This article ends our "Month Of Blue Note," series, which began with Art Blakey and ended with Horace Parlan. It leaves us somewhere in the middle of jazz history - between the beginnings of jazz and the big-band era to follow, and the onset of fusion, followed by classic revivalism, up to the present era. Hopefully this leaves the jazz initiate in a position to more readily turn either way, exploring before and beyond, using the Blue Note threads as connectors to the jazz tapestry. Not to mention the sideways glance - Prestige, Riverside, Columbia, Savoy and others were issuing hundreds of amazing sessions by the lions of the classic era.
Wonderful World
Tracing the roots of jazz through recordings, one can begin with Louis Armstrong. His sessions with the “Hot Fives” and “Hot Sevens” in the 1920’s are a shining example of how the voice of the newest native art form spoke to all of music. The 30’s ushered in the big-band era, led by Duke Ellington and Count Basie, the former being America’s pre-eminent composer, shaping a new language for the decades to come, the latter emphasizing the dance aspect of big-band music, melding symphonic settings with swing. Between world wars, Billy Eckstein, Chick Webb, Benny Goodman and Lionel Hampton led orchestras populated with the players that would go on to develop the bop nomenclature that arose after the second World War, with the attendant downsizing of orchestras into modular jazz ensembles.
Charlie Parker spear-headed the advent of be-bop, presaging the jazz era we’ve been dwelling on this past November, setting the quartet/quintet format commonly utilized in the hard-bop of the 50’s, surviving into the present era. Miles Davis and Gerry Mulligan were the messengers carrying the new sound to east and west coasts respectively, where the hard-bop revolution burned inland from both sides, setting America and the rest of the world aflame with a pure, crystallized jazz that would endure through age after age.
Un-Unplugged
The Miles Davis albums closing out the 60’s, particularly “In A Silent Way” and “Bitch’s Brew,” were the records bridging the hard-bop era just passed and the open ended fusion of jazz with rock, soul and funk to come in the 70’s, played with amplified, electric instruments. The personnel on these sessions alone provided most of the key players who would break jazz down and re-make it into the language of the times; Wayne Shorter and Joe Zawinul would form Weather Report, Tony Williams started the first of his Lifetime bands, John McLaughlin adopted his alter ego, Mahavishnu, in yet another direction, Chick Corea began his Return To Forever band and Herbie Hancock took electric funk to another level with the Headhunters.
Play It, If You’re Gonna Say It
In the 80’s Art Blakey alumni, trumpet prodigy Wynton Marsalis issued his war-like, clarion call to revisit the humble roots of jazz (eschewing fusion and electricity), causing dissonance and leading to controversy over what constituted jazz. By itself, his challenge would appear problematic, even unnecessary; put in the context of the malaise jazz had suffered the previous decade, his purist message, while disturbing and at times disrespectful, had a real and lasting impact on the art and craft of jazz. In the typical tradition of gaining authority on the bandstand, it is Marsalis’s never less than amazing playing and arrangements that lends weight to his dubious argument.
In his undeniable role as a former (and always) Jazz Messenger, Wynton Marsalis ushered in a new wave of talent in his tireless effort at reviving jazz. Artists such as Wallace Roney, Roy Hargrove, Nicholas Payton, Marcus Roberts, Joshua Redman and more recently Dave Douglas, Patricia Barber and Esperanza Spaulding have taken the reins, leading jazz into the new millennium with fresh, original music. Still, the message of the elders can yet be heard through the current generation; the cry of Louis Armstrong still rings, while Charlie Parker gives a sly wink to the youngsters on the bandstand.
The hard-bop era marks the boundaries from before and after, still looming over the music of today. The Blue Note recordings of the period reflect the duality of America’s original art form, the complexity of modal music, impeccably arranged and played with the utmost virtuosity, preserved in the simplicity of live two-track studio recordings. Without stepping into the quagmire revolving around the debates regarding the “purity” of jazz, it can be said that the jarringly sincere, timeless approach of recording a small acoustic group on a mere two tracks, without overdubs or amplification, in the tradition of the Rudy Van Gelder classics released on Blue Note, is alive, and still breathing oxygen into the bloodstream of original American music.
Scott Cramer - Scott lives in Chicago and is an insufferable know-it-all on certain topics. He writes fiction (primarily short stories) much of which ...
