Fables Of Faubus Essay

The relation between Blues and Jazz music can be discovered if we look closely and scrutinize the origins of both the music genres. How one developed can be found out from the roots of the other as both the separate genres use similar sound patterns. Both of these genres belong to a different decade/era however, are closely linked to one another. In this essay I will deliver a brief history of both Blues and Jazz, their similarities, and also discuss how the advancement of technology has affected the way we hear both these genres of music.

The main form of storytelling in jazz is the instruments. Duke Ellington’s “Take the A Train” starts the story with brass and woodwinds imitating the sounds a train makes while taking off to set the tone of the song (Ellington, 1939). Improvisation is a core part of jazz that is often misunderstood. The improvisational instrument can change and still be the same song, but the can change the

1. The arranging styles of Ellington and Basie are quite different when put next to each other to compare and contrast. In the song “Take the A Train” by Duke Ellington the rhythm

The song starts off from 0:00 to 0:12 with a melody begun by the saxophones, and there are riffs apparent played by the brass section behind this melody, followed by a repeating of this section until 0:22 when the brass section of instruments climbs up the scale to a higher key. This section, from 0:22 to 0:29,

The four songs in their set were either composed or arranged by a member of the group. Due to experience, each member was comfortable on stage and highly skilled; therefore, every solo was near perfection. This combo was unique because it had a trombone player, Henry Panion IV. Throughout this entire concert, every performance had one thing in common. Every player seemed to be having fun and loved to play jazz. This was my first opportunity to go to a jazz concert, and it allowed me to hear a completely new style of music. It opened my eyes to a great genre of American

The first song played was “Hope Street” written by Tom Harrell. The piece was started off with Jerald snapping his fingers to a quick beat and then the Trumpet (Lynn) starts with a loud entrance. The other musicians join in and copy his notes as he plays. When the trumpet hits the high notes he trills the note as he holds it before dropping back down in PITCH to match the rest of the instruments. The bass, drums, and guitar carry the beat and the trumpet and trombone take turns playing in a sort of solo. As the trumpet and trombone fall back into rhythm with the other instruments the tempo becomes quick and the guitar take the lead in the piece. All three “solos” mirror each other in notes and TEMPO as the rest of the instruments keep the rhythm and beat. All instruments join in at the same note and continue playing together now in a

The piece was a form of the blues type of jazz, a form that was dominant at the end of the 19th century. Being part of the blues music, it focused on harmonizing with the three principal chords throughout the entirety of the song. It brought excitement and variety to the piece and keeping the audience as well as the ensemble itself on our feet. In addition to the harmonization the ensemble was able to take the form of a loose narrative, often relating the troubles experienced in a society.

Miles Dewey Davis was born on May 26, 1926 in the great state of Illinois. The 20th century proved to be a very trying period for African Americans all around the country with the equal rights being a myth. African Americans were seen as a lowly entity that was not to be interacted with. With the times being so against the “black man”, Mr. Davis fought through the adversity to piece together some of best instrumentals to date. Now I don’t want to turn this into a paper about his fight through segregation. I want to spend some time evaluating and analyzing his music and comparing it to today’s music and music tastes of my own.

The instrumentations were two guitars, keyboard, tenor sax, electric bass, and drums. It is an energetic piece. They started together then everyone was having a virtuoso play. Between each solo, the drums would fill in four to eight beats. When they were doing solo, other instruments would only played few chords with syncopated rhythm to support. The only instrument that did not have solo was the bass; he was mainly playing the root and “walking bass” pattern to support the melody. Before the last section, the sax was having solo and it started with steady slow rhythm and it sped up with aggressive rhythm and the whole song ended with everyone playing together.

There was less solo improvisation in the big band formant than in the earlier Dixieland styles. Also, there was less freedom in the ensemble passages for personal interpretation. “The control of performance details for ensemble passages had passed from the individual players to the arranger or composer.” The notion of composition in jazz has always been difficult to find. For instance, Jelly Roll Morton’s earliest compositions may not be clearly notated yet they were compositionally conceived.

So, I can recognize the differences of each categories of jazz tunes. Especially, the shift from bebop era to smooth jazz era was easy to understand. Smooth jazz was intended to make tunes easier to listen, so it term of melodies and improvisations are shorter than bebop era and it was comfortable to listen for me. When I listened to September, I can recognize the A-A-B-A form. In addition to this, I can easily find the A-A-B-A form in Pennsylvania 6-5000. As we learned in the class, big band jazz caught popularity because of the easiness melodies, I convince those reasons. The evidence for that, the person sitting next to me got into the rhythm during the tunes of big band were

The first piece played titled “Two of One” was dominated mainly by trumpet and tenor sax. It has a constant bass line, and it’s accompanied by piano. The overall feeling was swing, which was emphasized by the drum set playing swing notes. It was set up as a big band, and the only electronic

The next song on the playlist was called “Everything Happens To Me”. The texture to this was very soft as well. The instruments were playing off each other but it was still a freestyle type of song. I think jazz is generally played like freestyle. There was no melody to this song. The rhythm was not existent as well. It was more of a free flowing song. This song had a very quiet dynamic. It sounded very romantic like something out of a movie. The tempo of the song was very slow and mild but the trumpet was going very fast. The cello and the drums had a portion of the song where they fed off each other’s energy and the trumpet was doing its own thing.

The title of the fourth song was called, “Let’s get away from it all”. In their fourth song again, saxophone was played a huge role. From the beginning of the song piano kept playing same melody line repeated and saxophone was moving wide range of notes and pitch. The rhythm and the tempo of drum changed as saxophone changed rhythm and the tempo. The bass guitar helped drum to follow saxophone’s rhythm and tempo. The saxophone style was kind of similar with the how Louis Armstrong was playing a solo. There were two guitars, but saxophone dominated other instruments and it was difficult to hear other instruments.

1. I think the biggest element that made this song unique is the use of counterpoint. Counterpoint is the use of two or more melodic lines of equal importance. During the course of the song, no one melody sounds like the main melody, and are all of the same significance. I think this would have upset many of the jazz purists, as it was such a change from traditional jazz music.