NEW ORLEANS - THE HOMELAND OF JAZZ

But still. What is jazz and where did it first appear?

Jazz did not appear overnight, it was not invented by any one genius. It is a product of the collective and continuous creativity of many generations of people, the search for new ideas and borrowings from many cultures. Jazz grew and developed in many different places USA. The black population who performed such music lived in many cities of America: in Atlanta and Baltimore, in Kansas City and St. Louis, which was the center of ragtime, and William Christopher Handy, the "father of the blues", lived in Memphis.

Some historians believe that it was New Orleans that became the cradle of jazz, the city was the ideal place for the birth of jazz music, because it had a unique, open and free social atmosphere.

Back at the beginning of the 19th century. the port of New Orleans (Louisiana), located in the Mississippi Delta, which until 1803 belonged to Napoleonic France and was famous for its democratic traditions, gathered people from different countries and social strata. People flocked to New Orleans in search of a better life and a comfortable life. The new lands also attracted restless adventurers, adventurers and cheats, exiles and fugitives. They were people of different nationalities: French, Spanish, Germans, British, Irish, Indians, Chinese, Greeks, Italians, Africans. New Orleans was the most multicultural and most musical city in the New World. It was a port city where ships with slaves brought from the western and northern coasts of Africa arrived. New Orleans was the main center of the slave trade and was home to the largest slave markets in the United States. It is the descendants of people who were considered "living goods" who will create the most American of all arts - jazz. One of the passionate jazz fans famous actor and filmmaker Clint Eastwood once remarked that the Americans really enriched world culture two things - western and jazz.

The whole idea of ​​improvisation, which is the essence of jazz, is inextricably linked with the life of American slaves, who had to learn to survive in difficult conditions. But the main dream of black Americans has always been freedom! American writer Earley said that the essence of jazz is freedom! This music speaks of liberation. Of course, there were plenty of other nations in the United States of America, those who were treated very cruelly and unfairly. But only black Americans were slaves, only they have a historical consciousness of what it means to be not free in a free country.

White slave owners did not encourage the amateur musical creativity of slaves, but they understood that if the "living commodity" was not given at least a breath of fresh air, it could perish or rise up. In 1817, New Orleans slaves were allowed once a week, on Sundays, to gather in Congo Square to sing and dance. White New Orleans would sometimes come there to watch black Americans sing and dance to the sound of drums. In the work of African-American slaves, the features of their national cultures... The infectious rhythms of Caribbean tunes were heard in the music of slaves brought from the islands of the West Indies. The working songs of cotton plantations, rice and tobacco fields were sung by slaves brought from the hinterland of the American South, and slaves from the North America sang spirituals with the respiratory form characteristic of the sermons of the Baptist churches.

In New Orleans, despite the "Black Code" (1724), which prohibited mixed marriages between whites and colors, national and racial mixing gradually took place. There was a community in the city free people who called themselves colored creoles. They were lighter-skinned than African blacks, the descendants of European colonists and their dark-skinned wives and mistresses. Creoles, among whom there were even slave owners and simply wealthy people, considered themselves the heirs of European musical culture and were proud of it. V cultural life New Orleans Creoles played positive role... The French and Creoles established an opera house in the city, several symphony orchestras, social clubs. The opera house's repertoire consisted of works by French and Italian composers... Minstrel music was also played in New Orleans theaters. The shows traveled all over America and, of course, dropped in to New Orleans.

In the second half of the XIX century. in New Orleans, townspeople of all skin colors loved to listen to numerous semi-symphony and outdoor orchestras. Especially popular were the marching brass bands... And there were plenty of reasons on the streets of New Orleans: weddings, funerals, church holidays... And every spring - Mardi Gras (that is, "Fat Tuesday"), a fun holiday that was held before Lent as a grandiose multi-colored carnival with parades, demonstrations, picnics, concerts. All this action was accompanied by the music of marching brass bands.

Clarence Williams(1898-1965), pianist, singer, composer, music publisher recalled: “Yes, New Orleans has always been a very musical city. During the big Mardi Gras holidays and Christmas, all the houses were open and there was dancing everywhere. Every house was open for you, and you could walk in any door, eat, drink and join the company there. "

Already in the 18th century. in New Orleans, monasteries of the Capuchin and Jesuit orders arose. The Roman Catholic Church has created the conditions for some rapprochement, the gradual interpenetration of their cultural traditions... The ethnically diverse city was, in a sense, a romantic and musical city. Life was open here, as is often the case in southern cities. In the same block in the neighborhood, all kinds of people could live, with their own habits and national characteristics... Music for the inhabitants of the city was the environment that accompanied all events, all their lives, representing a fusion of Italian, French, Spanish, English and African musical cultures.

The city could not do without another New Orleans tradition - passion and vice. The gamblers and lovers of venal love who lived in Storyville contributed to the prosperity of gambling and brothels, designed for every taste and wallet. Cabarets, saloons, dance halls, barrellhouses and honky-tonks, small pubs and taverns, were open around the clock. The clients of such low-profile and dubious entertainment establishments were mainly poor African Americans, declassed elements and other motley audience. And music sounded in every institution.

And next - frenzied piety and the cult of voodoo with its rituals: reverence for the spirits of ancestors, sacrifices, "zombie powder", magic and ritual dances brought by black slaves from Haiti. Voodoo ritual dances were performed in the legendary Congo Square and in front of the city gates until 1900. New Orleans could be considered the center of witchcraft and magic. She lived here in the second half of the 19th century. and the most famous queen voodoo - Marie Laveau. And all this was mixed in such a multi-layered city, where people were forced to understand each other and interact with each other if they are neighbors.

On January 26, 1861, the state of Louisiana, in which New Orleans was located, broke away from the Union as a result of the war between the North and the South. The American Civil War did nothing good for the Southerners. However, fifteen months later, the allied fleet entered the harbor of New Orleans, and the city was forced to surrender. Black residents southern city, where slavery took in those years the most cruel and sophisticated forms, this occupation brought the long-awaited freedom, which slaves dreamed of. The emergence of jazz was a kind of burst of creative energy of the oppressed people and became possible only after the abolition of slavery (1863). This music was born in the minds of people who were not previously perceived by society as full Americans, although they did not become less American because they lived in this country.

For twelve years after the end of the Civil War of the North and South of the United States (1861-1865), during the era of Reconstruction, the northerners ensured the enforcement of order in the South of the country. But in 1877, after a behind-the-scenes deal between the Republicans of the North and the Democrats of the South, federal troops were withdrawn from the southern territories of America. Without the support of the army, the era of Reconstruction was over. And although slavery was officially abolished, the "white masters of life" everywhere imposed power with an "iron fist". (It should be noted that white supremacy in the United States will continue to spread over the next hundred years.) The ranks of the Ku Klux Klan (organizations of ultra-right terrorist nationalist white organizations that advocate the idea of ​​white supremacy over blacks and immigrants with extremist methods), lynching courts ( murder of a person suspected of a crime or violation of public customs, without trial and without investigation) have become commonplace. Segregation (division of the population by skin color, a type of racism) has become a law of life; and some witch called this system "Jim Crow's Law" (after the name of the first minstrel show "Daddy Rice"). New Orleans, proud of its cosmopolitanism and democracy, resisted this system for a time, but then was forced to surrender, although music life the city has not faded away.

At the end of the XIX century. New Orleans met two new musical genres, without which jazz simply would not exist. These were ragtime and blues. Ragtime, incorporating African and European folkloric elements, was the first African American piano genre to take the form of a concert form, from which the history of jazz begins. It has been performed by pianists in the cities of the American Midwest since about the 1870s, where most of the creators of this music lived. Ragtime has become widespread in the cities of Kansas City, Chicago, Buffalo, New York, Omaha and, of course, in New Orleans. Ragtime music united everything that came before:

• spiritual;
• plantation dance- keykuok (the evolution of this dance ended with the subsequently popular two-step and foxtrot);
• songs of minstrels;
• European folk tunes;
• military marches.

The transformed music of quadrille, gavotte, waltz, polka was ruled by a fresh, persistent, syncopated, “ragged rhythm”. Origin of the word ragtime it is still unclear; perhaps it comes from English, ragged time- "torn time". In fact, almost all syncopated music of the 19th - early 20th centuries. before the term jazz was named ragtime.

For the next twenty-five years, ragtime, widespread throughout America, will be the most popular music, with each locality having its own specific color, its own regional styles. The performers of this lively, energetic and reckless music introduced it to the whole country. Young people loved dancing to ragtime, however older generation this style of music did not favor. Puritans, too strict in the rules of behavior, compared the passion for ragtime with the next stage of the decay of society. Time itself gave the answer. By about 1917, ragtime began to fade, unable to withstand its own popularity, including because of the complexity of the music itself and the difficulty of its performance: without good musical preparation, ragtime cannot be played. Performed at the end of the XIX - beginning of the XX century. African American brass bands and ragtime dance bands ragtime later found a worthy place in orchestral jazz, and the name served musical characteristic such orchestras, for example: Buddy Bolden's Ragtime Band.

One of the most prominent representatives of ragtime was the Negro pianist and composer Scott Joplin(1868-1917). He composed about six hundred ragtime, among which the most famous - Maple Leaf Rag, The Entertainer, Original Rags, published in 1899 by John Stark Press. Ragtime flourished in the 1890s and 1910s. The dissemination of this music was facilitated, in addition to live performance and printed publications ragtime, cardboard perforated cylinders used in mechanical pianos - player-rolls (eng. player rolls). Priceless testimonies of the music of that period have come down to us. In the middle of the XX century. the cylinders were refurbished and the ragtimes recorded on them were transcribed onto LPs, so Joplin's music can still be heard today. In Europe, the public got to know ragtime at the beginning of the 20th century. thanks to brass bands. Later, ragtime found its reflection even in the works of the composers of academic music - K. Debussy, I. Stravinsky, P. Hindemith, D. Millau and others.

At the end of the XIX century. New Orleans first heard blues. Refugees, former plantation slaves, poured into New Orleans from the countryside in an inexhaustible stream. They fled the Mississippi Delta from the ships of the Lynch, the Ku Klux Klan, and the hard work of the cotton and reed plantations. The blues was part of their baggage, a musical expression of a special understanding of the world associated with the manifestation of the self-consciousness of blacks, their love of freedom and protest against social injustice. Black Americans have been around since the late 1860s. in their work they wanted to free themselves from the shackles of the aesthetics of minstrels, in whose show African-Americans appeared before the audience as people endowed with negative human qualities... As a result of this peculiar musical protest-search, a folk secular form of singing arose, very flexible, plastic, malleable and simple - the blues. The roots of the blues are deeply rooted in Negro folklore. Word blues

comes from English, blue devils- "melancholy devils", and in figuratively- "when cats scratch their souls." To shine in the blues, just the technique of performance is not enough, you need to back up the technique with mood, feeling. Blues was the secular music of African Americans, but it can be considered the "wicked brother" of sacred music christian church... It was based on the same antiphon techniques (questions of the preacher and answers of the flock). But if in church music a person turned to God, in the blues a desperate person turned to an oppressor on earth. The blues performer seems to banish sadness from himself. Blues verses reflecting some life conflict, can be tragic, realistic and caustic, but blues music is always cleansing. Blues is the most distinctive phenomenon of Negro musical culture.

In New Orleans, black musicians transcribed blues tunes onto the wind instruments that were found in shops and junk shops at every turn. Trumpets, cornets, trombones are still from brass bands from the time of the Civil War of the North and South. Earlier, in military marching bands (brass bands), which consisted of white musicians, the instruments sounded piercing: the sound was direct, sharp, abrupt, powerful, capable of accompanying any processions. And the New Orleans color musicians, due to insufficient technique and a minimum vocational education, the instruments sounded differently: the sound began to vibrate at the end of the note, imitating choral singing in church or singing blues performers... And such music expressed completely different feelings, it had a different power over the listener! And although the music was rather primitive, but it was a play on the melody, embellishment (a kind of prototype of improvisation). She combined the spiritual, sublime and, at the same time, secular sound of music. The lively life of the New Orleans made it possible for Negro brass bands to perform daily, as all social events in the city were accompanied by music.

Leading Instrument in the New Orleans Brass Band late XIX v. there was a trumpet or cornet. The composition also included a trombone and clarinet. The rhythm group consisted of a banjo or guitar, tuba, drums and cymbals, and there were six to seven musicians in total. It was in such orchestras that jazz was born. What did the New Orleans Orchestra sound like? Musicians in the front line of the orchestra played a specific theme, then improvised one by one or in a group, a kind of polyphony (polyphony) arose, which imitated the three-part counterpoint characteristic of the traditional New Orleans style. He was the fundamental, the first style of the classical (or archaic) period in the history of jazz.

• Cit. Quoted from: Shapiro N. Listen to what I'll tell you. The story of jazz as told by the people who made it. P. 14.

New Orleans style, the style that developed towards the end 19th century, until some time historically considered the first jazz style, and the American city of New Orleans in Louisiana - the cradle of jazz. It has been established, however, that, independently of New Orleans, from about the middle of the 19th century in various cities of the South and Midwest of the United States (Memphis, Kansas City, St. Louis, Dallas, and others), music related to jazz existed and developed. The legend of New Orleans has not lost its significance, but acquired a different meaning: this city was called not the homeland, but the capital of early jazz, although the concept of "New Orleans style" is still often used as a synonym for all traditional jazz in its original forms.

In a stricter sense, the term "New Orleans style" is usually attributed to the original improvisational black jazz of New Orleans, in contrast to the Euro-American type of jazz music that arose in imitation of it, known as "Dixieland." Researchers also distinguish between archaic and classical styles of traditional jazz, represented both in New Orleans and in other local varieties.

Archaic New Orleans jazz, according to historians, existed from about the mid to early 90s of the 19th century. Forms of being, syncretism and ethnic originality indicate that it belongs to African-American folklore (hence its other name - "folk jazz"), but it also has tendencies characteristic of more mature forms of music making: the growth of professionalism, gradual liberation from applied functions and transformation into music for listening (an element of concert performance), the transition from traditional song genres with primitive instrumental accompaniment to more developed instrumental-ensemble, and then orchestral genres. Its other features: the use of a variety of metric rhythmic techniques (a combination of polyrhythmic and cross rhythm techniques with a stable basic metric pulsation); intensive syncopation (see Syncope); bouncy and resilient pushing beat (literally bouncing, pushing beat); drive (assertive and aspiring type of movement, creating the illusion of a constant acceleration of the pace); the presence of an independent rhythm group; collective improvisation, etc. Melodic development was based on the principle of stanza variation; the response (question-answer) interaction of the ensemble's voices characteristic of the classical style was absent; polyphony of a heterophonic rather than a purely polyphonic type prevailed. Harmony in the European sense has not yet been fully mastered; the composition of the ensemble did not differ in constancy, instruments and instrumental groups did not have definite functions.

The formation of the archaic style is closely related to certain social conditions, primarily with the end of the American Civil War (1861-1865) and the abolition of slavery in the southern states. From rural areas Negroes began to move to cities, where the remnants of slavery were quickly erased. Favorable cultural environment, diversity national traditions and the genres of urban art also played an important role, as did the opportunity that opened up for blacks to make music their profession. An important incentive was the fact that after the dissolution of military bands, a large number of wind and percussion musical instruments came to the domestic market, which were sold at a very affordable price. It is therefore natural that the first orchestras of archaic jazz were predominantly brass. They took part in festivals, carnivals, street processions and even in church services, performed by spiritualists. They were created on the model of military "marching bands", as well as partly Creole salon orchestras (society orchestras) and performed a similar repertoire (marches, ragtimes, popular song melodies, everyday dances), but, of course, in a typically Negro syncopal manner, in an improvisational spirit ... Archaic jazz arose as an imitation of European brass music by blacks, but later it itself became an object of imitation. No genuine examples of archaic "marching jazz" (marching band jazz, street band jazz) have survived.

The period of the classic New Orleans style (circa 1890-1928) began with the transition of Negro folk music to urban dance halls and entertainment venues, i.e. in connection with its "socialization". The composition of the orchestras expanded, since it became possible to use instruments that could not be used in the "marching orchestras" of archaic jazz (piano, double bass, banjo, guitar, complex drum kit). The instrumental groups were finally formed - rhythmic (banjo, brass or string bass, drums and piano) and melodic (cornet or trumpet, clarinet and trombone); the functions of solo and ensemble, as well as the role of improvisation and arrangement were determined; The responsive technique (see Responsive singing), which goes back to the traditions of blues and work song, has become widely used. Established new type polyphony (improvisational polyphony on a monometric basis), the principles of modal organization in harmony and rhythm have become more complicated, the role of solo improvisation has increased while maintaining the dominance of collective music-making. The types of beat pulsations became more diverse (the regular accentuation of each beat of a measure was replaced by a pairwise alternation of strong and weak accents, first with strong accents on the 1st and 3rd beats of a four-quarter measure, and later on the 2nd and 4th). The arsenal of methods for creating metro-rhythmic conflicts, polyrhythms and syncopation has been replenished; the performing repertoire was enriched.

A characteristic feature of classical jazz is the appeal to a wide variety of musical sources. It is folklore, everyday, religious and academic music many peoples of the world - French, Spanish, Italian, English, Irish, Scottish, German, not to mention folk music the blacks themselves and the colored Creoles of the South of the United States, as well as about Latin American songs and dances. The blues tradition (in intonation, sound production, melody, harmony, rhythm, musical form) has manifested itself with particular brightness in the classical jazz of New Orleans; developed a professional performing hot style. In parallel with Negro hot jazz, orchestral ragtime and Dixieland developed. On the basis of the New Orleans classical style, a number of chamber jazz styles emerged, in particular piano (barrel house, boogie-woogie, Harlem style). Closely related to it is the emergence of the Chicago style and early swing. In the late 1920s, classical jazz was pushed aside by the commercial dance and entertainment music of large orchestras; in the second half of the 30s, it experienced a period of revival (the so-called "rivival jazz").

1917-1923 Difficulty in identifying early jazz

Getting to the root of jazz is not easy. The first recording of jazz music performed by the White Music Orchestra "Original Dixieland Jazz Band" was made in 1917. Moreover, there are still debates about whether the music recorded on this disc can be considered typical jazz, whether Negro or other white musicians of New Orleans played this way in those years. In the period between 1900 and 1920, jazz, and especially its rhythmic variety, later called "swing", developed so rapidly that often musicians of the same ensemble proceeded in their playing from completely different ideas about rhythm, used different forms of rhythmic organization melodies, and the gap in the time of the appearance of these forms sometimes reached ten or more years. When they began to make the first recordings, jazz, as a form of musical art, had not yet been finally formed and it was impossible to say about any of its movements: here it is, typical jazz. Later group New Orleans musicians migrated to the North, where their records soon began to be released. By 1923 there were enough recordings to define with more or less certainty what New Orleans jazz was.

1910 Early New Orleans bands, instrumentation

One of the varieties of New Orleans orchestras were ensembles, which by about 1910 had already become real jazz bands. We can judge about their playing by the records of early jazz that have come down to us. These were mainly dance bands performing in dance halls such as Funky Butt, and sometimes at picnics and parties. By 1910, and perhaps even earlier, the permanent composition of these orchestras was determined. Typically, they consisted of cornet, clarinet, valve trombone or backstage trombone, guitar, double bass, drums and violins 1. The violin often played the lead part with the cornet, but most often the violinists were included in the composition mainly because most of them knew musical notation, could learn new tunes themselves and teach others. Sometimes these orchestras included a pianist or guitarist, but since they often had to perform at picnics and dance halls where there was no piano, basic rhythm chords were played mainly by double bass and guitar. “Buddy” Bolden and “Bank” Johnson, many other pioneers of jazz have played in such ensembles for most of their lives.

1 Contrary to popular belief, during the early days of jazz, banjo and tuba (double bass) were not included in jazz orchestras. But they had double basses and guitars, as Armstrong himself spoke about in one of his interviews. Photographs of twelve early jazz bands testify to the same. You will not see a tuba on them, however, there is one banjo. After the First World War, both of these instruments became very fashionable and were widely used in jazz and dance ensembles. - Approx. the author.

1910 Dixieland

Jazz bands performed a wide variety of music, including the blues, but in their repertoire they did not occupy such a prominent place as in the repertoire of orchestras that performed in front of bar patrons with “rough” music. In addition to the blues, the jazz bands played simplified reg arrangements, various trendy pieces, plantation songs and other melodies. It was these orchestras that were the first to play music in the style that later became known as “Dixieland”. The very first records of Dixieland, which became a kind of benchmark of this style, were made by the "Original Dixieland Jazz Band". Among them are such pieces as “Tiger Rag”, “High Society”, “Original Dixieland One-Step”, “Panama”, “Clarinet Marmalade” and others.

1915 Jazz to Armstrong - on the road from reg to swing

When Keppard's records appeared in 1923, musicians from New Orleans who had heard him play ten years earlier were amazed at how much of his professional skill had declined. Keppard drank heavily, but I suspect this is not the reason for the bad impression of the records. It was just that Keppard's playing began to look old-fashioned when compared to Armstrong and other young jazzmen using increasingly complex rhythmic patterns. New Orleans White Cornetist More late period Johnny Wigs (John Wigenton Hyman) recalled that compared to the "hot" performance of Oliver, whom he heard as a young dancer at Tulane University, Keppard's performing style and cornetist Nick La Rocca, lead singer of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, seemed simple and naive to him. This impression was formed because Keppard and La Rocca did not go beyond the rigid, formalized rhythm of ragtime. They were, as it were, halfway from reg to jazz with its free, springy rhythms, but, as the recordings show, closer to refined ragtime than to jazz. And only the musicians of the younger generation had overcome by that time or were beginning to overcome the schematism of the rhythmic constructions of the reg.

One can guess that the first jazzmen, whose play Armstrong heard in 1916 and later, did not yet know the real swing with its free "swinging" melody, such as it became ten years later. In those years, swing was based mainly on evenly pulsating quarter notes rather than eighth notes. In ragtime, in his, so to speak, pure form, a very important role was assigned to the drums, which alternately beat out either quarter or even pairs of eighth notes. This manner of performance did not even give the boom-chick effect so characteristic of jazz. Double basses accentuated only the first and third beats. Thus, musicians were just beginning to grope for ways to create truly jazz music.

1917 New Orleans Jazz Comes to New York

In early 1917, followed by an invitation to work at the famous New York restaurant and ballroom "Reisenuebers", located at the intersection of 58th Street and 8th Avenue.

In two or three weeks, the New Orleans musicians' ensemble conquered all of New York. The engagements followed one after the other. The popularity of the ensemble led to the appearance of the first jazz gramophone records. During this period, the ensemble played La Rocca, trombonist Eddie "Daddy" Edwards, clarinetist Larry Shields, pianist Henry Ragas and drummer Tony Sbarbaro. The circulation of their first disc, which we mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, exceeded a million copies - a figure unheard of at that time. This success is partly due to the fact that in the recording of "Livery Stable Blues" the musicians succeeded in accurately imitating the sounds of a barnyard. In the following years, the ensemble recorded about a dozen records and toured England. Over time, it acquired an increasingly commercial character and disintegrated in the mid-1920s. In 1936, they tried to revive the ensemble again, but since it was not successful with the public, nothing came of this venture.

In a word, the music of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band is somewhere in the middle between jazz and its predecessors and, apparently, is more typical for the "hot" music of the 10s than for the jazz of Oliver, Morton and Bechet of the 20s. ...

The artistic merit of this music is debatable, but its influence on contemporaries is undeniable. Jazz quickly gained popularity and became a profitable commercial commodity. In the five years since the release of Livery Stable Blues, thousands of young aspiring performers have been captured new music, created hundreds of ensembles - most of them weak, having nothing to do with jazz.

1928 Cornet and Trumpet

During this period, Armstrong switched from cornet to trumpet. Only a very attentive listener will notice the difference in sound between the two instruments, due to the slight difference in cabinet construction. If the cornet has one third of the body is straight, and the rest has a conical shape or, gradually expanding, passes into a bell, then the straight and tapered parts of the pipe are equal. For comparison, we note that the horn body, which has a somewhat muffled sound, at least theoretically should have the shape of an ideal cone. The cornet sounds softer, more velvety than the trumpet, but the trumpet is famous for its power of sound, bright and light timbre. In principle, the difference between the two instruments is not that great, and the choice of one or the other by the performer remains mainly a matter of taste. The technique of playing is the same for both, although they have slightly different mouthpieces, and therefore most musicians avoid changing one instrument for another during the evening.

By tradition, the cornet has always been part of marching bands, and New Orleans musicians have always used it extensively. Many of them were wary of the trumpet, believing that playing it requires a more virtuoso technique. Apparently, this is why Armstrong did not dare to switch from cornet to trumpet for so long. He himself named various reasons for this eventual transition, but, most likely, he parted with the cornet on the advice of the head of the ensemble, Erskine Tate. His brother James was the trumpet player of the same ensemble, and Erskine believed that the brass group would sound much more harmonious if Louis, like James, played the trumpet. Armstrong recalls this: “He [Erskine. - Translated.] believed that the cornet against the trumpets was not so “hot”. I listened, what's the difference ... Those sounded juicy, rich. Then I listened to the cornetists, - for sure, it didn’t come out as good as that of the trumpet ”1.

Non-improvisational collective music Oliver's orchestra

Later, an ensemble of New Orleans musicians under the direction of King Oliver made a number of recordings. As a result, we have excellent examples of early jazz music. What can be considered his most characteristic features? First of all, it is ensemble music. Interestingly, in some recordings there is no solo at all, apart from a few short breaks, and very rarely the length of a solo exceeds a quarter of the entire recording. For the most part all seven or eight musicians play together, and it’s amazing that not only do we not feel chaos, but, on the contrary, the orchestra's playing sounds extremely harmonious. This is the merit of the stubborn and determined Oliver. As Lil Hardin recalls, she was told from the beginning to play strong, powerful chords, and every time she tried to play right hand fluent passages, Oliver, leaning over to her, growled angrily: "We have a clarinet in the orchestra even without you!" Joe “King” Oliver was a real leader and knew what he wanted from the musicians. And he wanted each performer to correctly understand his task and strictly fulfill it.

Led by Oliver, the ensemble improvised quite rarely. Later, jazz did indeed become music based on improvisation, but this style of playing was uncharacteristic for the New Orleans pioneers of jazz. Having picked up an arrangement that satisfied them, they did not consider it necessary to change anything in the future. The mere fact that each instrument of the orchestra had to play a strictly defined role limited the possibility of any innovations. Oliver's cornet performed a simple one, strict topic often pauses that other instruments filled in. The clarinet matched harmony to the main melodic line. The trombone supported the musical whole with its glissando or very simple figures played in the lower register. The rhythm group provided a clear, unadorned groundbeat. Four pieces were recorded twice at the studios of two different companies and in all four cases turned out to be very similar to each other, including the solos, although they were done at intervals of two to three months. In a word, it was a disciplined orchestra, and it could not have changed: the musical fabric was so dense that deviation of any instrument from a given course could destroy the entire structure of the piece.

The well-coordinated playing of all the musicians was the main thing for Oliver. Solos were not often performed. Rhythm band musicians rarely performed solo, and their solos were usually short-lived. Several great freedom was provided for the clarinet, but Dodds did not lead the solo on every recording. Further specific feature jazz became the predominance of solos of individual instruments, and the loss of the ensemble as a whole seemed to interrupt the tempo between individual solo numbers. For Oliver, it was the other way around: the solo served as a savory seasoning for the entire orchestra.

New Orleans jazz is now called traditional jazz. This style of music originated in the eponymous city of New Orleans and is considered the earliest style of jazz.

The traditions of musical trends in this city have been carefully preserved and passed on from generation to generation. Thanks to this, the world recognized Joe Oliver (King), Louis Armstrong and other famous jazzmen. However, most historians agree that the founder of traditional jazz is still Buddy Bolden.

XIX for New Orlen is considered the ancestor of the first jazz orchestras, which found expression in the use of "spasm bands", consisting of several percussionists and African musical instruments such as marimba, squeaky pipe, bungee and setting the rhythm section. At that time, such music could be heard in many provincial towns, where local musicians even used cans and washing boards.

Early New Orleans Jazz

After the Civil War of 1865 ended, many military bands closed in New Orleans, selling their instruments for next to nothing. This was actively used by the local black population, who, having learned to play them, began to create their first jazz groups. The main repertoire of African American jazzmen was marches, folklore, dance music and plays. Gradually, provincial "country bands" appeared, playing while passing through the streets of the city, from which they got the name "marching bands". Over time, these characteristics of New Orleans jazz were adopted by contemporary bands and gradually moved into another direction of music.

Early New Orleans Jazz defines the historical time period from early XIX century and until the 20s of the twentieth century with the preservation of the sound definition and style of music of that period. And after the opening in New Orleans of the Storyville district, famous for its many entertainment venues, African American folklore was separated from the main concept of jazz. In Storyville, orchestras played mainly in dance and theater, and ordinary jazz lovers worked to attract clients.

However, it is not necessary to imagine twentieth century jazz as only New Orleans or Dixieland. In the first decades of the twentieth century, jazz, thanks to virtuoso soloists and dance orchestras, rapidly moved to the level of improvised music.

New Orleans Jazz

The terms New Orleans and traditional jazz generally define the style of musicians who played jazz in New Orleans between 1900 and 1917, as well as New Orleans musicians who played and recorded records in Chicago from about 1917 through the 1920s. This period of jazz history is also known as the "Age of Jazz". And this term is also used to describe the music performed in different historical periods by the New Orleans Renaissance, who aspired to perform jazz in the same style as the musicians of the New Orleans school.

The development of jazz in the USA in the first quarter of the 20th century

Louis "Sachmo" Armstrong

After the closure of Storyville, jazz from the regional folklore begins to turn into a nationwide Musical direction spreading to the northern and northeastern provinces of the United States. But its wide distribution, of course, could not be facilitated only by the closure of one entertainment quarter. Along with New Orleans, in the development of jazz great importance from the outset, St. Louis, Kansas City and Memphis played. Ragtime was born in Memphis in the 19th century, from where it spread throughout the North American continent in the period 1890-1903. On the other hand, minstrel performances, with their colorful mosaics of all kinds of musical trends in African American folklore from jig to ragtime, quickly spread everywhere and paved the way for the arrival of jazz. Many future jazz celebrities began their journey in the menstrell show. Long before the closure of Storyville, New Orleans musicians went on tour with the so-called "vaudeville" troupes. Jelly Roll Morton has toured regularly in Alabama, Florida, Texas since 1904. From 1914 he had a contract to perform in Chicago. In 1915, the White Dixieland Orchestra of Tom Brown also moved to Chicago. The famous Creole Band, led by New Orleans cornetist Freddie Keppard, also made major vaudeville tours in Chicago. Separated in due time from the "Olympia Band", the artists of Freddie Keppard already in 1914 successfully performed in the very the best theater Chicago and received an offer to make sound recordings of their performances even before the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, which, however, Freddie Keppard shortsightedly rejected.

Significantly expanded the territory covered by the influence of jazz, orchestras playing on pleasure steamers that sailed up the Mississippi. Since the end of the 19th century, river trips from New Orleans to St. Paul have become popular, first for a weekend, and then for a whole week. Since 1900, the New Orleans orchestras have begun performing on these riverboats, and their music has become the most attractive entertainment for passengers on river tours. The future wife of Louis Armstrong, the first jazz pianist Lil Hardin, began in one of these orchestras, "Suger Johnny".

The riverboat orchestra of fellow pianist Fates Marable has featured many future New Orleans jazz stars. Steamers sailing along the river often stopped at passing stations, where orchestras held concerts for the local audience. Such concerts became the creative debuts for Bix Beiderback, Jess Stacy and many others. Another famous route ran through Missouri to Kansas City. In this city, where, thanks to the strong roots of African American folklore, the blues developed and finally took shape, the virtuoso playing of the New Orleans jazzmen found an exceptionally fertile environment. By the early 1920s, the main center for the development of jazz music was Chicago, in which, through the efforts of many musicians who gathered from different parts of the United States, a style was created that received the nickname Chicago jazz.

The classic, established form of big bands has been known in jazz since the early 1920s. This form retained its relevance until the late 1940s. The musicians who entered the majority of big bands, as a rule, almost in adolescence, played quite specific parts, either learned by heart in rehearsals, or from sheet music. Meticulous orchestrations combined with large brass and woodwind sections produced rich jazz harmonies and a sensationally loud sound that became known as "the big band sound".

The Big Band became the popular music of its time, peaking in the mid-1930s. This music became the source of the swing dancing craze. The leaders of the famous jazz orchestras Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Artie Shaw, Chick Webb, Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Lunsford, Charlie Barnett composed or arranged and recorded on records an authentic hit parade of tunes that sounded not only on the radio but also everywhere in dance halls... Many big bands showcased their solo improvisers, who brought the audience to a state close to hysteria during the well-promoted "battles of the orchestras".

Although the popularity of big bands declined significantly after World War II, orchestras led by Basie, Ellington, Woody Herman, Stan Kenton, Harry James and many others toured and recorded frequently over the next several decades. Their music was gradually transformed under the influence of new trends. Groups such as ensembles led by Boyd Ryburn, Sun Ra, Oliver Nelson, Charles Mingus, Ted Jones-Mel Lewis explored new concepts in harmony, instrumentation and improvisational freedom. Today, big bands are the standard in jazz education. Repertoire orchestras such as the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, Jazz Orchestra Carnegie Hall, the Smithsonian Jazz Masterpieces Orchestra and the Chicago Jazz Ensemble regularly play original big band arrangements.

In 2008, George Simon's canon book "Big Orchestras of the Swing Era" was published in Russian, which is, in essence, almost complete encyclopedia all big bands of the golden age from the early 20s to the 60s of the XX century.

After the end of the mainstream fashion of large orchestras in the era of big bands, when the music of large orchestras on the stage began to crowd out small jazz ensembles, swing music continued to sound. Many famous swing soloists enjoyed playing spontaneously arranged jams in small clubs on 52nd Street in New York after playing gigs in ballrooms. Moreover, these were not only those who worked as "sidemen" in large orchestras, such as Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Roy Eldridge, Johnny Hodges, Buck Clayton and others. The leaders of the big bands themselves - Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Jack Teegarden, Harry James, Gene Krupa, being initially soloists, and not just conductors, also looked for opportunities to play separately from their large band, in a small composition. Not accepting the innovative techniques of upcoming bebop, these musicians adhered to the traditional swing style, while demonstrating inexhaustible imagination when performing improvisational parts. The main swing stars constantly performed and recorded in small bands called "combos", within which there was much more room for improvisation. The style of this direction of club jazz in the late 1930s received the name mainstream, or mainstream, with the rise of bebop. Some of the finest performers of this era could be heard in great shape on jams in the 1950s, when chord improvisation had already taken precedence over the melody-coloring method of the swing era. Re-emerging as a free style in the late 1970s and 1980s, the mainstream has absorbed elements of cool jazz, bebop and hardbop. The term "modern mainstream" or post-bebop is used today for almost any style that has no intimate connection with the historical styles of jazz music.

Although the history of jazz began in New Orleans in the early twentieth century, the music took off in the early 1920s when trumpeter Louis Armstrong left New Orleans to create revolutionary new music in Chicago. The migration of New Orleans jazz masters to New York, which began soon thereafter, marked the trend of a constant movement of jazz musicians from South to North. Chicago embraced the music of New Orleans and made it hot, raising the intensity of not only Armstrong's famed Hot Five and Hot Seven ensembles, but others as well, including the likes of Eddie Condon and Jimmy McPartland, whose team from Austin High School helped revive New Orleans. schools. Other famous Chicagoans who have pushed the horizons of New Orleans' classic jazz style include pianist Art Hodes, drummer Barrett Deems, and clarinetist Benny Goodman. Armstrong and Goodman, who eventually moved to New York, created a kind of critical mass there, which helped this city to become a real jazz capital of the world. And while Chicago remained the main center of sound recording in the first quarter of the 20th century, New York also became the main concert venue jazz, with legendary clubs such as Minton Playhouse, Cotton Club, Savoy and Village Vanguard, as well as arenas such as Carnegie Hall.