Jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, United States, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, developed from roots in blues and ragtime. Jazz is seen by many as "America's classical music". Since the 1920s Jazz Age, jazz has become recognized as a major form of musical expression, it emerged in the form of independent traditional and popular musical styles, all linked by the common bonds of African-American and European-American musical parentage with a performance orientation. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes and response vocals and improvisation. Jazz has roots in West African cultural and musical expression, in African-American music traditions including blues and ragtime, as well as European military band music. Intellectuals around the world have hailed jazz as "one of America's original art forms"; as jazz spread around the world, it drew on national and local musical cultures, which gave rise to different styles. New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass-band marches, French quadrilles, biguine and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation.
In the 1930s arranged dance-oriented swing big bands, Kansas City jazz, a hard-swinging, improvisational style and Gypsy jazz were the prominent styles. Bebop emerged in the 1940s, shifting jazz from danceable popular music toward a more challenging "musician's music", played at faster tempos and used more chord-based improvisation. Cool jazz developed near the end of the 1940s, introducing calmer, smoother sounds and long, linear melodic lines; the 1950s saw the emergence of free jazz, which explored playing without regular meter and formal structures, in the mid-1950s, hard bop emerged, which introduced influences from rhythm and blues and blues in the saxophone and piano playing. Modal jazz developed in the late 1950s, using the mode, or musical scale, as the basis of musical structure and improvisation. Jazz-rock fusion appeared in the late 1960s and early 1970s, combining jazz improvisation with rock music's rhythms, electric instruments, amplified stage sound. In the early 1980s, a commercial form of jazz fusion called smooth jazz became successful, garnering significant radio airplay.
Other styles and genres abound in the 2000s, such as Afro-Cuban jazz. The origin of the word "jazz" has resulted in considerable research, its history is well documented, it is believed to be related to "jasm", a slang term dating back to 1860 meaning "pep, energy". The earliest written record of the word is in a 1912 article in the Los Angeles Times in which a minor league baseball pitcher described a pitch which he called a "jazz ball" "because it wobbles and you can't do anything with it"; the use of the word in a musical context was documented as early as 1915 in the Chicago Daily Tribune. Its first documented use in a musical context in New Orleans was in a November 14, 1916 Times-Picayune article about "jas bands". In an interview with NPR, musician Eubie Blake offered his recollections of the slang connotations of the term, saying, "When Broadway picked it up, they called it'J-A-Z-Z', it wasn't called that. It was spelled'J-A-S-S'; that was dirty, if you knew what it was, you wouldn't say it in front of ladies."
The American Dialect Society named it the Word of the Twentieth Century. Jazz is difficult to define because it encompasses a wide range of music spanning a period of over 100 years, from ragtime to the rock-infused fusion. Attempts have been made to define jazz from the perspective of other musical traditions, such as European music history or African music, but critic Joachim-Ernst Berendt argues that its terms of reference and its definition should be broader, defining jazz as a "form of art music which originated in the United States through the confrontation of the Negro with European music" and arguing that it differs from European music in that jazz has a "special relationship to time defined as'swing'". Jazz involves "a spontaneity and vitality of musical production in which improvisation plays a role" and contains a "sonority and manner of phrasing which mirror the individuality of the performing jazz musician". In the opinion of Robert Christgau, "most of us would say that inventing meaning while letting loose is the essence and promise of jazz".
A broader definition that encompasses different eras of jazz has been proposed by Travis Jackson: "it is music that includes qualities such as swing, group interaction, developing an'individual voice', being open to different musical possibilities". Krin Gibbard argued that "jazz is a construct" which designates "a number of musics with enough in common to be understood as part of a coherent tradition". In contrast to commentators who have argued for excluding types of jazz, musicians are sometimes reluctant to define the music they play. Duke Ellington, one of jazz's most famous figures, said, "It's all music." Although jazz is considered difficult to define, in part because it contains many subgenres, improvisation is one of its defining elements. The centrality of improvisation is attributed to the influence of earlier forms of music such as blues, a form of folk music which arose in part from the work songs and field hollers of African-American slaves on plantations; these work songs were structured around a repetitive call-and-response pattern, but early blues was improvisational.
Classical music performance is evaluated more by its fidelity to the musical score, with less attention given to interpretation and accompaniment. The classical performer's goal is to play the composition. In contrast, jazz is characterized by the product of i
Splendido Hotel
Splendido Hotel is an album by jazz guitarist Al Di Meola, released in 1980. All songs by Al Di Meola unless otherwise noted. Side One "Alien Chase on Arabian Desert" "Silent Story in Her Eyes"Side Two "Roller Jubilee" "Two to Tango" "Al Di's Dream Theme"Side Three "Dinner Music of the Gods" "Splendido Sundance" "I Can Tell" Side Four "Spanish Eyes" "Isfahan" "Bianca's Midnight Lullaby" Al Di Meola – guitars, keyboards, percussion, vocals Chick Corea – piano Pete Cannarozzi – synthesizer Philippe Saisse – keyboards, vocals Jan Hammer – Moog solo on "Al Di's Dream Theme" Les Paul – guitar on "Spanish Eyes" Anthony Jackson – bass guitar Tim Landers – bass guitar Steve Gadd – drums Robbie Gonzalez – drums Eddie Colon – percussion Mingo Lewis – percussion David Campbell – violin Carol Shive – viola Dennis Karmazyn – cello Raymond Kelley – cello The Columbus Boychoir 1979 in jazz
Land of the Midnight Sun (album)
Land of the Midnight Sun is the debut album by jazz fusion guitarist Al Di Meola, released in 1976. All tracks written by Al Di Meola except. Al Di Meola – guitars, percussion, vocals Chick Corea – piano, marimba Barry Miles – keyboards, synthesizer Stanley Clarke – bass guitar, vocals Anthony Jackson – bass guitar Jaco Pastorius – bass guitar Steve Gadd – drums Alphonse Mouzon – drums Lenny White – drums Mingo Lewis – percussion Patty Buyukas – vocals
Flamenco guitar
A flamenco guitar is a guitar similar to a classical guitar but with thinner tops and less internal bracing. It is used in the guitar-playing part of the art of flamenco. Traditionally, luthiers made guitars to sell at a wide ranges of prices based on the materials used and the amount of decorations, to cater to the popularity of the instrument across all classes of people in Spain; the cheapest guitars were simple, basic instruments made from the less expensive woods such as cypress. Antonio de Torres, one of the most renowned luthiers, did not differentiate between flamenco and classical guitars. Only after Andrés Segovia and others popularized classical guitar music, did this distinction emerge; the traditional flamenco guitar is made of Spanish cypress, sycamore, or rosewood for the back and sides, spruce for the top. This accounts for its characteristic body color. Flamenco guitars are built lighter with thinner tops than classical guitars, which produces a "brighter" and more percussive sound quality.
Builders use less internal bracing to keep the top more percussively resonant. The top is made of either spruce or cedar, though other tone woods are used today. Volume has traditionally been important for flamenco guitarists, as they must be heard over the sound of the dancers’ nailed shoes. To increase volume, harder woods, such as rosewood, can be used for the back and sides, with softer woods for the top. In contrast to the classical guitar, the flamenco is equipped with a tap plate made of plastic, similar to a pickguard, whose function is to protect the body of the guitar from the rhythmic finger taps, or golpes. All guitars were made with wooden tuning pegs, that pass straight through the headstock, similar to those found on a lute, a violin or oud, as opposed to the modern classical-style guitars' geared tuning mechanisms. "Flamenco negra" guitars are called "negra" after the darker of the harder woods used in their construction, similar materials to those of high-end classical guitars, such as rosewood or other dense tone woods.
The harder materials increase tonal range. A typical cypress flamenco guitar produces more treble and louder percussion than the more sonorous negra; these guitars strive to capture some of the sustain achieved by concert caliber classical guitars while retaining the volume and attack associated with flamenco. Classical guitars are made with spruce or cedar tops and rosewood or mahogany backs and sides to enhance sustain. Flamenco guitars are made with spruce tops and cypress or sycamore for the backs and sides to enhance volume and emphasize the attack of the note. Other types of wood may be used for the back and sides, like rosewood, koa and caviuna. A well-made flamenco guitar responds and has less sustain than a classical; this is desirable, since the flurry of notes that a good flamenco player can produce might sound muddy on a guitar with a big, sustaining sound. The flamenco guitar's sound is described as percussive; some jazz and Latin guitarists like this punchy tonality, some players have discovered that these guitars’ wide-ranging sound works well for the contrapuntal voicings of Renaissance and Baroque music.
Flamenco is played somewhat differently from classical guitar. Players use different posture, strumming patterns, techniques. Flamenco guitarists are known as flamenco guitar technique is known as toque. Flamenco players tend to play the guitar between the sound hole and the bridge, but as as possible to the bridge, to produce a harsher, rasping sound quality. Unlike classical tirando, where the strings are pulled parallel to the soundboard, in flamenco apoyando strings are struck towards the soundboard in such way that the striking finger is caught and supported by the next string, hence the name apoyando. At times, this style of playing causes the vibrating string to touch the frets along its length, causing a more percussive sound. While a classical guitarist supports the guitar on the right leg, holds it at an incline, flamenco guitarists cross their legs and support the guitar on whichever leg is on top, placing the neck of the guitar nearly parallel to the floor; the different position accommodates the different playing techniques.
Many of the tremolo and rasgueado techniques are easier and more relaxed if the upper right arm is supported at the elbow by the body of the guitar rather than by the forearm as in classical guitar. Nonetheless, some flamenco guitarists use classical position. Flamenco is played using a cejilla which raises the pitch and causes the guitar to sound sharper and more percussive. However, the main purpose in using a cejilla is to change the key of the guitar to match the singer's vocal range; because Flamenco is an improvisational musical form that uses common structures and chord sequences, the capo makes it easier for players who have never played together before to do so. Rather than transcribe to another key each time the singer changes, the player can move the capo and use the same chord positions. Flamenco uses a lot of modified and open chord forms to create a solid drone effect and leave at least one finger free to add melodic notes and movement. Little traditional Flamenco music is written, but is passed on hand to hand.
Books, however are becoming more available. Both accompaniment and solo flamenco guitar are based as much on modal as tonal harmonies. In addition to the techniqu
Doc Watson
Arthel Lane "Doc" Watson was an American guitarist and singer of bluegrass, country and gospel music. Watson won seven Grammy awards as well as a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Watson's fingerstyle guitar and flatpicking skills, as well as his knowledge of traditional American music, were regarded, he performed with his son, guitarist Merle Watson, for over 15 years until Merle's death in 1985 in an accident on the family farm. Watson was born in North Carolina. According to Watson on his three-CD biographical recording Legacy, he got the nickname "Doc" during a live radio broadcast when the announcer remarked that his given name Arthel was odd and he needed an easy nickname. A fan in the crowd shouted "Call him Doc!" In reference to the literary character Sherlock Holmes's sidekick Doctor Watson. The name stuck. An eye infection caused Doc Watson to lose his vision before his first birthday, he attended North Carolina's school for the visually impaired, the Governor Morehead School, in Raleigh, North Carolina.
In a 1989 radio interview with Terry Gross on the Fresh Air show on National Public Radio, Watson explained how he got his first guitar. His father told him that if he and his brother David chopped down all the small dead chestnut trees along the edge of their field, he could sell the wood to a tannery. Watson bought a $10 Stella guitar from Sears Roebuck with his earnings, while his brother bought a new suit. In that same interview, Watson explained that his first high-quality guitar was a Martin D-18. Watson's earliest influences were country roots musicians and groups such as the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers; the first song he learned to play on the guitar was "When Roses Bloom in Dixieland", first recorded by the Carter Family in 1930. Watson stated in an interview with American Songwriter that, "Jimmie Rodgers was the first man that I started to claim as my favorite." Watson proved to be a natural musical talent and within months was performing on local street corners playing songs from the Delmore Brothers, Louvin Brothers, Monroe Brothers alongside his brother Linny.
By the time Watson reached adulthood, he had become a proficient acoustic and electric guitar player. In 1953, Watson joined the Johnson City, Tennessee-based Jack Williams' country and western swing band on electric guitar; the band had a fiddle player, but was asked to play at square dances. Following the example of country guitarists Grady Martin and Hank Garland, Watson taught himself to play fiddle tunes on his Les Paul electric guitar, he transferred the technique to acoustic guitar, playing fiddle tunes became part of his signature sound. During his time with Jack Williams, Doc supported his family as a piano tuner. In 1960, as the American folk music revival grew, Watson took the advice of folk musicologist Ralph Rinzler and began playing acoustic guitar and banjo exclusively; that move ignited Watson's career when he played on his first recording, Old Time Music at Clarence Ashley's. Of pivotal importance for his career was his February 11, 1961 appearance at P. S. 41 in Greenwich Village.
He subsequently began to tour as a solo performer and appeared at universities and clubs like the Ash Grove in Los Angeles. Watson would get his big break and rave reviews for his performance at the renowned Newport Folk Festival in Newport, Rhode Island in 1963. Watson began performing with his son Merle, the same year. After the folk revival waned during the late 1960s, Watson's career was sustained by his performance of the Jimmy Driftwood song "Tennessee Stud" on the 1972 live album recording Will the Circle Be Unbroken; as popular as Doc and Merle began playing as a trio with T. Michael Coleman on bass guitar in 1974; the trio toured the globe during the late seventies and early eighties, recording nearly fifteen albums between 1973 and 1985, bringing Doc and Merle's unique blend of acoustic music to millions of new fans. In 1985, Merle died in a tractor accident on his family farm. Two years Merle Fest was inaugurated in remembrance of him. Watson played guitar in both flatpicking and fingerpicking style, but is best known for his flatpick work.
His guitar playing skills, combined with his authenticity as a mountain musician, made him a influential figure during the folk music revival. Watson pioneered a fast and flashy bluegrass lead guitar style including fiddle tunes and crosspicking techniques which were adopted and extended by Clarence White, Tony Rice and many others. Watson was an accomplished banjo player and sometimes accompanied himself on harmonica as well. Known for his distinctive and rich baritone voice, Watson over the years developed a vast repertoire of mountain ballads, which he learned via the oral tradition of his home area in Deep Gap, North Carolina. Watson played a Martin model D-18 guitar on his earliest recordings. In 1968, Watson began a relationship with Gallagher Guitars when he started playing their G-50 model, his first Gallagher, which Watson refers to as "Old Hoss", is on display at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, Tennessee. In 1974, Gallagher created a customized G-50 line to meet Watson's preferred specifications, which bears the Doc Watson name.
In 1991, Gallagher customized a personal cutaway guitar for Watson that he played until his death and which he referred to as "Donald" in honor of Gallagher guitar's second generation proprietor and builder, Don Gallagher. For the last few years, Doc had been playing a Dana Bourgeois dreadnought given to him by Ricky Skaggs for his 80th birthday. In 1994, Watson teamed up with musicians Randy Scruggs and Earl Scruggs to contribute the classic song "Keep on the Sunny Side" to the
Clarence White
Clarence White, was an American bluegrass and country guitarist and singer. He is best known as a member of the bluegrass ensemble the Kentucky Colonels and the rock band the Byrds, as well as for being a pioneer of the musical genre of country rock during the late 1960s. White worked extensively as a session musician, appearing on recordings by the Everly Brothers, Joe Cocker, Ricky Nelson, Pat Boone, the Monkees, Randy Newman, Gene Clark, Linda Ronstadt, Arlo Guthrie, Jackson Browne amongst others. Together with frequent collaborator Gene Parsons, he invented the B-Bender, a guitar accessory that enables a player to mechanically bend the B-string up a whole tone and emulate the sound of a pedal steel guitar. White was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Association Hall of Fame in 2016. Clarence Joseph LeBlanc was born on June 1944 in Lewiston, Maine; the LeBlanc family, who changed their surname to White, were of French-Canadian ancestry and hailed from New Brunswick, Canada. Clarence's father, Eric LeBlanc, Sr. played guitar, banjo and harmonica, ensuring that his offspring grew up surrounded by music.
A child prodigy, Clarence began playing guitar at the age of six. At such a young age he was able to hold the instrument and as a result, he switched to ukulele, awaiting a time when his young hands would be big enough to confidently grapple with the guitar. In 1954, when Clarence was ten, the White family relocated to Burbank and soon after, Clarence joined his brothers Roland and Eric Jr. in a trio called Three Little Country Boys. Although they started out playing contemporary country music, the group soon switched to a purely bluegrass repertoire, as a result of Roland's burgeoning interest in the genre. In 1957, banjoist Billy Ray Latham and Dobro player LeRoy Mack were added to the line-up, with the band renaming themselves the Country Boys soon after. In 1961, the Country Boys added Roger Bush on double bass, as a replacement for Eric White, Jr; that same year and other members of the Country Boys appeared on two episodes of The Andy Griffith Show. Between 1959 and 1962, the group released three singles on the Sundown and Briar International record labels.
Following the recording sessions for the Country Boys' debut album, the band changed its name to the Kentucky Colonels in September 1962, at the suggestion of country guitarist and friend Joe Maphis. The band's album was released by Briar International under the title The New Sound of Bluegrass America in early 1963. Around this time, Clarence's flatpicking guitar style was becoming a much more prominent part of the group's music. After attending a performance by Doc Watson at the Ash Grove folk club in Los Angeles, where he met the guitarist, Clarence began to explore the possibilities of the acoustic guitar's role in bluegrass music. At that time, the guitar was regarded as a rhythm instrument in bluegrass, with only a few performers, such as Doc Watson, exploring its potential for soloing. White soon began to integrate elements of Watson's playing style, including the use of open strings and syncopation, into his own flatpicking guitar technique, his breathtaking speed and virtuosity on the instrument was responsible for making the guitar a lead instrument within bluegrass.
The Kentucky Colonels became well known on the bluegrass circuit during this period and made many live appearances throughout California and the United States. Between bookings with the Colonels, White made a guest appearance on Eric Weissberg and Marshall Brickman's New Dimensions in Banjo & Bluegrass album, which would be re-released in 1973 as the soundtrack album to the film Deliverance. Throughout 1964, the Colonels continued to make live appearances at various clubs, concert halls and festivals, as well as recruiting fiddle player Bobby Sloan into their ranks; the Colonels' second album, Appalachian Swing!, was a commercial success and saw White's flatpicking permanently expand the language of bluegrass guitar. Music critic Thom Owens has remarked that White's playing on the album, "helped pioneer a new style in bluegrass. Although the brothers were employed as session musicians, the album was credited to Tut Taylor and Clarence White upon release. Although they were a successful recording act, it was becoming difficult for the Colonels to make a living, due to the waning popularity of the American folk music revival due to the British Invasion and homegrown folk rock acts, such as the Byrds and Bob Dylan.
As a result, the Colonels hired a drummer. In spite of these changes, the Kentucky Colonels dissolved as a band following a show on October 31, 1965. Clarence and Eric Jr. formed a new line-up of the Colonels in 1966, with several other musicians, but this second version of the group was short-lived and by early 1967 they had broken up. During 1964, White began to look beyond bluegrass music towards rock'n' roll as an avenue for artistic expression. Although he was influenced by Country guitarists like Doc Watson, Don Reno and Joe Maphis, he idolized the playing of jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, rock'n' roller Chuck Berry, studio musician James Burton. White anticipated the viability of a folk/rock hybrid when, in the summer of 196
Berklee College of Music
Berklee College of Music is a private music college in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Known for the study of jazz and modern American music, it offers college-level courses in a wide range of contemporary and historic styles, including rock, hip hop, salsa, heavy metal and bluegrass. Berklee alumni have won 294 Grammy Awards, more than any other colleges, 95 Latin Grammy Awards. Other notable accolades include 5 Tony Awards and 5 Academy Awards. Since 2012, Berklee College of Music has operated a campus in Valencia, Spain. In December 2015, Berklee College of Music and the Boston Conservatory agreed to a merger; the combined institution is known as Berklee, with the conservatory becoming The Boston Conservatory at Berklee. In 1945, composer, arranger and MIT graduate Lawrence Berk founded Schillinger House, the precursor to the Berklee School of Music, after quitting his job at Raytheon. Located at 284 Newbury St. in Boston's Back Bay, the school specialized in the Schillinger System of harmony and composition developed by Joseph Schillinger.
Berk had studied with Schillinger. Instrumental lessons and a few classes in traditional theory and arranging were offered. At the time of its founding all music schools focused on classical music, but Schillinger House offered training in jazz and commercial music for radio, theater and dancing. At first, most students were working professional musicians. Many students were former World War II service members who attended under the G. I. Bill. Initial enrollment was fewer than 50 students. In 1954, when the school's curriculum had expanded to include music education classes and more traditional music theory, Berk changed the name to Berklee School of Music, after his 12-year-old son Lee Eliot Berk, to reflect the broader scope of instruction. Lawrence Berk placed great emphasis on learning from practitioners, as opposed to academics, hired working musicians as faculty members. Several of the school's best-known musician-educators arrived after the school's name change. In 1956, trumpeter Herb Pomeroy joined the faculty and remained until his retirement in 1996.
Drummer Alan Dawson and saxophonist Charlie Mariano became faculty members in 1957. Reed player John LaPorta began teaching in 1962. Like many of Berk's ideas, this practice continues into the present. Although far more emphasis is placed on academic credentials among new faculty hires than in the past, experienced performers such as Gary Burton, Pat Metheny, Arif Mardin, Aydin Esen, Joe Lovano, Danilo Perez have served as faculty over the years. Another trend in the school's history began in the mid-1950s. During this period, the school began to attract international students in greater numbers. For example, Japanese pianist Toshiko Akiyoshi arrived in 1956. Multiple Grammy-winning producer Arif Mardin came from Turkey to study at the school in 1958. In 1957, Berklee initiated the first of many innovative applications of technology to music education with Jazz in the Classroom, a series of LP recordings of student work, accompanied by scores; these albums contain early examples of composing and performing by students who went on to prominent jazz careers, such as Gary Burton, John Abercrombie, John Scofield, Ernie Watts, Alan Broadbent, Sadao Watanabe, many others.
The series, which continued until 1980, was a precursor to subsequent Berklee-affiliated recording labels. These releases provided learning experiences not only for student composers and performers, but for students in newly created majors in music engineering and production, music business and management. Berklee awarded its first bachelor of music degrees in 1966. Members of the first graduating class to receive degrees included Alf Clausen, Stephen Gould and Michael Rendish. Gould taught film scoring at Berklee and is the Program Director for the Educational Leadership PhD program at Lesley University. During the 1960s, the Berklee curriculum began to reflect new developments in popular music, such the rise of rock and roll and funk, jazz-rock fusion. In 1962, Berklee offered the first college-level instrumental major for guitar; the guitar department had nine students, today it is the largest single instrumental major at the college. 1962: Guitarist Jack Petersen accepted an invitation by Lawrence Berk, founder of Berklee, to design and chair the first formal guitar curriculum at Berklee College of Music.
Berk discovered Petersen through his affiliation with the Stan Kenton Band Clinics. Trombonist Phil Wilson joined the faculty in 1965, his student ensemble, the Dues Band, helped introduce current popular music into the ensemble curriculum, as the Rainbow Band, performed world music and jazz fusions. In 1969, new courses in rock and popular music were added to the curriculum, the first offered at the college level; the first college course on jingle writing was offered in 1969. The school became Berklee College of Music in 1970 and bestowed its first honorary doctorate on Duke Ellington in 1971. Vibraphonist Gary Burton joined the faculty in 1971, helping to solidify the place of jazz-rock fusion in the curriculum; as Dean of Curriculum from 1985 to 1996, Burton led the development of several new majors, including music synthesis and songwriting, facilitated the school's transition to technology-based education. Curriculum innovations during the 1970s included the first college-level instrumental major in electric bass guitar in 1973, the first jazz-rock ensemble class in 1974.
In 1979, Berklee founder Lawrence Berk stepped down as president. The board of trustees appointed his son, Lee Eliot Berk, to
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