Jazz
Jazz is a genre of music that originated from African Americans in New Orleans, America in the late 19th and 20th century. It was developed from roots and blues as well as incorperating some of the most famous jazz singers like Louis Armstrong.
An example of an old Jazz piece is the song played by Oscar Peterson- C Jam Blues quite it has the jazz structure as well as the style. It was Live in Denmark 1964.
Structure
Jazz follow the structure of what is called a “head/solo/head” compositional structure. This means a Jazz tune is essentially a “chorus”. It has chord changes and melody however Jazz just repeats a section over and over again until the end but with slight changes to the melody every now and then. The Drummer keeps to a swing ride cymbal pattern, the bass player walks, the piano player plays the chord progression and the Melody is played by a trumpet or saxophone.
Rhythm
In swing rhythm, the pulse is divided unequally, such that certain subdivisions (typically either eighth note or sixteenth note subdivisions) alternate between long and short durations. For example this is a slow rhythmic beat looped with a fill that a melody would be played over.
Harmony
In jazz, chords tend to be quite complex. They use major and minor chords and you will often have chord extensions. Major seventh, dominant sevenths, #9, #11 and flat intervals are used. Also, jazz music tends to favour certain harmonic progressions and includes the addition of tensions, intervals such as 9ths, 11ths, and 13ths to chords. A famous progression is the ii-V-I progression. For example this is a cycle of fifths piece Autumn Leaves.
Music Technology has influenced Jazz and now many song are made as a low fi remix meaning it takes the basis of the song but adds a jazz style with a hip hop or sometimes adding a vapour wave beats mix by using synthesisers and light chords to add a upbeat and modern sounding music.Many Jazz songs like this have a Melody but also use a very light hearted tone in the vocals from most Jazz singers such as Nat King Cole.
Here is a example of how music technology has added to jazz
Music technology is used with jazz, when recording. Condenser and dynamic microphones are set up for jazz as well as even electronics which were added to instruments like Miles Davis adding electronics to his horn whilst adding a lot of fusion in the 70’s. Music technology and recording of jazz truly changed jazz by mixing it down or changing it to certain chill melodies like lo-fi.
Before making my music i played around with lots of sounds. I tried lots of chords. I went for teh blues structure in the end because it was the easiest to improvise over.
My Jazz piece consists of
a Melody played by Brass
The piano plays a chord progression
The Bass walks
The Drums keeping to a swing ride cymbal pattern.
My Jazz Piece has a jazz structure as it has a head/solo/head structure it is essentially a chorus just like jazz. Therefore my piece is Jazz as it contains the structure and style of Jazz.
Music Technology has influenced Jazz and now many song are made as a low fi remix meaning it takes the basis of the song but adds a jazz style with a hip hop or sometime adding a vapour wave beats mix by using synthesisers and light chords to add a upbeat and modern sounding music.
Here is My Finished Jazz Project and MP3:Franco Jazz Project.LogicX
My review
My piece has met the brief asa it has lots of instruments. It is also 3:24 in length. it has met the brief.
I used piano, horns bass and drums. These instruments are used in jazz music. I have tried to follow the structure in the piece. I tried to add jazz harmony to my piece. This was quite difficult. Overall, i think my piece sounds jazzy and the drums really help with this. I am good at using logic so this helped.
Improvements
I could have added improvisations on the piano or horns for example. In jazz music, there are lots of solos where musicians improvise over the chords. I also could have added a tune so that the structure would have been clearer. I should really have chosen more authentic instruments – french horns arent really found much in jazz. If i had more time i would have tried to turn it into more of a tech composition – adding effects to make it sound more lofi for example.
My sources for information were Wikipedia, Youtube and A Passion For Jazz Website.
Here are the links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazz
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=jazz https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMgKXbtQwoo
https://www.theguardian.com/music/jazz