>>at what point did jazz become something seperate than pop.
>
>Okay let's call the hub of pre-WWII pop music the Tin Pan
>Alley sound, Gershwin, Porter, et al. Tin pan Alley is turn
>of the century. I always mark jazz as Sidney Bechet which is
>like 1910ish. Now Tin Pan Alley was hot but classical still
>going. Black music was the blue, gut bucket, unsophisticated
>nigger shit. Then Bechet went to europe and crushed buildings.
>Literally. It's important to note it was the overseas exposure
>that pushed it over the line. Which is to say the music was
>happening before but it was that pivotal moment. And what
>Bechet brought to the table was improvising. That's what
>Europe took note of. The jizz. And make no mistake it was
>the taboo of the negro and their primal energy that made shit
>blow. And make no mistake it was exciting pheremones.

I don't know... I sort of take exception to the use of the term "jizz"... I know it's a fairly common etymology to get behind these days, but in the early days the music was known as "Jass."

And the funny thing is that the earliest appearances of the word "jazz" were usually used in a sports context as opposed to a musical one. But even as the music became widely known as "Jazz," some of the leading musicians in the field actually rejected the term. Bechet himself maintained until his death that his music was actually ragtime. Here's a quote from his autobio, published in 1950:

"Jazz, that's a name the white people have given to the music. When I tell you ragtime, you can feel it, there's a spirit right in the word. It comes out of the Negro spirituals, out of Omar's way of singing, out of his rhythm. But Jazz--Jazz could mean any 'damn thing" high times, screwing, ballroom. It used to be spelled -Jass-, which -was- screwing. But when you say ragtime, you're saying the music."

>It was the fluidity of improvisation which was then adopted
>into classical composition, and Tin Pan Alley songwriting. But
>being negros the inverse also happened, specificially with tin
>pan alley, as the jizz bands started playing all of Tin Pan
>tunes, but with the jizz arrangements, and that free improv
>spirit.

I'm not 100% sure of what you mean here, but something tells me I'm not going to agree with it lol


>Duke on the other hand was like not only can we kill the Tin
>Pan stuff we can fuck with these classical composition shit
>too.. Big band era, there was money, and folks was doing it
>lavish. And people was loving it, from the dance halls doing
>the lindy hop, to the sophisticated music halls with gloved
>handclaps and intermissions.

I don't think Duke was trying to "kill" anything... Duke was a big fan of Paul Whiteman and viewed him as an influence. And most jazz musicians had to be fluent in classical in the early days.

>But concurrently there were always the after hours spots where
>the players just went to play. And in essence that's what
>kept jazz alive. So when the money fell out and there weren't
>any more big bands touring, it was these after hours jook
>joint bands that started keeping the essence of jazz alive
>which was not playing to what was considered pop per se but
>just playing.

Did the after-hours jamming keep jazz alive, or did it serve to begin the slide towards jazz's death (in the popular consciousness, anyway)?

People were still dancing to the big bands... they didn't seem tired of that at all.

And then when Louis Jordan began to introduce a smaller, though heavier form of the big band sound, folks loved dancing to that also.

But the bebop guys were less interested in playing for the dance floor... and that was one of the things that led to jazz losing its relevance in the "pop" sphere.

>>i had always viewed jazz and rock and roll as two seperate
>>branches of music, and each one split off into different
>>branches.
>
>They are.

Separate branches, but the same tree. If we're going to think of rock & roll as being a development of rhythm & blues... and R&B was originally small-combo swing with a more driving rhythm (and of course more emphasis on blues and boogie boogie)

>>but duke ellington doesn't sound much like
>>weather report, and miles and cannonball aderly.
>
>Uhhhhhhh yeah they do. I know what you're trying to mean, but
>really they do. Whole other post though.

He's right... they don't. But yes, whole other post!

>>what's more, what i think of as jazz laid some of the
>>foundations for funk.
>>(again, the music snobs pointed out that "so what" and "cold
>>sweat" were similar
>>grooves... which blew my mind for some reason).
>
>LOL!!! I'll leave that alone.

Pee Wee Ellis has testified that the riff of "Cold Sweat" was inspired by "So What," and when you listen to it, you can actually hear it.

(I tried to find a video of him describing it but I can't locate it...)

"Cold Sweat" is a fragmented (or what I would call "Cuban-influenced") reduction of "So What"... James Brown's style as a whole was definitely influenced by Afro-Cuban music, but every time I've said that in the Lesson, I've been shouted down on some "you hate Black Americans so much, you don't want us to have ANYTHING!" shit.

I mean, "So What" itself is rooted in Cuban rhythm, with its tense pauses. I've mentioned before that the song was clearly inspired by a rhumba composition by Ahmad Jamal:

http://youtu.be/ZmvwCTMO1Lg

http://youtu.be/q9eUqMbxWBs

Pee Wee basically played it in a more fragmented fashion, utilizing the "honking sax" style that had come to characterize R&B.

Did I mention that the "honking sax" itself has its roots in Cuban-influenced music? You know that Dizzy Gillespie's early bebop experiments were fueled by his relationship with Cuban musicians like Mario Bauza and Chano Pozo and his idea to play jazz with the repetitive rhythmic tumbao of Cuba, which each instrument functioning as a drum:

http://youtu.be/IMipw5NWSZk
http://youtu.be/s2Tt6W-TxXs

and there is where you start to find the roots of what we today call "Funk."

I've pointed out before that a lot of James Brown's approach to rhythm was informed by Cuban rhythm. I know I've illustrated before how James Brown's earliest moves towards "Funk" were directly derived from New Orleans-style "mambo-blues" as popularized by, say, Professor Longhair:

http://youtu.be/0UWBO4r11AY

or Eddie Bo:

http://youtu.be/q-LdVVfIdgc

and then from there, we can check out how that sound influenced Duke Jenkins:

http://youtu.be/108NtlpJkY8
http://youtu.be/bGxVpY2PLtg

and Ray Charles

http://youtu.be/xPP8w0wMRgQ

and then James Brown takes a stab at the sound:

http://youtu.be/B1wOK9yGUYM

and the rest... is history.

But as Maceo has said, he and many of the other members were frustrated jazz heads, so they tried to bring bebop's complexity to the music. Which is why the signature sound of Funk involves extended chords like 9ths and 7ths and 11ths. But the funk musician plays in a more fragmented, reductive voicing... driving rhythm over complex harmony.

For example: http://youtu.be/gF1d227_4ac (long video, but very interesting if you watch it all)

Or: http://www.redbullmusicacademy.com/lectures/leroy-burgess--boogie-on-burgess (start at 52:07)

So funk was (among other things) really a kind of broken down, more danceable form of jazz.

(Damn, did I ramble past the point?)

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