Personally, when it comes to Jazz, there is an automatic imagery that comes to mind depending on the tune. While there could be an argument made for the other forms we have studies, there is an element in Jazz that cannot be attributed to the other genres. I cannot pinpoint it exactly, but I think it is the presence of Jazz in film. Whereas in the previously studied pieces I had to use my imagination to paint a scene, their modern counterpart presents me with a point of reference, whether it is through its composition, relatable themes, or contemporary influence.

Louis Armstrong’s “Potato Head Blues” has a composition that highly resembles the structure of contemporary pieces. That is, there is a conjunction of instruments succeeded by a solo that guides the piece. In the case of this piece, the solo is instrumental, while in the case of contemporary music, the solo would be vocal. In addition to its structure, I cannot help but to think of an a cappella group in which the rest of the group soften their pitches to pave way to the soloist. In this particular case, Armstrong’s smooth solos resemble a poem recited eloquently, with the delivery of each line timed perfectly.

Duke Ellington’s “Take The A Train” is perhaps the most vivid out of these three pieces, especially to those who can envision a Subway ride. While I can make a direct comparison to my experiences commuting, Ellington does not fail to provide the imagery to those without it. The constant beat in the background presents the listener with a double entendre, one which mimics the pace of a locomotive and the other which represents the constant movement of people across the city. In addition to allusions of movement, Ellington, through the repetition of pitches, replicates the sound of the train’s horn. Perhaps, the repetition may allude to the anxiety that could arise from the uncertainty of riding a train; whether it is cause by its delays or the possibility of collision.

To me, Charlie Parker’s “Confirmation” was the most pleasing. While the others presented a vivid image, this piece did not. For this reason, I found “Confirmation” to be the most relaxing. Though we have discussed that masterpieces should be examined by their compositional value, I could not help but think that this song would be a great study companion. Moreover, I felt as thought the piece were speaking to me. That is, the speed and tight note range felt like someone giving me advice rather than a song.

I think the most striking thing about these jazz pieces is that all the instruments are featured. An example can be seen in the latter half of Confirmation (2:18 – 2:30ish), where there is a short period where there only the drums carry the tune and the other more melodic instruments are silent.

In other musical forms, percussion almost always remains as a supplement to the melody and harmony. It was a time keeper for the orchestra, or it could add some drama or exoticism to the melody/harmony. In chamber music, percussion was not even thought to be needed, and the largest, most baritone instrument would sometimes substitute if needed.

Of course with Charlie Parker, the saxophone dominates all else. However, it is egalitarian and shares the stage with, in this case, the piano and drums. Giving the piano a solo is logical since it has a limitless capacity of sounds. However, drums are monotonic and therefore, you are limited in pitch. I don’t think Parker really needs to include it. After all, he could have given us 30 extra seconds of his saxophone.

This week’s pieces take us into a new style of music. Duke Ellington’s “Take the A Train” has us traveling very close by, through Harlem, in the 30s. The lively, fast-paced feeling of the song creates a melodic dancing ambiance. The piece has repeated notes in AABA form with a quick rhythm. Additionally, this song is mainly in consonance, as a contrast with the music from last week, which engaged the audience through its dissonance. The instruments to some degree incarnate the sounds of the train as described in the title. According to certain sources, the diminuendo at the end of the song symbolizes the rolling away of the train, while the brass instruments represent the train’s horns. The narrative of the train is developed through these many musical means.

Louis Armstrong’s beautiful composition, “Potato Head Blues”, is characterized by a stop-start rhythm, which is not found in “Take the A Train”, which has a continuous sound, without empty spaces. There is a very spontaneous feeling to this piece as it also has an enjoyable swing style, and a long solo. It is in a 4 meter just as Duke Ellington’s piece is and it’s short-long rhythm create a very vibrant ambiance.

So far this semester, we have surveyed a variety of Western musical genres: monophonic religious plainchant from the Middle Ages, polyphonic religious hymns from the early Renaissance, operas, symphonies, chamber ensembles, and, now, jazz. All of these genres served a distinct social purpose: plainchant and polyphonic hymns were an integral part of Catholic mass; operas are secular musical dramas designed to amuse and entertain; symphonies are meant to entertain audience that has gathered in a concert hall for the explicit purpose of hearing Mozart’s “Jupiter”; and small chamber ensembles are generally used as background music at weddings and parties (at least, that’s what chamber music is used for today).

The majority of the music we have studied so far in class was composed for consumption by a stationary audience. We haven’t yet encountered “dance music” in this class—besides waltzes, which are decidedly different from jazz.  Jazz is the first Western musical genre we’ve discussed that is explicitly meant for dancing. Of course, you can listen to Duke Ellington’s “Take the A Train” or Louis Armstrong’s “Potato Head Blues” without dancing—but it’s difficult for me to remain completely stationary when I hear one of these upbeat jazz tunes. Even if I don’t jump to my feet and start dancing, I usually tap my feet or snap my fingers to the music.

Jazz music is “dance music”, because it’s constructed in a way that makes it easy to dance to. For example, “Take the A Train” is in duple meter; it has a consistent (and fast) tempo emphasized by a steady drum beat and cheerful plucked bass line; and its melody is repetitive. “Take the A Train” does not include any long pauses. The music does not grow incredibly quiet for thirty seconds and then suddenly become extremely loud (like in Mozart’s “Jupiter”). There is a consistent melodic theme throughout the song, though there are enough slight variations to the melody to prevent it from becoming tedious. And, perhaps most tellingly, the song is 2 minutes and 53 seconds long—which, coincidentally, is the longest amount of time I can dance energetically without suffering an exercise-induced asthma attack.

Maybe being in Jazz band when I was in high school has colored my perspective, but I much prefer watching videos of live performances to listening to meticulous recordings. There’s something to the improvisational spectacle that I find really captivating. A lot of that probably stems from my being painfully incapable of improve, but fortunately for me, very few jazz standards feature the bari sax. But I digress… After listening to Ellington’s “Take the A Train” several times, I managed to track down a recording from 1964 featuring Ernie Sheppard on vocals and bass.

What I think is really special about jazz, and what we haven’t really seen thus far in the semester, is that the forms are incredibly fluid. It’s not always about playing the right note or the right rhythm, but rather choosing to play with intention. This song, like many other standards, essentially uses a lot of the techniques that we’ve looked at in classical music. Much like the sonata, we are given a theme that is developed and returned to; however, the development is subject to the soloist – they can stray as far away from that theme as they like so long as they stay within the basic chord progression. In the Spotify recording we hear the trumpet soloist around 0:52 taking the main rhythm and melody and reinterpreting it, in particular this one pattern of long-short-long. Because he uses these motives, it still has a semblance of unity: it sounds like it belongs in the piece.

This piece was an interesting diversion from the other types of music we have studied. The structure of this piece is ABCBA with the four deliminators at 0:39, 1:03, 1:45, and 2:34. The A segments have all instruments playing simultaneously. Despite the seeming musical chaos, the sounds blend quite nicely. It is also clear that two of the instruments make up the melody. The brassier trumpet seems to lead a softer brass instrument, and the other instruments harmonize. In the B section, the leading trumpet from section A is the clear soloist. The harmony is played by the piano and a lower-register brass instrument. The C section has the same instruments playing the harmony, but the melody is played by a higher-register brass instrument. In the transition from the C section to the second B section, a string instrument plays a short tune quietly.

In the second B section, the trumpet makes use of novel Jazz techniques between 2:15 and 2:34. The voice seems to call out and hang on to notes. The trumpet also uses this technique several times in the second A section. This technique is very expressive and makes the instrument seem like a man’s voice.

I would characterize the mood of the piece as consistently light-hearted, joyous, loud, simple, and relaxed. While these emotions are not particularly complex, they are expressed very clearly and strongly. I envision a family reunion in which the loud banter is interrupted by men telling stories in the B and C sections. The final section is a reconvening of all the voices of the family.

The piece is absent of dissonance and tension. Instead, it flows easily between sections and voices. It remains in a major key throughout, and the beat is given openly by the harmony. These features distinguish it from the past music we have studied and give it a ‘popular’ flavor.

It’s refreshing to listen to things that sound a bit more familiar! These three works were fantastic; truly pleasures to listen to. Being bit of a jazz/blues fan myself the listening for this week was bit of a treat. Yet it was challenging to listen to it in  this different context: one in which I am listening for more formal elements to pick out and in some way explain my enjoyment. Prior, it simply sounded nice and made me feel strongly, be it happy and free or sad and lonely. Now, the task seems much more difficult.

With Potato Head Blues, the polyrhytmic nature of jazz comes through with several rhythms playing at once (the piano keeping a steady bass-line as the trumpet and clarinet shows off their finesse). It’s very interesting to hear the relationships between the instruments, particularly in the middle where there is a trumpet solo, then clarinet solo, then a trumpet solo, all interspersed and punctuated by the piano. It oddly creates a tension with its start stop feeling that is resolved when all the instruments join back together at 2:35

All the pieces seemed upbeat, but I couldn’t quite tell if they were in major or minor since there was so much going on. That sort of lively movement and fluidity made them so exciting to listen to. Particularly the interplay of instruments. With take the A train, the cascading piano in the beginning and the quick horns seem to play towards a narrative as the title suggests, as if the instruments were narrating one’s journey on the A train. What caught me was the freedom of this piece, where you have crescendos, cascading notes (towards 1.50 and 2.00) and then a bounce back up and then a cocophany of sounds at 2:15. It’s fascinating to hear them playing with all these techniques, and the short notes on the piano, and have it all cleanly resolve at the end.

Confirmation was a very enjoyable piece. It was much faster and seemed so much more variable in moving in all sorts of direction. I could only imagine how hard it would be for someone to do a live transcription of this. It seems to generally lie on one scale but slides up and down and around it with ease. You particularly hear the strong bassline at around 2:20 when the saxophone seems to take a break and give the drums and bass a bit of the limelight. When listening back to Potato Head Blues one could see how the progression of Jazz very much broke forms so as to embrace the freedom and emotion of the music.

Duke Ellington’s signature song, “Take the A Train” was written by Billy Strayhorn. It was quite difficult for me to assign a form to this piece and identify various sections, because one of the main elements of Jazz is improvisation. So, I naturally found myself trying to fit it into the forms we have already discussed in class (ex. Sonata form). Overall, if I had to assign a structure to the piece I would say A-B-A.

The song begins with a very festive opening, starts with playful descending melodies scales played by the piano (0:00 – 00:05), followed by the celebratory sound of trumpets 0:06 – 0:11. The entire song maintains an upbeat tempo, due to the drums and the bass that continuously play in the background. The Introduction, or A section, spans from 0:00 to 1:40. Within this timeframe I identified two different musical themes or distinct sounds, which reminded me of the primary and secondary themes of sonata form. The primary one from 0:05 to 0:51 and the secondary one is 0:52 to 1:38.

At 1:39, a shift is marked by a number of trumpets joining in and an increase in dynamic, which signaled section B. From 1:48 to 2:15 there is a development of the piece during which elements from section A returns. At 2:16 there is another shift in the music marked by the instruments coming together once again, which initially creates a somewhat dissonant chord which is resolved at the instruments end on the same note. At 2:18 we get a return of the A section, however it is not necessarily a “true” return since it’s not identical to the beginning of the piece. Here the trumpets are  similar to the beginning, but there seems to have been a slight change in key, shifting from a higher major (0:18 – 0:22) to a lower major key (0:29 – 0:3). We also hear a quick return of the playful piano introduction, but only for a spilt second (0:45– 0:46) as a short reminder of the first A section.

Although I was very excited for this unit, I was a bit disappointed that none of the songs we are studying contain a vocal piece. In Jazz, the vocal style is very unique because it also functions using improvisation and contains many unique improvisation techniques, such as scat singing and bebop. Jazz singers were also unique because of the distinctive raspy, sultry quality of their singing.

Although delving into the genre of Jazz music, I approached the critical listening of the three provided Jazz  pieces in a similar way as the previous musical pieces which I have been exposed to throughout the semester. Beginning with the Potato Head Blues by Louis Armstrong, I immediately noticed the lack of percussion within the piece since I attempted to identify the meter. I heard a  duple meter which was predominantly created by a bass instrument. However, this meter disappeared throughout certain times of the piece and even when the bass was playing at times, the meter was not perfectly clear, due to inconsistencies in the way the bass was utilized. This made me realize that Jazz music is a genre that is often associated with improvisation. Hence, Jazz music seems to emphasize the actual performance and playing of an instrument, rather than the composition, organization and formation of a piece. The actual individual instruments are being stressed and this argument can be supported by the various solo moments within the Jazz pieces that we are listening to.

This utilization of solo instruments is also present in Charlie Parker´s piece called Confirmation.This piece does possess percussion, creating a fast duple meter which persists throughout the whole piece. In my opinion, the way in which this Jazz piece is structured is through the different instrumental solos. The fact that different instruments receive a solo, sort of expresses a sort of competition among the different instruments within the piece, where one instrument attempts to out – do or out – perform the other instruments within their respective solos. Hence, a sense of conversation or communication among the instruments is communicated within this piece in particular.

Now that we are listening to Jazz, there are many new developments as well as connections the music has to past pieces we have reviewed. For this post, I will focus on “Confirmation” by Charlie Parker and Duke Ellington’s “Take the A Train”. The two greatest similarities these pieces have with those we have studied are its organization and thematic reoccurrence.  Like the string quartets, these jazz ensembles are set up like conversations, only between spirited individuals rather than reasonable individuals. Like the sonatas and endless pieces we have observed, jazz pieces usually start with a main theme and build off of it in solos and developments. Take the A Train develops the main theme, and Charlie Parker solos off of his.

More than anything, jazz brings an intense focus on the players themselves rather than the composition. The emphasis is not on the composer or even the composition, but the player’s take on the pieces, and the band itself. Without a conductor, the connection between the player’s is integral to the development of the piece. The bass and piano dictate the chord structure, which builds a foundation which the melody, solo, or harmony build off of. The percussion maintains the feel and tempo of the beat, and cues major musical occurrences (starting a soloing, repeating a bar, switching movement). The piece is not about music itself, or symbolizing anything, but muses on the feel of the interaction of the ensemble.

Finally, jazz is not about the composition, but the player’s take. A jazz standard is a standard not because of how impressive it is, but because it memorably solidifies the audience into a chord structure. What is really important about jazz is the ability for players to express their musical ideologies within the chord structure, as is evident in Parker’s solo and the trumpet solo at 0:50 in Take the A train. We are not awed by the chord structure or themes, but the talent and improvisation of the actual players. The focus is on the individual skill, not the musical composition. It’s a conversation where everyone shows off!