Toissaint McCall, Bobby Rush, John Lee Hooker, Charles Brown, Buster Benton, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Ted Taylor and Little Johnny Taylor. In 1966, the Shreveport-based Murco Records released “Losin’ Boy” by Eddy Giles, which held a place on Cashbox magazine’s Hot 100 for five weeks. Murco Records had soul chart success with its other artist included Reuben Bell. Other significant contributors were Stax Records with their house band Booker T. & the MGs as well as New York based Label Atlantic Records. Atlantic was Ray Charles’s home, and became an early exporter of the “Muscle Shoals Sound” by distributing Percy Sledge’s “When a Man Loves a Woman”, recorded at Rick Hall’s FAME Studios. FAME becoming the studio of choice for new and experienced artists alike. Establishing the city of Muscle Shoals, Alabama as a major part of Southern soul. Aretha Franklin credits FAME as the place her career turned around, and Etta James recorded hit album “Tell Mama” there. The Stax label’s most successful artist of the 1960s, Otis Redding, was influenced by fellow Georgia native Little Richard and the more cosmopolitan sounds of Mississippi-born Sam Cooke. Other Stax artists of note included Johnnie Taylor, Soul Children, the Dramatics (from Detroit), Eddie Floyd, the Staple Singers, Carla Thomas, and Isaac Hayes. Atlantic Records artists Sam & Dave’s records were released on the Stax label and featured the MGs. Wilson Pickett launched his solo career through his collaboration with the Stax team, and Pickett gained big hit “Land of a Thousand Dances” with FAME Studios musicians in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. After Sam & Dave moved from Stax to Atlantic Records, Stax producer David Porter and his songwriting and production partner Isaac Hayes decided to put together a new vocal group of two men and two women. They recruited J. Blackfoot, together with Norman West, Anita Louis, and Shelbra Bennett, to form the Soul Children. Between 1968 and 1978, the Soul Children had 15 hits on the R&B chart, including three that crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100, and recorded seven albums. Another Memphis 1960s label Goldwax Records, featured James Carr, Spencer Wiggins, and the Ovations. Al Green, Otis Clay, O.V. Wright, Don Bryant, Ann Peebles and Quiet Elegance recorded for Memphis’s 70s label Hi Records, where they were produced by Willie Mitchell. Rick Hall was a R&B producer of “Muscle Shoals Sound”, originating from Muscle Shoals, Alabama. The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section played on hits by many Stax artists during the late 1960s through the mid-1970s, and Atlantic Records artists Wilson Pickett, Percy Sledge, Joe Tex and Aretha Franklin. Producer and session guitarist Chips Moman produced Bobby Womack and Womack wrote R&B song “I’m in Love” for Wilson Pickett. Bobby Womack gained R&B hit “If You Think You’re Lonely Now” in 1981. Malaco Records introduced Dorothy Moore, Bobby Bland, Johnnie Taylor, Denise Lasalle, Little Milton and others. In 1983, former Soul Children singer J. Blackfoot saw success on soul chart with his single “Taxi”. In 1987, Marvin Sease gained an R&B hit with “Candy Licker”.

Straight-ahead jazz

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Musical style#

A study conducted by Anthony Belfiglio at the University of Texas, Austin analyzed the music of Oscar Peterson, Wynton Kelly, Wynton Marsalis, and Marcus Roberts in order to determine key features of straight-ahead jazz that distinguish it from other genres. Belfiglio concluded that the walking bass, a 4/4 bass pattern in which a bassist plays one note to each beat, synchronized with a ride-based drum pattern was a defining component of straight-ahead jazz.

Stride (music)

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Technique#

Stride employed left hand techniques from ragtime, wider use of the piano’s range, and quick tempos. Compositions were written but were also intended to be improvised. The left hand characteristically plays a four-beat pulse with a single bass note (or an octave, major seventh, minor seventh or major tenth interval) on the first and third beats, and a chord on the second and fourth beats. Occasionally this pattern is reversed by placing the chord on the downbeat and bass notes on the upbeat. Compared to the ragtime style popularized by Scott Joplin, stride players’ left hands travel greater distances on the keyboard. Stride piano is highly rhythmic because of the alternating bass note and chord action of the left hand while the right hand plays syncopated melody lines with harmonic and riff embellishments and fill patterns. Proper playing of stride jazz involves a subtle rhythmic tension between the left hand which is close to the established tempo, and the right hand, which is often slightly anticipatory. Unlike ragtime pianists, stride pianists were not concerned with ragtime form and played pop songs of the day in the stride style. Ragtime was composed, but many stride pianists improvised. Some stride players didn’t read music. Stride used tension and release and dynamics. Stride can be played at all tempos, slow or fast depending on the underlying composition and treatment the pianist is performing. On occasion a stride jazz pianist might have the left hand shift into double time. Some pianists have transcribed display pieces note for note from early recordings. However, this practice only illustrates a small part of stride jazz musical adventures. James P. Johnson (1894–1955), known as the “Father of Stride”, created this style of jazz piano along with fellow pianists Willie “The Lion” Smith (1893–1973), Thomas “Fats” Waller (1904–1943) and Luckey Roberts (1887–1968). One of Johnson’s contributions was to recast the “straight” feeling of ragtime with a more modern, swinging beat, sophisticated harmonies and dynamics. He discovered and employed the tenth or “broken tenth” interval. The pianist could not only substitute tenths for single bass notes but could also play broken (staggered) tenths up and down the keyboard. Stride pianist Art Tatum (1909–1956) (a fan of Fats Waller and Lee Sims, who was himself a fan of the European “Impressionist” pianists such as Claude Debussy and Erik Satie, and hosted a radio program Tatum enjoyed) introduced more complex harmonies into his playing, and, like Fats Waller, would start songs with legato explorations of chordal intricacies before launching into swing. Tatum was given a posthumous Grammy Award in 1974.

Swamp blues

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Characteristics#

Swamp blues has a laid-back, slow tempo, and generally is a more rhythmic variation of Louisiana blues, incorporating influences from New Orleans blues, zydeco, soul music and Cajun music. It is characterized by simple but effective guitar work and is influenced by the boogie patterns used on Jimmy Reed records and the work of Lightnin’ Hopkins and Muddy Waters. The sound of swamp blues was characterized by “eerie echo, shuffle beats, tremolo guitars, searing harmonica and sparse percussion”.

Swamp pop

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Characteristics#

The swamp pop sound is typified by highly emotional, lovelorn lyrics, tripleting honky-tonk pianos, undulating bass lines, bellowing horn sections, and a strong rhythm and blues backbeat. It is exemplified by slow ballads such as Cookie and his Cupcakes’ “Mathilda” (recorded 1958), considered as the unofficial swamp pop anthem. But the genre has also produced many upbeat compositions, such as Bobby Charles’ “See You Later, Alligator” (1955), popularly covered by Bill Haley & His Comets. During the genre’s heyday (1958–1964), several swamp pop songs appeared on national U.S. record charts. These included Jimmy Clanton’s “Just A Dream” (1958), Warren Storm’s “Prisoner’s Song” (1958), Phil Phillips’ “Sea Of Love” (1959), Rod Bernard’s “This Should Go On Forever” (1959), Joe Barry’s “I’m a Fool to Care” (1960), and Dale & Grace’s “I’m Leaving It Up to You” (1963). In swamp pop’s south Louisiana–southeast Texas birthplace, fans regarded many songs that never became national hits as classics. These include Johnnie Allan’s “Lonely Days, Lonely Nights” (1958), Buck Rogers’ “Crazy Baby” (1959), Randy and the Rockets’ “Let’s Do the Cajun Twist” (1962), T. K. Hulin’s “I’m Not a Fool Anymore” (1963), and Clint West’s “Big Blue Diamond” (1965), among numerous others.

Sweet jazz

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Name#

The “sweet” moniker was originally coined to contrast the melodic sound of the sweet bands with the highly energetic and cacophonous improvisation of New Orleans’ “hot” jazz. For many contemporary white critics, the name was an indication of its melodic accessibility and refined structure, but the term was also used by some musicians and critics as a mocking, somewhat derogatory term for a style they saw as more generic and less spirited. The most popular sweet bandleader, the so-called “King of Jazz” Paul Whiteman, preferred to describe his ensemble’s music as “symphonic jazz”.

Swing music

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1920s: Roots#

Developments in dance orchestra and jazz music during the 1920s both contributed to the development of the 1930s swing style. Starting in 1923, the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra featured innovative arrangements by Don Redman that featured call-response interplay between brass and reed sections, and interludes arranged to back up soloists. The arrangements also had a smoother rhythmic sense than the ragtime-influenced arrangements that were the more typical “hot” dance music of the day. In 1924 Louis Armstrong joined the Henderson band, lending impetus to an even greater emphasis on soloists. The Henderson band also featured Coleman Hawkins, Benny Carter, and Buster Bailey as soloists, who all were influential in the development of swing era instrumental styles. During the Henderson band’s extended residency at the Roseland Ballroom in New York, it became influential on other big bands. Duke Ellington credited the Henderson band with being an early influence when he was developing the sound for his own band. In 1927 Armstrong worked with pianist Earl Hines, who had a similar impact on his instrument as Armstrong had on trumpet. Hines’ melodic, horn-like conception of playing deviated from the contemporary conventions in jazz piano centered on building rhythmic patterns around “pivot notes”. His approaches to rhythm and phrasing were also free and daring, exploring ideas that would define swing playing. His approach to rhythm often used accents on the lead-in instead of the main beat, and mixed meters, to build a sense of anticipation to the rhythm and make his playing swing. He also used “stops” or musical silences to build tension in his phrasing. Hines’ style was a seminal influence on the styles of swing-era pianists Teddy Wilson, Art Tatum, Jess Stacy, Nat “King” Cole, Erroll Garner, Mary Lou Williams, and Jay McShann. Black territory dance bands in the southwest were developing dynamic styles that often went in the direction of blues-based simplicity, using riffs in a call-response pattern to build a strong, danceable rhythm and provide a musical platform for extended solos. The rhythm-heavy tunes for dancing were called “stomps”. The requirement for volume led to continued use of the sousaphone over the string bass with the larger ensembles, which dictated a more conservative approach to rhythm based on time signatures. Meanwhile, string bass players such as Walter Page were developing their technique to the point where they could hold down the bottom end of a full-sized dance orchestra. The growth of radio broadcasting and the recording industry in the 1920s allowed some of the more popular dance bands to gain national exposure. The most popular style of dance orchestra was the “sweet” style, often with strings. Paul Whiteman developed a style he called “symphonic jazz”, grafting a classical approach over his interpretation of jazz rhythms in an approach he hoped would be the future of jazz. Whiteman’s Orchestra enjoyed great commercial success and was a major influence on the sweet bands. Jean Goldkette’s Victor Recording Orchestra featured many of the top white jazz musicians of the day including Bix Beiderbecke, Jimmy Dorsey, Frank Trumbauer, Pee Wee Russell, Eddie Lang, and Joe Venuti. The Victor Recording Orchestra won the respect of the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra in a Battle of the Bands; Henderson’s cornetist Rex Stewart credited the Goldkette band with being the most influential white band in the development of swing music before Benny Goodman’s. As a dance music promoter and agent, Goldkette also helped organize and promote McKinney’s Cotton Pickers and Glen Gray’s Orange Blossoms (later the Casa Loma Orchestra), two other Detroit-area bands that were influential in the early swing era.

Swing revival

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

In Canada, the swing revival is associated with the popularity of new dance band recordings by Peter Appleyard’s All Star Swing Band and Dal Richards in the early 1980s. The Spitfire Band, a neo-swing outfit that included composer and musician Jackie Rae, trumpeter Micky Erbe, and trombonist Laurie Bower, was founded in 1981 and issued a series of LPs for Columbia Records. The roots of the swing revival in the United States are generally traced back to 1989, which saw the formation of several of the scene’s most prominent figures: Los Angeles’ Royal Crown Revue and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, who often stuck close to playing traditionally-styled jump blues and rockabilly; San Francisco’s swing scene included Lee Presson and the Nails who started performing at local clubs in 1994 and Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers, who showcased vocal jazz and blues influences, emerging in 1996; and Eugene, Oregon’s Cherry Poppin’ Daddies, who incorporated elements of punk rock and ska into swing and jazz music. California soon emerged as the center of the burgeoning neo-swing movement, with such clubs as Los Angeles’ The Derby and San Francisco’s Club DeLuxe regularly hosting swing and jazz bands as well as offering free swing dancing lessons. By the early 1990s, swing music had started appearing in popular culture, serving as the focal point of the 1993 drama Swing Kids while featuring heavily in the 1994 comedy The Mask, in which Royal Crown Revue made an on-screen cameo. By this time, retro swing had started expanding outside of its West Coast roots, leading to the formation of swing bands in such places as Texas (8½ Souvenirs, The Lucky Strikes), Michigan (The Atomic Fireballs, The Deluxtone Rockets), North Carolina (Squirrel Nut Zippers) and Canada (including Big Rude Jake in Toronto, Ontario and Johnny Favourite Swing Orchestra in Halifax, Nova Scotia). In 1996, the American comedy Swingers, which featured scenes filmed at The Derby and a musical performance by Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, became a critical and commercial success and is frequently credited with bringing the swing revival further into the cultural mainstream. In April 1997, the Squirrel Nut Zippers’ 1996 single “Hell” appeared on the Billboard charts, effectively becoming the first hit song of the swing revival; their album Hot would achieve platinum sales of one million units by the RIAA by December 1997. In March 1997, the Cherry Poppin’ Daddies released their swing compilation Zoot Suit Riot, attaining platinum status in August 1998 and double-platinum status in January 2000 while its titular single peaked at #41 on the Billboard Hot 100. The Brian Setzer Orchestra, which was founded by former Stray Cats frontman Brian Setzer in 1992, also achieved double-platinum sales with their 1998 album The Dirty Boogie, whose cover of Louis Prima’s 1956 song “Jump, Jive an’ Wail” became the highest-charting single of swing revival, peaking at #23 on the Billboard Hot 100 and winning a Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. At the same time in 1998, The Gap used Prima’s version of “Jump, Jive an’ Wail” in a “Khakis Swing” commercial; according to Stereogum, Gap’s commercialization of the revival in particular was considered by some as signifying the end of the 90s swing revival or movement, though not before Big Bad Voodoo Daddy performed “Go Daddy-O” for a national audience during the Super Bowl XXXIII halftime show in January, 1999. Examples of neo-swing in general continue to be produced beyond the 90s.

Tamborera

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History of the Tamborera#

The Tamborera was created by Ricardo Fabrega in the first half of the 20th century, to exalt nationalism and identify the Panamanians with their traditions. This is recognized by journalist Ignacio Nacho Valdes, who said: “His compositions, of a deep romantic content, have the purpose of exalt the national soul of Panamanians, and therefore, through generations, our people have sung his songs sometimes with joy and often with a deep melancholy. “His music traveled to all corners of the country and internationally and has been the enjoyment of all classes The Tamborera became known throughout Latin America with the famous song “Guararé” that is today part of the classics of Latin American music, with “Santiagueñita”, “Chiricanita”, “Agüita de canela”, “Mi negro”, “El filo”, “Chichaco por los aires” and " Tan Bella y Presumida” The genre gave life to real stars. Among these the most famous was Silvia De Grasse who brought her career to developing gender cusp outside the Panamanian border, especially in Puerto Rico, where she was recognized by the Puerto Rican television for her talent.

Texas blues

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History#

Texas blues began to appear in the early 1900s among African Americans who worked in oilfields, ranches and lumber camps. The sound of this genre was influenced by certain African musical techniques that were present in the music of enslaved populations in the South. One example of this is the use of call-and-response that is seen throughout work songs and the blues. In the 1920s, Blind Lemon Jefferson innovated the style by using jazz-like improvisation and single string accompaniment on a guitar; Jefferson’s influence defined the field and inspired later performers. Because of his contributions to the style and influence on other musicians, some credit Jefferson as the founder of Texas blues. During the Great Depression in the 1930s, many bluesmen moved to cities including Galveston, San Antonio, Houston and Dallas. It was from these urban centers that a new wave of popular performers appeared, including slide guitarist and gospel singer Blind Willie Johnson. Future bluesmen such as Lightnin’ Hopkins, Lil’ Son Jackson, and T-Bone Walker were influenced by these developments. The state’s R&B recording industry was based in Houston with labels such as Duke/Peacock, which in the 1950s provided a base for artists who would later pursue the electric Texas blues sound, including Johnny Copeland and Albert Collins. In the late 1960s and early 1970s the Texas Blues scene began to flourish, influenced by country music and blues rock, particularly in the clubs of Austin. The diverse style often featured instruments such as keyboards and horns with emphasis on guitar soloing. The most prominent artists to emerge in this era were the brothers Johnny and Edgar Winter, who combined traditional and southern styles.

Third stream

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Definition and critics#

In 1961, Schuller defined third stream as “a new genre of music located about halfway between jazz and classical music”. He insisted that “by definition there is no such thing as ’third stream jazz’”. He noted that while critics on both sides of third stream objected to tainting their favorite music with the other, more strenuous objections were typically made by jazz musicians who felt such efforts were “an assault on their traditions”. He wrote that “by designating the music as a ‘separate, third stream’, the other two mainstreams could go about their way unaffected by the attempts at fusion”. Third-stream music emerged during a time when jazz was seeking recognition as a legitimate art form, and European musical traditions were still widely considered the standard by which all music was judged. In chapter 4, he describes discovering jazz music as a teenager and being fully attracted to Duke Ellington’s music and how he was fascinated by its “freely, loosely, more personal” music style, which he had not experienced as a classical learner. Later, he discusses how he wanted to combine classical music and jazz together to produce a third-stream, and how he explored this music style in various creative ways. He also shares his experiences of wanting to make the New England Conservatory more inclusive by adding new programs and jazz-related courses when he was the president from 1967 to 1977.

Trad jazz

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Beginnings of revival#

A Dixieland revival began in the United States on the West Coast in the late 1930s as a backlash to the Chicago style, which was close to swing. Lu Watters and the Yerba Buena Jazz Band, and trombonist Turk Murphy, adopted the repertoire of Joe “King” Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong and W. C. Handy: bands included banjo and tuba in the rhythm sections. A New Orleans–based traditional revival began with the later recordings of Jelly-Roll Morton and the rediscovery of Bunk Johnson in 1942. This revival ultimately led to the founding of Preservation Hall in the French Quarter of New Orleans during the 1960s. Early King Oliver pieces exemplify this style of hot jazz; however, as individual performers began stepping to the front as soloists, a new form of music emerged. One of the ensemble players in King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band, Louis Armstrong, was by far the most influential of the soloists, creating, in his wake, a demand for this “new” style of jazz, in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Other influential stylists who are still revered in traditional jazz circles today include Sidney Bechet, Bix Beiderbecke, Wingy Manone and Muggsy Spanier. Many artists of the big band era, including Glenn Miller, Gene Krupa and Benny Goodman, had their beginnings in trad jazz.

Traditional black gospel

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Origins and development#

The origins of gospel music are during American slavery, when enslaved Africans were introduced to the Christian religion and converted in large numbers. Remnants of different African cultures were combined with Western Christianity, with one result being the emergence of the spiritual. Jubilee songs and sorrow songs were two type of spirituals that emerged during the 18th and 19th centuries. Some spirituals were also used to pass on hidden messages; for example, when Harriet Tubman was nearby, slaves would sing “Go Down, Moses” to signify that a ‘deliverer’ was nearby. At this time, the term “gospel songs” referred to evangelical hymns sung by Protestant (Congregational and Methodist) Christians, especially those with a missionary theme. Gospel composers included writers like Ira D. Sankey and Mason Lowry, and Charles B. Tindell. Hymns, Protestant gospel songs, and spirituals make up the basic source of modern Black gospel. * The Library of Congress has recordings of Negro Spirituals 1. Song - Go down Moses 2. Song - Deep river 3. Song - Golden slippers 4. Song - Steal away * The Library of Congress has recordings of African Americans singing Black Gospel 1. Song - Oh Jonah 2. Song - We Are Americans, Praise the Lord 3. Song - Lead Me to That Rock 4. Song - Death Come a-Knockin

Trap music

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Characteristics#

In trap music, lyrical themes mostly revolve around life and culture in the “trap”, or in southern trap houses where controlled substances are sold. The term “trap” refers to places where drug deals take place. Other topics include street life, acquiring wealth, violence, American vehicles, and the life experiences artists have faced in their southern American surroundings. Trap music employs multilayered, thin- or thick-textured monophonic drones, sometimes with melodic accompaniment expressed through synthesizers; crisp, grimy, and rhythmic snares; deep 808 kick drums; double-time, triple-time, and similarly divided hi-hats; and a cinematic and symphonic use of synthesized string, brass, woodwind, and keyboard instruments to create an energetic, hard-hitting, deep, and varied atmosphere. These primary characteristics, which became the signature sound of trap music, were pioneered by Shawty Redd’s minimalist, horror-inspired style and DJ Toomp’s melodic, sample-driven approach, drawing inspiration from jazz, soul, R&B, gospel, and funk. Trap may use a range of tempos, often programmed in half-time to achieve finer hi-hat subdivisions, from 50 (100) BPM to 88 (176) BPM, though the tempo of a typical trap beat is around 70 (140) BPM.

Twelve-bar blues

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Background#

The blues originated from a combination of work songs, spirituals, and early southern country music. The music was passed down through oral tradition. It was first written down by W. C. Handy, an African American composer and band leader. Its popularity led to the creation of “race records” and the popularity of blues singers like Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey. The style of music heard on race records was later called “rhythm and blues” (R & B). As the music became more popular, more people wanted to perform it. General patterns that existed in the blues were formalized, one of these being the 12-bar blues.

Urban contemporary gospel

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Origins and development#

Protestant hymns and African-American spirituals make up the basic source material for traditional black gospel music, which in turn is the most significant source of urban/contemporary gospel. Urban/contemporary gospel has kept the spiritual focus of the traditional black gospel music, but uses modern musical forms. Urban/contemporary gospel derives primarily from traditional black gospel music, with strong influence from, and strong influence on, many forms of secular pop music. Due to strong racial divisions in 20th century American culture, urban/contemporary gospel developed specifically out of the African-American musical traditions. The equivalent music from white American culture is contemporary Christian music. The color line divides artists with extremely similar musical styles on the basis of their race, and unites artists with divergent styles (such as rap and pop) on the same basis in industry reporting, marketing choices, and awards like the Grammy and Dove awards.

Urban contemporary music

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Summary#

The term urban contemporary music is heavily associated with African-American music, particularly with R&B in African-American contexts. For Latin Americans, reggaeton and Latin hip hop are considered “Latin urban” due to influence of above mentioned genres. Urban contemporary playlists are dominated by singles by top-selling hip hop and R&B performers. On occasion, an urban contemporary station will play classic soul songs from the 1970s and early 1980s to satisfy the earlier end of the genre. Many urban-formatted radio stations, such as KJLH, KPRS, KMEL, KDAY, KRNB, and WVEE, play gospel music or urban contemporary gospel music on Sundays. Mainstream urban is a branch of urban contemporary, and rhythmic contemporary is also a branch.

West Coast jazz

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Background#

Before World War II, the west coast of the U.S. hosted a bustling music scene, though its activity remained largely localized. In 1917, Jelly Roll Morton moved to California and remained in Los Angeles until 1922, when he left for Chicago. Kid Ory formed a band in Los Angeles after moving to California in 1919. In 1944, Norman Granz began staging Jazz at the Philharmonic shows at Philharmonic Auditorium in Los Angeles. Meanwhile, a thriving jazz scene had appeared along Los Angeles’s Central Avenue, featuring Dexter Gordon, Wardell Gray, Teddy Edwards, Charles Mingus, and Buddy Collette. Central Avenue’s activity rivaled that of the earlier Kansas City jazz scene, but at the time it was little-known outside Los Angeles.

Western swing

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Late 1920s to mid-1930s: Beginnings#

Western swing began in the dance halls of small towns throughout the lower Great Plains in the late 1920s and early 1930s, growing from house parties and ranch dances where fiddlers and guitarists played for dancers. During its early development, scores of groups from San Antonio to Shreveport to Oklahoma City played different songs with the same basic sound. Prince Albert Hunt’s Texas Ramblers out of Terrell in East Texas, and the East Texas Serenaders in Lindale, Texas both added jazz elements to traditional music in the later half of the 1920s through the early 1930s. Fred “Papa” Calhoun played in a band in Decatur, Texas that played swing music in the style of the Louisiana Five. In the early 1930s, Bob Wills and Milton Brown co-founded the string band that became the Light Crust Doughboys, the first professional Western swing band. The group, with Fred “Papa” Calhoun on piano, played dance halls and was heard on radio. Photographs of the Light Crust Doughboys taken as early as 1931 show two guitars along with fiddle player Wills, although by 1933 they had three guitarists. On February 9, 1932, Brown, his brother Derwood, Bob Wills, and C.G. “Sleepy” Johnson were recorded by Victor Records at the Jefferson Hotel in Dallas, Texas under the name The Fort Worth Doughboys. Derwood Brown played guitar and Johnson played tenor guitar. Both “Sunbonnet Sue” and “Nancy Jane” were recorded that day. The group was credited as “Milton Brown and His Musical Brownies”. When Brown left the Doughboys later in 1932, he took his brother to play rhythm guitar in what became The Musical Brownies. In January 1933, fiddler Cecil Brower, playing harmony, joined Jesse Ashlock to create the first example of harmonizing twin fiddles in a Western swing recording. Brower, a classically trained violinist, was the first to master Joe Venuti’s double shuffle and his improvisational style was a major contribution to the genre. The amplified stringed instruments, especially the steel guitar, gave the music its distinctive sound. By the mid-1930s, Fort Worth was a hub for Western swing, particularly at the Crystal Springs Dance Pavilion, a country music dance venue that was popular until the 1950s. Bands like Brown and His Musical Brownies played there, interspersing waltzes and ballads with faster songs. A documented instance of a Western swing group adopting the newer, by then mainstream meter swing jazz style, replacing the style, was when producer Art Satherley required it at a September 1936 Light Crust Doughboy recording session. 1938 session rosters for Wills recordings show both lead guitar and electric guitar in addition to guitar and steel guitar. The “front line” of Wills’ orchestra consisted of either fiddles or guitars after 1944. Wills recalled the early days of Western swing music in a 1949 interview. Speaking of Milton Brown and himself—working with popular songs done by Jimmie Davis, the Skillet Lickers, Jimmie Rodgers, songs he had learned from his father and others—Wills said, “We’d…pull these tunes down an set ’em in a dance category. …They wouldn’t be a runaway…and just lay a real beat behind it an’ the people would began to really like it. …It was nobody intended to start anything in the world. We was just tryin’ to find enough tunes to keep ’em dancin’ to not have to repeat so much.”

Zimbabwean jazz

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Different versions of Zimbabwean jazz#

Bulawayo jazz is a form of jazz that originated in the 1950s. A notable artist of this genre are The Cool Crooners.

Notable jazz musicians#

Charles Fernando
Victor Kunonga
Dorothy Masuka
Oliver Mtukudzi
August Musarurwa
Prince Kudakwashe Musarurwa
Percy Nehoreka Nhara
Josh Meck
Takakunda Mukundu

Zydeco

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

Zydeco music is typically played in an uptempo, syncopated manner with a strong rhythmic core, and often incorporates elements of blues, rock and roll, soul music, R&B, and early Creole music. Zydeco music is centered on the accordion, which leads the rest of the band, and a specialized washboard, called a vest frottoir, as a prominent percussive instrument. Other common instruments in zydeco are the electric guitar, bass, keyboard, and drum set. If there are accompanying lyrics, they are typically sung in English or French.

Jazz & Blues on Music Theory Print

Acid house

Characteristics#

Acid jazz

Etymology#

African blues

Notable artists#

External links#

Afro-Cuban jazz

“Spanish tinge”—the Cuban influence in early jazz#

Afro-punk

History#

Afro-soul

Notable musicians#

Alternative R&B

Etymology#

Anatolian blues

History#

Musicians and musical groups#

See also#

Avant-funk

Characteristics#

History#

Avant-garde jazz

1950s#

Barbershop music

Ringing chords#

Bebop

Etymology#

Black Gospel music

Background: 18th century–late 19th century#

Blue-eyed soul

1960s#

Bluegrass music

Instrumentation#

Blues

Etymology#

Blues ballad

Structure and variations#

Popular blues ballads#

Blues rock

Characteristics#

Boogaloo

History#

Boogie (genre)

Characteristics#

Boogie rock

John Lee Hooker-style#

Boogie-woogie

Musical features#

Brit funk

Name and characteristics#

British blues

Origins#

British dance band

Notable band leaders#

British rhythm and blues

Characteristics#

British soul

Origins#

Brown-eyed soul

History#

Cape jazz

History#

Chamber jazz

Notable musicians linked to chamber jazz music#

Chicago blues

Origins and Influences#

Chicago soul

Notable labels#

Vee-Jay#

Christian country music

Characteristic#

Christian R&B

Origin and musical style#

Cinematic soul

Style#

History#

Classic female blues

Origin#