When attempting to enter and appreciate the jazz genre there is no doubt a vocal narrative provides the smallest barrier into the musical art form. In fact, listening to the narrative and tone of the voice draws the listener close. (See the last post) However, to further consume the jazz genre, the listener must also pay attention to the melody. Melody is the satisfying tonal succession of musical sounds that incorporate tempo (is it fast or slow?), rhythm (it’s what makes you move), and is pleasing to the ear. In short, a melody is the portion of a tune that is easily sung, hummed, or whistled.
Chet Baker and the melancholy melody
Focusing on both the voice and melody will lead the listener deeper into the realm of jazz. Take a listen to Chet Baker’s recording of “My Funny Valentine.” Baker’s unique melancholy voice softly carries the listener through the paces of one of the most easily memorable and haunting melodies of all time.
Just listen. How do the narrative, voice, and melody make you feel?
Go Further: Check out Ella Fitzgerald’s catchy vocal melody on “A Tisket A Tasket” Try to sing, hum, or whistle her toon.
Jazz! A musical art form, which emerged in the U.S. by way of the long-suffering toil of black bodies desperately in search of freedom, peace, and a place to belong. Jazz developed as the musical expression of the black condition. Historically, for unyielding bodies that were in search of their own space to exist, jazz music provided that headway to cultivate a solid identity and establish a strong urban culture. As such, jazz became a fully capable medium able to express a range of emotions from sadness, solitude, anger to pensive, festive, and free. In this way, jazz was uncompromisingly bold. It was responsive to its time. It was present.
The mere mention of the term jazz beyond its musical history holds a myriad of meanings. For some, the word jazz evokes feelings of happiness, joy, freedom, connectedness, excitement, peace, and love. While for others (this may be you), the word conjures feelings of dread, confusion, anxiety, purposeless, and boredom. Indeed, the jazz genre, in all its renderings, can be quite complex in its audible space, not to mention the countless presentations and consumption by its many fans.
To be sure, over time, jazz has certainly attracted a crowd of eager and sophisticated listeners who are keen to genre parameters, are musically inclined, well acquainted with personnel, familiar with essential solos, and are intimately familiar with the social and cultural meanings of any particular recording. Consequently, the uncompelled and less than sophisticated listener may find the jazz genre non-approachable or better yet elusive. For the unsophisticated listener (one who is not yet familiar with jazz and thus has a weak attraction to it) there are several methods one can utilize when approaching (listening to) the genre. For one, the listener must allow themselves to become emotionally available to listen; steady themselves to absorb the unfamiliar and not resist the sound of a riff (anything sounding ‘jazzy’). And two, the genre must be gently delivered so a sophisticated ear is not employed. Easily digestible tunes. One has to just sit, listen and feel! So, if jazz has been difficult to grasp, but you want to give it one more try, take a few minutes to listen for your entry point into the genre.
One of the easiest ways to enter jazz is to allow a vocal narrative to lull the listener into the subtleties of the genre. So, the first listen will be through the voice of jazz icon Ella Fitzgerald. Relax, breathe, and take a close listen to Ella as she sings “How Long Has This Been Going On?” Listen as her fully formed satin voice pulls the listener close. Ella is here to tell a story; a story of the sudden realization of the spine-tingling sensation of a kiss and her dramatic shock of never realizing the specialness of it before. How is this possible? Let Ella tell it! While listening, only assess the feeling/s the song arouses. How does it make you feel? If you have an answer to this question then you are at the doorway of becoming a sophisticated listener of jazz.
Go further: Take a listen to the incomparable Nancy Wilson’s narrative and her exemplary jazz voice in “Guess Who I Saw Today?” Oh, damn!
This is a great photo of Ella Fitzgerald experiencing a playfully embrace by the often-jovial Dizzy Gillespie while back stage in New York in 1950. The famous Jazz photographer Herman Leonard took the photo. Although at times Leonard talked his subjects into the perfect pose, this photo, however, captures that intimate moment when two legends of Jazz goof off as a way of quelling nervous tension before a performance.
The importance of a photo cannot be overstated. It is a wonderful medium in which we fully appreciate and place a critical amount of social, cultural, political, and economic value. It is through photos that we have the opportunity to peer into the past to see that an event did in fact happen. A photo helps us to keep memories alive and well; they help us to remember the moment. They also communicate a wonderful sentiment from the past to the present. If you are like me you can get lost in a photo wondering what it sounds like or smells like or what is just beyond the edges of the image.
In the case of photographer Herman Leonard he has had a lifetime of capturing the essence of the moment especially in the world of Jazz. Some of his photos are so iconic they conjure up the very definition of Jazz and the Jazz artist. Without his photos we would have no ideal how Sonny Stitt bends his body as he digs for that note or how tightly Sarah Vaughan closes her eyes before her improvisation or even how artists look as they goof off back stage before a performance.
Here’s to Jazz, the Jazz artist, and the photographer documenting Black music!
Jazz is by far the most influential music ever created. I know this is a bold statement, but it is true. Jazz music has a critical global influence. I would wager there is no place in the world anyone can travel and not hear some form of Jazz. There are no pages left in Jazz’s passport. The genre has never had any problems making its way through customs. Jazz music, once known as jungle music, and music of the savage, capable of corrupting minds of the most pure soul, and inherently evil, ascended out of the brothels of Storyville, danced its way through the mean streets of St. Louis and Chicago, learned to swing in Harlem, and took flight across The Pond with all the sensibilities of the Black American struggle, was ultimately embraced by the world.
Jay McNeely corrupting the minds of the pure
Jazz, also known as American Classical Music, carries with it the entire narrative of the Black presence on American soil. It is truth, it is emotion, it is literate, it is pompous, it is fresh, it is uncontainable, and it is love all at the same time. Jazz is universally appealing and has the ability to change lives.
As the Jazz genre emerged out of the turn of the century, it shifted and transformed its style, rhythm, and movement to accommodate the changing cultural and social tides in America. Today, moreover, through it all it has been sincere in its production and its message to the masses.
Just SOul You Know 