Jazz History and Listening Assignment Ideas: Hear It, Sing It, Play It

During this period of “Shelter In Place,” consider becoming more familiar with our national treasure: Jazz! Especially relevant during the month of April, also known as Jazz Appreciation Month, jazz can introduce traditional music students to a new world of sounds, textures, and skills.

Jazz was born in New Orleans at the turn of the century. At that time, there was military music, classical music, piano music, vocal music, and small ensemble music. Elements of these styles—combined with the infusion of music the slaves carried on from their African and American heritages, and the blues, ragtime, and boogie-woogie—morphed into a new style of music: jazz .

Jazz became the popular music of the day in the ‘20s and ‘30s. One of the first standout recordings at the time was “West End Blues” featuring Louis Armstrong (trumpet and vocal), and Trummy Young (trombone).

Listen: Louis Armstrong, “West End Blues”

What Is Swing?

One of the foundational characteristics of jazz is swing. Swing is defined by professional drummer Jonathan Joseph as “drawing the audience into the pulse of your rhythm.” He says, “Swing is a feel, and the only way to understand the feeling is to understand how the rhythm moves.” In technical terms, understanding how that rhythm moves can be thought of as playing the first and last eighth notes in an eighth-note triplet.

Watching others feeling the pulse of the rhythm can also be helpful in understanding swing feel. Here’s an example of swing dancers, who physically demonstrate through their choreography an understanding of swing feel:

Watch: Swing Dancing

What Other Types of Swing Are There?

To help us further understand and generate our own swing feel, consider another famous rhythm called the blues shuffle. This rhythm has been described as the "mother of the swing feel."

Listen: Blues Brothers, “Sweet Home Chicago”

Big Band Swing

Listening to big bands is probably the most accessible place to begin when learning about jazz. Focus on the sound, balance, instrumentation, articulation, and styles that will be present.

The big band became the main jazz ensemble during the “Swing Era” from the 1930s to mid 1940s. The music of this era creates the foundation of big band music in the swing style.

Big bands (jazz ensembles that traditionally includes five saxes, four trumpets, four trombones, and a rhythm section of piano, bass, drums, and sometimes guitar) originated in the United States, and through the years have also been referred to as jazz bands, jazz ensembles, dance bands, jazz orchestras, and stage bands.

Important big band leaders during the Swing Era included Chick Webb, Jimmie Lunceford, Fletcher Henderson, Cab Calloway, Joe “King” Oliver, Benny Moten, Jay McShann, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and Benny Goodman.

Count Basie and His Orchestra

Count Basie was a part of the new music that was born in Kansas City in the late ‘30s. The Count Basie Orchestra (big bands were frequently called "orchestras," even though they were technically bands) became the most popular big band in Kansas City through implementation of head arrangements (an arrangement that is not written down), riffs (a short fragment of melody), 12-bar blues (a twelve-measure form consisting of three four-measure phrases), call-and-response (a simple musical phrase that is played—the call—and then in turn responded to with a similar musical idea—the response), and improvisation (to create a new melody while performing, also known as spontaneous composition). The band was certainly built on the concept of swing.

The Basie band had fabulous musicians, among them were Lester Young, tenor sax; Buck Clayton, trumpet; Sweets Edison, trumpet; Jimmy Rushing, vocalist; and an incredible rhythm section called the “All-American Rhythm Section.”

Rhythm is fundamental to creating the feeling for any genre of music. It is therefore vital that the rhythm section must create the appropriate rhythmic feel and style of swing.

In a traditional jazz ensemble setting with the piano, bass, guitar, and drums, the goal of each player is to collectively establish a good swing foundation for the rest of the ensemble.

Let’s focus on the important role of Basie’s rhythm section, commonly referred to as Count Basie’s “All-American Rhythm Section.” They are a great example of a swing-style rhythm section.

The rhythm section consisted of Count Basie on piano, Freddie Green on guitar, Walter Page on bass, and Papa Jo Jones on drums. Let's listen and watch the great Basie Orchestra (big band) play their arrangement of "All of Me."

Listen: Count Basie Orchestra, “All of Me”

Listening is an essential part of the approach to successfully developing an understanding of the jazz language. Throughout this article directed listening tips will help inform in the same way jazz masters learned their craft.

Due to the internet we now have access to listening to millions of pieces of music. Fortunately, virtually the entire history of jazz is available. However, today’s listeners may hear a performance one time and move on to another.

Listening to a piece one time is great but to really understand it, repeated listening is necessary. It's important to be able to hear and identify various characteristics such as melody (sing and identify the melody and identify what instruments are playing it), style (is it swing, shuffle, Latin, or rock?), form (the design pattern of a musical composition), articulation (the attack or beginning of a note), balance/blend (bringing into proportion the melody, harmony, and rhythm), jazz nuances (bends, scoops, phrasing, sequences, etc.), tempo (a solid pulse or rhythmic groove), and much more. Listening and identifying these characteristics is a skill that can be enhanced with repeated practice. This is the way the jazz masters learned. The concept is “Hear it, Sing it, Play it.”

For this next listening example, snap your fingers on beats 2 and 4.

Listen: Count Basie Orchestra, “Moten Swing”

Below are short listening lists of some professional jazz ensemble recordings. These recordings are primarily straight-ahead (swing) jazz in a modern style.

Big Band Recordings

• Count Basie: Basie Straight Ahead , April in Paris
• Duke Ellington: The London Concerts
• Bob Florence: With All the Bells and Whistles
• Bill Holman: A View from the Side
• Thad Jones/Mel Lewis: A Touch of Class
• Quincy Jones and Sammy Nestico: Basie and Beyond
• Bill Watrous: A Time for Love
• Patrick Williams: Sinatraland
• Gordon Goodwin: Swingin’ for the Fences
• Woody Herman: The Three Herds

Small Ensemble Recordings

After you begin to understand the jazz language through big band recordings, expand your listening to small group recordings. These small groups or combo ensembles will help you focus intently on all ingredients of jazz. The following list continues to focus on swing style. Some small group recordings may seem more abstract as they almost always include more improvisation.

Listening to jazz classics by jazz masters will be the best place to start. Here is a list by esteemed jazz artist and educator Shelly Berg.

• Miles Davis: Kind of Blue, Seven Steps to Heaven
• Charlie Parker: Yardbird Suite
• Dexter Gordon: Go
• Art Blakey: Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers
• Oscar Peterson: The Trio
• Ella Fitzgerald: (anything!)

Famous Jazz Artists by Instrument

Although by no means complete here is a list of well-known individual jazz musicians for you to listen to:

• Alto Saxophone: Johnny Hodges, Paul Desmond, Charlie Parker, Cannonball Adderley
• Tenor Saxophone: Lester Young, Ben Webster, Sonny Rollins, Joe Henderson
• Baritone Saxophone: Gerry Mulligan, Serge Challoff, Pepper Adams, Nick Brignola
• Trumpet: Louis Armstrong, Chet Baker, Dizzy Gillespie, Wynton Marsalis
• Trombone: Curtis Fuller, Carl Fontana, Slide Hampton, Bill Watrous
• Piano: Count Basie, Duke Ellington
• Guitar: Freddie Green, Wes Montgomery, Jim Hall, and Pat Martino
• Bass: Ray Brown, Christian McBride, Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen, and John Patitucci
• Drums: Jo Jones, Ed Thigpen, Peter Erskine, Steve Houghton
• Female Vocalists: Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Nancy Wilson, Carmen Bradford
• Male Vocalists: Joe Williams, Jon Hendricks, Mel Torme, Frank Sinatra
• Clarinet: Buddy DeFranco, Eddie Daniels, Paquito D’Rivera

Many of the basic concepts in this article come from my new jazz band method Jazz Zone…The Beginning . See and hear more at jazzzoneonline.com . I hope you have enjoyed listening to jazz as much as I enjoyed writing about it. Dig deep into the music and by all means have fun!