What is jazz?
Jazz has always meant freedom.
Musical genre that is opposed to any concrete form.
Their main quest is surprise, both in their sounds and in their structures.
It is a language in itself that does not commit itself to any language: it accepts them all and denies them all.
Jazz is essentially melodic music, but this generic elasticity allows it to work with melodies articulated in any language (tonality, dodecaphony, old modes...).
His free vocation is reflected in his commitment to improvisation:
Jazz works tend to remain open to be re-signified by the imagination. re-signified by the imagination (and technical (and technical capacity) of the performer, in such a way that the boundaries between creator and performer are often destroyed.
What is the origin of jazz?
One of its origins is ragtime, a mainly piano-based genre with a vibrant rhythm that emerged in New Orleans at the end of the 19th century.
By 1910 Ben Harney introduced it to New York and gradually New York rag musicians (such as Zez Confrey) began to expand their orchestras with brass instruments and write singable melodic lines for saxophones, clarinets, trumpets and trombones whose timbres close to the human voice produced much more intense and expressive music that began to be called jazz.
How did jazz develop?
After World War I, two major schools were established that have given rise to the many ways of making jazz that exist today.
- The jazz orchestras
They performed mainly in New York. They stood out for their sophisticated and elegant sound which incorporated influences from the blues (a slow lament song that tells stories of loss or absence in love). The bands of Paul Whiteman, Art Hickman, Fletcher Henderson and Duke Ellington stood out. - The Chicago style
Around 1926 in Chicago, under the leadership of Leon Beidrbecke, jazz bands began to emerge, made up of far fewer musicians whose sound avoided sophistication and immersed itself in the free relations between instruments based on a given pattern. This style was radicalized by clarinetist Benny Goodman and gave rise to a denomination of freer jazz, open to improvisation, which began to be known as swing.
What is jazz improvisation?
The essence of jazz is surprise.
Therefore, its magic lies in the interpretation.
Experiencing live jazz is an amazing amazing experience.
And this amazement stems from the fact that at times jazz abandons the established paths and the scores offer blank spaces that must be filled in by the musicians in real time, on stage.
Suddenly any established scheme is broken and the trumpeter begins to improvise a melodic sequence that is freely joined by the piano.
And this unexpected dialogue between trumpet and piano is also visited by the double bass and saxophone.
None of these four instruments knows quite where to take the music.
These paths emerge spontaneously through complicity and energy. In such a way that the audience becomes a spectator of an unknown musical construction, of which it is completely unaware.
In jazz there is always the danger of chaos while searching for new ways of beauty.
Therein lies its fascination.
Therein lies its magic.
The spirit of jazz in a sentence
This one was spoken by Miles Davis on the recordings of the album Milestone (1958) perfectly describes the dynamic of the unthinkable that determines the nature of jazz:
"Here are some chords, but don't always play them as they are, understand? Start a few times in the middle and don't forget that you can play them in thirds. That means you have 18 or 19 different things to play in two bars (...) play as far as you know and then beyond. Because, if you do it that way, anything can happen and that's where great art and great music are born."
What is Miles Davis' contribution to jazz?
The jazz that Miles Davis received is known as "bebop", whose characteristic was to be music full of notes, of fast voices singing in high registers over very fast chord changes. It starred Louis Armstrong, musicians like Lester Young, Coleman Hawkin and Charlie Parker.
Miles Davis introduces -in works like Swing Spring or The Man I Love- a new sense of space to this scheme. He reduces the number of notes, looks for sounds in the middle and low registers. And he turns the score into a map: there are no impositions, only strokes, directions and images. Each performer decides how to get to these possible places.
He enlists creative allies, forms a sextet and assigns a mission to each instrument. John Coltrane (tenor saxophone; harmonic sound, rich in chords). Red Garland (piano; smooth sophistication with a faint - but permanent - fire). Paul Chambers (double bass; tie all the tension between his strings). Philly Jones (drums; pushing everyone with gunfire). Cannonball Adderley (alto sax; sing with a voice rooted in the blues). And the sound of his trumpet - melodic, low, mysterious and a bit gritty - floating above that weave and then penetrating it.
It is a thick and addictive musical flow ("like when a woman adorns herself with too much makeup"). Suddenly, though, he breathes in between the music, the space. And it is then, in the presence of emptiness, that Miles Davis forces his performers to surpass themselves. He proposes to them a duel of imaginations that, to take it to the limit, resorts to the old ways.
In modal music there are no chord changes; it is possible to go on and on without the need to repeat oneself. One's own capacity for melodic invention is the only limiting factor. If you run out of ideas in modal music, the result is a disaster. Its challenge is not to stop; to flow and flow until you can't go on any longer.
What Mexican jazz can I listen to?
Mexican composer Chucho Zarzosa (1919-2008) founded the jazz group Chucho Zarzosa y su conjunto, with which he performed in several nightclubs in Mexico City during the second half of the 20th century alongside musicians such as Dave Brubeck, Joe Morello, Gene Wright, Cannonball Adderley and Dave Grusin.
In 2013 Sony released Jazz, an album that gathers part of his jazz work.
