Anomale Used Blog

Americans have been singing since the first Europeans and Africans began arriving in North America in the sixteenth century. Work songs, hymns, love songs, dance tunes, humorous songs, and parodies, such songs provide a record of American history, serving both as historical sources and also as subjects of historical investigation. During the colonial, revolutionary, and federal periods, 1607-1820, most American songs were strongly tied to the musical traditions of the British isles. Hymn tunes, ballads, theater songs, and drinking songs were imported from England or based closely on English models. The main exceptions were the hymns of German speaking communities in Pennsylvania, the music of African American slave communities, and the songs of New Orleans, which were closely linked to the French West Indies and to France. Those exceptions aside, the most distinctively American songs were patriotic ones, like Yankee Doodle and the Star Spangled Banner, and even these were adaptations o...

Dancing in Your Head their refusal to abide by traditional values, their racy lyrics, the sexual innuendo of their rhythms, the goings on where they perform, their references to black magic and other vestigial descendants of African belief systems. In their turn, the feelings of blues folk toward their religious brethren have run an apparently bewildering gamut. Many blues greats shuttled between the sacred and the profane. Some of them, like Skip James, lapsed into silence for decades because they wouldn't sing the devil's music once they returned to the church... Interestingly, there's also a small but dynamic tradition of spiritual blues singers. Some are collected on Preachin the Gospel. This meeting of the sacred and profane has flowed in the other direction as well. The '40s harmonies of groups like the Mills Brothers and the Ink Spots were gospel derived, and paved the way for the '50s doo woppers who likewise crossed gospel into pop. Sixties soul music and s...

The most noticeable characteristic of African music is the heavy emphasis on rhythm. Many in our culture have mental images of the savage drumming from old movies shot in Africa, but in reality, the rhythmic content of the music is very sophisticated. Often contrasting, syncopated rhythms, each played by a different musician, are superimposed on each other, creating a polyrhythmic effect that is so complex that it cannot be written down using standard music notation. African harmony and melody is equally complex, although to European trained ears, it often is characterized as simple and primitive. Once again, part of the problem rests with the urge to interpret one culture through the standards of another. One commonly observed quality of African melody is the strong reliance on a five note pentatonic scale, on a piano, this can be approximated by playing the black keys only. Another important aspect of African music is the importance of improvisation. Many instrumental performances a...

Live performances show an equally important, but typically neglected, side of smooth jazz. Live performances enable performers to extend solos, interact with each other, and communicate directly with the audience. While recordings are a useful source for musical analysis, smooth jazz, like other styles of jazz, is an improvisatory music that utilizes multiple sites of production and cannot be accurately judged on recordings alone. Each of these performance sites hosts specific kind of dialogues. Using genre studies borrowed from literary, popular music, and jazz scholars, I examine these unique interactions based on audience expectations. I argue that audiences expect different musical, social, and physical gestures according to each performance site. These expectations can be complied with, bent, or broken. Many critics, scholars, and musicians have dismissed smooth jazz as a distant and unappealing offshoot of mainstream jazz, a synthetic and soulless commercial enterprise, or simpl...

Until approximately the 1960s, songs were marketed in print form primarily as sheet music, including a composed piano accompaniment. Beginning around 1930, chord symbols were often also provided, for guitarists and for pianists who did not read music well enough to play the written out accompaniments. Jazz musicians have always tended to reduce song arrangements to a basic harmonic framework, in order to create the space needed for improvisation and chord symbol notation would have helped them to do this. In the early 1940s, a commercial product called Tune Dex Cards presented songs with just melody and chord symbols, suggesting a general acceptance by musicians of what we now call lead sheet format. When jazz musicians of the 1940s wrote their own tunes, they probably would have used lead sheet format, notating the harmonic accompaniment with chord symbols, rather than with a piano arrangement. Early, illegal fake books used this format as well. Since the 1960s, jazz education, once n...

The strains of blues, gospel, and R&B that figured in the music of many hard bop musicians led to the development of soul jazz, which eventually led to the development of fusion and electric experiments in jazz. There were developments such as the organ/tenor sax combo, which brought bluesy Hammond B-3 and the open sounds of a variety of hard driving R&B tenor sax players. Bebop had set jazz and R&B on divergent paths, and cool jazz further solidified jazz’s status as art music, but hard bop seemed designed to reconcile the two and to incorporate newly developing elements of black music into the jazz genre. Many jazz purists deride the Hammond B-3 players, judging them to be playing blues or soul music and outside the parameters of jazz, but there’s no doubt that these organists were bona fide jazz players... Soul jazz may be seen as a further outgrowth of hard bop, but it should be noted that many hard bop players remained very clearly within the confines of mainstream jaz...

Storing and Caring for Vinyl Records The phonograph was invented in 1877 and played delicate cylinders wrapped in foil, later cylinders were wax, and now PVC vinyl. Vinyl records are one of the most stable physical sound recording formats ever developed. Vinyl records can last for decades if cared for properly. Image by Mick Haupt Environment For Storing Vinyl Vinyl can withstand low temperatures very well. It’s the heat that you need to worry about. Anything above 120°F (50°C) and your records will begin to warp. When storing them, cooler is better. It’s fine if you keep your records at room temperature, or around 65 to 70°F (18 to 21°C). Long term storage, below 50°F (7 to 10°C). The softer and more pliable texture used today withstands these cold temperatures, but unfortunately can cause this warping effect when placed in a heated environment. You can’t store your vinyl records in a garage, unless it is climate controlled. Garages tend to get too hot and humid in the summer months....

Several terms, such as jazz rock, rock jazz, jazz funk and jazz rock fusion have been suggested for the various styles that ultimately became known by the generic term fusion. As was the case with the terms cool jazz, bebop and hard bop, it is likely that journalists initially established their widespread acceptance... Because this seems to be the most prevalent literary practice, I have used it throughout this text. Before proceeding however, a brief clarification of these terms and their actual meanings is in order. The terms jazz rock and rock jazz have been used loosely as synonyms to describe music containing elements from jazz and rock. Following the linguistic logic in which the first word of a compound defines an overall category determined by the second word, jazz rock would be comparable to terms like heavy rock, punk rock and others that subcategorize rock music. Following this analogy, the term rock jazz would be parallel to terms like soul jazz, free jazz and Indo jazz tha...

Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated as R&B or RnB, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when urban, rocking, jazz based music with a heavy, insistent beat was becoming more popular. In the commercial rhythm and blues music typical of the 1950s through the 1970s, the bands usually consisted of piano, one or two guitars, bass, drums, saxophone, and sometimes background vocalists. R&B lyrical themes often encapsulate the African American experience of pain and the quest for freedom and joy. Lyrics focus heavily on the themes of triumphs and failures in terms of relationships, freedom, economics, aspirations, and sex. The term was used in Billboard as early as 1943. It replaced the term race music, which originally came from within the black community, but was deemed offensive in the postwar world. The term rhythm ...

Thus, it can be said that there is no general definition for popular music. From the historical view, popular music was any non folk form that gained incredible popularity. Popular music reflects the mutual enrichment of styles and it represents a combination of visions. The term popular music hides a wide range of musical endeavours and originates like other types of music for a long time. Popular music has a high spectrum from folk music through operetta to jazz or country and musicals on Broadway to current music. Kinds of popular music have their roots in social music and go back to film and pop in industrialized countries. Popular music features focus on entertainment, relaxation or dancing. Basically, all kinds of music have a clear purpose, and it means to entertain the listeners. Throughout history, a number of popular musical styles have evolved, growing gradually with time and with new artists. Popular music is one of those musical styles that mostly distributed commercially ...

African American musical genres, the different varieties of blues as well as soul and funk since the 1960s and rap music since the 1970s, also offer novel modes of design with regard to harmony and melody that were adopted by and, in some cases, developed further in other popular music styles. This was already evident in 1950s rock 'n' roll, which was founded on rhythm & blues, and has also been apparent in rock music, which was heavily influenced by rhythm & blues and older varieties of blues since the 1960s. Drawing on this observation, the British musicologist Allan F. Moore derives far reaching conclusions for the harmonic analysis of rock music. In general... popular songs as hybrid forms of music as their mode of design derives from two traditions: African American musical traditions and the traditions of American Popular Song... While harmony in popular song tradition can be described in terms of functional major minor tonality, with cadences involving the domina...

A List of Vinyl Record Terms A collection of vinyl record terms. A glossary of terms that may be helpful when talking about vinyl records. Visit Anomale Used Records Store A vinyl record is an analog sound storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove. The groove usually starts near the edge and ends near the center of the disc. Image by Umberto Cofini 10” - At 33 RPM they hold around 12 - 15 minutes per side and at 45 RPM they hold around 9 - 12 minutes per side. 33 RPM is the most common speed for 10 inch records. Over 15 minutes per side is possible, but may require further adjustments to EQ and/or levels for it all to fit nicely and sound great. 12” - At 33 RPM they hold around 15 - 22 minutes per side and at 45 RPM they hold around 12 - 15 minutes per side. 33 RPM is the most common speed for 12 inch records. Over 22 minutes per side is possible, but may require further adjustments to EQ and/or levels for it all to fit nicely and sound g...

The early writings of Richard A. Waterman helped define hot rhythms in African music and the retention in the Americas of related musical elements. Waterman describes two very important rhythmic traits present in African music, percussion polyrhythms or mixed metres and temporal displacement of the melodic phrase or offbeat phrasing of melodies. Waterman also puts forth the theory that Africans enslaved in the United States were often not allowed to keep percussion instruments, so their use of African multi metered polyrhythms eventually disappeared. It can in fact be observed that there is generally less use of polyrhythms in the music of North America than in that of Central America, South America, or the Caribbean. Perhaps this caused the African American music of the United States to be more European than African, as Waterman states. However, it may be, as Oliver and others have suggested, that the black music of North America was more influenced by African music from another part of...

The Jazz Age was an age marked by the uprising of jazz music, and the drastic change in American culture. Women called flappers were wearing shorter dresses and cutting their hair into bobs, dancing to the popular music in speakeasies and dance clubs. With prohibition in effect during this time period, alcohol had to be illegally made and served at places called speakeasies. One of the most popular speakeasies could be found at 102 Norfolk Ave, and was called The Back Room. While many speakeasies had fake fronts, this speakeasy had an actual business operating in conjunction with the speakeasy, Ratner’s Restaurant. This particular speakeasy was known for serving illegal alcohol and the criminals of the city as well... Today, the Back Room is accessed the same way it was during the 1920s. A secret staircase behind a bookshelf brings customers down to the speakeasy and transports them to the 1920s. With vintage décor and cocktails served in teacups, just like they were during prohibition...

From the outset, the blues frequently deviated from its twelve bar form, and jazz musicians have similarly displayed a willingness to bend the blues to their own devices... Even more frequently, what is involved is the application of blue notes in a scale or blues phrasing to non blues material. Billie Holiday rarely sang traditional blues songs but performed every ballad with blues feeling. Charlie Parker, whose performance of Lady, Be Good with Jazz at the Philharmonic, is a textbook example of turning a pop song blue. These may be the ultimate examples of improvisers steeped in an aura of the blues. The interaction between those considered blues and jazz musicians, respectively, has also been a constant... R&B then begat rock and roll, which ultimately fed the fusion movement in jazz, just as the soulful jazz of modernists such as Horace Silver and Bobby Timmons had its impact via funk on more contemporary blues. With the passing of time, and as both the blues and jazz continue...

With the advent of jazz during the 1920s, the popularity of the banjo declined. It was replaced by tenor banjos and plectrum banjos, and, with the advent of big band jazz, microphones, and pickups during the 1930s, by the guitar. The two principal blues banjoists to record, Papa Charlie Jackson from New Orleans and Gus Cannon from Mississippi, were bridging the gap between the nineteenth century songsters tradition and the country blues. Both musicians used the crossed notes technique involving returning to a chord, to facilitate finger picking patterns. In Jackson’s work, especially in his links between choruses, some of the fingering patterns that later emerged in the jazz playing of Lonnie Johnson are identifiable. The decline of the five string banjo by the early twentieth century in America must have left countless banjos and banjo like instruments unused, a source of supply through junk and pawn shops for poor people who, for little cash investment, could experiment with such ins...

Gospel music took form through the 1920s and emerged in the 1930s, propelled in part by the great migration of African Americans northward fleeing the oppressive south and the advent of radio. Historically, the black church has been the cauldron from which African American artists emerge across all jazz genres. It is where African American artists learn to let go and let God. The spiritual nature of the music permits what academics call improvisation. Improvisation is a necessary component of all forms of jazz. The traditional structure of gospel music shifted in the late 1930s when Thomas A. Dorsey, considered the father of gospel music, began working for Pilgrim Baptist Church in Chicago. A former jazz pianist and composer who had worked with famous artists like Ma Rainey. Dorsey created a new style of gospel music called gospel blues, which infused blues into traditional gospel music. It was initially rejected, however, by the end of the ’30s, gospel blues won over acceptance as the...

The 1960s saw great acceptance of rhythm & blues by the American public in general. Although R&B in the 1950s had made substantial inroads into the mass market, it was its offspring rock ’n roll that enjoyed much of the financial reward. However, in the 1960s rhythm & blues, often appearing under the name soul music, took the popular market by storm. The music had such mass appeal that in late 1963 Billboard discontinued its rhythm & blues chart for over one year, apparently because it was similar enough to the more general Hot 100 music chart as to be redundant... However, beginning in early 1964 the British invasion had a major effect on the Hot 100 music charts. In that year, for example, nine of the twentythree number one singles were by British artists... The black record buying public was not drawn to this music, however, and none of these records was able to earn a position on the R&B charts. Much of the early music of the British invasion was derived from R...