The Main Argument Against Jazz Is That Its Not Art
A statue of Duke Ellington stands outside the Howard Theatre, where the jazz legend played shows in the District earlier he moved to New York. (Kyoko Takenaka /For the Washington Postal service)
Risky. Dangerous. South cary. A way to interruption the rules.
We're not talking about declining to study for your final math test or disobeying your parents. We're talking near a type of music called jazz.
Some people say that jazz is America's only truthful art form. That's considering it began here, hundreds of years ago, in the fields where black people worked as slaves and fabricated upwards songs to laissez passer time, to express themselves and to keep alive the civilization and traditions of their African homelands. It wasn't called jazz so, only the way the slaves were playing and singing music was different and special.
The music of America's black people came to be chosen jazz in the South in the early 1900s; New Orleans, Louisiana, is often called the birthplace of jazz. Despite slavery's having ended in 1865, African Americans still didn't accept the same rights as white Americans. But jazz was music that both black and white people could enjoy. Past the 1920s, jazz was growing in popularity and included influences from Europe as well equally Africa.
Jazz has all the elements that other music has: Information technology has melody; that'south the tune of the song, the office you're near likely to remember. Information technology has harmony, the notes that brand the melody sound fuller. Information technology has rhythm, which is the heartbeat of the song. But what sets jazz autonomously is this cool thing chosen improvisation. That ways making it up on the spot. No music in front of you. No long word with your bandmates. Yous just play.
(David McLimans/For the Washington Post)
"It'south more free. It's more than soulful," says Geoffrey Gallante, xi, a 6th-grader at Stratford Landing Elementary School in Alexandria. Geoffrey is such a expert musician that he has appeared at the Kennedy Heart and has been on tv lots of times; he has even played with the ring on "The Tonight Testify With Jay Leno."
In jazz, Geoffrey says, "it's easy to express your emotions. In classical, . . . you get the sheet music and you read it top to bottom. You're more focused on technically making information technology perfect. . . . In jazz, your main focus is . . . beingness artistic and using your imagination."
What makes jazz unique
It's not that jazz songs don't have recognizable melodies. They do, but that's just a small function of it. In jazz, a melody begins a song, but then each musician will take turns improvising, playing all kinds of crazy notes: high, low, long, brusque, gravelly and articulate.
The performers who are non soloing are playing quietly in the background, or comping, short for accompanying. And so at the finish of the song, the melody returns. Improvising is what makes a jazz song different every time you lot hear it, unlike whatever popular vocal you hear on the radio.
Another matter that sets jazz apart is its approach to rhythm. Think of "The Star-Spangled Banner." When yous hear that song, information technology probably doesn't make you want to tap your foot. There are no rhythmic surprises, or what is called syncopation, in most presentations of "The Star-Spangled Banner." Jazz musicians, on the other hand, "swing" notes, which means they change the length of notes, holding some longer and making others shorter.
Jazz and D.C.
Washington has an important identify in jazz history. In 1920, the city had the largest population of black people in the country. That'south around the time that a very famous jazz piano actor, Duke Ellington, was playing around town.
Built-in in Washington in 1899, Ellington as a child wanted to play baseball instead of the piano. That's why he sold peanuts, popcorn and candy at the games of the Washington Senators. (That was the baseball team hither so.) But his parents played the piano, and and then he started taking lessons when he was seven or 8 years old.
By 1920, he was playing pocket-size shows at the Howard Theatre, where black musicians played to mostly blackness audiences. When he was 24, he moved to New York, simply he didn't forget his dwelling house town. He called his band the Washingtonians and afterward he returned to perform at another famous Washington spot, the Lincoln Theatre. (Both the Lincoln Theatre and the Howard Theatre, where a statue of Ellington stands, still exist.)
Why is jazz absurd?
Geoffrey Gallante was 4 years old when he picked upwardly the trumpet. Now he practices iii hours a solar day, mostly classical pieces. But what he really loves playing is jazz. It's the spontaneity of jazz — that means there'south no planning ahead of time — that he really loves. He tin walk into a society that he has never visited, with guys he has never seen, and just play.
"The [ring leader] says, 'What do yous want to play, and what fundamental?' [I] can become up at that place and have a blast. With classical, yous accept to plan everything. You need to practise. . . . It's a whole big production. With jazz, yous just walk upwards and you say, 'Hey, I want to do this. . . . Permit'southward become.' "
Now that does sound scary — in a very cool fashion.
Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/all-about-jazz-a-unique-form-of-american-music/2012/05/24/gJQA4bswnU_story.html
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