help me with my class?

Re: Richard Thompson and jazz, there's a track from a couple of years ago where he pays tribute to several of his jazz heroes, let me find it. ...

Ha, it's called "Guitar Heroes:"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abFBhMdbjIo

OK, maybe not much jazz.

my next task is to talk about 1) the roots of jazz and 2) the evolution and influence of jazz (idk how far i will make it before the midterm) in preparation for a class outing in 3 weeks to the legendary green mill!

currently accepting recommendations for the early roots of jazz lesson :) :) :)

― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Thursday, February 15, 2018 4:24 PM (three days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

If it's not too late -

* The first episode of Ken Burns Jazz is a pretty good primer on the orthodox view of the roots of jazz
* The 'Stomp & Swerve' book & CD I mentioned upthread are a good attempt at an alternative theory - Jazz having roots in band music (like Sousa) as well as the oft-cited unrecorded early blues music of the deep south - the use of solos and improvisation through the selections is really an eye-opener
* My pet theory is that a lot of this can also be linked to latin music, for example Son Cubano (which also has African roots of course) - here is an example of something from a full decade before the "first jazz record"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bstBjWn1ge0

* Also should be remembered that in the late 1910s and early 1920s jazz was taken into the mainsteam by the professional (white) musicians who were already around - so could be argued that the biggest name in early jazz is Paul Whiteman. The real revolution happened much more slowly and many of the classic records of the 1920s were not that successful at the time - the history of the jazz we know is very much a selective one.

not too late! thanks!

Was thinking about Levon Helm describing the local music scenes of his Arkansas area, and how it all died down when TVs took over, which reminded me of another thing Byrne said in xpost How Music Works, about the difference records made: now you could listen alone (without playing the song yourself), and quotes an early description of the mutual embarrassment of intruding on such a listener's very private experience---also thinking of how it became even more private w headphones, the term "headphones music" among collectors, also before headphones when you might have to listen under covers or with ear up to the transistor radio (itself quite a change, re portability, as I dimly recall).
Also in a Hemingway story, an invalid gets fascinated with the stations coming in so clearly at night, from so far away (something to do with the Kellogg-Heaviside layer, I think, and its facilitation of AM broadcasts when the sun can't interfere). He pictures those calling in requests to a dance music show live from a Seattle club (also pictured in his mind), a series---several more like this in his nightly rounds, and then we learn that he listens with the volume turned almost to silence, that kind of focus--reminding me of Eno saying that he had his revelation leading to Discreet Music etc. when he was sick, and a friend brought him an LP of harp music, and when he managed to put it on and got back to his bed, one of the speakers went out, but he was too weak to see about it, so he just lay there and listened...

Also in Arakansas, could imagine that live music for most?) became, at least for a while, more significantly part of a different kind of scene: sing "Happy Birthday," "Aud Lang Syne," sing a hymn at church, sing National Anthem at ball game etc. (or fake it in most such situations, no prob). And then later on maybe back to the clubs, on to the festivals etc., when media promoted those.

whoo boy
right now i am wading through "what is jazz"
pick me up from the floor when today is over please

Does it swing y/n

Y: it is jazz
N: it is not jazz

(Just kidding)

Ha, I just finished a jazz intro lecture an hour ago.

i have a slide entitled "why is jazz so confusing?"
lol

post-swing jazz is like wine in that it requires some level of being inculcated into the conversation around it before one can really talk about it at its level, and this is a conversation with decades of history, one that is contentious and speaks to both internal politics but is still connected at its root to outside ideological divides around i.e. race, class, etc

unlike pop but like wine, post-swing jazz has an internal conversation that is not exactly democratic, although of course anyone can enjoy wine and anyone can enjoy jazz being able to speak knowledgeably about it is def one of those secret society things w/ concentric circles ringing a core group of artists whose stylistic choices drive it. It's not exactly auteur-driven, though, because it's more about (especially in small combo jazz) the interplay between different auteurs, its a community-auteur kind of thing

the styles of individual players, the artists who are seen as Greats, tend to be performers whose stylistic choices were so distinctly their own that it creates a center of gravity around them, where they are frequently imitated ... jazz aficianados can hear the difference between one trumpet player & another not just through surface level characteristics like the tone or context but through melodic choices & tendencies, stylistic tics that give it away even as that artist is pushing (as they do improvisationally every time) to create something that resists their own cliche

this is generally my pov on jazz post-swing

its also my issue w a lot of the way the 'alternative press' would write about jazz is it would ignore this discourse & prefer to take novel surface aesthetics from the music first and foremost, so you'd get cult fanbases for like a random miles or coltrane or mingus record that doesnt take his catalog into context / reflects overvaluing of alt tastemakers like lester bangs / generally overvalues novelty of form vs. novelty of performance

idk i hope that's somewhat helpful

this is intended as an explainer for my pov not 'this is how jazz is' fwiw, dont mean to pretend mine is The Word here

thanks -- maybe i will use the wine comparison. i was thinking of trying to explain how jazz is like druids but wine seems uh more accessible and less crazy
that is stuff i am reserving for next week
this week we are discussing basics, multicultural roots, elements, stuff like that
i want them to be able to identify/discuss improvisation, syncopation, instrumentation, use some vocab (most are not native English speakers) and hear some samples and hopefully enjoy them!!

my textbook is pretty weak on jazz and i have made an executive decision to not mention smooth jazz in class; it's in the book, that's enough.

more than enough!

"Okay, here's how it works -- if it puts me to sleep, it's folk; if it's played by black guys, it's funk; and if I don't understand it, it's jazz."

https://www.discogs.com/The-Frosted-Flaykes-Waste-Your-Time-Rockin-Rhythm/release/1858055#images/15877774

I love the (possibly apocryphal/overly romantic?) notion that the development of jazz was hastened after the civil war, where so many discarded brass instruments were retrieved from battlefields.

i think of smooth jazz tbh as being more in the R&B lineage

omg Lechera play them that scene from Matewan where the Italian, black and white miners start improvising over each others' riffs - it's like the ultimate idealised version of American roots music compressed into about 20 seconds of screen time

if you can find it for me, i might
right now i have to clean dog poop off my shoe and get to work!

there is a paragraph about smooth jazz in the textbook but i am going to ignore it unless someone brings it up

cool, can now find my way back down here by Ctrl+F "poop."

From 'On The Road' by Jack Kerouac
'Nobody knows where Slim Gaillard is'

'... one night we suddenly went mad together again; we went to see Slim Gaillard in a little Frisco nightclub. Slim Gaillard is a tall, thin Negro with big sad eyes who's always saying 'Right-orooni' and 'How 'bout a little bourbon-arooni.' In Frisco great eager crowds of young semi-intellectuals sat at his feet and listened to him on the piano, guitar and bongo drums. When he gets warmed up he takes off his undershirt and really goes. He does and says anything that comes into his head. He'll sing 'Cement Mixer, Put-ti Put-ti' and suddenly slow down the beat and brood over his bongos with fingertips barely tapping the skin as everybody leans forward breathlessly to hear; you think he'll do this for a minute or so, but he goes right on, for as long as an hour, making an imperceptible little noise with the tips of his fingernails, smaller and smaller all the time till you can't hear it any more and sounds of traffic come in the open door. Then he slowly gets up and takes the mike and says, very slowly, 'Great-orooni ... fine-ovauti ... hello-orooni ... bourbon-orooni ... all-orooni ... how are the boys in the front row making out with their girls-orooni ... orooni ... vauti ... oroonirooni ..." He keeps this up for fifteen minutes, his voice getting softer and softer till you can't hear. His great sad eyes scan the audience.

Dean stands in the back, saying, 'God! Yes!' -- and clasping his hands in prayer and sweating. 'Sal, Slim knows time, he knows time.' Slim sits down at the piano and hits two notes, two C's, then two more, then one, then two, and suddenly the big burly bass-player wakes up from a reverie and realizes Slim is playing 'C-Jam Blues' and he slugs in his big forefinger on the string and the big booming beat begins and everybody starts rocking and Slim looks just as sad as ever, and they blow jazz for half an hour, and then Slim goes mad and grabs the bongos and plays tremendous rapid Cubana beats and yells crazy things in Spanish, in Arabic, in Peruvian dialect, in Egyptian, in every language he knows, and he knows innumerable languages. Finally the set is over; each set takes two hours. Slim Gaillard goes and stands against a post, looking sadly over everybody's head as people come to talk to him. A bourbon is slipped into his hand. 'Bourbon-orooni -- thank-you-ovauti ...' Nobody knows where Slim Gaillard is. Dean once had a dream that he was having a baby and his belly was all bloated up blue as he lay on the grass of a California hospital. Under a tree, with a group of colored men, sat Slim Gaillard. Dean turned despairing eyes of a mother to him. Slim said, 'There you go-orooni.' Now Dean approached him, he approached his God; he thought Slim was God; he shuffled and bowed in front of him and asked him to join us. 'Right-orooni,' says Slim; he'll join anybody but won't guarantee to be there with you in spirit. Dean got a table, bought drinks, and sat stiffly in front of Slim. Slim dreamed over his head. Every time Slim said, 'Orooni,' Dean said 'Yes!' I sat there with these two madmen. Nothing happened. To Slim Gaillard the whole world was just one big orooni.'

Oh yeah meant to say re post-swing (or any jazz)(or anything else), as long as I can find and follow and care about the beat, the rest tends to work its self out. Later.

welp, tonight my students learned what feel is, what it means to swing, and several took me up on the opportunity to play an instrument (a small hand drum) in a straight feel vs swing feel
i heard presentations about joni mitchell, joan baez, and "yodeling" and then played them "prince of peace" to show yodeling in jazz
while the song was playing, another teacher came in from the hallway and was like IS THIS LEON THOMAS?! and i was like YOU KNOW IT and then we talked about jazz and yodeling and alice coltrane

prepping for tonight was a lot of work but i feel like it was worth it :)

ok best class

(there is no YT clip of the Matewan scene that i can find ☹️)

thanks for trying! it's ok -- we had a lot to cover anyway

idk why but i freaking LOVE talking about improvisation. it's such a relatable topic, maybe more relatable than playing composed music because everything about life is improvisation. i feel like my students connected with the concept really well.

Here's another possibly useful thread---we also talk about some school marching bands and stuff like Music For The Knee Plays on here, but mostly the evervolution of
New Orleans Brass Bands S/D

Also: Brooklyn Raga Massive's performance of Terry Riley's "In C" is all here:
https://bkragamassive.bandcamp.com/album/terry-riley-in-c-2

I think maybe all or a good many of the tracks from The Langley Schools Music Project collection, developed with Orffian techniques, are currently on youtube, anyway here's some of the backstory etc:
http://www.bar-none.com/langley-school

this week i am heading into the growth and reach of jazz (jazz pt 2). it's going to be a pretty lite overview, but they will have 3 weeks to work on their next presentations so we can do some of the research together. i think we need to do this considering how the last ones turned out to mostly be artist bios and very little discussion of the music. aside from the one about yodeling, which suffered from rather severe technical difficulties.

now i have to start writing the midterm! it's the week after next. man i have so many things to do :-/

my slides this week are so cluttered with information it's dizzying
going from jelly roll to sun ra in 3 hours, put on your helmets!

i was thinking of trying to explain how jazz is like druids

<3

Sorry for those last two inclusions, somehow I didn't get just how jazz the focus is right now----are you ging to have ear quiz? I took this course where we had to name the artist and styles, especially the latter--rag, stride, swing, classic bop, hard bop etc.---hardest thing was just that the teacher had kept talking ("YA HEAR WHAT HE'S GETTIN' TO THERE?")over the records when originally playing them, some way early in the semester, but it turned out okay (for the students who hadn't dropped out long before, having realized it wasn't going to be an easy-peasy elective after all).

I didn't take *this* course; at another school, I took Jazz and Pop Culture (which was almost all the former, except for some crossovers like Cole Porter and Kurt Weill and several older performers; also I turned the teacher on to Pretzel Logic, this being the 70s).

no name that tune in my class
we are however going to bliss out to this at some point

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxPMKgY_8qk

La lechera, this class is sounding like a great success! Good job

going through slides and making my midterm study guide
we have learned a lot!

choosing what selections to use for their midterm exam listening/writing section is tough
going with two songs i think they will like and have a lot to write about given the stuff we have covered in class so far.
i think they have learned a lot! there is always more to learn.

folk: "the foggy dew" (folk ballads unit)
jazz "lush life" (this has been tough but i am happy with my choice -- they liked the coltrane/hartman album when i played it for them as intro music once and it is not going to aggravate them)

for a different class, i would have chosen different songs. for this group, i think they will both like and have things to say about these two selections. we'll see i guess!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XCzbdXivCM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0izjSUqCcSQ

i gotta brag because i am pleased with myself -- i offered two options for listening: youtube or CDs. we have laptops available for the people who want to use youtube, and i set up a listening station (complete with party light for visual entertainment) for students who prefer to listen offline. the IT department had headphones for us to use and everything seems to be working. it's a nice reprieve from the constantly malfunctioning laptop projectors/their speakers. i have so far avoided spending my own money on a bluetooth speaker.

also proud because my students are all working really hard, brought their study guides, and seem very focused.

idk how they handle testing on these subjects at other places. i wrote my own exam because the existing one was pitifully bad. is there a departmental exam you have to teach to, sund4r?

I've actually never had to teach to a departmental exam for anything, even for core theory courses. I know that it does happen for theory at some places but I've never heard of it for elective history/appreciation sorts of courses.

my school where i teach is very small and very weird, i have no idea how it's done elsewhere. this course was moribund when i took the assignment and there were basically no materials.

when i was in college, the course was called "history of rock and roll" and i did not take it because i thought i already knew everything i needed to know about "rock and roll"
lol

the hubris of youth, I almost miss it sometimes
(I do not)

your students are so lucky to have you, srsly and sncrly

also, i would love to take over a 'History of Rock n' Roll' college course and start out the semester in full crumhorn squall

I don't know anything about music but you sound like a great teacher.

thanks y'all! i think i am an above-average teacher. i could probably be greater and for that, i have time. hopefully! this class has taken its toll on my pursuit of my own musical endeavors, which is alright because spring break is coming up AND summer AND this will be easier next time. and i think i am doing a good job. i am looking forward to reading their answers to the midterm. that's not something i say every semester.

Great song selections for the midterm!

thanks!
i was extra pleased about "the foggy dew" because i was having trouble finding the lyrics, was about to type it out myself, and then typed in my favorite phrase from the song ("what the foggy dew has done") and up popped the folkways pdf of the liner notes from the original folkways release of false true lovers, which i screenshotted and used on the exam!!! it is a tiny bit...ribald but my students are adults. i truly enjoyed this pointless tidbit and sharing it with them. also they got to read a short paragraph about the song as well as Shirley's opinion about that version of "the foggy dew"!! WIN WIN WIN WIN

now playing shirley box disc 3 bc of u

enjoy!

take a warning by me itt

this is mostly off-topic and might be old news but i'm gonna put it here anyway because because dag

The University of Glasgow's Historical Thesaurus of English