Blues People: Negro Music in White America by Amiri Baraka - Essay Example

Bop vs. Swing Jazz emerged from the backdrop of cultural and social revolutions of African Americans in the 1870’s. wBop was used as an open rebellion in retaliation to the oppressive political and social system that prevailed at that time. Jazz was considered a cross-cultural phenomenon that spread to all corners of American life. Bebop gradually made its appearance in the 1940’s and, by 1945, it exploded onto the scene in a big way. It was made up of radically sounding music that attracted many people to its culture. Amiri Baraka and Lewis Erenberg, both prolific critics of their time, have different views on which genre was successful at being revolutionary, both musically and socially, for the development of music. Blues People: Negro Music in White America, by Amiri Baraka, is an analytical and historical study of jazz and blues. Baraka suggests that music can be used as a gauge to measure the degree of cultural assimilation of the African Americans. In regards to Amiri Baraka, Ralph Ellison states that Baraka is “attracted to the blues for what he believes they tell us of the sociology of Negro American identity and attitude.” Reminiscing the past, Baraka states that even though slavery had put an end to many of the formal artistic traditions, African American music seemed to have survived. What was most important was that African American music portrayed an African approach to culture, which reflected the pain and struggle of an oppressed people. According to Baraka, even though Africans made use of the English language, European song forms and musical instruments, African culture and viewpoints are clearly portrayed through their music and songs. The melody, harmony, and form consistent with European music were masked in the newly formed jazz by the improvisation, syncopated rhythm, blue notes, and rough timbre standard with African style. An example of this jazz style is East St. Louis Toodle-Oo, by Duke Ellington. This piece starts with a temperamental set of minor chords, which provides the mood and tone of the piece, giving it its basic structure. The muted trumpet solo starts with an anacrusis and dwells 16 bars on the minor theme. As the piece proceeds to the major section, it modulates to the flattened sixth major. The trombone solo improvises on the B theme, which falls on the major section. The rest of the pieces consist of the clarinet and brass, as well as for the trumpet, following interchangeably. The soloist of a jazz piece was given full freedom to be adventurous, provided the overall improvisation was performed and fitted well into the chord structure. Since the virtuoso musicians were breaking away from the use of melody as the basic structure for their solos and keeping the tempo fast and upbeat, bebop quickly alienated itself from popular music, raising jazz to an art form. Bebop now seems to be recognized as a sort of foundation for many innovations that followed. The song titled Things to Come by The Dizzy Gillespie Orchestra, is a classic example of bop. It has the dissonance and extended solo lines that is typical of a piece like this and it was played at a "frenetic" pace (Erenburg, p. 224). Benny Goodmans band became one of the top swing bands in the country and in 1936 he was called, "The King of Swing." (Erenberg, p. 4). He is credited with bringing Swing "to its pinnacle" (Erenberg, p. 5) and he brought Swing into mainstream America. Because of his "Lets Dance" radio show, he was also instrumental in Benny Goodman was instrumental later in bringing black and white musicians together because Swing promoted freedom for everyone. An example of this was when he brought Teddy Wilson, Lionel Hampton, Charlie Christian and Cootie Williams into his bands when this was a very unpopular thing to do (Baraka, p. 164). An example of swing is Doggin’ Around, by Count Basie and Orchestra. The piece is completely animated in presto, full of energy. The piano introduction consists of ascending and descending notes on the scale. The first half alternates between a call and response between brass and reeds and the repetition of the saxophone. The heart of the piece has a piano solo for 32 bars followed by a 32 bar saxophone solo. There is a drum solo near the end and the piece finishes off with the brass and reeds replaying half of their theme. Lewis A. Erenberg’s book titled Swingin’ the Dream, which is a study of the big band era, gives us a clear report on how the racial mixing of the music of Africans and Americans took the world by storm, capturing the minds and hearts of America’s youth and music critics alike. Erenberg tells us how the already popular swing bands combined both jazz and popular music to create an innovative sound that was appealing and attractive. He believed that plain jazz was becoming extinct. He proved his point by stating how Goodman’s band went on a couple of shows, but they were fired for playing loud music. When they played at Elitch Gardens, patrons were “disappointed at not hearing waltzes and other ballroom music, and demanded their money back” (Erenberg, p. 4). Goodman decided to change his style and began playing Fletcher Henderson’s arrangements one after another. The crowd reacted ecstatically. “The swing era, one of the defining moments in American popular music, was born” (Erenberg, p. 4). One of Fletcher Henderson’s popular pieces of 1934, titled “Wrappin’ it Up,” is a piece with a feeling typical of swing. It is syncopated with much punctuation with the same mood being carried throughout the piece, alternating between a brass versus reeds theme, and a saxophone, clarinet and trumpet solo, because it is a piece driven by shrt call and response rifts between brass and reeds. This kind of arrangement proved to be a hit that attracted America’s youth, who went crazy listening to it. Goodman came to be known as “The King of Swing” and his band went on to become “one of the top drawing cards in show business” (Erenberg). In Benny Goodman’s hands, “jazz moved from the margins to the center of American culture” and brought swing to its pinnacle (Erenberg). For example, Goodman’s piece titled “Let’s Dance.” The mood is poetical with a 4 bar pattern in which the orchestra rests in the last bar, giving prominence to the soloist consisting of a clarinet and alto saxophone. The piece progresses until the build up of syncopation with the clarinet solo over reeds sandwiched in the middle of the brass and reeds at the end. Even though musicians similar to Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, Don Redman, Benny Carter and others had already begun the big band swing style somewhere in the late 1920’s, Benny Goodman received the highest honor of being centre stage. According to Erenberg, “American popular music, mass youth culture, and democratic arts in general were reborn in the depression” because it was during the depression that the great change took place. Hence, it is against this background that jazz shifted its position as being produced and consumed mainly by African Americans to one that was essentially patronized by the urban whites, and the successor over swing as being both musically and socially revolutionary. The basic difference between bop and swing was that the soloists in bop did chordal improvisation instead of musical or melodic improvisation like they did with swing (Erenburg, p. 228). A good example of this is ________________ in which _________scats for part of the melody line. Bop also seemed to be best in small ensembles rather than big bands and was faster than swing (Erenburg, 228). A good example of this is "Ko Ko" done by Charlie Parker and Dizzie Gillespie (1945). It is very fast, very frenetic in pace and has lots of loud horns (listening exercise). Bop sometimes took swing tunes and adapted them to the bop style. For instance, the swing tune "Cherokee" was redone to make "Ko Ko" (Erenburg, p. 228). Read More