Day 9 Jazz in 20's
Day 9 Jazz in 20's
– Gioia p. 39-45
– Morton a New Orleans Creole; immersed in Euro-American
culture.
– "The First Great Jazz Composer,” says Gunther Schuller
Morton as Pianist:
New Orleans Blues (1923)
• Habanera rhythm: "The Spanish Tinge"
• Not a flashy piano style - unappreciated by Eastern
pianists
• The sounds of a New Orleans band expressed by a
single instrument
– 2nd chorus (0:29) - trombone-like left hand break
– 3rd chorus (0:50) - right hand break
– 4th chorus (1:11) - extraordinary polyrhythm (see transcription
by James Dapogny)
Morton as Arranger
• The Red Hot Peppers
– Chicago, 1926
– New Orleans musicians
• Omer Simeon, clarinet; George Mitchell, cornet; Kid Ory,
trombone; Johnny St. Cyr, banjo; John Lindsay, bass;
Andrew Hilare, drums
Dead Man Blues (1926)
• Begins with Minstrel-show style comic dialogue
• "Church bells at 11 in the morning…Somebody must be
dead"
• "Must be dead drunk."
• "No, it must be a funeral."
• "Looky here, it is a funeral. I hear that trambone call.."
• Brief passage of funeral march
• (similar to Chopin's funeral march)
• Into a moderate-tempo blues
• Chorus 1: Collective improvisation
• Chorus 2: Clarinet solo (Omer Simeon), Morton
accompanying
• Chorus 3 & 4: Trumpet solo (George Mitchell)
• Chorus 5 & 6: Clarinet trio, arranged by Morton
– (2 additional clarinetists only play here & at end)
– Chorus 6 adds Kid Ory's trombone
• Chorus 7: Collective improvisation
• Tag: a snatch of the clarinet trio again
Black Bottom Stomp (1926)
• Based on New Orleans style, but intricately arranged
• Gioia p. 42
– “maximalist” structural complexity
– a description “for a 3 minute recording
... requires 10x as much time”
to account for “shifts in...
• instumentation,
• harmonic structure,
• rhythmic support”
• Multi-strain rag form:
– A: (8 bars - an introduction)
– B: (16 bars)
• 1. Full band
• 2. Trumpet/Band Call and Response
• 3. High Clarinet
– Transition (4 bars)
(Black Bottom Stomp, continued)
– C: 20 bars!
• 8 (ending with 2 bar break)
• + 12 (ending with this polyrhythm:
« Q eEEeEE « eEEeQ Q «
• Seven repetitions of the form:
– 1. Full band, collective improvisation (trp + trb. break)
– 2. Low Clarinet (Simeon)
– 3. Piano solo (Morton)
– 4. Trumpet (Mitchell)(band riffs on the above rhythm)
– 5. Banjo (St. Cyr) (with slap bass)
– 6. Full band, collective improvisation (cymbal break)
– 7. Full band, collective improvisation,
» (backbeat in drums, trombone break)
» Incredible sense of ensemble swing