Musical style is jazz. Jazz: what it is, what directions, who performs it

Jazz is a music direction that emerged at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries in the USA. The characteristic features of jazz are improvisation, polyrhythm based on syncopated rhythms, and a unique set of techniques for performing rhythmic texture - swing.

Jazz is a type of music that emerged from the blues and spirituals of African-Americans, as well as African folk rhythms, enriched with elements of European harmony and melody. The defining features of jazz are:
-sharp and flexible rhythm, based on the principle of syncopation;
-wide use of percussion instruments;
-highly developed improvisational ability;
- an expressive manner of performance, characterized by great expression, dynamic and sound tension, reaching the point of ecstasy.

Origin of the name jazz

The origin of the name is not completely clear. Its modern spelling - jazz - was established in the 1920s. Before this, other options were known: chas, jasm, gism, jas, jass, jaz. There are many versions of the origin of the word “jazz”, including the following:
- from the French jaser (to chat, to speak quickly);
- from the English chase (chase, pursue);
- from the African jaiza (the name of a certain type of drum sound);
- from Arabic jazib (seducer); from the names of legendary jazz musicians - chas (from Charles), jas (from Jasper);
- from the onomatopoeia jass, imitating the sound of African copper cymbals, etc.

There is reason to believe that the word "jazz" was used as early as the mid-19th century as a name for an ecstatic, encouraging cry among blacks. According to some sources, in the 1880s it was in use among New Orleans Creoles, who used it to mean “to speed up,” “to make quicker,” in reference to fast, syncopated music.

According to M. Stearns, in the 1910s this word was used in Chicago and had “not quite a decent meaning.” The word jazz appeared in print for the first time in 1913 (in one of the San Francisco newspapers). In 1915, it became part of the name of T. Brown's jazz orchestra - TORN BROWN'S DIXIELAND JASS BAND, which performed in Chicago, and in 1917 it appeared on a gramophone record recorded by the famous New Orleans orchestra ORIGINAL DIXIELAND JAZZ (JASS) BAND.

Jazz styles

Archaic jazz (early jazz, early jazz, German archaischer jazz)
Archaic jazz is a set of the oldest, traditional types of jazz, created by small ensembles in the process of collective improvisation on the themes of blues, ragtime, as well as European songs and dances.

Blues (blues, from English blue devils)
Blues is a type of black folk song whose melody is based on a clear 12-bar pattern.
The blues sing about deceived love, about need, and the blues are characterized by a self-pitying attitude. At the same time, blues lyrics are imbued with stoicism, gentle mockery and humor.
In jazz music, the blues developed as an instrumental dance piece.

Boogie-woogie (boogie-woogie)
Boogie-woogie is a piano blues style characterized by a repeating bass figure that defines the rhythmic and melodic possibilities of improvisation.

Gospels (from the English Gospel - Gospel)
Gospel music is the religious tunes of North American blacks with lyrics based on the New Testament.

Ragtime
Ragtime is piano music based on the “beating” of two non-coinciding rhythmic lines:
-as if torn (sharply syncopated) melody;
- clear accompaniment, sustained in the style of a rapid step.

Soul
Soul is black music associated with the blues tradition.
Soul is a style of vocal black music that arose after the Second World War on the basis of rhythm and blues and gospel traditions.

Soul-jazz
Soul jazz is a type of hard bop, which is characterized by an orientation towards the traditions of the blues and African-American folklore.
Spiritual
Spiritual - an archaic spiritual genre of choral singing of North American blacks; religious tunes with lyrics based on the Old Testament.

Street-cry
Street edge is an archaic folk genre; a type of urban solo work song of street peddlers, represented by many varieties.

Dixieland, dixie (dixieland, dixie)
Dixieland is a modernized New Orleans style characterized by collective improvisation.
Dixieland is a jazz group of (white) musicians who adopted the style of performing black jazz.

Zong (from English song - song)
Zong - in B. Brecht's theater - a ballad performed in the form of an interlude or an author's (parody) commentary of a grotesque nature with a plebeian vagabond theme, close to a jazz rhythm.

Improvisation
Improvisation - in music - is the art of spontaneously creating or interpreting music.

Cadenza (Italian: cadenza, from Latin: Cado - ending)
Cadenza is a free improvisation of a virtuoso nature, performed in an instrumental concert for a soloist and orchestra. Sometimes cadenzas were composed by composers, but often they were left to the discretion of the performer.

Scat
Scat - in jazz - a type of vocal improvisation in which the voice is equated to an instrument.
Scat - instrumental singing - a technique of syllabic (textless) singing based on the articulation of unrelated syllables or sound combinations.

Hot
Hot - in jazz - a characteristic of a musician performing improvisation with maximum energy.

New Orleans style of jazz
New Orleans style of jazz is music characterized by a clear two-beat rhythm; the presence of three independent melodic lines, which are performed simultaneously on the cornet (trumpet), trombone and clarinet, accompanied by a rhythmic group: piano, banjo or guitar, double bass or tuba.
In the works of New Orleans jazz, the main musical theme is repeated many times in various variations.

Sound
Sound is a stylistic category of jazz that characterizes the individual sound quality of an instrument or voice.
The sound is determined by the method of sound production, the type of sound attack, the manner of intonation and the interpretation of timbre; sound is an individualized form of manifestation of the sound ideal in jazz.

Swing, classic swing (swing; classic swing)
Swing is jazz, arranged for expanded pop and dance orchestras (big bands).
Swing is characterized by a roll call of three groups of wind instruments: saxophones, trumpets and trombones, creating the effect of rhythmic swing. Swing performers refuse collective improvisation; musicians accompany the soloist’s improvisation with a pre-written accompaniment.
Swing reached its peak in 1938-1942.

Sweet
Sweet is a characteristic of entertaining and dance commercial music of a sentimental, melodious and lyrical nature, as well as related forms of commercialized jazz and “jazzed” popular music.

Symphonic jazz
Symphonic jazz is a jazz style that combines the features of symphonic music with elements of jazz.

Modern jazz
Modern jazz is a set of styles and trends of jazz that have emerged since the late 1930s after the end of the period of the classical style and the “swing era”.

Afro-Cuban jazz (German: afrokubanischer jazz)
Afro-Cuban jazz is a style of jazz that developed towards the end of the 1940s from the combination of bebop elements with Cuban rhythms.

Bebop, bop (bebop; bop)
Bebop is the first style of modern jazz that emerged in the early 1930s.
Bebop is a direction of black jazz of small ensembles, which is characterized by:
-free solo improvisation based on a complex sequence of chords;
-use of instrumental singing;
-modernization of old hot jazz;
-a spasmodic, unstable melody with broken syllables and a feverishly nervous rhythm.

Combo
Combo is a small modern jazz orchestra in which all instruments are soloists.

Cool jazz (cool jazz; cool jazz)
Cool jazz is a style of modern jazz that emerged in the early 50s, updating and complicating the harmony of bop;
Polyphony is widely used in cool jazz.

Progressive
Progressive is a style direction in jazz that emerged in the early 1940s based on the traditions of classical swing and bop, associated with the practice of big bands and large symphonic orchestras. Widely using Latin American melodies and rhythms.

Free jazz
Free jazz is a style of modern jazz associated with radical experiments in the field of harmony, form, rhythm and improvisation techniques.
Free jazz is characterized by:
-free individual and group improvisation;
-use of polymetry and polyrhythm, polytonality and atonality, serial and dodecaphonic technique, free forms, modal technique, etc.

Hard bob
Hard bop is a style of jazz that evolved from bebop in the early 1950s. Hard bop is different:
-gloomy, rough coloring;
-expressive, rigid rhythm;
-strengthening blues elements in harmony.

Chicago style of jazz (chicago-still)
The Chicago style of jazz is a variant of the New Orleans jazz style, which is characterized by:
-more strict compositional organization;
-strengthening solo improvisation (virtuoso episodes performed by various instruments).

Variety orchestra
A pop orchestra is a type of jazz orchestra;
instrumental ensemble performing entertainment and dance music and pieces from the jazz repertoire,
accompanying performers of popular songs and other masters of the pop genre.
Typically, a pop orchestra includes a group of reed and brass instruments, piano, guitar, double bass and a set of drums.

Historical background on jazz

It is believed that Jazz, as an independent movement, arose in New Orleans between 1900 and 1917. A well-known legend says that from New Orleans, jazz spread along the Mississippi to Memphis, St. Louis and finally to Chicago. The validity of this legend is lately has been questioned by a number of jazz historians, and today there is an opinion that jazz arose in the black subculture at the same time as different places America, primarily in New York, Kansas City, Chicago and St. Louis. And yet the old legend, apparently, is not far from the truth.

Firstly, it is supported by the testimonies of old musicians who lived during the period when jazz reached the boundaries of the black ghettos. All of them confirm that New Orleans musicians played very special music, which other performers readily copied. The fact that New Orleans is the cradle of jazz is also confirmed by recordings. Jazz records recorded before 1924 were made by musicians from New Orleans.

The classical period of jazz lasted from 1890 to 1929 and ended with the beginning of the “swing era.” Classical jazz usually includes: New Orleans style (represented by Negro and Creole styles), New Orleans-Chicago style (which arose in Chicago after 1917 in connection with the move here of most of the leading Negro jazzmen of New Orleans), Dixieland (in its New Orleans and Chicago varieties ), a number of varieties of piano jazz (barrel house, boogie-woogie, etc.), as well as styles of jazz related to the same period that arose in some other cities in the South and Midwest of the United States. Classical jazz, together with certain archaic stylistic forms, is sometimes referred to as traditional jazz.

Jazz in Russia

The first jazz orchestra in Soviet Russia was created in Moscow in 1922 by a poet, translator, dancer, theatrical figure Valentin Parnakh and was called “The first eccentric orchestra of jazz bands of Valentin Parnakh in the RSFSR.” The birthday of Russian jazz is traditionally considered to be October 1, 1922, when the first concert of this group took place.

The attitude of the Soviet authorities towards jazz was ambiguous. At first, domestic jazz performers were not banned, but harsh criticism of jazz and Western culture was widespread. In the late 40s, during the fight against cosmopolitanism, jazz groups performing “Western” music were persecuted. With the onset of the Thaw, repressions against musicians ceased, but criticism continued.

The first book about jazz in the USSR was published by the Leningrad publishing house Academia in 1926. It was compiled by musicologist Semyon Ginzburg from translations of articles by Western composers and music critics, as well as his own materials, and was called “Jazz Band and modern music“The next book about jazz was published in the USSR only in the early 1960s. It was written by Valery Mysovsky and Vladimir Feyertag, called “Jazz” and was essentially a compilation of information that could be obtained from various sources at that time. In 2001, the St. Petersburg publishing house “Skifia” published the encyclopedia “Jazz. XX century Encyclopedic reference book." The book was prepared by the authoritative jazz critic Vladimir Feyertag.

Subsequently, ragtime rhythms combined with blues elements gave rise to a new musical direction - jazz.

The origins of jazz are connected with the blues. It arose at the end of the 19th century as a fusion of African rhythms and European harmony, but its origins should be sought from the moment of the importation of slaves from Africa to the territory of the New World. The brought slaves did not come from the same family and usually did not even understand each other. The need for consolidation led to the unification of many cultures and, as a result, to the creation of a single culture (including musical) of African Americans. The processes of mixing African musical culture and European (which also underwent serious changes in the New World) occurred starting from the 18th century, and in the 19th century led to the emergence of “proto-jazz”, and then jazz in the generally accepted sense.

New Orleans jazz

The term New Orleans, or traditional, jazz usually refers to the style of musicians who performed jazz in New Orleans between 1900 and 1917, as well as New Orleans musicians who played and recorded in Chicago from about 1917 through the 1920s. . This period of jazz history is also known as the Jazz Age. And this concept is also used to describe the music performed at various historical periods by representatives of the New Orleans revival, who sought to perform jazz in the same style as the musicians of the New Orleans school.

The development of jazz in the USA in the first quarter of the 20th century

After Storyville closed, jazz from the regional folklore genre begins to develop into a nationwide musical trend, spreading to the northern and northeastern provinces of the United States. But its widespread spread, of course, could not have been facilitated only by the closure of one entertainment district. Along with New Orleans, St. Louis, Kansas City, and Memphis were important in the development of jazz from the very beginning. Ragtime originated in Memphis in the 19th century, from where it then spread throughout the North American continent in the period -1903. On the other hand, minstrel shows, with their motley mosaic of all kinds of musical movements of African-American folklore from jigs to ragtime, quickly spread everywhere and prepared the way for the arrival of jazz. Many future jazz celebrities began their careers in minstrel shows. Long before Storyville closed, New Orleans musicians went on tour with so-called “vaudeville” troupes. Jelly Roll Morton toured regularly in Alabama, Florida, and Texas since 1904. Since 1914 he had a contract to perform in Chicago. In 1915, Thom Browne's white Dixieland orchestra also moved to Chicago. The famous “Creole Band,” led by New Orleans cornetist Freddie Keppard, also made major vaudeville tours in Chicago. Having separated from the Olympia Band at one time, Freddie Keppard's artists already in 1914 successfully performed in the very the best theater Chicago and received an offer to make a sound recording of their performances even before the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, which, however, Freddie Keppard short-sightedly rejected.

The area covered by the influence of jazz was significantly expanded by orchestras that played on pleasure steamers sailing up the Mississippi. Since the end of the 19th century, river trips from New Orleans to St. Paul have become popular, first for a weekend, and later for a whole week. Since 1900, New Orleans orchestras have been performing on these riverboats, and their music has become the most attractive entertainment for passengers during river tours. The future wife of Louis Armstrong, the first jazz pianist Lil Hardin, started in one of these “Suger Johnny” orchestras.

Many future New Orleans jazz stars performed in the riverboat orchestra of another pianist, Faiths Marable. Steamships traveling along the river often stopped at passing stations, where orchestras staged concerts for the local public. It was these concerts that became the creative debuts for Bix Beiderbeck, Jess Stacy and many others. Another famous route ran through Missouri to Kansas City. In this city, where, thanks to the strong roots of African-American folklore, the blues developed and finally took shape, the virtuoso playing of New Orleans jazzmen found an exceptionally fertile environment. By the beginning of the 2010s, the main center for the development of jazz music was Chicago, where, through the efforts of many musicians gathered from different parts of the United States, a style was created that received the nickname Chicago jazz.

Swing

The term has two meanings. Firstly, it is an expressive means in jazz. A characteristic type of pulsation based on constant deviations of the rhythm from the supporting beats. Thanks to this, the impression of great internal energy is created, which is in a state of unstable equilibrium. Secondly, the style of orchestral jazz, which emerged at the turn of the 1920s and 30s as a result of the synthesis of Negro and European stylistic forms of jazz music.

Performers: Joe Pass, Frank Sinatra, Benny Goodman, Norah Jones, Michel Legrand, Oscar Peterson, Ike Quebec, Paulinho Da Costa, Wynton Marsalis Septet, Mills Brothers, Stephane Grappelli.

Bop

Jazz style that developed in the early to mid-40s of the 20th century and ushered in the era of modern jazz. Characterized by fast tempo and complex improvisations based on changes in harmony rather than melody. The super-fast tempo of performance was introduced by Parker and Gillespie in order to keep non-professionals away from their new improvisations. Among other things, a distinctive feature of all bebopers was their shocking behavior and appearance: the curved trumpet of “Dizzy” Gillespie, the behavior of Parker and Gillespie, Monk’s ridiculous hats, etc. Having emerged as a reaction to the widespread spread of swing, bebop continued to develop its principles in use expressive means, but at the same time discovered a number of opposing trends.

Unlike swing, which is mostly the music of large commercial dance orchestras, bebop is an experimental creative movement in jazz, associated mainly with the practice of small ensembles (combos) and anti-commercial in its orientation. The bebop phase marked a significant shift in the emphasis in jazz from popular dance music to a more highly artistic, intellectual, but less mass-produced “music for musicians.” Bop musicians preferred complex improvisations based on strumming chords instead of melodies.

The main instigators of the birth were: saxophonist Charlie Parker, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, pianists Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk, drummer Max Roach. Also listen to Chick Corea, Michel Legrand, Joshua Redman Elastic Band, Jan Garbarek, Charles Mingus, Modern Jazz Quartet.

Big bands

The classic, established form of big bands has been known in jazz since the early years. This form retained its relevance until the end of the 1920s. The musicians who joined most big bands, as a rule, almost in adolescence, played very specific parts, either memorized at rehearsals, or from notes. Careful orchestrations coupled with large brass and woodwind sections brought out rich jazz harmonies and created a sensationally loud sound that became known as “the big band sound.”

Big band became the popular music of its time, reaching its peak of fame in the mid-'s. This music became the source of the swing dancing craze. The leaders of the famous jazz orchestras Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Artie Shaw, Chick Webb, Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Lunsford, Charlie Barnett composed or arranged and recorded a veritable hit parade of tunes that were heard not only on the radio , but also everywhere in dance halls. Many big bands showcased their improvising soloists, who whipped audiences into a state of near hysteria during well-promoted “battles of the bands.”

Although the popularity of big bands declined significantly after World War II, orchestras led by Basie, Ellington, Woody Herman, Stan Kenton, Harry James and many others toured and recorded frequently over the next few decades. Their music gradually transformed under the influence of new trends. Groups such as ensembles led by Boyd Rayburn, Sun Ra, Oliver Nelson, Charles Mingus, Tad Jones-Mal Lewis explored new concepts in harmony, instrumentation, and improvisational freedom. Today big bands are a standard in jazz education. Repertory orchestras such as the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, the Carnegie Hall Jazz Orchestra, the Smithsonian Jazz Masterpiece Orchestra, and the Chicago Jazz Ensemble regularly play original arrangements of big band compositions.

In 2008, George Simon’s canonical book “Big Bands of the Swing Era” was published in Russian, which is essentially an almost complete encyclopedia of all big bands of the golden age from the early 20s to the 60s of the 20th century.

Mainstream

Pianist Duke Ellington

After the end of the prevailing fashion of large orchestras in the era of big bands, when the music of large orchestras began to be crowded out on stage by small jazz ensembles, swing music continued to be heard. Many famous swing soloists, after concert performances in ball rooms, liked to play for fun at spontaneous jams in small clubs on 52nd Street in New York. And these were not only those who worked as “sidemen” in large orchestras, such as Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Roy Eldridge, Johnny Hodges, Buck Clayton and others. The leaders of the big bands themselves - Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Jack Teagarden, Harry James, Gene Krupa, being initially soloists, and not just conductors, also looked for opportunities to play separately from their large group, in a small composition. Not accepting the innovative techniques of the upcoming bebop, these musicians adhered to the traditional swing manner, while demonstrating inexhaustible imagination when performing improvisational parts. The main stars of swing constantly performed and recorded in small lineups, called “combos,” within which there was much more room for improvisation. With the beginning of the rise of bebop, the style of this direction of club jazz of the late 1920s received the name mainstream, or main movement. Some of the era's finest performers could be heard in fine form at the jams, when chord improvisation had already taken precedence over the melody-coloring method of the swing era. Re-emerging as a free style in the late 's and 's, the mainstream absorbed elements of cool jazz, bebop, and hard bop. The term "contemporary mainstream" or post-bebop is used today for almost any style that does not have a close connection to historical styles of jazz music.

Northeastern jazz. Stride

Louis Armstrong, trumpeter and singer

Although the history of jazz began in New Orleans with the advent of the 20th century, the music really took off in the early 1980s when trumpeter Louis Armstrong left New Orleans to create revolutionary new music in Chicago. The migration of New Orleans jazz masters to New York, which began shortly thereafter, marked a trend of constant movement of jazz musicians from the South to the North. Chicago took the music of New Orleans and made it hot, raising its intensity not only with the efforts of Armstrong's famous Hot Five and Hot Seven ensembles, but also others, including such masters as Eddie Condon and Jimmy McPartland, whose crew at Austin High School helped revive the New Orleans schools. Other notable Chicagoans who pushed the boundaries of the classic New Orleans jazz style include pianist Art Hodes, drummer Barrett Deems, and clarinetist Benny Goodman. Armstrong and Goodman, who eventually moved to New York, created a kind of critical mass there that helped this city turn into a real jazz capital of the world. And while Chicago remained primarily a recording center in the first quarter of the 20th century, New York also became a major jazz venue, with such legendary clubs as the Minton Playhouse, the Cotton Club, the Savoy and the Village Vanguard, and also such arenas as Carnegie Hall.

Kansas City style

During the era of the Great Depression and Prohibition, the Kansas City jazz scene became a mecca for the newfangled sounds of the late 1900s and 1900s. The style that flourished in Kansas City was characterized by soulful, blues-tinged pieces performed by both big bands and small swing ensembles that demonstrated highly energetic solos, performed for patrons of speakeasies selling illegal alcohol. It was in these zucchini that the style of the great Count Basie, who began in Kansas City in Walter Page's orchestra and subsequently with Benny Mouthen, crystallized. Both of these orchestras were typical representatives of the Kansas City style, the basis of which was a peculiar form of blues, called “urban blues” and formed in the playing of the above-mentioned orchestras. The Kansas City jazz scene was also distinguished by a whole galaxy of outstanding masters of vocal blues, the recognized “king” among whom was the long-time soloist of the Count Basie orchestra, the famous blues singer Jimmy Rushing. The famous alto saxophonist Charlie Parker, born in Kansas City, upon his arrival in New York, widely used the characteristic blues techniques that he had learned in the Kansas City orchestras and which later formed one of the starting points in the bopper experiments in 2010.

West Coast Jazz

Artists caught up in the cool jazz movement of the 1950s worked extensively in Los Angeles recording studios. Largely influenced by Miles Davis' nonet, these Los Angeles-based performers developed what is now known as "West Coast Jazz", or West Coast jazz. As recording studios, clubs such as the Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach and the Haig in Los Angeles often featured his masters, including trumpeter Shorty Rogers, saxophonists Art Pepper and Bud Schenk, drummer Shelley Mann and clarinetist Jimmy Giuffre. .

Cool (cool jazz)

The high intensity and pressure of bebop began to weaken with the development of cool jazz. Beginning in the late and early years, musicians began to develop a less violent, smoother approach to improvisation, modeled after the light, dry playing of tenor saxophonist Lester Young, which he had employed during the swing era. The result was a detached and uniformly flat sound, based on emotional “coolness”. Trumpeter Miles Davis, an early pioneer of bebop who cooled it down, became the genre's greatest innovator. His nonet, who recorded the album “The Birth of a Cool” in the 1950s, was the embodiment of the lyricism and restraint of cool jazz. Others famous musicians The cool-jazz school includes trumpeter Chet Baker, pianists George Shearing, John Lewis, Dave Brubeck and Lenny Tristano, vibraphonist Milt Jackson and saxophonists Stan Getz, Lee Konitz, Zoot Sims and Paul Desmond. Arrangers also made significant contributions to the cool jazz movement, notably Ted Dameron, Claude Thornhill, Bill Evans and baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan. Their compositions focused on instrumental coloration and slow motion, on frozen harmonies that created the illusion of space. Dissonance also played some role in their music, but with a softened, subdued character. The cool jazz format left room for somewhat larger ensembles such as nonets and tentets, which became more common during this period than in the early bebop period. Some arrangers experimented with modified instrumentation, including cone-shaped brass instruments such as horn and tuba.

Progressive jazz

In parallel with the emergence of bebop, jazz is developing new genre- progressive jazz, or simply progressive. The main difference of this genre is the desire to move away from the frozen cliché of big bands and outdated, worn-out techniques of the so-called. symphojazz introduced in 2000 by Paul Whiteman. Unlike boppers, progressive creators did not strive for a radical rejection of the jazz traditions that had developed at that time. They rather sought to update and improve swing phrase models, introducing into the practice of composition the latest achievements of European symphonism in the field of tonality and harmony.

The greatest contribution to the development of the concept of “progressive” was made by pianist and conductor Stan Kenton. The progressive jazz of the early 1920s actually began with his first works. The sound of the music performed by his first orchestra was close to Rachmaninov, and the compositions bore the features of late romanticism. However, in terms of genre it was closest to symphonic jazz. Later, during the years of creating the famous series of his “Artistry” albums, jazz elements no longer played the role of creating color, but were already organically woven into the musical material. Along with Kenton, the credit for this also belonged to his best arranger, Pete Rugolo, a student of Darius Milhaud. Modern (for those years) symphonic sound, a specific staccato technique in the playing of saxophones, bold harmonies, frequent seconds and blocks, along with polytonality and jazz rhythmic pulsation - here distinctive features This music, with which Stan Kenton entered the history of jazz for many years, as one of its innovators, found a common platform for European symphonic culture and elements of bebop, especially noticeable in pieces where solo instrumentalists seemed to oppose the sounds of the rest of the orchestra. It is also worth noting the great attention that Kenton paid in his compositions to the improvisational parts of soloists, including the world famous drummer Shelley Maine, double bassist Ed Safransky, trombonist Kay Winding, June Christie, one of the best jazz vocalists those years. Stan Kenton remained faithful to his chosen genre throughout his career.

In addition to Stan Kenton, interesting arrangers and instrumentalists Boyd Rayburn and Gil Evans also contributed to the development of the genre. A kind of apotheosis of the development of progressive, along with the already mentioned “Artistry” series, can also be considered a series of albums recorded by the Gil Evans big band together with the Miles Davis ensemble in the years, for example, “Miles Ahead,” “Porgy and Bess” and “Spanish drawings." Shortly before his death, Miles Davis again turned to this genre, recording old Gil Evans arrangements with the Quincy Jones Big Band.

Hard bop

Hard bop (English - hard, hard bop) is a type of jazz that arose in the 50s. XX century from bop. It is distinguished by expressive, brutal rhythms, based on blues. Refers to the styles of modern jazz. Around the same time that cool jazz was taking root on the West Coast, jazz musicians from Detroit, Philadelphia, and New York began developing harder, heavier variations of the old bebop formula, called Hard Bop or Hard Bebop. Closely resembling traditional bebop in its aggressiveness and technical demands, hard bop of the 1950s and 1960s relied less on standard song forms and began to place more emphasis on blues elements and rhythmic drive. Incendiary soloing or mastery of improvisation along with a strong sense of harmony were qualities of paramount importance for wind players, drums and piano became more prominent in the rhythm section, and the bass took on a more fluid, funky feel. (taken from the source " Musical literature» Kolomiets Maria)

Modal jazz

Soul jazz

Groove

An offshoot of soul jazz, the groove style draws melodies with bluesy notes and is characterized by exceptional rhythmic focus. Sometimes also called "funk", the groove concentrates on maintaining a continuous characteristic rhythmic pattern, flavoring it with light instrumental and sometimes lyrical embellishments.

Works performed in the groove style are full of joyful emotions, inviting listeners to dance, both in a slow, bluesy version, and at a fast tempo. Solo improvisations remain strictly subordinate to the beat and collective sound. The most famous exponents of this style are organists Richard "Groove" Holmes and Shirley Scott, tenorsaxophonist Gene Emmons, and flautist/alto saxophonist Leo Wright.

Free jazz

Saxophonist Ornette Coleman

Perhaps the most controversial movement in jazz history arose with the advent of free jazz, or "New Thing" as it was later called. Although elements of free jazz existed within the musical structure of jazz long before the term itself was coined, it was most original in the "experiments" of such innovators as Coleman Hawkins, Pee Wee Russell and Lenny Tristano, but only towards the end by the efforts of such pioneers as saxophonist Ornette Coleman and pianist Cecil Taylor, this direction took shape as an independent style.

What these two musicians, along with others including John Coltrane, Albert Ayler, and groups like the Sun Ra Arkestra and a group called The Revolutionary Ensemble, accomplished was a variety of changes in structure and the feeling of music. Among the innovations, which were introduced with imagination and great musicality, was the abandonment of the chord progression, which allowed the music to move in any direction. Another fundamental change was found in the area of ​​rhythm, where "swing" was either revised or ignored altogether. In other words, pulse, meter and groove were no longer essential elements in this reading of jazz. Another key component was related to atonality. Now musical utterance was no longer based on the conventional tonal system. Piercing, barking, convulsive notes completely filled this new sound world.

Free jazz continues to exist today as a viable form of expression, and is in fact no longer as controversial a style as it was in its early days.

Creative

The emergence of the “Creative” direction was marked by the penetration of elements of experimentalism and avant-garde into jazz. The beginning of this process partially coincided with the emergence of free jazz. Elements of the jazz avant-garde, understood as changes and innovations introduced into music, have always been “experimental.” So the new forms of experimentalism offered by jazz in the 50s, 60s and 70s were the most radical departure from tradition, introducing new elements of rhythms, tonality and structure. In fact, avant-garde music became synonymous with open forms, which were more difficult to characterize than even free jazz. The pre-planned structure of sayings was mixed with freer solo phrases, partly reminiscent of free jazz. The compositional elements merged so much with improvisation that it was already difficult to determine where the first ended and the second began. In fact, the musical structure of the works was designed so that the solo was the product of the arrangement, logically leading the musical process to what would normally be considered a form of abstraction or even chaos. Swing rhythms and even melodies could be included in the theme music, but this was not necessary. Early pioneers of this movement include pianist Lenny Tristano, saxophonist Jimmy Joffrey and composer/arranger/conductor Gunther Schuller. More recent masters include pianists Paul Bley and Andrew Hill, saxophonists Anthony Braxton and Sam Rivers, drummers Sunny Murray and Andrew Cyrille, and members of the AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians) community such as the Art Ensemble of Chicago.

Fusion

Beginning not only with the fusion of jazz with pop and rock, but also with music stemming from areas such as soul, funk and rhythm and blues, fusion (or literally fusion) as a musical genre emerged at the end - x, initially called jazz-rock. Individual musicians and groups such as guitarist Larry Coryell's Eleventh House, drummer Tony Williams' Lifetime, and Miles Davis led the way, introducing elements such as electronica, rock rhythms, and extended tracks, eliminating much of the what jazz “stood on” from its beginning, namely, swing beat, and based primarily on blues music, the repertoire of which included both blues material and popular standards. The term fusion came into use soon after various orchestras emerged, such as the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Weather Report and Chick Corea's Return To Forever ensemble. Throughout the music of these ensembles there remained a constant emphasis on improvisation and melodicity, which firmly linked their practice to the history of jazz, despite detractors who claimed that they had “sold out” to the music merchants. In fact, when listening to these early experiments today, they hardly seem commercial, inviting the listener to participate in what was music with a highly developed conversational nature. During the mid-'s, fusion evolved into a variant of easy listening and/or rhythm and blues music. Compositionally or from the point of view of performance, he lost a significant part of his sharpness, or even completely lost it. In this era, jazz musicians turned the musical form of fusion into a truly expressive medium. Artists such as drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson, guitarists Pat Metheny, John Scofield, John Abercrombie and James "Blood" Ulmer, as well as well as veteran saxophonist/trumpetist Ornette Coleman have creatively mastered this music in different dimensions.

Postbop

Drummer Art Blakey

The post-bop period encompasses music performed by jazz musicians who continued to create in the field of bebop, shying away from the free jazz experiments that developed during the same period in the 1960s. Also like the aforementioned hard bop, this form relied on the rhythms, ensemble structure and energy of bebop, the same horn combinations, and the same musical repertoire, including the use of Latin elements. What distinguished post-bop music was the use of elements of funk, groove or soul, reshaped in the spirit of the new time, marked by the dominance of pop music. Often this subtype experiments with blues rock. Masters such as saxophonist Hank Mobley, pianist Horace Silver, drummer Art Blakey, and trumpeter Lee Morgan actually began this music in the mid-'s and anticipated what has now become the dominant form of jazz. Along with simpler melodies and a more soulful beat, the listener could hear traces of gospel and rhythm and blues mixed together here. This style, which saw some changes during the 1970s, was used to a certain extent to create new structures as a compositional element. Saxophonist Joe Henderson, pianist McCoy Tyner, and even a prominent bopper like Dizzy Gillespie created music in the genre that was both humane and harmonically interesting. One of the most significant composers to emerge during this period was saxophonist Wayne Shorter. Shorter, having gone through school in Art Blakey's ensemble, recorded a number of strong albums under his own name during the course of his career. Along with keyboardist Herbie Hancock, Shorter helped Miles Davis create a quintet (the most experimental and highly influential post-bop group was the Davis Quintet featuring John Coltrane) that became one of the most significant groups in jazz history.

Acid jazz

Jazz Manush

Spread of jazz

Jazz has always aroused interest among musicians and listeners around the world, regardless of their nationality. It is enough to trace the early work of trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and his synthesis of jazz traditions with the music of black Cubans in the 1960s or the later combination of jazz with Japanese, Eurasian and Middle Eastern music, famous in the work of pianist Dave Brubeck, as well as that of the brilliant composer and leader of jazz. Duke Ellington Orchestra, which combined the musical heritage of Africa, Latin America and the Far East. Jazz constantly absorbed not only Western musical traditions. For example, when various artists began to try working with musical elements from India. An example of these efforts can be heard in the recordings of flautist Paul Horne at the Taj Mahal, or in the stream of "world music" represented, for example, in the work of the Oregon group or John McLaughlin's Shakti project. McLaughlin's music, previously largely jazz-based, began to use new instruments of Indian origin, such as the khatam or tabla, while working with Shakti, introduced intricate rhythms, and made widespread use of the Indian raga form. The Art Ensemble of Chicago was an early pioneer in the fusion of African and jazz forms. The world later came to know saxophonist/composer John Zorn and his explorations of Jewish musical culture, both within and outside of the Masada Orchestra. These works inspired entire groups of other jazz musicians, such as keyboardist John Medeski, who recorded with African musician Salif Keita, guitarist Marc Ribot and bassist Anthony Coleman. Trumpeter Dave Douglas enthusiastically incorporates Balkan influences into his music, while the Asian-American Jazz Orchestra has emerged as a leading proponent of the convergence of jazz and Asian musical forms. As the globalization of the world continues, jazz continues to be influenced by other musical traditions, providing ripe fodder for future research and proving that jazz is truly a world music.

Jazz in the USSR and Russia

First in the RSFSR
eccentric orchestra
jazz band of Valentin Parnakh

In the mass consciousness, jazz began to gain wide popularity in the 30s, largely thanks to the Leningrad ensemble led by actor and singer Leonid Utesov and trumpeter Ya. B. Skomorovsky. Popular comedy film with his participation “Jolly Guys” (1934, original title"Jazz Comedy") was dedicated to history jazz musician and had a corresponding soundtrack (written by Isaac Dunaevsky). Utyosov and Skomorovsky formed the original style of “thea-jazz” (theater jazz), based on a mixture of music with theater, operetta, vocal numbers and the element of performance played a large role in it.

A notable contribution to the development of Soviet jazz was made by Eddie Rosner, a composer, musician and orchestra leader. Having started his career in Germany, Poland and other European countries, Rosner moved to the USSR and became one of the pioneers of swing in the USSR and the founder of Belarusian jazz. Moscow groups of the 30s and 40s, led by Alexander Tsfasman and Alexander Varlamov, also played an important role in the popularization and development of the swing style. The All-Union Radio Jazz Orchestra conducted by A. Varlamov took part in the first Soviet television program. The only composition that has survived from that time was Oleg Lundstrem's orchestra. This now widely known big band was one of the few and best jazz ensembles of the Russian diaspora, performing in 1935-1947. in China.

The attitude of the Soviet authorities towards jazz was ambiguous: domestic jazz performers, as a rule, were not banned, but harsh criticism of jazz as such was widespread in the context of opposition Western culture generally . In the late 40s, during the fight against cosmopolitanism, jazz in the USSR was going through a particularly difficult period, when groups performing “Western” music were persecuted. With the beginning of the “thaw”, persecution of musicians stopped, but criticism continued.

According to research by a history professor and American culture Penny Van Eschen, The US State Department tried to use jazz as an ideological weapon against the USSR and against the expansion of Soviet influence in the Third World.

The first book about jazz in the USSR was published by the Leningrad publishing house Academia in 1926. It was compiled by musicologist Semyon Ginzburg from translations of articles by Western composers and music critics, as well as his own materials, and was called “ Jazz band and modern music» .
The next book about jazz was published in the USSR only in the early 1960s. It was written by Valery Mysovsky and Vladimir Feiertag, called “ Jazz” and was essentially a compilation of information that could be obtained from various sources at that time. From that time on, work began on the first encyclopedia of jazz in Russian, which was published only in 2001 by the St. Petersburg publishing house “Skifia”. Encyclopedia " Jazz. XX century Encyclopedic reference book"was prepared by one of the most authoritative jazz critics, Vladimir Feyertag, contained more than a thousand names of jazz personalities and was unanimously recognized as the main Russian-language book about jazz. In 2008, the second edition of the encyclopedia “ Jazz. Encyclopedic reference book", where jazz history has already been carried out until the 21st century, hundreds have been added rare photographs, and the list of jazz names has been increased by almost a quarter.

Latin American jazz

The fusion of Latin rhythmic elements has been present in jazz almost since the beginning of the cultural melting pot that began in New Orleans. Jelly Roll Morton spoke of "Spanish flavors" in his mid- to late-'s recordings. Duke Ellington and other jazz bandleaders also used Latin forms. A major (though not widely recognized) progenitor of Latin jazz, trumpeter/arranger Mario Bausa brought a Cuban orientation from his native Havana to Chick Webb's orchestra in the 's, and a decade later he carried it into the sound of the orchestras of Don Redman, Fletcher Henderson, and Cab Calloway. Working with trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie in the Calloway Orchestra from the late 's, Bausa introduced a direction that already had a direct connection with Gillespie's big bands of the mid-'s. Gillespie's "love affair" with Latin musical forms continued for the rest of his long career. Bausa continued his career, becoming musical director The Afro-Cuban Machito Orchestra, fronted by his brother-in-law, percussionist Frank “Machito” Grillo. The 1950s-1960s were marked by a long flirtation between jazz and Latin rhythms, mainly in the bossa nova direction, enriching this synthesis with Brazilian elements of samba. Combining the cool jazz style developed by West Coast musicians, European classical proportions and seductive Brazilian rhythms, bossa nova, or more correctly "Brazilian jazz", became widely known in the United States around 1995. Subtle but hypnotic acoustic guitar rhythms punctuate the simple melodies sung in both Portuguese and English. Discovered by Brazilians João Gilberto and Antonio Carlos Jobin, the style became a dance alternative to hard bop and free jazz in the 1980s, greatly expanding its popularity through recordings and performances by West Coast musicians such as guitarist Charlie Byrd and saxophonist Stan Getz. The musical amalgamation of Latin influences spread through jazz and beyond into the 's and 's, including not only orchestras and bands with top-notch Latino improvisers, but also a combination of native and Latin performers, creating some of the most exciting stage music. This new Latin jazz renaissance was fueled by a constant influx of foreign performers from among Cuban defectors, such as trumpeter Arturo Sandoval, saxophonist and clarinetist Paquito D'Rivera, and others who fled Fidel Castro's regime in search of greater opportunities, which they expected to find in New Zealand. York and Florida. It is also believed that the more intense, more danceable qualities of the polyrhythmic music of Latin jazz greatly expanded the jazz audience. True, while maintaining only a minimum of intuitiveness for intellectual perception.

Jazz in the modern world

Contents of the article

JAZZ(English jazz), a generic concept defining several types musical art, differing from each other in style, artistic goals, and role in public life. The term jazz (originally jass) did not appear until the turn of the 19th–20th centuries; it can come from the French jaser (with the meaning “to chat”, which is preserved in American slang: jazz - “lies”, “nonsense”), and from which - a word in one of the African languages ​​that had a certain erotic meaning, especially since in the natural phrase jazz dance (“jazz dance”) the same meaning has been carried by the word dance since Shakespearean times. In the highest circles of the New and Old Worlds, the word, which later became a purely musical term, was associated with something noisy, rude, and dirty. English writer Richard Aldington in the preface to the novel Death of a Hero, which describes the “truth of the trenches” and the moral loss of personality after the First World War, calls his novel “jazzy.”

Origins.

Jazz emerged as a result of a long interaction between various layers of musical culture throughout North America, wherever black slaves from Africa (mainly Western) had to master the culture of their white masters. These include religious hymns - spirituals, and the most common form of everyday music (brass band), and rural folklore (among blacks - skiffle), and most importantly - salon piano music ragtime - ragtime (literally “ragged rhythm”).

Minstrel show.

This music was spread by traveling “minstrel theaters” (not to be confused with the medieval European term) - minstrel shows, colorfully described by Mark Twain in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and the musical by Jerome Kern Showboat. The minstrel show troupes, which caricatured the life of Negroes, consisted of both whites (the first sound film also belongs to this genre Jazz singer, in which the role of a black man was played by the Lithuanian Jew Al Jolson, and the film itself had nothing to do with jazz as an art), and from black musicians, in this case forced to parody themselves.

Ragtime.

Thanks to the minstrel show, the public of European origin learned about what would later become jazz, and they accepted piano ragtime as their own art. It is no coincidence that the writer E. Doctorow and film director M. Forman turned the actual musical concept of “ragged rhythm” into “torn time” - a symbol of those changes that in the Old World were designated as “the end of the century.” By the way, the drum-like character of ragtime (coming from typical European late-romantic pianism) is greatly exaggerated due to the fact that the main means of its distribution was the mechanical piano, which did not convey the subtleties of piano technique. Among the black ragtime singer-songwriters there were also serious composers, such as Scott Joplin. But they became interested only seventy years later, after the success of the action movie Sting(1973), the soundtrack of which was based on the compositions of Joplin.

Blues.

Finally, there would be no jazz without the blues (blues is originally a collective plural, denoting a state of sadness, melancholy, despondency; the same double meaning is acquired by our concept of “suffering”, although it denotes a completely different musical genre in nature). Blues is a solo (rarely a duet) song, the peculiarity of which is not only in its specific musical form, but also in its vocal and instrumental character. The formative principle inherited from Africa - a short question from the soloist and the same short answer from the choir (call & response, in choral form it appears in spiritual hymns: the “question” of the preacher - the “answer” of the parishioners) - in the blues turned into a vocal-instrumental principle: the author - the performer asks a question (and repeats it in the second line) and answers himself, most often on the guitar (less often on the banjo or piano). The blues is also the cornerstone of modern pop music, from black rhythm and blues to rock music.

Archaic jazz.

In jazz, its origins merged into a single channel, which happened in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Often, separate streams were randomly connected with each other: for example, according to one of the African traditions, brass bands played funeral marches on the way to the cemetery, and cheerful dances on the way back. In small pubs, wandering blues singer-songwriters sang to the accompaniment of a piano (the manner of performing blues on the piano in the late 1920s would turn into an independent musical genre, boogie-woogie), typical European salon orchestras included songs and dances from their minstrel shows in their repertoire, cakewalk (or cakewalk, cake-walk - dance to ragtime music). Europe learned ragtime precisely as an accompaniment to the latter (the famous Puppet cakewalk Claude Debussy). And characteristically African-American plastic arts were produced at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. no less, if not more, impressive than syncopated salon music). By the way, records of a brass band of one of the Russian imperial regiments with a cakewalk have been preserved Negro's Dream. All these combinations are conventionally called archaic jazz.

If necessary, ragtime pianists, together with brass bands, accompanied blues singers and vocalists, and they, in turn, included entertainment and salon repertoire in their programs. Such music can already be considered jazz, even if the first bands called themselves, as in the famous song and then the film musical by Irving Berlin, “ragtime orchestras.”

New Orleans.

It is believed that the most favorable circumstances accompanied the formation of jazz in the port city of New Orleans. But we must keep in mind that jazz was born wherever there was an interpenetration of African-American and European cultures.

In New Orleans, two African-American cultures coexisted side by side: the Creoles (French-speaking blacks, usually Catholics) who enjoyed relative freedom and those who were freed after Civil War in the USA slaves of the Anglo-Saxon Protestants. Although the civil liberties of French-speaking Creoles were also relative, they still had access to classical culture of European origin, which, say, in Puritan New England even immigrants from Europe were deprived of. The opera house, for example, opened in New Orleans much earlier than in the Puritan cities of the Northern United States. Public entertainment was allowed in New Orleans holidays- dancing, carnivals. Not the least important role was played by the presence in New Orleans of the “red lights” district, Storyville, which is obligatory for a port city.

Brass bands in New Orleans, as in Europe, formed an integral part of city life. But in the African-American community, the brass band has undergone a radical transformation. From a rhythmic point of view, their music was as primitive as European dances and marches, and had nothing in common with future jazz. The main melodic material was rationally and compactly distributed between three instruments: all three played the same theme - the cornet (trumpet) carried it more or less close to the original, the mobile clarinet seemed to meander around the main melodic line, and the trombone interjected from time to time rare but compelling remarks. The leaders of the most famous ensembles not only in New Orleans, but throughout the state of Louisiana were Bunk Johnson, Freddie Keppard and Charles “Buddy” Bolden. However, the original records of that time have not survived, and it is no longer possible to verify the authenticity of the nostalgic memories of New Orleans veterans (including Louis Armstrong).

Even before the outbreak of the First World War, ensembles of “white” musicians appeared who called their music “jass” (“ss” was soon replaced by “zz”, since the word “jass” easily turned into not very decent, it was enough to erase the first letter "j"). The fact that New Orleans enjoyed fame as a center of “resort” entertainment is proven by the fact that the New Orleans Rhythm Kings ensemble with the popular pianist-composer Elmer Shebel was popular in Chicago, but there was not a single New Orleanian in it. Over time, the “white orchestras” began to call themselves - in contrast to the black ones - Dixieland, i.e. simply "southern". One such ensemble, the “Original Dixieland Jass Band,” found itself in New York in early 1917 and made the first recordings of what could definitely be considered jazz not only in name. A record was released with two things: Livery Stable Blues And Dixieland Jass Band One-Step.

Chicago.

At the same time, a jazz environment was forming in Chicago, where many New Orleanians settled after the United States entered World War I in 1917 and martial law was introduced in New Orleans. Trumpeter Joe "King" Oliver's Creole Jazz Band was especially famous (although there was only one real Creole among its members). The Creole Jazz Band became famous due to the coordinated performance of two cornets at once - Oliver himself and his young student Louis Armstrong. Oliver-Armstrong's first records, recorded in 1923 with the famous “breaks” of two cornets, became jazz classics.

"The Age of Jazz".

In the 1920s, the “Jazz Age” began. Louis Armstrong asserts the priority of the improvising soloist with his ensembles “Hot Five” and “Hot Seven”; pianist-composer Jelly Roll Morton gains fame in New Orleans; Another New Orleanian, Creole clarinetist-saxophonist Sidney Bechet, spread the fame of jazz in the Old World (he toured, including Soviet Russia, in 1926). The famous Swiss conductor Ernest Ansermet was impressed by Bechet with precisely that characteristically “French” vibration that the whole world would later recognize in the voice of Edith Piaf. Perhaps it is no coincidence that the first jazzman from the Old World to influence Americans was the Belgian gypsy Django Reinhardt, a guitarist who lived in France.

New York is beginning to be proud of its own jazz forces - the Harlem orchestras of Fletcher Henderson, Louis Russell (Armstrong himself worked with both of them) and Duke Ellington, who moved here in 1926 from Washington and quickly gained a leading position in the famous Cotton Club.

Improvisation.

It was in the 1920s that the main principle jazz is not a dogma, not a form, but improvisation. In New Orleans jazz/Dixieland it is believed to be collective in nature, although this is not entirely accurate, since in fact the source material (the theme) is not yet separated from its development. In essence, New Orleans musicians were repeating by ear the simplest forms of European songs, dances and black blues.

In Armstrong's ensembles, with the participation, first of all, of the outstanding pianist Earl Hines, the formation of the jazz form of the theme with variations began (theme - solo improvisations - theme), where the “unit of improvisation” is the chorus (in Russian terminology “square”), as if a variant of the original themes of exactly the same (or, in the future, related) harmonic construction. Entire schools of black and white musicians took advantage of Armstrong's discoveries during the Chicago period; white Bix Beiderbeck composed compositions in the spirit of Armstrong, but they turned out to be surprisingly close to musical impressionism (and had characteristic names like In A Mist – In a foggy haze). Virtuoso pianist Art Tatum relied more on the harmonic scheme of the square than on the melody of the original theme. Saxophonists Columen Hawkins, Lester Young, Benny Carter transferred their achievements to single-voice wind instruments.

Fletcher Henderson's orchestra was the first to develop a system of “support” for a solo improviser: the orchestra was divided into three sections - rhythmic (piano, guitar, double bass and drums), saxophone and brass (trumpets, trombones). Against the background of the constant pulsation of the rhythm section, saxophones and trumpets with trombones exchanged short, repeating “formulas” - riffs developed in the practice of folk blues. The riff was both harmonic and rhythmic in nature.

1930s.

This formula was adopted by virtually all large groups that formed already in the 1930s, after economic crisis 1929. Actually, the career of the “king of swing” - Benny Goodman - began with several arrangements by Fletcher Henderson. But even black jazz historians admit that Goodman's orchestra, originally composed of white musicians, played better than Henderson's own orchestra. One way or another, the interaction between the black swing orchestras of Andy Kirk, Jimmy Lunsford, Count Basie, Duke Ellington and white orchestras was improving: Goodman played Count Basie’s repertoire, Charlie Barnett copied Ellington, and the band of clarinetist Woody Herman was even called “an orchestra playing the blues.” . There were also very popular orchestras of the Dorsey brothers (black Cy Oliver worked there as an arranger), Artie Shaw (he first introduced a fourth group - strings), Glenn Miller (with the famous “crystal chord” - crystal chorus, when a clarinet plays along with saxophones; for example, in the famous Lunar Serenade- the leitmotif of the second film with Miller, Orchestra members' wives). First film - Sun Valley Serenade- was filmed before the United States entered World War II and was among the war trophies obtained by the Red Army in Germany. Therefore, it was this musical comedy that was destined to personify almost the entire art of jazz for two or three generations of post-war Soviet youth. The fact that the completely natural combination of clarinets and saxophones sounded revolutionary shows how standardized the products of the arrangers of the swing era were. It is no coincidence that by the end of the pre-war decade, even the “King of Swing” Goodman himself became clear that creativity in large orchestras - big bands - was giving way to a standardized routine. Goodman reduced the number of his musicians to six and began regularly inviting black musicians into his sextet - trumpeter Cootie Williams from Ellington's orchestra and young electric guitarist Charlie Criscian, which was a very bold step at that time. Suffice it to say that Goodman’s colleague, pianist and composer Raymond Scott, even composed a piece called When Kuti left Duke.

Formally, even Duke Ellington agreed with the generally accepted division of the orchestra into three groups, but in his instrumentation he was based not so much on the scheme as on the capabilities of the musicians themselves (they said about him: in a jazz score, instead of the names of instruments, there are names of musicians; even his three-minute virtuoso pieces Ellington called Concerto for Cootie, mentioned by Cootie Williams). It was in Ellington's work that it became clear that improvisation is an artistic principle.

The 1930s were also the heyday of the Broadway musical, which supplied jazz with the so-called. evergreens (literally “evergreen”) - individual numbers that turned into standard jazz repertoire. By the way, the concept of “standard” in jazz does not contain anything reprehensible; it is the name of either a popular melody or a specially written theme for improvisation. The standard is, so to speak, an analogue of the philharmonic concept of “repertoire classics”.

In addition, the 1930s is the only period when most of all popular music, if not jazz (or swing, as they said then), was at least created under its influence.

Naturally, the creative potential formed within swing orchestras of improvising musicians, by definition, could not be realized in entertaining swing orchestras, such as Cab Calloway’s orchestra. It is no coincidence that jam sessions play such a large role in jazz—meetings of musicians in a small circle, usually late at night, after work, especially on the occasion of tours of colleagues from other places.

Bebop - bop.

At such meetings, young soloists from various groups - including Charlie Christian, guitarist from Benny Goodman's sextet, drummer Kenny Clark, pianist Thelonious Monk, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie - gathered in one Harlem club back in the early 1940s. By the end of World War II it became clear that new style jazz From a purely musical point of view, it was no different from what was played in the swing big bands. The external form was completely new - it was “music for musicians”; there were no “instructions” to the dancers in the form of a clear rhythm, loud chords at the beginning and end, or simple and recognizable melodies in the new music. The musicians played popular Broadway songs and blues, but instead of the familiar melodies of these songs they deliberately used improvisations. It is believed that trumpeter Gillespie was the first to call what he and his colleagues were doing "reebop" or "bebop", or "bop" for short. At the same time, the jazzman began to transform from an entertaining musician into a figure of social significance, which coincided with the birth of the beatnik movement. Gillespie brought into fashion glasses with massive frames (at first even with lenses without diopters), berets instead of hats, special jargon, in particular the still fashionable word cool instead of hot. But the young New Yorkers received their main impetus when alto saxophonist Charlie Parker from Kansas City (played in Jay McShann's big band) joined the company of boppers. Brilliantly gifted, Parker went much further than his colleagues and contemporaries. By the end of the 1950s, even such innovators as Monk and Gillespie returned to their roots - to black music, while the discoveries of Parker and some of his associates (drummer Max Roach, pianist Bud Powell, trumpeter Fats Navarro) still attract the attention of musicians.

Cool.

In the 1940s in the United States, due to copyright disputes, the musicians' union prohibited instrumentalists from recording records; In reality, only recordings of vocalists accompanied by one piano or a vocal ensemble were released. When the ban was lifted (1944), it became clear that the "microphone" singer (for example, Frank Sinatra) was becoming the central figure of pop music. Bebop attracted attention as a "club" music, but soon lost its audience. But in a softened form and already under the name “cool”, the new music took root in elite clubs. Yesterday's boppers, for example the young black trumpeter Miles Davis, were helped by respectable musicians, in particular Gil Evans, pianist and arranger of Claude Thornhill's swing orchestra. In Miles Davis's Capitol-Nonet (named after the Capitol company that recorded the nonet, later reissued under the title Birth of the Cool) both white and black musicians “practised” together - saxophonists Lee Konitz and Gerry Mulligan, as well as the black pianist and composer John Lewis, who played with Charlie Parker and later founded the Modern Jazz Quartet.

Another pianist whose name is associated with cool, the blind Lenny Tristano was the first to use the capabilities of the recording studio (speeding up film, overdubbing one recording onto another). Tristano was the first to record his spontaneous improvisations, not bound by the square shape. Concert works for big bands (various in style - from neoclassicism to serialism) under the general name "progressive" could not prolong the agony of swing and did not have a public resonance (although among the authors were young American composers Milton Babbitt, Pete Rugolo, Bob Graettinger). At least one of the "progressive" orchestras - led by pianist Stan Kenton - certainly outlived its time and enjoyed some popularity.

West Coast.

Many of Kenton's orchestra members served Hollywood, so the more Europeanized direction of the "cool" style (with academic instruments - horn, oboe, bassoon and the corresponding manner of sound production, and to a certain extent the use of polyphonic imitative forms) was called "West coast" (West coast). ). The Shorty Rogers Octet (of which Igor Stravinsky spoke highly), the ensembles of Shelley Mann and Bud Shank, the quartets of Dave Brubeck (with saxophonist Paul Desmond) and Gerry Mulligan (with white trumpeter Chet Baker and black trumpeter Art Farmer).

Back in the 1920s, the historical ties of the African-American population of the United States with the black population of Latin America had an impact, but only after World War II did jazzmen (primarily Dizzy Gillespie) begin to consciously use Latin American rhythms, and even talked about an independent direction - Afro-Cuban jazz.

In the late 1930s, an attempt was made to restore old New Orleans jazz under the names New Orleans Renaissance and Dixieland Revival. Traditional jazz, as all varieties of New Orleans style and Dixieland (and even swing) later became known, received widespread in Europe and almost merged with the urban everyday music of the Old World - the famous three "B" in Great Britain - Acker Bilk, Chris Barber and Kenny Ball (the latter became famous for the Dixieland version Moscow evenings at the very beginning of the 1960s). In the wake of the Dixieland revival in Great Britain, a fashion arose for archaic ensembles of homemade instruments - skiffles, with which the members of the Beatles quartet began their careers.

In the USA, entrepreneurs George Wayne (organizer of the famous jazz festival of the 1950s in Newport, Rhode Island) and Norman Grantz supported (and actually formed) the idea of ​​the mainstream - classical jazz, built according to a proven scheme (collectively played theme - solo improvisation - reprise of the theme) and based on the expressive means of the 1930s with individual, carefully selected techniques of later styles. In this sense, the mainstream includes, for example, the musicians of Granz’s enterprise “Jazz at the Philharmonic”. In a broader sense, mainstream is essentially all jazz before the early 1960s, including bebop and its later varieties.

Late 1950 – early 1960s

– one of the most fruitful periods in the history of jazz. With the advent of rock and roll, instrumental improvisation was finally pushed to the margins of pop music, and jazz as a whole began to realize its place in culture: clubs appeared in which it was customary to listen more than to dance (one of them was even called “Birdland” , nicknamed Charlie Parker), festivals (often outdoors), record companies created special departments for jazz - “labels”, and an independent recording industry arose (for example, the Riverside company, which began with a brilliantly compiled anthology on the history of jazz). Even earlier, in the 1930s, specialized magazines began to emerge (“Down Beat” in the USA, various illustrated monthlies in Sweden, France, and in the 1950s in Poland). Jazz seems to bifurcate into light, club music, and serious, concert music. A continuation of the “progressive” movement was the “third movement,” an attempt to combine jazz improvisation with the forms and performing resources of symphonic and chamber music. All trends converged on the “Modern Jazz Quartet,” the main experimental laboratory for the synthesis of jazz and “classics.” However, enthusiasts of the “third movement” were in a hurry; they were wishful thinking, believing that a generation of symphony orchestra players had already appeared who were sufficiently familiar with jazz practice. The “third movement,” as well as any other direction in jazz, still has its adherents, and in some musical educational institutions in the USA and Europe, performing groups are created from time to time (Orchestra USA, American Philharmonic by Jack Elliott) and even relevant courses are taught (in particular, by pianist Ran Blake). The “Third Current” found apologists in Europe, especially after the performance of the “Modern Jazz Quartet” in the center of the world musical avant-garde in Donaueschingen (Germany) in 1954.

On the other hand, the best swing big bands competed with pop music in the field of dance music. New directions in light jazz music also appeared. Thus, the Brazilian guitarist Lorindo Almeida, who moved to the United States in the early 1950s, tried to convince his colleagues that it was possible to improvise based on the rhythm of Brazilian samba. However, it was only after the tour of the Stan Getz Quartet in Brazil that “jazz samba” appeared, which in Brazil was given the name “bossa nova”. Bossa Nova actually became the first sign of the future New World music.

Bebop remained the mainstream in jazz of the 1950s and 1960s - already under the name hard bop (heavy, energetic bop; at one time they tried to introduce the concept of “neo-bop”), updated by the improvisational and composing discoveries of the cool. During the same period, an event occurred that had very serious aesthetic consequences, including for jazz. Singer-organist-saxophonist Ray Charles is the first to connect the incompatible - structures (in vocal music also lyrical content) of blues and a question-and-answer microstructure associated only with the pathos of spiritual chants. This direction receives the name “soul” in black culture (a concept that in the radical 1960s became synonymous with the words “negro”, “black”, “African-American”, etc.); the concentrated content of all African-American traits in jazz and black pop music was called “funky.”

At that time, hard bop and jazz soul were opposed to each other (sometimes even within the same group, for example, the Adderley brothers; one, saxophonist Julian “Cannonball,” considered himself a follower of hard bop, the other, cornetist Nat, considered himself a follower of soul jazz). The central group of hard bop, this academy of the modern mainstream, was (until the death of its leader, drummer Art Blakey, in 1990) the Jazz Messengers quintet.

The Gil Evans Orchestra's series of records, a kind of Miles Davis trumpet concerto with orchestra, which came out in the late 1950s and early 1960s, fully corresponded to the cool aesthetics of the 1940s, and Miles Davis's recordings of the mid-1960s (in particular, the album Miles Smiles), i.e. the apotheosis of the updated bebop - hard bop, appeared when the jazz avant-garde - the so-called - was already in fashion. free jazz.

Free jazz.

Already in work on one of the orchestral albums of trumpeter Davis ( Porgy & Bess, 1960) arranger Evans suggested that the trumpeter improvise based not on a harmonic sequence of a certain duration - a square, but on a certain scale - a mode, also not random, but extracted from the same theme, but not the chord accompaniment, but rather the melody itself. The principle of modality, lost by European music back in the Renaissance, but still underlying all professional music in Asia (mugam, raga, dastan, etc.), opened up truly limitless opportunities for enriching jazz with the experience of world musical culture. And Davis and Evans did not fail to use it, and on the Spanish (that is, essentially Euro-Asian) flamenco material that was ideally suited for this purpose.

Davis's colleague, saxophonist John Coltrane, turned to India; Coltrane's colleague, the late and brilliantly gifted saxophonist and flautist Eric Dolphy, turned to the European musical avant-garde (the title of his play is noteworthy Gazzeloni- in honor of the Italian flutist, performer of music Luigi Nono and Pierre Boulez).

At the same time, in the same 1960, two quartets - Eric Dolphy and alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman (with trumpeters Don Cherry and Freddie Hubbard, double bassists Charlie Haden and Scott La Faro) - recorded an album Free jazz (Free Jazz), ostentatiously decorated with a reproduction of a painting White light famous abstract artist Jackson Pollock. The approximately 40-minute stream of collective consciousness was a spontaneous, demonstratively unrehearsed (although two versions were recorded) improvisation by eight musicians, and only in the middle did everyone briefly converge in Coleman's pre-written unison. After "summing up" modal soul jazz and hard bop in an album that was very successful in all respects A Love Supreme(including commercially - 250 thousand records were sold), John Coltrane, however, followed in Coleman’s footsteps by recording the program Ascension (Ascension) with a team of black avant-garde (including, by the way, the black saxophonist from Copenhagen John Chikai). In the UK, the black West Indian alto saxophonist Joe Herriot also became a promoter of free jazz. In addition to Great Britain, an independent school of free jazz has developed in the Netherlands, Germany and Italy. In other countries, spontaneous collective improvisation turned out to be a temporary hobby, a fashion for the avant-garde (1960s - the last period of experimental avant-garde in academic music); At the same time, there was a transition from the aesthetics of innovation at any cost to a postmodern dialogue with the past. We can say that free jazz (together with other movements of the jazz avant-garde) is the first phenomenon in world jazz in which the Old World was in no way inferior to the New. It is no coincidence that many American avant-garde artists, in particular Sun Ra and his big band, “hidden” in Europe for a long time (almost until the end of the 1960s). In 1968, a team of European avant-garde artists recorded a project that was far ahead of its time. Machine Gun, the “Spontaneous Music Ensemble” arose in the UK and for the first time the principles of spontaneous improvisation were theoretically formulated (by the guitarist and leader of the ongoing project Company Derek Bailey). The Instant Composers Pool association operated in the Netherlands, the Alexander von Schlippenbach Globe Unity Orchestra operated in Germany, and the first jazz opera was recorded through international efforts. Escalator Over the Hill Carla Bley.

But only a few - among them pianist Cecil Taylor, saxophonist and composer Anthony Braxton - remained faithful to the principles of "sturm und drang" at the turn of the 1950s and 1960s.

At the same time, black avant-garde artists - political radicals and followers of John Coltrane (in fact, Coltrane himself, who died in 1967) - Archie Shepp, the Ayler brothers, Pharoah Sanders - returned to moderate modal forms of improvisation, often of oriental origin (for example, Joseph Latif , Don Cherry). They were followed by yesterday's radicals like Carla Bley, Don Ellis, Chick Corea, who easily switched to electrified jazz-rock.

Jazz rock.

The symbiosis of the “cousins” of jazz and rock music had to wait a long time. The first attempts at rapprochement were made not even by jazzmen, but by rockers - musicians of the so-called. brass rock - American groups "Chicago", British bluesmen led by guitarist John McLaughlin. They independently approached jazz rock outside English-speaking countries, for example Zbigniew Namyslowsky in Poland.

All eyes were on trumpeter Miles Davis, who once again took jazz down a risky path. During the second half of the 1960s, Davis gradually moved towards electric guitar, keyboard synthesizers and rock rhythms. In 1970 he released the album Bitches Brew with several keyboard players and McLaughlin on electric guitar. Throughout the 1970s, the development of jazz-rock (aka fusion) was determined by the musicians who took part in the recording of this album - keyboardist Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter created the group “Weather Report”, John McLaughlin - the quintet “Mahavishnu Orchestra”, pianist Chick Corea - the Return to Forever ensemble, drummer Tony Williams and organist Larry Young - the Lifetime quartet, pianist and keyboardist Herbie Hancock participated in several projects. Jazz again, but on a new level, is moving closer to soul and funky (Hancock and Corea, for example, participate in the recordings of singer Stevie Wonder). Even the great pioneering tenor saxophonist of the 1950s, Sonny Rollins, switches to funky pop music for a time.

However, by the end of the 1970s, there was also a “counter” movement towards the restoration of “acoustic” jazz - both avant-garde (Sam Rivers’ famous “attic” festival in 1977) and hard bop - in the same year, musicians of the Miles Davis ensemble The 1960s reassembles, but without Davis himself, replaced by trumpeter Freddie Hubbard.

With the emergence of such an influential figure as Wynton Marsalis in the early 1980s, the neo-mainstream, or, as it is also called, neo-classicism, actually occupied a dominant position in jazz.

This doesn't mean everything is going back to the first half of the 1960s. On the contrary, by the mid-1980s, attempts to synthesize seemingly mutually exclusive movements were becoming more and more noticeable - for example, hard bop and electric funky in the New York association "M-base", which included singer Cassandra Wilson, saxophonist Steve Coleman, pianist Jeri Ellen, or the light electric fusion of guitarist Pat Metheny, who collaborates with both Ornette Coleman and his British colleague Derek Bailey. Coleman himself unexpectedly assembles an “electric” ensemble with two guitarists (including prominent funk musicians - guitarist Vernon Reid and bass guitarist Jamaladin Takuma). However, at the same time, he does not abandon his principle of collective improvisation according to the “harmonody” method he formulated.

The principle of polystylistics underlies the New York Downtown school, led by saxophonist John Zorn.

Late 20th century

American-centrism is giving way to a new information space, conditioned, among other things, by new means of mass communication (including the Internet). In jazz, as in new pop music, knowledge of the musical languages ​​of the “third world” and the search for a “common denominator” become mandatory. This is Indo-European folklore in Ned Rothenberg’s Sync quartet or a Russian-Carpathian mixture in the Moscow Art Trio.

Interest in traditional musical cultures leads to the fact that New York avant-garde artists begin to master the everyday music of the Jewish Diaspora, and the French saxophonist Louis Sclavis begins to master Bulgarian folk music.

If previously it was possible to become famous in jazz only “through America” (as, for example, the Austrian Joe Zawinul, the Czechs Miroslav Vitous and Jan Hammer, the Pole Michal Urbaniak, the Swede Sven Asmussen, the Dane Niels Hennig Ørsted-Pedersen, who emigrated from the USSR to 1973 Valery Ponomarev), now leading trends in jazz are taking shape in the Old World and even subjugate the leaders of American jazz - such as, for example, the artistic principles of the ESM company (folklore, composerly polished and typically European in “sound” stream of consciousness), formulated by the German producer Manfred Eicher using the example of the music of the Norwegian Jan Garbarek, are now professed by Chick Corea, pianist Keith Jarrett, and saxophonist Charles Lloyd, even without being associated with this company by exclusive contracts. Independent schools of folk jazz (world jazz) and jazz avant-garde are also emerging in the USSR (the famous Vilnius school, among the founders of which, however, there was not a single Lithuanian: Vyacheslav Ganelin - from the Moscow region, Vladimir Chekasin - from Sverdlovsk, Vladimir Tarasov - from Arkhangelsk, but among their students was, in particular, Petras Vishniauskas). The international character of mainstream and free jazz, the openness of the civilized world leads to the emergence of, for example, the influential Polish-Finnish group of Tomasz Stańko - Edward Vesal or the strong Estonian-Russian duet Lembit Saarsalu - Leonid Vinckevich "above the barriers" of statehood and nationality. The boundaries of jazz are expanding even further with the involvement of everyday music. different nations– from country to chanson in the so-called jam-bands.

Literature:

Sargent W. Jazz. M., 1987
Soviet jazz. M., 1987
« Listen to what I tell you» . Jazzmen about the history of jazz. M., 2000

Jazz is a direction in music characterized by a combination of rhythmicity and melody. A separate feature of jazz is improvisation. The musical direction gained its popularity due to its unusual sound and the combination of several completely different cultures.

The history of jazz began at the beginning of the 20th century in the USA. Traditional jazz was formed in New Orleans. Subsequently, new varieties of jazz began to emerge in many other cities. Despite all the variety of sounds different styles, jazz music can be immediately distinguished from another genre due to its characteristic features.

Improvisation

Musical improvisation is one of the main features of jazz, which is present in all its varieties. Performers create music spontaneously, never thinking ahead or rehearsing. Playing jazz and improvising requires experience and skill in this area of ​​music-making. In addition, a jazz player must remember rhythm and tonality. The relationship between the musicians in the group is of no small importance, because the success of the resulting melody depends on understanding each other’s mood.

Improvisation in jazz allows you to create something new every time. The sound of music depends only on the inspiration of the musician at the moment of playing.

It cannot be said that if there is no improvisation in a performance, then it is no longer jazz. This type of music-making was inherited from African peoples. Since Africans had no concept of notes and rehearsal, music was passed on to each other only by memorizing its melody and theme. And each new musician could already play the same music in a new way.

Rhythm and melody

The second important feature of the jazz style is rhythm. Musicians have the opportunity to spontaneously create sound, as the constant pulsation creates the effect of liveliness, play, and excitement. Rhythm also limits improvisation, requiring sounds to be produced according to a given rhythm.

Like improvisation, rhythm came to jazz from African cultures. But precisely this feature is main characteristic musical flow. The first free jazz artists abandoned rhythm completely in order to be completely free to create music. Because of this, the new direction in jazz was not recognized for a long time. Rhythm is provided by percussion instruments.

Jazz inherited the melody of music from European culture. It is the combination of rhythm and improvisation with harmonious and soft music that gives jazz its unusual sound.

What is jazz, history of jazz

What is jazz? These exciting rhythms, pleasant live music that continuously develops and moves. This direction, perhaps, cannot be compared with any other, and it is impossible even for a beginner to confuse it with any other genre. Moreover, here’s a paradox: it’s easy to hear and recognize it, but it’s not so easy to describe it in words, because jazz is constantly evolving and the concepts and characteristics used today will become outdated in a year or two.

Jazz - what is it?

Jazz is a direction in music that emerged at the beginning of the 20th century. It closely intertwines African rhythms, ritual chants, work and secular songs, and American music of past centuries. In other words, it is a semi-improvisational genre that emerged from the mixing of Western European and West African music.

Where did jazz come from?

It is generally accepted that it originated from Africa, as evidenced by its complex rhythms. Add to this dancing, all kinds of stamping, clapping, and here it is ragtime. The clear rhythms of this genre, combined with blues melodies, gave rise to a new direction, which we call jazz. Having asked the question where this new music came from, any source will give you the answer that from the chants of black slaves who were brought to America at the beginning of the 17th century. They found solace only in music.

At first these were purely African motives, but after several decades they began to be more improvisational in nature and overgrown with new American melodies, mainly religious melodies - spirituals. Later, lament songs were added to this - blues and small brass bands. And so a new direction arose - jazz.

What are the features of jazz music

The first and most important feature is improvisation. Musicians must be able to improvise both in an orchestra and solo. Another equally significant feature is polyrhythm. Rhythmic freedom is perhaps the most important feature of jazz music. It is this freedom that gives musicians a feeling of lightness and continuous movement forward. Remember any jazz composition? It seems that the performers are easily playing some wonderful and pleasant to the ear melody, there are no strict boundaries, as in classical music, only amazing lightness and relaxation. Of course, jazz works, like classical ones, have their own rhythm, meter, etc., but thanks to a special rhythm called swing (from the English swing) such a feeling of freedom arises. What else is important for this direction? Of course, a beat or otherwise a regular pulsation.

Development of jazz

Having originated in New Orleans, jazz is rapidly spreading, becoming more and more popular. Amateur groups, consisting mainly of Africans and Creoles, begin to perform not only in restaurants, but also tour other cities. Thus, in the north of the country, another center of jazz is emerging - Chicago, where night performances by musical groups are in particular demand. The compositions performed are complicated by arrangements. Among the performers of that period, the most notable Louis Armstrong , who moved to Chicago from the city where jazz was born. Later, the styles of these cities were combined into Dixieland, which was characterized by collective improvisation.

The massive passion for jazz in the 1930s and 1940s led to a demand for larger orchestras that could perform a variety of dance tunes. Thanks to this, swing appeared, which represents some deviations from the rhythmic pattern. It became the main direction of this time and pushed collective improvisation into the background. Groups performing swing began to be called big bands.

Of course, such a departure of swing from the features inherent in early jazz, from national melodies, caused discontent among true music connoisseurs. That is why big bands and swing performers are beginning to be opposed to the playing of small ensembles, which included black musicians. Thus, in the 1940s, a new style of bebop emerged, clearly standing out among other styles of music. He was characterized by incredibly fast melodies, long improvisation, and complex rhythmic patterns. Among the performers of this time, figures stand out Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie.

Since 1950, jazz has developed in two different directions. On the one hand, adherents of the classics returned to academic music, pushing bebop aside. The resulting cool jazz became more restrained and dry. On the other hand, the second line continued to develop bebop. Against this background, hard bop arose, returning traditional folk intonations, a clear rhythmic pattern and improvisation. This style developed together with such trends as soul-jazz and jazz-funk. They brought the music closest to the blues.

Free music

In the 1960s, various experiments and searches for new forms were carried out. As a result, jazz-rock and jazz-pop appear, combining two different directions, as well as free jazz, in which performers completely abandon the regulation of rhythmic pattern and tone. Among the musicians of this time, Ornette Coleman, Wayne Shorter, and Pat Metheny became famous.

Soviet jazz

Initially, Soviet jazz orchestras mainly performed fashionable dances such as the foxtrot and Charleston. In the 1930s, a new direction began to gain increasing popularity. Despite the fact that the attitude of the Soviet authorities towards jazz music was ambiguous, it was not banned, but at the same time it was harshly criticized as belonging to Western culture. In the late 40s, jazz groups were completely persecuted. In the 1950s and 60s, the activities of the orchestras of Oleg Lundstrem and Eddie Rosner resumed and more and more musicians became interested in the new direction.

Even today, jazz is constantly and dynamically developing, many directions and styles are emerging. This music continues to absorb sounds and melodies from all corners of our planet, saturating it with more and more new colors, rhythms and melodies.