Jazz Band II 18 October 2013 Mike Vax: BigBandJazz.net Mike Vax is an outstanding trumpeter who specializes in Jazz studies. On his album “BigBandJazz.net” he plays in a Ferguson-esque manor, not in terms of range, but style—playing over the band as the featured soloist. The first track on this album is “Royal Rendezous”, a Mike Vax original, which is a nice and mellow swing chart featuring tenor Scott Peterson and trumpeter Mike Olmos on the solos. I really enjoy this song because it contrasts in balance and dynamics. For example, the song at times changes from a quiet saxophone soli, to a loud shout chorus, to a uniquely created improvised solo.
Jacob Chavez 09/08/2013 Diversity In Jazz Jazz is a music genre that is as diverse as the musicians and intruments that construct it. Slow tempoed jazz can create a feeling of saddness or lonesome, while an upbeat jazz song can make you feel an incredible amount of joy. Jazz is only the name of a network of smaller sub-genres. The sub-genres include but are not limited to Dixieland, Bebop, Blues, Swing, and Ragtime. Jazz can be found in day to day life if you know what your looking for, such nas when an operator puts you on hold or in the elevator.
These bands used to be called as ‘New Orleans Jazz’. During 1920s, white jazz bands’ pieces were called ‘Dixieland jazz’. However from 1940s, people combined those two types of bands and call them ‘Dixieland jazz’. Dixieland jazz style was created in the early 1920s. Dixieland jazz style is strongly influenced by the ‘traditions of blues, ragtime and brass band because Dixieland jazz was created when the traditions of blues, ragtime, and brass band were integrated into one musical piece’ (http://www.historyjazz.com).
First touch to Latin Jazz Music is a kind of indispensable element of people’s day-to-day life. Music is not only a pastime or an expression of art; more significantly, it also conveys musicians’ spiritual world. Unlike the pop songs that we hear in our iPods, the live band gave me a new concept about Jazz music. It seems that jazz is less relevant to our daily life and I have never heart live Latin jazz concert before; however, I got a heart attack since I had my first close contact with such a type of music. What impressed me primarily was its combination of instruments.
However, there was a sizable number of African American musicians who played in the style, including Curtis Counce, Chico Hamilton, Buddy Collette and Hampton Hawes. See also List of cool jazz and West Coast jazz musicians Black Hawk Chamber jazzContemporary Records GNP Crescendo Records Pacific Jazz Records The Haig Third
Next, some swing bands used certain tools to enhance specific sounds in brass instruments to entice audiences’ involvement (Starr, Waterman, 2010, p. 135). On the other hand, Tin Pan Alley bands relied on vocalists to help audiences’ compare the song’s lyrics to their lifestyle (Starr, Waterman, p.74). Furthermore, while Tin Pan Alley’s style involved singers to obtain audiences’ interest, (Starr, Waterman, p.74), swing bands played their instruments softly and then increased the tempo which
There are also blues inflections in the vocal and guitar duet where the flat 3rd is emphasised by bending the notes at the beginning of phrases. The use of blues notes are very common in the style due to the heavy blues influence in New Orleans Jazz. Chromaticism is also featured in Duke Ellington’s Koko, again blues notes are used, for example in bar 8 of Nantons trombone solo he uses a fragment of the blues scale making use of the flattened 5th, 3rd and 7th. Another example of Chromaticism in Koko is in the double bass solos where Blanton plays descending chromatic phrases. The use of chromatic notes adds to the mood created by the minor blues chord progression.
Hip hop originated when New York DJ’s began isolating the percussion breaks on funk and rock records. Pioneering DJ’s such as Grand Master Flash, Africa Bambataa, DJ Jazzy J started scratching jazz and jazz funk records creating a new sound with immense energy. DJ’s and hip hop producers have always gravitated to jazz records for their richness and flexibility due majorly to jazz’s instrumental based structure. This makes a song ideal for sampling. In its early days
The texture remains fairly constant but with use of panning (bass guitars are panned with one to the left and one to the right. The uses of many smaller motifs that can be repeated and changed were common in this period. Reich used many ostinati, but they all originated from one usually randomly-composed bar. This bar could be altered in many ways such as retrograded, inverted, diminished, augmented or retrograde inverted. Although they all came from one bar, they all sound more individual and unique, although the sense of repetition is still there, it at least creates a variety in the piece to ensure the audience does not get bored.
Bebop is a style of jazz created around the era of the 1940’s. It was based around smaller groups of musicians of about 4 to 6 musicians rather than around 10 or more which big bands usually consisted of. This allowed for more solo opportunities and improvisation. The music composed was more complex e.g. harder melodies and involved more difficult chord progressions.