Unit: Jazz Styles

This is a preview of the educational program A Jazz Improvisation Almanac which is under development for the Outside Shore Music Online School. Feel free to browse this preview and learn what you can from it. For a more completed product, though, check out the original freely browsable jazz textbook, A Jazz Improvisation Primer.

The best way to learn about jazz, whether as a listener or a performer, is to listen to it. No amount of theorizing can ever take the place of listening. Fortunately, the CD-ROM format allows this program to illustrate many of its points with musical examples. Still, I hope that you will want to check out more of this music on your own.

Usually, the obvious question that faces someone starting out in jazz is "what should I listen to?". This program can help you to answer that question for yourself. The word "jazz" is a broad term that is used to describe a wide variety of music. It makes sense to define a few more specific terms to differentiate some of the various types of jazz. The following chapters provide an overview of the styles of jazz, allowing you to discover for yourself what interests you.

Entire books, as well as at least one other multimedia CD-ROM, have been written on the history of jazz. The discussion in this program is not meant to provide comprehensive coverage of the subject. Instead, the goal is to describe some of the various different styles of jazz in musical terms, so that you can recognize and better appreciate the various styles when you hear them. Also, for musicians, an understanding of the differences between styles will help if you should wish to adopt elements of particular styles in your own playing.

The terms used in this unit are, for the most part, reasonably widely recognized, agreed upon, and used. The boundaries between the categories are not always clear, however. There is no guarantee that a particular piece of music will fall neatly into one of the named styles. Sometimes, a piece of music may have attributes of more than one style, or it may resist categorization entirely. Also, in a few cases, there is disagreement as to what the definition of a given style really is, or whether it makes sense to identify it as a distinct style, or whether the style should really be considered "jazz" or not.

It is not important to be able to completely categorize music in this manner, however. These labels are merely an occasionally convenient way of describing a piece of music by comparison to other music. The terms provide a common reference point for discussion. Also, if you discover that you like one or more particular styles of jazz more than others, then this will make it easier for you to make informed choices when deciding which recording to buy or which concerts to attend.

On the other hand, do not allow these labels to become value judgements in themselves. It can be tempting to conclude after limited listening that you do not like a particular style of jazz, and you might then write it off. This would be doing a disservice both to the musicians and to yourself, however. It may be the case that are other examples of the style that you would like a lot. Certainly you will discover that even within styles that you like, you do not like all examples equally well. Also, your tastes may change over time. You may find that a style you initially did not care for at all, later becomes your favorite.

Finally, even if you are completely sure you do not like a given style, keep in mind that this does not make it invalid. Music is a form of communication between a musician and his audience, and if a piece of music fails to reach you, that does not mean it is incapable of reaching anybody. And if it reaches anybody at all, it has validity. Similarly, if someone else likes music that is different from what you like, that does not mean there is anything wrong with his taste, no more than it means there is anything wrong with yours.

As long as we keep in mind the purpose behind these labels, they can be useful. But in order for them to be of such use, they must be well understood. It does no good for someone to describe a particular album as hard bop, for example, if he has a different conception of what the term means than others do. The following chapters describe the musical attributes of various styles of jazz and provide examples of each. The descriptions rely in large part on the discussions of the . link 3 elements of jazz in the previous chapters, so it would be wise to read those chapters first, if you have not already done so.

The recorded examples used in this unit come are drawn from the entire history of recorded jazz, and were selected to provide a representative sampling of the different styles of jazz. Where possible, I selected the most "important" musicians of each style. The recordings included here are sometimes compromised in length or in recording quality in order to fit within the size restrictions of the CD-ROM format. A discography is provided to suggest recordings you may wish to check out your own.

The historical information in the following chapters owes much to the research and writing of Frank Tirro and of Joachim Berendt, and you are advised to check out either of their books for more information on the history of jazz.

Copyright 2000 Outside Shore Music
Authored by Marc Sabatella

Unit: Jazz Styles