20th Century Study of Music
Session 6 20th Century
To be specific - focusing on five performances: First one comes before this period. Laying down framework that comes later: A concert at the Carnegie Hall, 1938, called Spirituals to Swing.
Second one, in 1939 another concert-same title.
Then we come to Post war period - A concert, in 1953 that became known as Jazz - Massey Hall, Canada. Referred to at times as the quintet of the year - the five musicians that played were some of the foremost Bebop musicians at the time. Both live events.
Subsequently those tunes became part of the Miles Davies repertoire.
Coming into 1960's - another studio performance called Ascention, which was led by saxophone player, John Coltrane, who was very much associated with 'the new thing,' i.e free improvisation.
Finally-beyond the period Sun Ra-1989.
In those pieces we go a little bit before the period and a little after - taking us into the 'popular level' of the digital era-early 80's.
* Chose these specific performances because they encapsulate something very important that was happening in Jazz - very new, blue, consolidating.
*Place in social context as well as musical and artistic concepts.
A very general outline - ' Ideologies' (or frameworks of ideas we might apply to what was going on).
Placed In a sort of logical order, although no need as Grass roots Jazz carries on to this day-is referring to early 20th century.
-Grassroots Pragmatism (Practical, matter of fact way of approaching and assessing music. Jazz grassroots dimension.
1920's onwards - increasing commercial interests in Jazz. Particularly in the 30's and 40's - led to two things:
*African-American essentialism (Spiritual Swing Concert) an ideology, put black Americans first (form of music comes from these people) - in a way counterposed to commercialism if you look at racial politics of America at that time - white people making big bucks out of the white musicains.
*Marginalisation (beginning of Bebop).
To be specific - focusing on five performances: First one comes before this period. Laying down framework that comes later: A concert at the Carnegie Hall, 1938, called Spirituals to Swing.
Second one, in 1939 another concert-same title.
Then we come to Post war period - A concert, in 1953 that became known as Jazz - Massey Hall, Canada. Referred to at times as the quintet of the year - the five musicians that played were some of the foremost Bebop musicians at the time. Both live events.
Subsequently those tunes became part of the Miles Davies repertoire.
Coming into 1960's - another studio performance called Ascention, which was led by saxophone player, John Coltrane, who was very much associated with 'the new thing,' i.e free improvisation.
Finally-beyond the period Sun Ra-1989.
In those pieces we go a little bit before the period and a little after - taking us into the 'popular level' of the digital era-early 80's.
* Chose these specific performances because they encapsulate something very important that was happening in Jazz - very new, blue, consolidating.
*Place in social context as well as musical and artistic concepts.
A very general outline - ' Ideologies' (or frameworks of ideas we might apply to what was going on).
Placed In a sort of logical order, although no need as Grass roots Jazz carries on to this day-is referring to early 20th century.
-Grassroots Pragmatism (Practical, matter of fact way of approaching and assessing music. Jazz grassroots dimension.
1920's onwards - increasing commercial interests in Jazz. Particularly in the 30's and 40's - led to two things:
*African-American essentialism (Spiritual Swing Concert) an ideology, put black Americans first (form of music comes from these people) - in a way counterposed to commercialism if you look at racial politics of America at that time - white people making big bucks out of the white musicains.
*Marginalisation (beginning of Bebop).