The title song “Jump For JOY’ uses coded language as a way to inspire social thought. The theme of the song was an explicit statement of social Justice that “pulled no punches”. In the words of Jazz Historian Graham Lock, What Jump for Joy made particularly clear was the contempt that blacks felt for various white representations of blackness, not least the figure of uncle Tom and the notion that blacks belonged – and were happy – In the South (Lock 1999:95) The song opens with a Joyous celebration of the end of the Jim Crow laws, (Fare thee well land of cotton {Farewell south! Cotton isle is out of style (The land of ton, basically slavery, is no longer needed. }. The song then goes onto to say Honey Chile Jump for Joy. Elongating had said that one of the inspirations for creating this show was the lack of authenticity in other artistic depictions of African Americans. Therefore ‘Honey Chile Jump for Joy is showing the most authentic way a “colored” person would speak. The next section says to not be worried about leaving the south (Don’t you grieve little Eve) because all of the plantation owners have been killed (All the hounds I do believe have been killed).
Anti ‘chaw thrilled? Jump for Joy {Aren’t you happy? Jump for Joy!! The song then switch’s gears and begins to take a jab at Hollywood for depiction of African Americans as a childlike naive “Lad” worshipping people in the 1936 classic The Green Pastures. Then points out that it’s just a stupid facade and Just a movie and couldn’t be farther from the truth. (Have you seen pastures groovy? Green pastures was Just a Technology movie. The next line says when you go to heaven and meet saint Peter tell him to “Jump for Joy’, or that all those who died for the cause of slavery didn’t die in vain (When you stomp up to heaven and you meet old Saint Pete Tell that boy “Jump for Joy”) The song ends tit a Joyous note telling the freed slaves to (Step right in give Pete some skin and jump for Joy) to step into heaven and give Saint Peter some skin, which is a pretty basic social exchange among musicians especially colored musicians today, and to lump for Joy as they have reached freedom or “heaven”.
Jump for Joy was “hip. ” People gave skin. They were, upon occasion, dressed in “coot” suits. As a matter of fact, the first extensive treatment of the “coot suit with a drape shape and a ret pleat” was in this revue. [Graham Locks Plutonian: Visions of the Future and Revisions of the Past in the Work of Sun Ra. [Barry Llano’s Duke Elongating( 1946, Pas. 242-243/ Creative press Inc. New York )] Billie Holiday- “Played her voice as if it was a horn” horizontal style of singing because she could hit in one register(Lester young) Ella Fitzgerald- Wide ranged singer, she could hit all the notes on the scale while doing it smoothly and skillfully (Hawkins style of singing) Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald are the names you think of when you hear swing era Jazz singing, but also in all of Jazz history. Both singers have a very distinct approach to vocal Jazz and rightly so contributed to it in a very unique way. Billie
Holiday was seen as one of the greatest revelations to hit the vocal Jazz world in the sass’s. She had a pretty limited vocal range of Just over an octave, but her prowess was seen in the way that she could have subtle changes in phrasing, emotional immediacy, and fantastic timing. She radically described vocal Jazz as “l don’t feel like I’m singing, I feel like I’m playing the horn. ” Ella on the other hand came to fame due to her sheer technical skill. She had a wider range than most opera singers but what made her stand out from everyone was the fact that she could reach such a high note without it even sounding taxing.
In Billie Holidays rendition of “My Last Affair” and “l Can’t Get Started” she illustrates her horizontal approach to singing. She stays within the same register and like Lester Young she exaggerates the differences between each note by having an extreme level of articulation. Ella on the other hand had a very different style of singing as evidenced by her rendition of “My Last Affair” and “l Can’t Get Started”. Ella shows off the mastery of her voice with her vertical approach to singing. She smoothly flows from note to note even though she is hitting such a wide range.
Both singers were “daughters” of Louis Armstrong approach to jazz singing. Armstrong came up with the idea that the vocal Jazz singer could have their own personal interpretation of the song, such as in The Blues, and they could scat sing. Both Holiday and Fitzgerald embraced Louis Armstrong approach but they each took a specific component of Armstrong’s innovation and elevated it to new heights. In Holiday s “Gloomy Sunday’ she highlights her ability to add her own personal interpretation to what she was singing. In this case you feel the longing in her voice for something better than living.
It’s as if with every word she speaks you feel her internal struggle and her yearning for death. Fitzgerald was a bit less macabre in this instance. Ella Fitzgerald “How High the Moon” calls attention to her capacity for scat singing. Fitzgerald has taken Armstrong alteration to singing to a new level in this song, she is able to transform her voice into an “actual” instrument. 3. ) Louis Armstrong Hot 5 ; 7 recordings (1925- 1928) changed Jazz forever in a severely profound way. These records made Armstrong famous.
They were the first to consistently feature him in solo and ensemble lead and showcase his singing. These records led to five major innovations that altered the structure of Jazz for the next went years. First off Armstrong raised the bar for technical mastery of all Jazz instruments. This is highlighted in the song “West End Blues” for his astonishing opening trumpet cadenza. With Armstrong use of the trumpet he was able to not forms of musical expression, but he also proved that the level of mastery for the trumpet could transcend anything that came before it.
Another one of Armstrong innovations with the Hot 5 ; 7 recordings was that he laid out the basic foundation for swing. Swing as we have come to know it today is a Joyful and flexible interpretation of rhythmic ideas over a steady pulse. This is exhibited in the song “Potato Head Blues”. Potato Head Blues has an open-ended trumpet and wind section while the banjo and tuba provide a steady background to the “swinging” melodies and solos. Armstrong was also the first Jazz musician at the time to phase out the use of the traditional Dixieland ‘Gumbo Way-Way’ especially in the song “Weather Bird”.
Weather Bird was the refining of an idea from West End Blues, which showed the need to reconsider how improvisation was used in Jazz. In the song there is an almost symbiotic relationship between the Piano and the Trumpet; Even though they seem o be spontaneous creating the song together, there does seem to be some prior communication as to where the song would go. Perhaps the two largest contributions that came from these recordings was the use of pop songs as part of a musician’s hot jazz repertoire and the invention of Jazz scat singing.
Armstrong recorded the incredible vocal and instrumental rendition of the popular show tune “l Can’t Give You Anything But Love”. This was a breakthrough only because it was uncommon for black musicians to record show tunes. Finally, the song with the greatest impact was Hobbies Jibes” in which Louis Armstrong recorded his scat singing for the very first time. What exactly was so influential about scat singing? Well it was the fact that Louis could sing like he played, he had many trumpet like aspects to his voice.
In the words of British Jazz critic Eric Thacker, his use of “dentals, labials, and gutturals as he would use tonguing in a cornet solo, and enlivening the vowel colors with abrasive fluttering of the throat. ” Decades later, scat singing was still influencing the Jazz world. 4. ) No other economic panic has had such a lasting effect the American culture other than The Great Depression. The Great Depression not only had a powerful effect on all aspects of life, but it greatly influenced the development of Jazz or “swing” music as America’s most favored music.
As with all major contributions to the development of Jazz there is no single event that lead to its broad acceptance by the American public. In fact it was a culmination of various seemingly unrelated factors such as a change in our consumption of music, the severe economic crisis, and the modification of how “hot Jazz” was viewed in the scope of Americans. As a direct result of this the record industry nearly goes bankrupt, allowing for only the best bands to survive. Also with the end of prohibition “hot Jazz” loses its “sin music” title and enables both black and white populations to swing to the beat.
This was extremely important in the development of swing music because the idea that men of all races would be working together on the bandstand would help unify America in its darkest moment. Lastly with the invention of radio, people no longer had to leave the comfort of their own home to hear the Joy of “hot Jazz” aka swing. With the use of the radio people 5. ) Why exactly do we remember the Roaring Twenties as the Jazz Age? Why were the infill sounds of Armstrong and Becket so emblematic of this period?
Well the implementation of the 18th Amendment, or as we know it today the Prohibition Act, lead to mob run speakeasies where the consumption of illegal bootleg liquor was the main attraction. This allowed for an enormous amount of gig opportunities for Jazz musicians. Also the Women’s Suffrage movement was seen as a direct result of Jazz. Another major influence of Jazz during the ass’s was the acquisition of records and record players on a large scale. The Jazz Age was so pivotal in the development of American culture that without it our current day society would look like Reconstruction Era America! . ) Benny Goodman is the epitome of what a sex, Jazz god should be like. He was a Big Band leader and virtuoso clarinetist who is to this day the expert master of swing vocabulary. Benny Goodman didn’t necessarily compose anything wildly magnificent or major influential but that’s not to say he didn’t seriously influence swing era music. First off Goodman was the man who began the Swing Era (big band Hot Jazz as America’s most popular music) in the ass’s. He launched the Swing Era into full force tit his west coast tour in August of 1935.
Goodman also broke the taboo race barrier that surrounded the Jazz scene prior to the thirties by hiring gifted black musicians for his small ensembles and eventually his large big band. Benny Goodman wasn’t trying to make a social statement; he merely wanted the most talented musicians regardless of skin color. Lastly Goodman proved Jazz’s validity as a serious American art form in 1938. This was a direct result of his performance in Carnegie Hall; Goodman was the first Jazz musician to perform there. If anything is to be said about Goodman it’s that he demonstrated that Jazz was here to stay! ) Count Basis’s band is considered the pinnacle of the Kansas City sound that dominated the Jazz scene for much of the Swing era. Basis’s band exemplified the KC sound because the band utilized a walking bass line and a drumbeat that kept to the cymbals as opposed to the bass drum. Also the band had various solos with short melodies, ‘head charts’, as a background. And finally, the band drew from the Blues and used rhythm changes as the foundation for compositions. All of these characteristics can be easily found while listening to the Basis Band’s One O’ clock Jump.
