The Jazz Chrysalis

QUOTE=Atavachron]Well I certainly agree improvisation has always been a big part of all music, but that being the case, then what would distinguish the development of jazz as jazz (other than an American art form) ?

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sorry to barge in in your conversation, but generally improvisation is not part of classical music (not conting the contemporary and

Not sure I'm right about this, but outside Indian music, I don't think improvisation was common in music at all... It seems that this was a X Xth C thing

js wrote:

Smack? ..oh yeah, smack. Thats probably how you got bop, cool, hard bop, post bop, avant-garde and lots of fusion too, basically a lot of modern jazz. Possibly part of the nu jazz scene too, I don't know.

Don't think getting smashed out of your skull was reserved to jazz (and later to rock)

I understand that Chopin and the Russian composers were not exactly sober and straight (and Mozart was getting stoned on O2 + N2)

the Impressionist painters used to soar on all types of sustances, most notably on absynth

my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicted musicians to crazy ones....

Smack? ..oh yeah, smack. Thats probably how you got bop, cool, hard bop, post bop, avant-garde and lots of fusion too, basically a lot of modern jazz. Possibly part of the nu jazz scene too, I don't know.

It comes back to the marching horn bands in New Orleans at the turn of the century. they were playing rags and military marches and improvising on them in a sort of swing style.

When those musicians moved north what we now call dixieland developed, basically similar to original new orleans jazz but now they are seated so you could include a drum set and a piano player and replace the tuba with a string bass. From there you get jazz.

I'm sure other types of improvisation came in as things rolled along, gypsy music for instance or later Indian music.

Edited by js - 09 Jul 2011 at 11:07pm

Probably the most interesting speculation and discussion/arguments in jazz comes from how different genres develope, for instance take jazz rock or fusion.

Did somebody invent it, no way.

On the jazz side you have Larry Coryell, Tony Williams, Miles etc

On the rock side you have Cream and Hendrix

In Britian you have people in between like McLaughlin, Soft Machine Brian Auger etc

I'm sure there are people who will argue about who was the first jazz rocker, or the first be-bopper etc and I am sure soeone would point out who is missing from the above mentioned names.

Edited by js - 09 Jul 2011 at 10:44pm

Sorry

...but its in all the jazz history books. Geek

Basically it grew out of marching bands in New Orleans who would accompany funerals, marches etc. The marches were so long and the tunes so repititious that the horn players would start to improvise, to relieve boreedom and probably just came natural after a while.

Later when jazz musicians moved north, they didn't march but sat and played, the rest is history.

All the same, improv was in music way before jazz.