Iggy Pop - Five Foot One

In this era of jazz, the use of electric instruments and rebellion of what was considered jazz began to expand quickly. Artists such as Sun Ra, Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock began to make music that was meant to stretch and push the boundaries of what jazz was. In avant garde jazz elements of classical music and the use of atonal and arrhythmic concepts were used to broaden the palette of what is considered acceptable. Miles Davis incorporated similar elements as well as a more Rock oriented rhythm section with the album Bitches Brew. At this point the use of electric guitar and bass or electric organ or piano became much more of a feature.

From the 1980s until present day Jazz continues to evolve and reflect both the sociopolitical and musical trends of the time. Jazz continues to borrow elements from other styles of music ranging from classical to hip Hop and electronic music. The styles and traditions of past eras of jazz can still be heard in their traditional forms as well as borrowed from and recontextualized and revamped. Icons of jazz such as Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter who have lasted through many eras have continued to evolve as well as train and mentor a myriad of others who continue to contribute to the evolution and tradition of jazz. Having accumulated such a rich pool of history and resources, Jazz continues to borrow from itself and morph and adapt to its surroundings.

Source: The Eras & History Of Jazz Music by Greater Toronto Music School

Iggy Pop - Five Foot One

• Released on: New Values album
• Released in: April 1979
• Written by: Iggy Pop

"Iggy and The Stooges were infamous for performances in which Pop leapt off the stage, hence, the stage dive, smeared raw meat or peanut butter over his chest and cut himself with broken bottles."

See previous Song of the Day

Count Basie - Don't Cry Baby

Faith is another strong concept that ties Jazz and Gospel music together. A spiritually guided direction gives sustenance to our hopes and dreams, from a biblical standpoint. The other direction of faith is found in daring to articulate an artistic vision and expressing something that’s both broader in scope and far more personal. 

In Gospel music, faith is essential, while in Jazz music, it’s more of a distant goal. Though aims may differ however, both paths continually influence one another. For example, gospel music would not have evolved apart from the artists who felt the need to hear and express something beyond the ecclesiastical music that preceded them.

In an interview with New York jazz trumpeter, composer, and educator John Raymond, conducted by TGC, The Gospel Coalition, considered this question, How has becoming a Christian shaped your work?... The Lord has used Jazz to make me into someone who trusts him. Jazz is improvised and messy. When performing, I don’t know exactly where my fellow bandmates or I are going. This spontaneity runs right up against my impulse to control. But God has used jazz to teach me to trust his grace, let go of my grasp, and live moment by moment through the Spirit. And this hasn’t just shaped how I play music, it has also shaped how I parent, how I teach, and more.

Source: The Relationship Between Jazz and Gospel Music by Lucas Welter

Count Basie - Don't Cry Baby

• Composed by: Saul Bernie, James P. Johnson, Stella Unger
• Released: 1959
• Genre: Jazz

"Count Basie Orchestra's great 18 member orchestra is still continuing the excellent history started by Basie of stomping and shouting the blues, as well as refining those musical particulars that allow for the deepest and most moving of swing."

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April Wine - Oowatanite

Yet jazz embodied freedom, multiethnic democracy and was even censored by the Nazis during World War II. Jazz gained popularity in the Big Band Swing Era. Hollywood jazz musicals emerged with sound era talkies, as in Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart’s original score for Love Me Tonight, 1932... As the war commenced, Abel Meeropol penned blues number Strange Fruit, Billie Holiday’s jazz hit, which she later performed on British television. The protest song critiqued the lynching and racial violence against Blacks in the American South and would continue to have cultural resonance in its call for social justice decades later in an era of civil rights... The filmic rendering of jazz shifted from seedy, underground and illicit to stylish, cultured and aspirational during the war and postwar years. The hip, sophisticated iconography in Bert Stern’s Jazz on a Summer’s Day, for instance, was shot in expansive outdoor spaces at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival, as yachts sail by on the water, rather than the dark claustrophobic confines of a nightclub. Jazz critic Nate Chinen recalls Amiri Baraka’s conception of jazz as trying to foster a self reliant alternative culture as a reaction to popular culture. He observes that jazz constitutes just a sliver of our cultural landscape. But within those margins, there are worlds to explore, joys to savor, even miracles to be found.

Jazz performing in musical noir featured low lit lounges, enthralling minor key sounds of musicians, and blue film scores suggesting censorable activity in afterhours nightspots. Smoky jazz noir nightclubs created an atmospheric milieu in Blues in the Night, 1941, Jammin’ the Blues (1944, with Lester Young), Phantom Lady, 1944, To Have and Have Not, 1944... Gilda, 1946, Lift to the Scaffold is renowned for its evocative moody blue Miles Davis jazz score.

Source: Blues, Smoke and Shadows: Jazz in 'Musical' Noir Films by Chinen Biesen

April Wine - Oowatanite

• Released in: 1990
• Genre: Rock, hard rock, pop rock
• Written by: Myles Goodwyn

"The Henman brothers, David and Ritchie, got together with their cousin Jim Henman and fellow musician Myles Goodwyn to April Wine, a name chosen because they were two words that sounded good together. April Wine has released fifteen studio albums, three live releases, numerous compilations, a boxed set and thousands of concerts."

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Beverly Kelly - I Get a Kick out of You

Montgomery is also the location of Montgomery’s underground music club, Sous La Terre on Commerce Street. Look for the stairs leading to the basement to enter the after hours club that opens weekends at midnight. La Salle Bleu operates at the same location, except on the ground floor... Special events are held throughout the year in The Alley Entertainment District.

Birmingham’s music heritage runs deep. African American a cappella quartet singing that developed in Jefferson County as the Birmingham Sound in the 1930s and 40s is played today by the local group the Birmingham Sunlights. The Birmingham Sound has been called the direct line ancestor to the most popular versions of African American harmony later made famous by The Tempta­tions.

Starting in the 1960s, top artists from around the world including Aretha Franklin, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Rod Stewart and the Rolling Stones recorded their mu­sic in Alabama making Muscle Shoals the Hit Recording Capital of the World.

Source: History of Jazz and Blues in Alabama by Alabama Tourism

Beverly Kelly - I Get a Kick out of You

• Written by: Cole Porter
• Release on: December 16, 1958
• Genre: Jazz, Blues

"Beverly Kelly made a strong impression in the 1950s as a jazz singer, and has made a few musical comebacks since then while pursuing other careers. During 1954 - 1957, she was part of a group billed as The Pat Moran Trio."

See previous Song of the Day

Vinyl Record Player Terms

A List of Record Player Terms

Image by Dima Junglist

The turntable became the basis of the record player and understanding the different parts of a record player can help you appreciate the magic of this analog sound system. Some have an automatic turntable tonearm moved by an anti skating feature that brings the needle to the center of the groove. Others will leave it up to you to steady your own arm to move the metallic one.

Image by The Retro Store

45 Adapter - The 45 adapter allows for 7 inch, 17cm, records that have the larger center to fit your turntable. There are single play and multiplayer adapters. Multiplayer adapters are usually specific to certain turntables.

Anti Skate - The anti skate mechanism is a vital component that prevents the tonearm from drifting towards the center of the record during playback. This drifting, if uncontrolled, can cause uneven wear on the vinyl and result in audio distortion.

Automatic Turntable - A turntable equipped with both the ability to automatically set the tonearm into the appropriate start position to play a record and the ability to automatically return the tonearm to its rest after it finishes playing a record. Requires the least amount of user input.

Auto / Reject - This button or lever will cycle a turntable, playing the next record on a record changer, repeating the same record on some automatic turntables, or returning the tonearm to its rest and shutting off the turntable on most automatic and semi automatic turntables.

Auto Repeat - Auto repeat will automatically repeat the record. Some turntables will continue to repeat nonstop and others will allow picking how many times it repeats.

Auto Return - When the stylus reaches the runout groove of a record, it lifts the tonearm and returns it to its resting position, which shuts down the turntable. On a record changer, if there is at least one record remaining in a stack, it will play the next record.

Belt Drive - Belt drive means that the turntable spins using a belt.

Cartridge - The turntable cartridge is the small device attached to the tonearm's end, housing the stylus. It converts the mechanical vibrations picked up by the stylus into electrical signals that are then amplified and transformed into sound.

Ceramic Cartridge - A type of cartridge that uses a ceramic element and functions the same way as a crystal cartridge but does not degrade over time.

Changer - An automatic turntable that can play more than one record and is equipped with a longer spindle to hold multiple records, typically between 6 to 8 records. Some even hold as many as 14 records.

Counterweight - The counterweight is a small, adjustable weight located at the back of the tonearm. It helps balance the tonearm and regulate the tracking force, which is the downward pressure applied by the stylus on the record's surface. Properly adjusted counterweights protect vinyl records from excessive wear and ensure optimal audio performance.

Crystal / X-tal Cartridge - A type of cartridge that uses a rochelle salt crystal element which, when attached to a rubber yoke, produces audio signals when in contact with the stylus. This type is notorious for losing audio output as it degrades over time and was common in entry level turntables until the late 1970s.

Cue - The cue will elevate the needle. This is useful when placing and removing the needle from the record.

Direct Drive - Direct drive means the turntable spins using gears instead of a belt.

Dust Cover - This covers the turntable to protect it. Some turntables don’t have a cover.

Ground - The ground is used for setting the turntable and the amplifier at the same ground potential.

Image by Skyler Gerald

Line - Some turntables have a switch for setting the turntable to line or phono. On the line setting, you can use a line connection. Any red and white analog connection will work. You just can’t connect it to a phono connection.

Linear Tracking - Linear tracking means that the needle tracks in a straight line. These systems are often more effective for getting the needle in the center of the groove.

Manual Turntable - A turntable that does not have any automatic functions. Requires the user to manually set down the tonearm at the start of a record and to manually return the tonearm to its rest when it’s finished playing.

Motor - The motor powers the turntable platter, providing the necessary torque to spin the record at the correct speed. There are two types of turntable motors, direct drive and belt drive.

Moving Magnet - A type of cartridge that uses a small permanent magnet on the stylus assembly, which produces audio signals when the stylus moves between two coils. This is the most common type of cartridge available.

Moving Iron - A type of cartridge that uses a hollow, temporary iron magnet as opposed to a permanent magnet on the stylus assembly.

Moving Coil - A type of cartridge that is the inverse of a moving magnet cartridge. The coil is attached to the stylus as opposed to a small magnet.

Outputs and Inputs - Outputs and inputs refer to the external connection points on a vinyl record player that enable you to connect it to other audio devices, such as speakers, amplifiers, or headphones.

Phono - This is the type of connection that most turntables will require to operate. It is usually accompanied by a ground screw. If you don’t ground it, you will often get bad buzzing or hissing. Plus, if you connect this to a line connection instead of a phono connection, it will sound terrible.

Phono Preamp - A phono preamp will convert the audio from phono to line.

Pitch Control - Pitch control will adjust the playback speed. Most turntables that have this feature are adjustable up to + or - 5%.

Platter - The platter is the spinning surface on which the vinyl record rests during playback. A high quality turntable platter helps maintain consistent speed and reduces vibrations, resulting in a clearer and more accurate sound.

Plinth - The plinth, also known as the base or chassis, is the foundation of any vinyl record player. It supports all other components and plays a crucial role in minimizing vibrations, ensuring a smooth and stable playback experience.

Preamp - The phono preamp, or the preamplifier, is an essential electronic component that boosts the low level electrical signals generated by the cartridge to a level that can be amplified by a speaker system. Some turntables have built in preamps, while others require an external device.

Record - A record is a disc made out of a material called polyvinyl chloride. Depending on the size of the disc and speed it’s mastered for, it may contain between a single track per side to multiple tracks per side.

Record Player - A record player is the turntable along with the speakers and the amp.

Runoff Groove - The end of a record’s grooves, after the last song, is called the runoff groove. On automatic and semi automatic turntables, this will trigger the auto return function.

Semi Automatic Turntable - A turntable that is equipped with the ability to automatically return the tonearm to its rest after it finishes playing a record. Requires the user to manually set down the tonearm at the start of the record.

Speed Selector - The speed selector allows you to choose the appropriate rotation speed for your vinyl record, typically 33 1/3, 45, or 78 RPM, rotations per minute. Ensuring the correct speed is essential for accurate pitch and tempo during playback.

Strobe Light - This is used for setting the correct pitch.

Stylus or Needle - The stylus, or needle, is the small, pointed component that traces the grooves of a vinyl record, translating the physical patterns into electrical signals that ultimately produce sound. A high quality turntable stylus ensures precise tracking and minimizes wear on your records.

Track Selection - Common in linear tracking turntables and turntables equipped with an optical sensor, this allows you to select a track on a record.

Tonearm - The tonearm is the elongated component that holds the stylus and cartridge, enabling them to follow the record's grooves. Its primary function is to maintain consistent pressure and angle between the stylus and the record.

Turntable - A turntable will just spin the record, but it won’t have speakers or an amp. A turntable is just one individual component that is part of a record player.

Vinyl Player - While technically correct, the appropriate term is turntable or record player, depending on whether it has a built in amplifier and speakers or not.

Weight - The weight is used for adjusting the needle's tracking force.

For more on record player terms:

Parts of a Record Player: The Anatomy of Turntables

Turntable Jargon, Terms To Become Familiar With Before You Invest In A Turntable

Getting Started: How to Use a Record Player

See Previous Posts

Kenny Dorham - Just Friends

Music is a unique, powerful, and special human phenomenon. It’s universal in that, as far as we know, all human cultures everywhere have ever had some form of expression we would call music. Music is deeply embedded in our everyday lives, and it features in every major social and personal event in our culture, parties, birthdays, weddings, sporting events, political rallies, religious ceremonies, social functions, graduations, funerals, etc.

All music is fundamentally social. We use musical sounds to express ideas and emotions and to communicate with others. We use music to explore our notions of group and individual identity. We use music to document and disseminate our shared cultural history and common human experiences. We use music to make sense of the world and of being human, and we use it to communicate things that are impossible, or at least difficult, to say using verbal language.

With any music, we can always ask, what does it mean for these people to make these sounds in this specific time and place? In other words, what’s music all about?

Like a spoken language, musical styles develop rules and vocabulary. Though the precise definitions of words constantly shift and change, and words can fall in and out of fashion, some generally agreed upon linguistic meanings exist. Within a given social/musical/cultural context, certain sounds, linguistic and musical, come to mean certain things, even if the precise meanings are debated, and everyone’s individual experiences of shared phenomena differ.

Source: What Is Jazz Music? The True Value and Meaning Behind Jazz by Josiah Boornazian

Kenny Dorham - Just Friends

• Release on: October 4, 1961
• Genre: Jazz
• Recording at: Peter Ind Studio, New York, NY

"Kenny Dorham was one of the most talented, bop oriented players, and an excellent composer who played in some very significant bands and penned the timeless jazz standard Blue Bossa.”

See previous Song of the Day

Groove Armada - Fly Me to the Moon

As a specific stylistic term, Jazz Blues can refer either to a) a blues artist who employs more advanced harmonies and/or rhythms which break out of traditional, straightforward blues patterns or b) to a jazz artist who keeps his harmonies and/or rhythms relatively simple, making the music more visceral and emotional than intellectual or sophisticated. The results might sound more like one side of the equation with a touch of the other mixed in, or even approach R&B. Blues and jazz were rooted in the same African American musical traditions in the first place, and they have always intersected enough that an absolute dividing line has never been a reasonable, or, to many listeners and musicians, desirable, proposition.

In blues and jazz, the element I find so enriching, is the freed up interpretation of a tune in very individual ways. One never plays the same composition exactly the same way twice, depending upon the performer’s mood and personal experience, interactions with other musicians, or even members of the audience, a blues and jazz musician will alter melodies, harmonies or time signature at will, and these attributes are signature to blues and jazz, and precisely why I revel in it!

Source: Blues is Jazz and Jazz is Blues by Deanne Savage

Groove Armada - Fly Me to the Moon

• Written by: Bart Howard
• Released on: June 3, 2002
• First release in: April 1954 

"Groove Armada established themselves as one of the most successful dance acts of the time. Over two decades of productions and tireless touring, they’ve proved that it’s possible to explore a multitude of sounds and achieve commercial success."

See previous Song of the Day

Kim Carnes - Bette Davis Eyes

Outside of the Five Points neighborhood, other dancehalls including the Lakeside Ballroom and the Elitch Gardens Trocadero Ballroom attracted musicians too. But few rivaled the Rainbow Ballroom. Located just outside of Five Points on 5th and Lincoln, the Rainbow Ballroom had the largest dance floor west of the Mississippi. Leroy Smith was responsible for booking some of the biggest names in music at the time, including Count Basie, Lester Young, and Dizzy Gillespie.

This was a stark difference from the clubs located in Five Points, which welcomed everyone to the dance floor. Just as white folks in New York traveled uptown to Harlem to dance, white Denverites went to Five Points for the best music and dancing.

Fast forward to the jazz scene in Denver today and you will still find a few niche spots where the community is as vibrant as it was 70 years ago. Though outside of Five Points, Dazzle and the Nocturne Jazz and Supper Club are the new staples, and the annual Five Points Jazz Fest draws in over 100,000 people a year. 

Sources: Jazz in Five Points: A Brief History: Part One by Michelle

Kim Carnes - Bette Davis Eyes

• Written by: Jackie DeShannon and Donna Weiss
• Released in: 1996
• Genre: Rock, Pop

"Kim Carnes is an American singer/songwriter. She is noted for her distinctive, raspy voice which she attributes to many hours spent singing in smoky bars and clubs."

See previous Song of the Day

Smashing Pumpkins - Spangled

Jazz thrived in Boston during the post World War II years of the 1940s and ’50s. One notable venue remains from this era, Wally’s Café Jazz Club. Established in 1947, Wally’s is an institution for live acts in an intimate atmosphere. In the evening, catch Wally’s long running open jam session. Both The Beehive and Scullers Jazz Club have been lauded by DownBeat Magazine as among the top U.S. jazz clubs, so be sure to add them to your agenda for tasty food and creative tunes. Hear live music outdoors by timing a visit to coincide with two acclaimed events, the Boston Art & Music Soul Festival in June in Franklin Park and the Boston Jazz Fest in August at the Seaport. See touring acts at the Berklee College of Music’s Berklee Performance Center or enjoy the coffeehouse vibe of the student run Red Room at Café 939.

Seattle was another destination with a lenient attitude toward alcohol and speakeasies during the Prohibition Era, and that allowed the jazz scene to flourish. Performers such as Quincy Jones, Ray Charles and Ernestine Anderson gained fame here. In addition to popular clubs such as Dimitriou’s Jazz Alley, The Triple Door and Seamonster Lounge, Seattle is festival country. Earshot Jazz Festival in October and November is the biggest jazz festival in the city, but you can also plan a trip around the Bellevue Jazz & Blues Music Series in June, or Jazz in the Valley in July.

Source: All That Jazz: 7 US Cities To Discover The Music And More by Idoia Gkikas

Smashing Pumpkins - Spangled

• Released on: Teargarden By Kaleidyscope Vol. II: The Solstice Bare album
• Released on: Nov 22, 2010
• Duration: 2:30

"The Smashing Pumpkins has produced twelve studio albums, four live albums, one digital live album series, seven compilation albums, 55 singles, four video albums, 37 music videos, and contributions to five soundtrack albums."

See previous Song of the Day

Richard Davis - Hare Krishna

There is considerable agreement amongst competent hearer members to use the name Urban Blues to denote the male urbanized blues of the period 1928-1942. This is somewhat confused by some writers who use the term to denote post war dow n home blues and modern, electrified, blues, down home and modern being competent hearers' terms for urban blues of the 40s-50s and post 50s respectively.

Prior to the urban bluesman's adoption of the piano there had been a famous style of Negro piano playing, located in Texas and known as fast western. This style eventually moved North and became known as barrelhouse or boogie woogie. The boogie rhythm, base progressions of DO RE ME RE SOL LA TF LA, etc., was adopted by urban bluesmen, along with the instrument. It later be came a particular feature of rhythm n' blues.

Though a hearers' rule such as, Listen for falsetto vocal work in urban blues would be a weak rule in that examples of it are to be found in country blues, particularly in the case of Tommy Johnson. The blues falsetto perceivedly differs considerably from the yodel used by country and western singers, the yodel being of a ligliter, purer texture than the blues falsetto. The yodel is also used differently, being close to a multiple note chorus, or refrain, whilst the blues falsetto consists of one or two notes accentuating a word, half line or line. Also the yodel consists of singing notes, or at least sense less phrases such as yodelayee-ay... whilst blues falsetto operates within the text as an integral part.

Source: Hearing the Blues: An Essay in the Sociology of Music by D.J. Hatch and D.R. Watson

Richard Davis - Hare Krishna

• Release Date: December 8, 2019
• Duration: 54:48
• Genre: New Age, Spiritual

"Richard Davis has worn many hats in his musical career. He has played jazz, bluegrass and popular music in addition to having a degree in composition and being an accomplished conductor. He has composed and orchestrated music for feature films and television."

See previous Song of the Day

Marillion - Somewhere Else

Whatever jazz today has lost in the size of its audience as compared with forms of popular music with bigger market shares, it has gained in the high esteem in which it is held in the business and art worlds as a sophisticated artistic expression it is frequently used as mood music in upscale business establishments, in museums and galleries, and in commercials promoting upscale products, and in the institutionalization it has experienced as a formal course of study at many colleges and universities. Indeed, if it were not for colleges, universities, and high school jazz bands, and institutions such as Jazz at Lincoln Center and SF Jazz, it is quite possible that few young people in the United States would be playing or hearing jazz today.

The art music known variously as jazz, swing, bebop, America’s classical music, and creative music has been associated first and foremost with freedom. Freedom of expression, human freedom, freedom of thought, and the freedom that results from an ongoing pursuit of racial justice... that jazz was a beacon, an act, a trope of freedom, an expression against repression that inspired many people around the world. But if jazz was, at one point in its history, about freeing oneself from artificial and arbitrary constraints in both popular and classical music, about freeing society from its restrictions and repressions, then, for many of its fans and practitioners, it has now become about preserving and conserving a tradition, an ideology, a set of standards, a form of practice. Today, jazz is an art that can satisfy the compulsions of the liberationist and the conservative, of those who seek change and of those who prefer stasis.

Source: Why Jazz Still Matters by Gerald Lyn Early and Ingrid T. Monson

Marillion - Somewhere Else

• Recording at: The Racket Club, Buckinghamshire, England
• Release on: April 24, 2007
• Genre: Pop/Rock

"Marillion are rightfully credited with having established the neo prog subgenre, and have explored many types of music over the decades that, thanks to their expert musicianship, have celebrated their long, inventive passages for electric guitars and keyboards."

See previous Song of the Day

Jimmy Smith - See See Rider

The story of jazz in Italy begins, interestingly enough, with a description of the American music industry penned by an Italian diplomat named Chevalier Bruno Zuculin. Italian readers wanted to know more about the origins of jazz, and in August 1919 Zuculin published a somewhat glib, yet telling, description of the New Orleans jazz scene in La Lettura, a monthly illustrated supplement to Corriere della Sera, Italy’s most widely read newspaper at the time.

There are two categories of jazz bands, those that are mostly black, which perform in the hotels, restaurants, dance halls and social clubs, and those, often Italian, that play in the cinemas, in variety shows and in those numerous theaters where the most genuine theatrical product of North America flourishes, namely the entertaining productions called Musical Comedies or Girls and Music Shows, wherein the plot, if it exists at all, is of little importance to anyone, and the success of the performance is based primarily on the quality of the music and the beauty of the girls.

Zuculin was reporting directly from New Orleans, where he had been serving as Italy’s consul general for just over a year. He was the first to state, quite emphatically, that Italian immigrants played a role in the genesis of jazz in the United States, and it was this belief, perhaps more than anything else, that later drove many Italians to embrace the music as a native art form.

Source: Our jazz is culturally black, but its global dissemination owes a lot to Italians

by Anna Celenza

Jimmy Smith - See See Rider

• Composer by: Ma Rainey
• Released on: Home Cookin' LP album
• Recorded in: 1958, 1959

"Jimmy Smith was honored as a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts in 2004. His sound and style made him a top instrumentalist in the 1950s and '60s. Smith coaxed a rich, grooving tone from the Hammond B3."

See previous Song of the Day

Chick Corea - Blues Connotation

The music of the 50’s thus constitutes a canon. For three decades this canon has been analyzed, codified, reinterpreted, extended, and refined. But it has not been superseded.

What this means, briefly, is that jazz today, like jazz in the 50’s, is a music of themes, briefly stated, and solo improvisations, elaborated at length. It is played by small groups, rarely larger than a sextet. It is a music neither of arrangements nor of compositions, but of songs. Songs, moreover, are conceived of not primarily as melodies but as chord progressions or forms. Any particular performance is unified primarily by the form of the song that is being played, the improvised solos that compose the bulk of the performance have, as a rule, no melodic connections either with the song’s original theme or with one another.

In these crucial respects, and in many others, the bop revolution was a revolution indeed. For example, while all jazz is supposed to swing, the way in which this happens has changed dramatically. In modern jazz, the basic rhythm is played not on a drum or a high hat cymbal, as before, but on the ride cymbal, either in a bright shimmer or in a kind of clunk. The result is a much lighter, more open texture that gives both soloists and accompanists an unprecedented opportunity to accentuate different beats, or to anticipate or lag the beat, producing thereby a kind of on going, improvised rhythmic counterpoint. In a typical modern jazz performance, as many as four or five different rhythmic patterns might be played at one time, imparting a polyrhythmic quality hitherto unknown in the history of Western music, jazz or otherwise.

Source: Culture and Freedom In the Fifties: the Case of Jazz by Peter J. Steinberger

Chick Corea - Blues Connotation

• Released on: Circling In abum
• Released in: 1975
• Written by: Ornette Coleman

"Chick Corea was an American jazz pianist/electric keyboardist and composer. His compositions are considered jazz standards. A member of Miles Davis' band in the late 1960s, he participated in the birth of jazz fusion."

See previous Song of the Day

Mildred Bailey - Peace, Brother!

It is also important to note that with the passage of the Sound Recording Act of 1971, musical works and sound recordings are not treated equally. Under the 1971 amendment, the publication of a phonorecord stripped away common law rights, and the copyright owner had to abide by the 1909 Act’s notice requirements to avoid the copyright being forfeited... In order to understand all of this, some background on the issue of notice is in order. Prior to the effective date of the Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988, notice of copyright refers to the affixation of the name of the copyright owner, the date of the first publication of the work, and the symbol c with a circle around it in a reasonably visible location on the work... The 1976 act states that the publication of a sound recording publishes not only the sound recording, but also publishes the recorded musical composition imbedded in the disc.

Before moving on to a discussion of how music copyright laws have affected blues and jazz musicians, there needs to be a discussion of the mechanical license, and this will lead us directly to how royalties are handled. The mechanical license imposes substantial limits on the reproduction, adaptation, and distribution rights of copyright owners of music. This sets up a compulsory licensing apparatus for the making and distribution of phonorecords, just as long as they are of non dramatic musical works. The mechanical license first appeared in the original 1909 copyright act, and to this day is still a major part of the 1976 copyright act. When a phonorecord of a musical composition is distributed to the public, a sound recording can be made of the composition by any person for sale to the public. The owner of the copyrighted music has the exclusive right to make the first distribution to the public. The compulsory license provisions then take effect, and the musical composition is wide open for anyone to make a recording of it and offer it for sale to the public.

An example of this would be if a new trumpet player and singer wanted to do their own version of the Rogers and Hart classic My Funny Valentine. When the first recording of this song was made and distributed, which was a long time ago, the compulsory license provisions took effect at that time. Ever since that time, anyone is free to do their own version of the song, or cover as they are now known. However, the new trumpeter/singer must abide by the rules that are outlined in the 1976 copyright act.

Source: US Copyright Laws and the Plight of Blues and Jazz Musicians by Andrew Dowd

Mildred Bailey - Peace, Brother!

• Recorded by: Mildred Bailey with Benny Goodman & his Orch  
• Recorded on: Nov 11, 1939
• Duration: 2:38

"Mildred Bailey's first recording was a 1929 uncredited vocalist for a session by the Eddie Lang Orchestra in 1929. In 1932, she recorded what would be her signature song, Rockin’ Chair. The song became so popular that she would be known as The Rockin’ Chair Lady."

See previous Song of the Day

Super Furry Animals - Waiting to Happen

While melody and harmony are all important parts of any song, Jazz emphasizes something that is so important to the development of music, improvisation. In Jazz, each performer takes a turn experimenting with different notes to create an overall new sound experience. Every time they step out on stage, Jazz musicians may perform songs that no one has ever heard before, and no one will hear again. Since the beginning of Jazz, people have been using its improvisation factor to express how they feel.

Jazz has contributed a great deal to the style of Hip hop music. Some critics have said that Hip hop is just a way to ruin or vulgarize Jazz, but what those people don’t understand is that the artists of today are taking the influences of past Jazz musicians and adding their own new elements to create new music. Hip hop takes all the elements that Jazz contains, like infectious rhythms and intense melodies, and develops it into something new. Just like with Jazz, improve-or freestyling is a lauded skill in hip hop that allows rappers to express their thoughts and feelings on the spot with their music. It’s not uncommon for battle rappers to engage in freestyle battles and ciphers for sport. It all comes back to improvisation. Whether you’re playing Jazz or rapping your own lyrics, you are able to communicate your feelings through music, which is an enlightening experience. As George Gershwin once said, Life is a lot like jazz. It’s best when you improvise.

Music has a way of communicating with people who may have little or nothing in common. Two people who don’t speak the same language, or have the same culture, or look the same, can feel emotions and enjoy a song in their own unique way. Jazz is one of those genres of music that everyone who hears it experiences something, whether or not they are alike. Jazz has played a big part in America’s culture and history, as a form of expression and a way of bringing people together. What began as a way to escape reality, turned into an expression of one’s self. We thank the Black communities of America for creating jazz, music that can unite people of different races and ethnicities, allowing us to come together to enjoy. Jazz music and its offspring are evolving every day. While it’s important to learn from and remember the great musicians of the past, we also need to look forward and see what the future will hold for America’s true form of music.

Source: Contributions of Jazz to Modern Music

by Lanie Garlock

Super Furry Animals - Waiting to Happen

• Produced by: Gorwel Owen
• Released on: July 1, 1996
• Genres: Indie Rock, Glam Rock

"Super Furry Animals were one of the first post alternative bands, fusing together a number of musical genres, including power pop, punk rock, techno, and progressive rock. As one of the leading bands of the mid '90s Welsh movement, they were tagged as outsiders for singing entire songs in their native tongue."

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John Cale - The Biggest, Loudest, Hairiest Group Of All

Blues is the genre of music that emerged at the intersection of the nineteenth and the twentieth century. Birthplace of the blues are the United States. The basis of blues rhythm involves lyrical melodies that came from the African countries. The term blues first became known in 1895. The very origin of the term of an English blues is the phrase blue devils, which means longing or depression, or sadness.

Referring to the sources, they need to be searched for in the period of the slave system. Just at the time Christopher Columbus discovered a new continent, which eventually began to import African labor. Africans are true ancestors of the present-day African Americans, which in most cases were servants or worked hard in agriculture and were hired servants; they were working exclusively in the homes of wealthy Americans whites. Blacks were often harassed and even humiliated, which lasted until the abolition of the slavery period that occurred in 1863.

Initially, the songs were performed by percussion instruments, and vocals were filled with vocal religious load. The first semi professional performers of blues were simply vagabonds who roamed the country in search of work. Most often, they were employed on heavy poorly paid jobs. At their performances, they earned little, often they could be met at a party, where for playing and singing they were given food and drink... In its classic sense and the usual form, blues was formed only in the twenties of the twentieth century. While the music that was played earlier in the doorways of African American, came to the big stage.

Source: Comparison Of Blues And Jazz Research Paper

John Cale - The Biggest, Loudest, Hairiest Group Of All

• Written by: John Cale
• Recorded in: Jan 29, 1972
• Recorded at: Le Bataclan, Paris, France

"John Cale was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Velvet Underground in 1996. Since 1968, Cale has worked in various styles across rock, drone, classical, avant garde and electronic music and has released seventeen solo studio albums."

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Mutantes - Baghdad Blues

The role of jazz music and jazz musicians in political participation began in the initial phases of jazz development in the early 1920s. As African Americans engaged the new musical techniques and traditional African traditions to build music collections, popular radio shows also emerged. There were amateur concerts and big band jazz performances broadcast, which attracted a considerable public for entertainment. Other significant advancements that came with the rise of Jazz include nightclubs, dancehalls, and theatres where black entertainment thrived.

In this regard, between 1925 and 1943, the New Negro era political groups integrated Jazz in building up political interests. Funding political activities was one of the activist organizations' main concerns. However, they solved the fund's challenge by capitalizing on the emergence of platforms that expanded jazz music and musicians' reach... After the 1930s, the role of jazz music and jazz musicians in political participation progressed through phases that allowed the black community to gain relevance in US politics. However, some gaps still needed to be addressed by the political organizations to further advance the black liberation struggle... Therefore, the jazz influence meant insurrection against societal standards that did not serve the interest of the black community.

The birth of jazz music was characterized by a political atmosphere setting precedence for socio political struggles such as the Back to Africa movement led by Marcus Garvey as well as the Civil Rights Movement led by Martin Luther King Jr. This highlighted the role of music as a political tool besides entertainment, as it was used in the mid 20th century. It addressed different class and race issues through concerts and gatherings... They continued with the legacy through their jazz and blues performances as well as active participation in movements as the Civil Rights Movement.

Source: The Role of Jazz in Political Participation in the Mid-20th Century by Emmanuel Mamadi

Mutantes - Baghdad Blues

• Produced by: Sérgio Dias
• Released on: September 8, 2009
• Genre: Experimental Rock, Psychedelic Rock

"Os Mutantes was a Brazilian band formed in the late sixties, influenced in the beginning by the Brazilian musical scene. The band was formed by Rita Lee, vocals and percussion, Sergio Dias, guitar and vocals, and his brother Arnaldo Baptista, bass, keyboards and vocals, and Ronaldo Dinho Leme on drums."

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Koko Taylor - Blow Top Blues

Jazz music is essentially a conversation. In classical music, by contrast, the musicians are expected to learn their parts perfectly and deliver consistently, according to a high standard of perfection. Jazz and blues, while also committed to high standards of performance, use a language that is more conversational, employing song structure, but with infinite ways to deliver a song. The song gives a context and excuse for conversation.

Is it possible that the way jazz musicians learn to speak with one another could offer new approaches for the way we speak to one another in organizations?

Every conversation you’ve ever had was improvised. You were unscripted. Someone said something and you responded in the best way that you were able, even if that response was silence. Herein is of course the joy and the risk. Because they are unscripted, conversations can go pear shaped. We can say the wrong thing at the wrong time, or we can listen with half a heart and suddenly we are in deep water. Yet jazz and blues artists take these risks all the time. And they do so in front of an audience that pays to listen to them.

Why would musicians take such a risk? There’s plenty of unimprovised music that is wonderful. And we can find analogies in business, certain keynote addresses work best when they’re delivered word for considered word.

Source: Trading Fours - What Leaders can Learn about Conversation from Jazz and Blues Masters by Stand & Deliver

Koko Taylor - Blow Top Blues

• Produced by: Koko Taylor and Bruce Iglauer
• Composed by: Leonard Feather
• Genre: Blues, Chicago blues

Koko Taylor · Blow Top Blues

"Koko Taylor's big, raw vocal style, led fans to crown her The Queen of Chicago Blues. Hit records and spectacular shows at the Montreux and Ann Arbor Festivals, constant touring and recording with her band, won her a string of Awards."

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Gary Moore - Looking At Your Picture

More than other forms of popular music Jazz is particularly fraught with these kind of debates, but some of the most heated arguments among jazz aficionados are even more fundamental,  what qualifies as jazz? Does jazz have some essential ingredient? Where does the term jazz even come from? One hundred years after the first jazz recording, the answers remain elusive.

But as to who actually invented jazz, if such an achievement could be attributed to one person, that’s a tricky matter. Some say Elvis Presley or Chuck Berry invented rock n’ roll, others would argue DJ Kool Herc or Grandmaster Flash created hip hop. Nick La Rocca, the Original Dixieland Jass Band’s cornet player and composer, claimed that he personally invented jazz... calling the Original Dixieland Jass Band the first great jazz orchestra and that LaRocca had an instrumentation different from anything before, an instrumentation that made the old songs sound new. But LaRocca’s later statements follow a long tradition in the US of white artists dependent on African American culture publicly degrading it in order to justify their exploitation of it.

Jazz’ was named the Word of the 20th Century by the American Dialect Society, which is remarkable since we don’t actually know for sure from where the term originates. One of the most striking features of jazz to its earliest listeners was its speed, its sheer energy. Dating back to 1860 there had been an African American slang term, jasm, which means vim or energy. On 14 November 1916, the New Orleans Times Picayune newspaper referred for the first time to jas bands. That particular spelling suggests jas could have come from jasm. Or perhaps it referred to the jasmine perfume that prostitutes in New Orleans’ famed Storyville red light district often wore, jazz music had developed, in part, as the music played in brothels.

Source: The mysterious origins of jazz by Christian Blauvelt

Gary Moore - Looking At Your Picture

• Released on: How Blue Can You Get album
• Release on: April 30, 2021
• Genre: Blues Rock

"Acknowledged as one of the finest musicians that the British Isles has ever produced, and with a career that dated back to the 1960s, there were few musical genres that Gary Moore had not turned his musical hand."

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Vilde Græs - Udenfor mit vindue

Along the way, there was jazz, which admitted heaps of blues influence but developed, more than is often acknowledged, apart from these other traditions. Jazz began in New Orleans, among the professional ensembles that had evolved out of the city’s longstanding brass band tradition... they played most of the music of the time: quadrilles, schottisches, polkas, ragtime tunes.

The blues was certainly jazz’s nucleus. It was there in the African derived harmonies, the tapestries of syncopation, and the bent notes that often seemed to imitate the grumbles and whinnies of the human voice. But jazz’s roots were cosmopolitan and relatively commercial. They sprang from the vocationalism of society bands and the hamming of vaudeville as much as from the unselfconscious patois of the blues.

Baraka points out that as big band jazz became more popular, it hewed more closely to the demands of a paying concert audience. The blues inside the music, the self styling, the low furor, the professions of pride and desire, was given a narrower berth.

In the 1950s, many jazz musicians migrated away from dance music and into the small combos of bebop. The blues’ core truths stayed lodged inside of it, but they were often relegated to instrumental expression. The jazz tunes that did have words were mostly versions of show tunes. With some marked exceptions, blues poetry usually proved too much for the jazz economy, largely driven as it was by the demands of white audiences and white promoters. The lowbrow humor and social realism that had defined the work of artists like Rainey, Cab Calloway, and Fats Waller nearly vanished from jazz singing.

Source: The Enduring Influence & Tradition of the Blues by Giovanni Russonello

Vilde Græs - Udenfor mit vindue

• Recorded on: February 11 and 12, 2018
• Released in: 2018
• Genre: Folk, World, & Country

"Vilde Græs is made up of Morten Aron aka Aron, guitar and vocals, Søren Pilegaard Hansen, piano, organ andvocals, Theis Boisen Hansen, bass and vocals, Lars Bang Petersen, guitar, and Frederik Leo, drums."

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Magazine - The Burden Of A Song

For its supporters, the advent of modern jazz signified progress, both artistic and social, a necessary and inevitable evolution in creative vision and technique as well as in racial opportunity and parity. This position met with fierce and often bitter opposition from partisans of older jazz, the small group collective improvisation model associated with New Orleans and Chicago in the 1920s. Proudly calling themselves moldy figs, this group argued that the earlier music evinced qualities of warmth, intimacy, and soulfulness that disappeared in the noise of mechanistic big bands and the cool, detached, affectless posture of the beboppers. 

The figs saw themselves as defenders of authentic jazz, which, in their unyielding formula, required proper instrumentation, a front line of trumpet, trombone, and clarinet, but not saxophone, blues harmony and tonality, and a natural swing feeling... A group of 14 or 16 players, in the traditionalists’ view, was simply too big to swing with the nimble and relaxed feeling of a group of five or seven rhythmically agile players. And bop groups, though properly sized, gave off a nervous, frustrated, neurotic vibe that countered the warmth and genial humanity that were the hallmarks of New Orleans and Chicago jazz.

Jazz’s modern traditionalist polemical war played out in Down Beat and Metronome, the latter adopting a strong modernist orientation led by critics Leonard Feather and Barry Ulanov, and in newer, more specialized traditionalist publications such as Record Changer and Jazz Information.

Source: Jazz in the Late 1940s: American Culture At Its Most Alluring by John Gennari

Magazine - The Burden Of A Song

• Release on:  November 13, 2015
• Released on: No Thyself album
• Genre: Rock

"Magazine was one of the first post punk bands, edgy, nervous energy of punk and added elements of art rock, particularly with their theatrical live shows and shards of keyboards."

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Coco Montoya - What I Know Now

Certainly, any historical narrative that emphasizes the immense contributions to jazz by individuals of color is understandable and well founded, it remains irrefutable that the vast majority of the genre’s most influential players have originated from Afro diasporic communities. This Afrocentric historiographical stance appears especially warranted in light of the deplorable white washing of the music’s history that has surfaced on occasion. However, such narratives tend to ignore the fact that racial identity among jazz musicians and their attendant audiences within the various camps of this supposed black/white dichotomy has been marked by contradiction and antagonism as well as by cultural pride and unity. And what I hope to demonstrate in this article is that lived realities in the jazz world, as in the broader American social and cultural world, are more complex than our simple biracial categories would lead us to believe. Moreover, given the present tendencies to anoint jazz as America’s classical music and its practitioners as treasured artists, it might be useful to recall that these lofty understandings developed only recently, and not just in the mainstream white community.

Musicking in turn of the century New Orleans entailed virtually citywide participation. And while the extraordinary vibrancy of musical life in that town was most conspicuously and most famously demonstrated by the frequent parades that wound through the streets, these events constituted only one realm in which musicians developed and displayed their craft. For apart from the parades and the more prestigious concert hall genres, instrumentalists... played whenever and wherever community events called for their services, on riverboats, at birthday parties, picnics, social clubs, weddings, funerals, in brothels, nightclubs, and stage shows. Repertoire ranged from rags and popular songs to marches, spirituals, and classical fare. And if their music wasn’t exactly jazz, one branch of the early jazz musicians’ immediate forebears frequently utilized a ragged performance style that present day listeners, musicians, and scholars would consider to be, at the very least, jazz like. These players relied heavily on growls, scoops, and other effects derived from blues style vocalizations, while incorporating varying degrees of rhythmic swing, and greater or lesser amounts of improvisation.

Source: Blue Horizon: Creole Culture and Early New Orleans Jazz by David Ake

Coco Montoya - What I Know Now

• Release on: January 25, 2000
• Genre: Blues
• Produced By: Jim Gaines

"Though he grew up a drummer raised on rock & roll, Coco Montoya is an outstanding blues rock guitarist. Over a five decade plus career he has proven an influential, charting, award winning technician, and songwriter."

Emmylou Harris - The Road

Jazz music has created a sense of integration between blacks and whites in the industry. Discrimination still existed, but in the jazz community, musicians were somehow considered as equals. Whites were hired to perform in several black bands... jazz music created black white contact where a black musician received full acceptance as an equal and was often admired as superior, without condescension. Jazz music has not only integrated people in the United States, but also brought them together internationally. It has been influenced by third world countries such as Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and India. Great jazz musicians integrated international ideas into their music, for instance, Duke Ellington has an album named Far East Suite, and two of Coltrane’s albums are named Africa and India.

Today, jazz music is progressing in many ways. Despite its economic decline and struggle to survive because of the developed wealth of rock and pop, there have been many opportunities for the survival of jazz. Jazz began to penetrate the music programs of high schools, colleges and universities right after World War II, and in 1968, the International Association of Jazz Education was formed... African American children won’t experience jazz culture as music programs decrease in schools around the country. Jazz has also gotten much recognition in the United States and around the world through jazz festivals. Overseas festivals have been more successful than festivals in the United States, in places like Switzerland, the Netherlands and Italy, jazz festivals have all broken records for attendance.

Now that the positive social effects of jazz have been clarified, I will present the negative effects. The recording industry has played a major role in the commercialization of jazz music, which has led to uniformity. Jazz music would not have been widely distributed to the general public without the recording industry, and it provided a perfect opportunity for making the music more marketable... swing music lacked improvisation, and the soloist’s creativity was not relied upon as much because of the commercialization of the music. Jazz became so commercialized that the industry was less dependent on black innovation, but rather produced a music that was lacking the essence of jazz, its improvisation... Swing music basically lacked creativity and distinction and as a result, swing bands sounded alike.

Source: The Social Effects of Jazz by Zola Philipp

Emmylou Harris - The Road

• Released on: Hard Bargain album 
• Released in: 2011
• Genre: Country

"Emmylou Harris is considered one of the leading music artists behind the country rock genre in the 1970s and the Americana genre in the 1990s. Her characteristic voice, musical style and songwriting have been acclaimed by critics and fellow recording artists."

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The Strokes - You Only Live Once

As the predecessors of hip hop, both jazz and blues had a great impact on the cultural dimension of the black communities of the US during their respective periods. Faced with widespread racial segregation and discrimination, members of the black community often resorted to music to gain a sense of peace and as a source of consolation. Jazz and blues helped in creating a strong sense of identity, social cohesion, and originality among the black musicians. Due to their origin among the blacks, jazz and blues music became the primary means by which frustrations and desire for inclusion transformed into greater positive energy for the Africans. Given that a greater majority of the jazz musicians, composers and originators were African Americans, they use jazz and blues music as a cultural tool for addressing the circumstances facing the entire black community. But because of their cross cultural appeal, jazz and blues were widely used as a tool for promoting cultural integration between the whites and the blacks in the US.

Although the influence of jazz and blues began to wane during the second half of the 20th century, much of their cultural appeal was absorbed into the emerging music genres, particularly the hip hop... Gradually, hip hop became a distinct genre with prominent lyrics and drumming designed to the young people regardless of their racial identity. The nimble rhythms of blues and the complex harmonies of jazz fused easily to form the defining aspects of hip hop music.

The contents of rap are generally about things that are of interest to the society especially the ideas of culture and its roots. Apparently, rap was associated with the daily struggles of the blacks and lower class communities of the US. The music got them more noticed in the society and enabled them to forge a strong sense of cultural identity in the fast paced society. Due to this association with the blacks, rap became a defining feature of the hip hop culture, leading to its rapid growth as a fully fledged music genre.

Source: The Transition of Blues and Jazz Music Into the Modern Hip-Hop Genre, Research Paper Example

The Strokes - You Only Live Once

Written by: Marvin Gaye

Genre: Rock, Indie Rock

Released in: July 24, 2006

"The band rose to fame in the early 2000s as a leading group in garage rock/post punk revival. The band consists of Julian Casablancas lead vocals, Nick Valensi lead guitar, Albert Hammond, Jr. rhythm guitar, Nikolai Fraiture bass guitar, and Fabrizio Moretti drums and percussion."

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