JU on Music Theory Print

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.

Jugni

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

Description#

In spiritual poetry, Jugni means the spirit of life, or essence of life. Jugni is a style of singing that was first created by a famous Punjabi folk singer (late) Alam Lohar, who belonged to Achh, a small village of Gujrat in Punjab of British India, prior to the creation of Pakistan, Alam Lohar and after this singer, other singers have adopted this style. Alam Lohar is also credited with popularizing this poetry from early Sufi spiritual writings and then subsequently later on it was transformed by other singers as a female girl just like prefixes like Preeto. Alam Lohar started this genre of singing ‘Jugni’ during his early performances around pre-partition (1947), he sang Jugni throughout his early years of singing which was in the 1930s when he was a child star (started singing at a very young age) and many of his songs were not recorded at that time due to limited recording facilities within British India (pre-partition). His LP record titled ‘Jugni’ was recorded later on in his career and became a gold disc LP in 1965. Alam Lohar has also recorded multiple variations of Jugni and some of this is still available to hear on many LP records and visible on black and white TV recordings even available on YouTube to view. Other singers throughout the world have been greatly influenced by the Jugni recordings that Alam Lohar performed including his son Arif Lohar. Much of early Jugni writing is spiritual in nature and relates to one’s understanding of the world and one’s relationship with God. Many poet philosophers have used the Jugni device, which is in the public domain, to make social, political or philosophical, often mildly subversive, commentary. Jugni invokes the name of God (often using the word “Saeen”, the vernacular word for Lord). A kernel of truth is an essential and integral part of every Jugni composition and there is a theory that Alam Lohar introduced and was influenced in relaying this term from reading old Sufi writings. Noting, Jugni is also an old Muslim worship tool, majorly named as TASBIH, a series of 21, 33, 51 or 101 pearls, which is used by SUFI SAINTS for practicing the holy words. Mainly it is made by white pearls and white thread and is known to be holy. Afterward, JUGNI has become an ornament for Punjabi Women. The narrative style relies on Jugni landing up unexpectedly in diverse places and, wide-eyed, learning something new. Jugni makes her comments in three or four well written verses which may or may not rhyme but can always be sung in a rudimentary Punjabi folk style. The object could be a city, a state, a marketplace, a school, a religious place or a saloon, Jugni’s non-malicious commentary catches the essence of the place and produces in the listener a chuckle and sometimes a lump in the throat. The Indian artist to make a mark was Asa Singh Mastana. Also, Kuldeep Manak, born Latif Mohammad, has made notable Jugni contributions. Apart from that every other pop or folk singer from Harbhajan Mann, Arif Lohar, Gurdas Maan, Gurmeet Bawa to Rabbi Shergill has had his Jugni moment. Bollywood movie Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye has at least three songs that use the word Jugni. The song was sung by Des Raj Lachkani (basically a dadi singer), Lachkani is a village near Patiala, India. In Pakistan, Jugni was popularized by the late folk music singer Alam Lohar. He received a gold disc LP for his Jugni in 1965. After that Saleem Javed and Arif Lohar, Alam Lohar’s son, among others, have kept the tradition alive. Arif has brought in a more contemporary touch by incorporating modern vibes and rock influence in his versions of Jugni with Mukhtar Sahota (notably in his album “21st century Jugni” ). In popular Pakistani culture Alamgir’s Jugni is often the most-commonly recognized, which, in the mid-80’s, encouraged young college students, most notably Saad Zahur, an architecture student at Lahore’s NCA, who popularized the song with their own renditions. Arif Lohar has currently sang it for Coke Studio in Pakistan along with Meesha Shafi, a popular Pakistani youth, a version that will help this iconic song to further live on and on. This version of Jugni has crossed 110 million views and is the most popular Punjabi video on YouTube.

Jùjú music

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

Instrumentation#

When jùjú music was first developing, groups often formed as trios. This included a bandleader who sang and played the banjo, a tambourine player, and a sèkèrè (gourd rattle) player. The style used at Christian wake keeping ceremonies was especially important. It was often characterized as having free musical expression unhampered by the strictness of keeping to a rigid four-part organization. The area boys preferred attending wake keeping ceremonies over more formal church services, which made them conversant with several hymn-tune-derived church melodies set to lyrics in Yoruba and with the concomitant melodic progressions and framework of the diatonic scale. One example of how Church melodies and melodic progressions influenced Juju is through Tunde King’s Yisa Imouru. “The elements that can be traced directly to the church hymn include the seven tone diatonic scale, the sequential treatment of the first line of the text, the parallel thirds especially at the cadence point, the free combination of voices which follows the usual form of hymn-tune singing at wakes, and the relatively free treatment of the speech tone patterns of the yoruba text. Along with church hymns, asiko music is found in the lyrical style of Tunde King. Asiko dance music is the predecessor of Juju. Abdulrafiu Tunde King was born and grew up during the height of the asiko dance music craze in the 1920s. Tunde King attended gatherings of area boys at Till Nelson’s motor-mechanic workshop to drink, make music, and, in general, have fun. Tunde King often performed musical entertainment at the gatherings, improvising on esa texts associated with asiko dance music or on such simple folksongs as Orin Kurumo, and thereby fashioning a framework for his social commentary in the Yoruba language

Jukebox musical

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

History#

In Europe in the 17th and 18th century, many comic operas were produced that parodied popular songs of the time by performing them with modified lyrics. Comédie en vaudevilles and ballad operas are two genres that made heavy use of well-known melodies. The Beggar’s Opera (1728), the first ballad opera and the most famous, has been called “the original jukebox musical”. Films considered early examples of jukebox musicals include An American in Paris (1951), Singin’ in the Rain (1952), Rock, Rock, Rock (1956) and Rock Around the Clock (1956). The songwriting team of Robert Wright and George Forrest pioneered the concept of musicals whose songs are derived from one composer’s instrumental works, with newly-written lyrics. Some of these musicals also told the life story of that composer. Musicals and operettas that they produced in this fashion include Song of Norway (1944, using the music of Edvard Grieg), Magdalena: a Musical Adventure (1948, music of Heitor Villa-Lobos), a 1949 reworking of the 1934 musical The Great Waltz (music of Johann Strauss I and Johann Strauss II), Kismet (1953, music of Alexander Borodin ), and Anya (1965, music of Sergei Rachmaninoff). The origin of the phrase “jukebox musical” in its current meaning is unclear. The word “jukebox” dates to around 1939. The first documented use of “jukebox musical” in print may have been in a 1962 description of the musical Do Re Mi, but that was a musical (with original music) about a man who sells jukeboxes. In a 1964 review of the Beatles film A Hard Day’s Night, critic Andrew Sarris described that film as “the Citizen Kane of jukebox musicals”, but he too may have had a meaning in mind other than the contemporary one, since most of that film’s songs were original. Although jukebox musicals had achieved success for years (for example, the 1989 musical Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story), a surge in popularity was led by the success of Mamma Mia! (1999), built around the music of ABBA. The biographical musical, a subset of the jukebox musical in which an artist’s or band’s own songs form the basis of a musical based on their life story, received a surge in popularity in the early 2000s with All Shook Up (about Elvis Presley) and Jersey Boys (commissioned by and about The Four Seasons), as well as The Boy from Oz (about Peter Allen).

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

Jumpstyle

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

Late 1990s–early 2000s: Origins#

Jumpstyle is sometimes described as having roots in Chicago hard house, though it developed its distinct identity in Europe. The style emerged in Belgium around 1997–1998, where artists such as Da Boy Tommy helped popularise the term “jumpstyle”. In its early form, the genre remained relatively niche. During the early 2000s, further stylistic development in Germany and the Netherlands contributed to its growing popularity across Europe.

Jungle music

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

Origins#

The breakbeat hardcore scene of the early 1990s was beginning to fragment by 1992 and 1993, with different influences becoming less common together in tracks. The piano and uplifting vocal style that was prevalent in breakbeat hardcore started to lay down the foundations of 4-beat/happy hardcore, whilst tracks with dark-themed samples and industrial-style stabs had emerged from late 1992 and named darkcore. Reggae samples and reggae-influenced tracks had been a feature of many breakbeat hardcore tracks since 1990, particularly from producers such as Shut Up and Dance; however, Paul Ibiza and the Rebel MC were arguably the first to bring the sound system influence solidly into releases. The track “We Are I.E.” by Lennie De Ice is often credited as being the track that laid down the foundations for jungle with its ragga bassline. During 1992 and 1993, the terms “jungle techno” and “hardcore jungle” proliferated to describe that shift of the music from breakbeat hardcore to jungle. The sound was championed at clubs such as AWOL, Roast and Telepathy, by DJs such as DJ Ron, DJ Hype, DJ Randall, Fabio & Grooverider, Micky Finn, DJ Rap and Kenny Ken, record labels Moving Shadow, V Recordings, Suburban Base and Renk, and on pirate radio stations such as Kool FM (regarded as being the most instrumental station in the development of jungle) but also Don FM, Rush and Rude FM. Tracks would span breakbeat styles, with notable releases including “Darkage” by DJ Solo, “Valley of the Shadows” by Origin Unknown, “Set Me Free” by Potential Bad Boy, “28 Gun Bad Boy” by A Guy Called Gerald, “Crackman” by DJ Ron, “A London Sumtin” by Code 071, “Finest Illusion” by Foul Play, “Learning from My Brother” by Family of Intelligence, “Lion of Judah” by X Project, and “Be Free” by Noise Factory. Techniques and styles could be traced to such a vast group of influencers, each adding their own little elements. According to Simon Reynolds, jungle was “Britain’s very own equivalent to US hip-hop. That said, you could equally make the case that jungle is a raved-up, digitised offshoot of Jamaican reggae. Musically, jungle’s spatialised production, bass quake pressure and battery of extreme sonic effects, make it a sort of postmodern dub music on steroids.” This is an example of the effects of the sonic diaspora and the wide influence musical genres have; Jungle is where these different Black Atlantic genres converge. Reynolds noted the audience of the genre evolved alongside the music itself; going from a “sweaty, shirtless white teenager, grinning and gurning” to a “head nodding, stylishly dressed black twenty-something with hooded eyes, holding a spliff in one hand and a bottle of champagne in the other”. Jungle also served as “a site for a battle between contesting notions of blackness”.