When interviewed, many famous “popular” musicians like Justin Timberlake and Chris Brown say they were influenced by the jazz records their parents used to play in their homes. That’s true for many people, both famous and otherwise, who love music. The exact origin of jazz music is difficult to pinpoint. What is sure is that it came about as a result of a mixing of musical cultures. When Africans were brought to America as slaves, they influenced American culture with their own.
In New Orleans in the mid-1800’s, African-Americans started to experiment with European musical instruments. Some of the first songs they experimented with were hymns from church. By the end of the 19th century, the piano was introduced as an instrument for producing jazz music. Unlike the saxophone or the trumpet that only play single notes, the piano plays chords. This added a new dimension to the jazz combo.
Slave emancipation coincided with the emergence of ragtime, a type of music that threw the conventional system of metrical beats into disarray. Instead, its rhythms were syncopated, which means they didn’t conform to a conservative beat succession system. Ragtime encouraged the listener to get up and move to the music.
Piano music came to the forefront in ragtime, giving way to stride piano where the right hand plays the melody along with supporting chords and runs and fills while the left plays bass notes and chords and rhythm. Stride featured more improvisation and swing notes than ragtime. Scott Joplin, known at the time as the King of Ragtime, talked learning to pick up the “swing” of the music as you play. Swing was the next form of jazz than evolved from ragtime.
The early twentieth century saw the growth of jazz music in New Orleans, as more and more jazz combos played in the city’s clubs and bars. The first few jazz bands began recording their music at this time. By then, the piano had become an integral part of the jazz combo.
The Prohibition Era of the 1920’s didn’t slow the jazz bands down. In fact, it was during this era that the greats like Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith, Duke Ellington and Earl Hines emerged. Hines was probably the most influential pianist of the time, playing in the “Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five” band while cultivating a solo career.
Swing hit big in the 1930’s. It was bigger than ragtime, and songs often carried on for several minutes as each band member got a chance to play a solo. A party wasn’t a party without a big swing band belting out song after vibrant song, and soon swing was all over the radio in the United States.
Swing faded during the conflict of World War Two. Many band members were off fighting in the conflict. Bebop developed from swing during this time. Pianists Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk rose as two of the great jazz pianists of the era. In the 1940’s and 50’s, cool jazz became popular, with pianist Bill Evans claiming a place in music history as one of the most inventive and creative jazz pianists of century.
The 1960s were all about free love, stringy hair and the beginning of Latin jazz and jazz fusion. Many Cuban and Brazilian musicians put their cultural stamp on American jazz and gave birth to a new genre. Jazz fusion came about with the electrification of jazz through the use of synthesizers, keyboards and electric guitars. They blended with brass instruments and the piano for a totally new sound.
Today, jazz is still one of the most influential music forms in the world. Jazz music has asserted itself as a contemporary force in the music world, and the success of current jazz artists is a testament to that.
Posts Tagged ‘swing music’
The Birth of Jazz: When & Where & How Was It Born, And Who Were Its’ Parents?
Thursday, November 6th, 2008Swing Bass for Piano: Get Your Left Hand In Action
Tuesday, August 26th, 2008
It is called “swing bass” because your left hand swings back and forth between a low note (or group of notes, such as a 10th, alternating with a chord in the area right below middle C.
You definitely know the sound of swing bass when you hear it, even though you may not know its characteristic name. The swing style of playing is great for the piano because of the left-hand, right-hand ability the piano affords. You can play swing bass on the piano with the left hand while the right hand improvises a melody over it.
Swing bass starts with an underlying lower register note feel given to a song. Its roots are in jazz from the 1920 to 1940 era. During the 1920s, dance music was very popular in North America. This dance music was of the jazz form. During this 20-year period, some of jazz music’s most creative musicians and composers stretched the limits of this music.
Dance music tradition dictated sticking to melodies as written. The pioneers of swing music and swing bass arrangements felt that melodies needed each individual musician’s interpretation. Improvisation became the norm, and jazz had a new form that gave musicians a lot of freedom for personal music expression.
Of course, these freer melodies required a supporting bass line that fit the swing style. The swing bass style developed based on rhythm, harmony, and melody elements. Other names for swing bass are “stride” or “striding bass.” The harmonic unit for swing bass is sometimes tenths in the left hand. The piano player plays notes that are 10 scale notes apart from each other, often with the 5th of the chord included between the root and the 10th (10th is the same as a 3rd, except an octave higher)taking big strides from the low group of notes up to the chord somewhere around or below middle C. Often on the 3rd beat of a measure the 5th of the chord is used as the low note, followed by another chord on the 4th beat.
The harmonic unit for swing bass is a combination of half-note swing bass and quarter note “walk bass.” The “walk bass” involves playing the fundamental, third and fifth notes of a chord. The leaps are not as extreme in the walking bass. Therefore, a pianist can mix the great striding sounds of swing with the shorter leaps of sound of the walking bass. This lends variety to a swing piece and gives it that unique jazz feel.
The melodic unit of swing music to improvise over the swing bass are quarter, eighth, sixteenth and triplet notes. Again, playing around with these note values to shorten or lengthen note sounds is at the heart of swing playing and jazz improvisation. A piano player can jazz up even the most basic popular song by adding swing elements to a piece.
The swing bass sound and feel is great for the piano because of the lower notes. A piano player can give a bass feel to a song without a string bass player present. The style a bass player would use can be part of the song, although the tone will be different. This is because string bass creates a warmer sound, while the piano makes a more percussive sound. While a string bass player can swing by bending strings and doing glissandos, a pianist cannot. The pianist can give the swing bass sound a more articulated, harder edge with the percussive abilities the keys afford.
When should piano players use the swing bass style? It’s ideal when a song needs jazzing up in a solo performance. Without accompanying musicians to provide support, pianists can lay down their own swing bass line. In addition, a band missing the services of their bass player can have their pianists perform emergency swing bass services. They can vamp away with their left hand and still have the freedom to create right-hand melodies.
Swing bass is great for changing the mood of a song for jarring contrast. Staid classical or traditional popular songs are great for this. Your listeners expect the next logical sounds to emanate from the piano, as is normal for the piece you’re playing. They are familiar with the tune and have pre-conceived expectations of how it will sound. You can surprise them by tossing in a section with swing bass and swing melody. It will delight and surprise them and keep them alert for any other surprises in the rest of your playing.
Consider the swing bass style for some of your piano playing. It is a great tool for lending spark and variety to songs. You’ll hit your stride as you practice this technique more and keep your audience swinging with your music.
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