MUS105 partial lecture notes

Bop, Bebop, etc

Thelonius Monk

Comparison

”Chain Gang Blues” (1926)

• traditional:
  • 12-bar blues / progression
  • style of vocals
• vocals + bass (?) + unknown accompaniments
• trumbone solo

”Blue Monk” by Thelonius (1954)

• 12-bar blues
• drums + bass + sax + piano, no vocals
• Monk stands up and trods around, stage element
• two individual solos
• 11-tone collection instead of traditional hexatonic blues scale

Avant-garde art

Charles Henry Alston, “Dancers”

• abstract style, vibrant colors

Charles Mingus

• mixed race: {Chinese,African,Native,German,Latin}-American
• slides focus: album arts and correlation with the music
• skills
  • bass
  • classical training
  • gospel music
  • LP as text
• Landmark LPs: Ah Um, etc
  • LP now has album art (disc jacket)
  • avant-garde style album art
• ”Haitian Fight Song” from The Clown
  • only bass (Mingus) for intro solo
  • length: 12:11
  • bluesy
  • elements/style that refers back to early roots of jazz (church, tribal, ?)
  • relate to Haitian history: oppressed by French banks after independence
• Ah Um
  • tracks refer to Jazz musicians (and sometimes non-musician people)
  • also abstract album art
  • ”Fables of Faubus”
    • Faubus: governor of Arkansas who opposed racial integration
    • satirical piece that mocks Faubus (“idiot walking down the street”, Ryan), with protesters (students) moaning in the background
    • Columbus Records banned Mingus from singing the lyrics (heavily apparent criticism of Faubus’s policy) → instrumental version

Miles Davis

• 40s-50s
• played all progressive styles of Jazz (no early Jazz / Dixieland)
  • cool jazz ahead of his time
• non-traditional
  • fashionable clothing
  • collaborates with white artist (e.g. Sting from Police)
• distinct personality: doesn’t care about stage presence (turns his back to audience sometimes as he’s playing)
• heroine addiction and rehab (1949)

“Walkin”

• 12-bar blues
• embellishments
• flurry of notes-style improvisation

Improvised soundtrack

• aimless
• carefree/careless
• melancholic
• isolated

The Awakening Years (late 50s-60s)

John Coltrane

• Fired from Miles Davis quartet due to drug abuse
• 1957: cold-turkey detox → spiritual awakening (then recorded A Love Supreme)
• influential LP
  • Giant Steps
  • My Favorite Things
  • A Love Supreme
• St. John Coltrane Church (not formally recognized)
• generally religious and spiritual, but not attached to specific denomination
• ”Giant Steps”
  • complex: speed and harmonic-wise
  • 26 chords, 10 key changes
    • modulation based on key of fifths
  • ”Sheets of sound”
• Mandalas: created mandalas (circular diagrams) of how scales and keys interconnect
• ”My Favorite Things”
  • based on song from The Sound of Music
  • turned a tonal song to modal: modal music defeats usual expectation of tension and resolution, half-tones no longer always gravitate toward diatonic tones
  • the fact that modal chords are not functional are akin to church chants, the chords suspend the music to enable it to continue ad infinitum
• A Love Supreme
  • Bass Obstinate: bass playing the same motif repeatedly
  • ”Psalm”: poem that Coltrane wrote but played on saxophone

Free Jazz

• no notes

Latin Jazz

• Influence of Cuban music
  • Bizet, Carmen (opera, 1875)
    • Mulatta
• Influence on latin music (e.g. Spanish)
  • call and response