The Story of Jazz

A thrift store find, The Story of Jazz, by Marshall W. Stearns, was the first non-fiction selection for my summer reading. I had recently started watching Ken Burns' enormously entertaining mini-series, Jazz, on DVD, that I had checked out from the library (I'm on part 4) and I thought that this book might just be an illuminating companion piece. Still, a few caveats were in order. I'm a music whore and will give anything a listen, but I couldn't begin to explain musical vocabulary, let alone used in a jazz context. Plus, as a jazz neophyte, much of the music was new to me. The wonderful thing about jazz, however, is that there is a stunning array of accessible music that does not require anything beyond a pair of ears to hear the music and a soul to react to it. You don't have to know about blue notes, the tonal scale, syncopation and the like. The Story of Jazz does encompass the technical with the history and the history with the passion and this holistic approach makes this book essential for beginners.

Much of the book is dedicated to the influences that gave rise to jazz, in order to attempt a definition. The success of this book, it should be noted, is that it does all of this in a friendly, easy to read style. While not exactly "Jazz for Dummies," the text, nevertheless avoids the pedantic cadences of a specialized text book. Stearns makes clear in his introduction that he is an unabashed fan of jazz. His passion only accentuates his role as instructor and storyteller for this jazz primer. He does not fall into the simple trap of acting merely as a cheerleader.

The influences are as fascinating as they are diverse. Much has been made of jazz as a true American artform and Stearns outlines the musical forces that converge to make this happen. The slave trade brought Africans to the New World, and with them, their customs, rituals, and music. Most notable were the West Africans method of "call and answer"-- a type of communication where one leader would call out a statement and others would answer in response. This wasn't just a form of music, it was used in religious rituals, group councils, etc. The "work song" associated with the African slaves derived from this and made its way into Christian services (such as the Southern Baptists). It also became a key component of much of the new music that was to follow, such as the blues, jazz, and rock and roll. In music, the call and answer didn't have to be two spoken lines. The dialogue could be between voice and instrument. In the blues, a singer might wail: "My baby done up and left me..." and "answer" with a blast of harmonica (ba da da bump). I was cross-checking this with the entry on Wikipedia and the example they gave was of The Who's "My Generation." The call would be "People try to put us down..." and the answer would be "Talkin' 'bout my generation."

In addition to the blues and its usage of call and answer, Stearns talks a great deal about "blue notes." Not having a strong musical background, I never really quite got it, but I'll try to at least share the stuff that I found interesting. The African influences were fascinating to me, and the blue note, as we know it in jazz, Stearns asserts, probably made its way from Africa. A Western classical scale has the basic notes that we use to sing and play music. My understanding of this is solely from "The Sound of Music." "When...you know the notes to sing... You can sing most any-thing!" You know the song. But Stearns writes: "it was discovered that Negro folk singers, and especially blues singers, have a consistent habit of hitting a note...that does not occur in the equal-tempered scale of classical music. They sing what is known as a 'neutral third,' that is, a note precisely between 'Do' and 'Sol'..." (327). A blue note, if I'm understanding this correctly, is a note played lower than a specific note that we would recognize on a classical scale. What's insanely cool about this, is that people could hear it, and enjoy it, but you did not have the ability to notate it and write it out in sheet music to just pass on. You had to hear it and you had to feel it.

Another key component (and I would say, this is THE key component of jazz) is improvisation. This doesn't seem like a big deal today as improvisation in music, dance, the arts, etc, is pretty well established as a credible method of expression. Before these musical forms that would converge into jazz became established, however, the tendency was to a play a march the way it was notated and not mess around. Jazz took that regimented, classical discipline and used it as a leaping off point for its music. New Orleans, the birthplace of jazz, had no shortage of marching bands during the civil war as an influx of Northern troops occupied the city. After the civil war, many of those army marching bands' instruments made their way into the general populace, introducing the sounds of a brass band to the rhythms and styles of the African music. Jazz great Buddy Bolden is first credited (around 1895) with taking the blues and adding brass to the mix of string and harmonica. Experimentation is at its root, improvisation, and without it, we would not have jazz or it's antecedents.

While all of this stuff (and more, much, much more)makes this an interesting book, the music itself is pure life and soul. I'd recommend picking up any Louis Armstrong cd because, imo, he is the one guy who represents the exhuberence and spirit of everything I love about jazz. His version of "Ain't Misbehavin'" might just be my favorite piece of music, bar none. There is an ineffable quality about it that vibrates within me like a tuning fork. Stearns points out that improvisation changes the character of each piece and that true virtuosos are so good you should be able to tell their general attitude toward life while they are playing. He specifically notes a exhuberant performance that Louis gave after his honeymoon. The possibilities for original artistic expressions are incredible. Now, I love literature and I love the written word, but something in Louis' playing resonates in a way that transcends words. His era (the early age of jazz) is my favorite era and my favorite style (hot). I haven't quite caught onto the later cool jazz, which is a little bit more removed, eclectic, and harder to figure out. A great resource would be your local library. Better libraries are bound to have extensive collections of jazz and you can't do any better than checking out Ken Burns' documentary and boxed cd set (entitled "Jazz".)