Sax on the Web Forum banner
Status
Not open for further replies.

Does jazz harmony have African roots?

25K views 159 replies 24 participants last post by  mrpeebee 
#1 ·
#2 ·
Depends on what you mean by "jazz harmony".

True blue notes (as in partway between two equally tempered notes) are described as being present in African song, as well as many other folk musics. There are probably some other holdovers from African traditions.

But modern jazz harmony (basically everything after Duke, Prez, Hawkins) is just basic Western harmony, with an emphasis on the subdominant and on seventh chords. Basically, in pretty much all jazz since the 1930s whatever African elements persist in the harmony are overwhelmed by the elements of Western harmony. So, for example, a flatted fifth or third is called a "blue note" when it's actually just a flatted fifth or flatted third.

Now rhythm is a different matter altogether. And truly, rhythm is more important than harmony most of the time in this music anyway.
 
#8 ·
Depends on what you mean by "jazz harmony".
As a standard, I take the content of textbook Jazz harmony, published in Berkeley Press

Learn the principles of jazz harmony, as taught at the Berklee College of Music.

This text provides a strong foundation in harmonic principles, supporting further study in jazz composition, arranging, and improvisation. It covers basic chord types and their tensions, with practical demonstrations of how they are used in the characteristic jazz contexts and an accompanying recording.

You will learn to:

Use the essential harmonies that create a characteristic jazz sound
Expand basic seventh and sixth chords with available tensions
Understand the theoretical relationship between chords and scales, and how to use that theory in the creative process
Understand the syntax of jazz chord progressions
Create within diatonic, blues, and modal contexts
Construct appropriate chord voicings to strengthen your progressions


Or content from the Jazz Harmony Book by David Berkman -

http://www.shermusic.com/new/sample_pages/1883217792-toc.pdf

T
True blue notes (as in partway between two equally tempered notes) are described as being present in African song, as well as many other folk musics. There are probably some other holdovers from African traditions.
Blue - not tempered - notes are one of the African DNA , but far from being the only one.

But modern jazz harmony (basically everything after Duke, Prez, Hawkins) is just basic Western harmony, with an emphasis on the subdominant and on seventh chords. Basically, in pretty much all jazz since the 1930s whatever African elements persist in the harmony are overwhelmed by the elements of Western harmony.
I'm by no means a theoretician, but the some knowledge of Oriental and North African music, compelled for geographical reasons, has gradually made me more important to reconsider the views on the whole theme of harmony, including jazz. I think that the one who grew up in the original African culture should consider the question about harmony in the same way. On the one hand, the extremely strong influence of European music, including its theory, is impossible to deny; hence the legend that the girls go to the right, the boys to the left, the rhythm of jazz has roots in Africa, and its roots of harmony - in Europe. But this is a legend that roams the Internet ; because - with the other hand - there are musical facts that impossible to belittle -



( 27: 01 - remember Herbie Hancock Headhunters? )



So, for example, a flatted fifth or third is called a "blue note" when it's actually just a flatted fifth or flatted third.
From the saxophonist, one could expect another answer; but tell the vocalist about it!

Now rhythm is a different matter altogether. And truly, rhythm is more important than harmony most of the time in this music anyway.
It's amazing how you did not notice the relationship of rhythm and harmony! Try to play here the comp only with triads -


The only thing that can be said with certainty: European and African people were drinking from the same fountain of overtones; but who did it before - IMO is not even worth discussing.
 
#3 ·
Except for some pentatonic scales jazz is essentially a blend of European harmonies and African rhythm. The blues notes came about because Afro-Americans, with their pentatonic background, were not used to the European scales and harmonies(of hymns, etc., of Western Civilization).
 
#5 ·
Many jazz melodies need a certain harmonic voicing to support the blues rooted melodies. Blues/Jazz as it matured needed more complex supporting harmonies. Many jazz composers were using their ear to compose from within based on culture. If not jazz would have sounded like classical or folk music of Europe and the US. Jazz was rooted in African American culture with remnants of Africa. Remember the haters used to call it "Jungle Music". Now it's loved, taught and appreciated. Harmony usually supports melody so jazz/blues melodies based on African American culture was the main influence on jazz harmony. That's why those advanced composers used substitute chords and progressions to support their melodic ideas an not sound to basic and more elaborate and meaningful. It's all mostly based on 12 notes and Jazz is rooted in blues and blues is rooted in African culture. Early jazz composers weren't sitting at the piano and turning pages from a classical composers book as they wrote songs. They were thinking about how people were dancing, singing and partying in the culture and put that to music.
 
#7 ·
"Jazz was rooted in African American culture with remnants of Africa. " It will always be there. Melodies and harmonies always in the mix. Can't be forgotten when ancestors and elders just talking to their children speak with rhythms and expressions handed down and will always manifest in art and all cultural expression. Horace Silver could always put those African influenced rhythms and harmonies in his soulful African American Jazz music. Art Blakey, Max Roach,Dizzy,Duke,Count,...on and on.
Horace Silver - Señor Blues (Horace Silver, Blue Mitchell & Junior Cook) on youtube.
 
#9 ·
Given the fact that African music has no “harmony” in the way we intend it I would say that, despite an undeniable influence in jazz, all the armonic material in jazz from at least the 20s to the 60s is clearly European.

The iconic II-V-I was used by Bach and Mozart long before someone in he western world was interested in ethnic music (basically after the works of Bela Bartok in the last century).

Modal jazz has some stronger resemblance with the African way of making music.

The above statement will hold true if you replace “African” with either:
1 Ancient Greek
2 Arabic
3 Indian
4 Balinese
5 Japanese
6 Chinese
7 Medieval
8 Gregorian
9 you name it

So I tend not to think to modal jazz as rooted directly into African tradition.
While it’s true that a lot of jazz from the ‘60s has a strong relation with Africa this is mainly due to political reasons and black people recognition.

Beside that I would be surprised if the pioneers of modal jazz did some serious study in ethnomusicology. They were probably more interested in the freedom that the new form offered.
 
#10 ·
So I tend not to think to modal jazz as rooted directly into African tradition.
While it's true that a lot of jazz from the '60s has a strong relation with Africa this is mainly due to political reasons and black people recognition.

Beside that I would be surprised if the pioneers of modal jazz did some serious study in ethnomusicology. They were probably more interested in the freedom that the new form offered.
I'm more than sure that you are strongly mistaken . I knew something about Joe Zawinul. And besides, to get acquainted with the works of Simha Arom and Gerhard Kubik very informative, and create a different perspectives. I did it.
 
#14 ·
Modal jazz has nothing to do with the emergence of jazz, as it dates about 60 years after the first forms... and in a music that’s 100 years old it’s a lot of time.

Back to your question. Yeah, slaves were from African origin, as were a lot of the first jazz players. Africa has been referred as the Mother Land during the fight against apartheid. I’m not saying that there’s no Africa in jazz, but you asked if the harmony in jazz descends from African music.

You will be hard pressed to find a single element that’s present both in jazz and African music while absent in western music.
Starting from the same real notes that are used, as African music has a plethora of different temperaments that are unsuitable to harmony.
There’s a lot of etherophony in African music that can generate some sort of spontaneous harmony, but that’s totally different from what happens in jazz.

Summarizing:
Equal temperament: western origin
Chord structure consisting of stacking thirds: western origin
Chord movement (subdominant-dominant-tonic): western origin
Improvisation over chords: typical of baroque music, notably absent in the rest of the world
melody over a static chord (modal): called “pedal” in western music since 1600
Swing: historically used in Europe for baroque music, according to some scholars. Of course with another name

I think that’s important to tell the real influences from the “fascinations”. Coltrane improvising with the Hiro-oshi scale doesn’t make the roots of jazz Japanese as naming a bebop jazz “A night in Tunisia” doesn’t make it African.

This is my humble opinion, of course, and i will be glad to investigate the authors you mentioned, but I think that jazz harmony is 100% western, melodies are for a good part European. A strong accent on syncopation and polyrhythms is typically from extra-European origin.
Exceptions are the norm, however.

The African origin of jazz, for me, is little more than a myth, as I consider it to be mostly an evolution on European music concepts...
 
#16 ·
The point is not that in the field of harmony it is difficult to find outward manifestations that don't take place both in classical or modern music, and in jazz: the overtones, unison and octave are the same, the quints, quarts and thirds sound similar, as well as triads ; but in another, hidden from a simple theoretical view - the meaning of what sounds.

There's a lot of etherophony in African music that can generate some sort of spontaneous harmony, but that's totally different from what happens in jazz.
Depends on the style; back in the 90's. I wrote for jazz workshop modal heterophonic arrangements, where individual voices varied by improvising .You can find something in this book: https://www.amazon.fr/Interaction-Opening-Up-Jazz-Ensemble/dp/3892210535

Heterophonic movement can look like a regular chord connection, while thinking goes by voices. If in this case we use the principle of tension and resolution, we can get the following result:
https://yadi.sk/d/K-2KKa9L3GnzyH

Agree that the sound isn't standard.

In the history of jazz, musicians did not copy blindly from classical music, but adapted according to their own feelings. Therefore, we are talking today about jazz harmony as a separate field of musical theory, although this was not always the case.
 
#15 ·
"The music we recognize today [1960] as jazz is a synthesis of six main sources: harmonic structure from European classical music; melodic and harmonic qualities from nineteeth-century American folk music; work songs and minstrel show music; with, of course, a substantial overlapping of many of these areas.
***** spirituals and blues bear a slight and debatable relationship, in sale concept and rhythmic values, to African origins; there is a stronger resemblance, in melody and spirit, among the American ***** work songs."

Leonard Feather, "Sixty years of jazz: an historical survey"
The Encyclopedia of Jazz (1960) pages 22-23
 
#17 ·
I think it's a flawed question: "harmony" (the way you or I use the word, meaning vertical analysis of triadic structures) is pretty much exclusively a European concept developed in the 1600s. So using that definition, no, jazz harmony is not African.

But are there African roots in jazz? Most definitely yes.

Sidney Bechet's autobiography "Treat It Gentle" describes how Black music preserved its African roots, through into the development of jazz. He talks about attitude, intent, the spirituality of the musicians and the community -- not harmony or formal structures.
 
#24 ·
I think it's a flawed question: "harmony" (the way you or I use the word, meaning vertical analysis of triadic structures) is pretty much exclusively a European concept developed in the 1600s.
This is not a matter of terminology, but a matter of essence. European "harmony" was singled out from the polyphony of the Netherlands school without departing from the ticket office - in the same Europe. African people were forcibly taken out and subjected to the influence of foreign religious choral music, which gradually blended with their own cultural traditions. As a result - mutual musical influence, and not only in rhythm or blue notes.

Summarizing:
Equal temperament: western origin
Chord structure consisting of stacking thirds: western origin
Chord movement (subdominant-dominant-tonic): western origin
Improvisation over chords: typical of baroque music, notably absent in the rest of the world
melody over a static chord (modal): called "pedal" in western music since 1600
Here are a number of signs that the IMO evidence of non-classical vertical thinking:

Trumpet-piano style in right hand of Earl Hines: the vertical serves to create a percussive trumpet effect, like the Satchmo sound. Continuously changing texture - single line, octave doubling, octaves with fifths, fourths, thirds or sixths inside - creates the effect of ecstatic human speech.


Red Garland has adopted an octave with a fifth - without respect to harmony, or full five-part block chords - also with "wrong" notes (Chopin would be dissatisfied).

McCoy Tyner with pentatonic chords in A Love Supreme, for example in the introduction : imagine that these chords are played by a group of on marimba players .

Texture in Better Get It In Your Soul by Charles Mingus


Voicings of Joe Zawinul here:
- from 10:08

And there are no end to such examples ...
 
#18 ·
"Does jazz harmony have African roots?"

Not a good question for today, Martin Luther King day !
Or maybe, a perfect question. :)

I believe that jazz was created by Black people and is the unique expression of the Black experience in America: their struggles and triumphs. Sun Ra: "Jazz is Black America's cry of joy and suffering."

Of course there have been many extraordinary white musicians. But the music was developed by Black people who, because they were denied freedom in their lives, expressed their inner freedom through their art.

I think this is crucial to understanding jazz deeply. It's Martin Luther King day, let's take a minute and reflect on how much suffering Black America has endured, and what a triumph of the spirit it was for Black America to create jazz -- a gift of truth and beauty for the entire world.
 
#19 ·
In the 60s my stepfather had a record of the music of the Dan, a tribe in Africa.
They had hollowed out wooden branches which were played as trumpets.
Only one mete per, tuned to tritones and performed in a synchronized swing.
They a wild drumming accompaniment.
It had a jazzy feel.
A single voice was rapping over it.
 
#32 ·
we have to open up a bit our minds... the article you linked is not to be considered definitive... at all, and anyway if you read well, especially the article about tampura, you'll discover that a sort of armony was created among the tampura tonic note and the singing voice.
i find that playng over a tampura drone is very beneficial for intonation and improvisation
 
#33 ·
" Hindustani music (roughly put) uses a system of "moods" associated with particular "ragas" -- modal frameworks that do not have "chords" or "keys" as such. Arabic music does a similar thing with maqamat (also a modal system), albeit the assignment of particular affects to particular modes is much looser. Same for Persian radif, Javanese slendro, and many other Asian modal systems..."
just surf the web... i have books that express the same concepts... but i can't recall names and authors right now.
 
#36 ·
Taking some of the musicians listed:

Earl Hines
Red Garland
McCoy Tyner
Charles Mingus

They were all many generations removed from their African ancestors and would have had no experience of musical practices of Africa. The closest some of these men might have had would have been African-American church singing, which is itself far removed from African musical practice and very heavily influenced by the European sources of Christian practice.

Joe Zawinul, obviously, doesn't have any African ancestry.

I can guarantee that all the above musicians had extensive training in European music. The harmonies they play either while improvising or composing can be instantly recognized by anyone familiar with standard European harmony. I doubt very much whether what they play would have been recognized by African musicians of say 1700 as being related to traditional African musical practice.

That said, the term "Africa" to describe the places from which people were taken to the Americas is so broad as to be probably nearly meaningless; "Africa" in the years 1550-1750 was not a single place with a single culture or a single type of musical practice.

Remember too that what African musicians (from whatever region) have used in their musical practice in say 1925- today (the period when recordings have been available) is not necessarily the same as how they were making music 250+ years ago when the ancestors of African-American musicians had their last contact with Africa.

I submit to you that the standard understanding remains accurate:

That African musicians who were brought to the Americas retained some of their traditional practices, keeping in mind that people from very different areas were thrown together. Some of the traditional practices of African music were forbidden by slave owners as well.

That the traditional African music was deeply complex in rhythm, but not so in harmonies. I believe that musicologists who have studied what remains in the 20th century of traditional African music are in agreement on this.

That "jazz" evolved from a combination of sources, including work songs, spirituals, European music, etc.

That most of what is today called "jazz harmony" is basically standard European harmony with an increased emphasis on the subdominant and 7th chords.

That "jazz rhythm? comes from a wide variety of sources including the African tradition, Spanish sounds, and European practices: of which the African practices are probably the dominant.

Subcontinental Indian music is totally irrelevant to the discussion, just as traditional Chinese music is.
 
#44 ·
dam, here we go again another denier! .....harmony without rhythm is worthless and could not be called a piece of music and hence cannot stand on its own! Please take note, the most sophisticated rhythms in the world are found where? AFRICA!..... rhythm is KING!
what many ignorant people overlook is that African music is not just poly rhythmic but, also poly meter!..... wrap your head around that, and this is what precisely makes the magic of jazz from traditional new orleans to bebop to traine, and this is what also makes the derivatives so dance-able (to some)!...... ON A SIDE NOTE, notice how a good bebop line sounds like nothing until do 2 things imply a back beat and pulse your phrasing.....ie imply a another METER!
the great jazz musician teacher Ellis Marsalis said to us "all modern music comes from new orleans!"
yes, Aldophe Sax did invent the saxophone and caught hell for doing it but, it was Coleman Hawkins that saved it from the obscurity of the circus! also, jazz was swingin and expressive well before it incorporated tonic dominant harmonic progressions! being from New Orleans we have many rhythms that i grew up tapping beats as a kid that i later found out are very primitive skeletons of what moderns call BACK BEAT!
 
#47 ·
dam, here we go again another denier! .....harmony without rhythm is worthless! Please take note, the most sophisticated rhythms in the world are found where? AFRICA!..... rhythm is KING!
what many ignorant people overlook is that African music is not just poly rhythmic but, also poly meter, wrap your head around that, and this is what precisely makes the magic of jazz from traditional new orleans to bebop to traine, and this also makes the derivatives modern music so dance-able (to some)!...... the great jazz music Ellis Marsalis said to us "all modern music comes from new orleans!"
yes, Aldophe Sax did invent the saxophone and caught hell for doing it but, it was Coleman Hawkins that saved it from the obscurity of the circus! also, jazz was swingin and expressive well before it incorporated tonic dominant harmonic progressions! being from New Orleans we have many rhythms that i grew up tapping beats as a kid that i later found out are very primitive skeletons of what moderns call BACK BEAT!
Some observations:

1. The thread is about the origin of jazz harmony, not rhythm. I play plenty of harmonic backup using organ samples on keys, and the only rhythm I need is the simple count telling me when to move to the next phrase/chord. Often I can use just the lyrics. I would not consider rhythm part of that process in anything but the most primitive sense.

2. The thread is about the origin of jazz harmony, not rhythm. Just about all the commenters have very clearly stated that jazz rhythm's origins were by and large African. If it takes two to tango, it also takes at least two to have a fight. Where's the other one?

3. As turf pointed out, the title of the thread is spurious. The op is not asking a question at all, but making a clear assertion, and then arguing with those that disagree.
 
#53 ·
'[T]he great jazz musician teacher Ellis Marsalis said to us "all modern music comes from new orleans!"'

Well, there is no doubt whatsoever that New Orleans is a fabulous music town and a huge influence. Furthermore, one would have to expect that people from New Orleans would want to boast about their town's many great features.

But there are other views besides the one stating that jazz originated or was invented in New Orleans:

Wilbur De Paris:
"For instance, the type of trumpet playing that came to be identified later with Bix Beiderbecke was quite common in the Midwest among ***** musicians ... bass band and orchestra men played dances; and they played jazz. There was a whole other school that should compliment the New Orleans school, and that was the school I came up in. .... Jazz was growing up in different parts of the country without one part knowing what the other part was doing."
"60 years of jazz, an historical survey" by Leonard Feather.

Eubie Blake, born in 1883, asserted that ragtimes were played at Baltimore funerals at least as early as those in New Orleans. "We called the music ragtime whether it was a band or a piano playing. We never heard the word jazz until many years later."

W.C. Handy (born 1873, Florence, Ala; and who developed his work in Evansville Indiana, and in Kentucky, and in Memphis, but not in New Orleans) stated that the musicians in his band came from all over, Mississippi, Florida, Tennessee, Philadelphia, New York, as well as Louisiana.

The Philadelphia ragtime piano player Walter Gould (born 1875), said that the exclusive "jazz was invented in New Orleans" claims were a myth. He stated that "It all started because Louis Armstrong and King Oliver happened to come there."

Willie the Lion Smith (from Goshen New York, 1897), said that as far back as he could remember there were players of Armstrong and Bunk Johnson caliber in the east: "the boys who chronicaled the development around New Orleans did a much more effective job than the people who were east, and it also seems that the whites were more aware of its value around New Orleans and they really did a job of promoting."

The best remembered exponent of ragtime piano was Scott Joplin, a Texan born in 1868 who settled in Sedalia, in central Missouri.

[citation ditto]

Jazz has many complex sources. Certainly West Africa and New Orleans figure as two of the greatest places to look for influences.

I have not found any authority citing to harmony as one of the West African aspects of jazz.

On early jazz:

https://www.discogs.com/Various-Steppin-On-The-Gas-Rags-To-Jazz-1913-1927/release/3580394

Has some interesting recordings.
 
#55 ·
i agree with your assesment for the most part! i personally dont believe new orleans could have been the sole originator of jazz, however, being the slave trade capital of the south meant that it had the greatest likelyhood to condense what probably being expressed all over the slave states! personally, i believe after nola jazz would have most likely happened somewhere in south carolina since it was there that had the highest total population of slaves.
at the same time, i must mention that improvisation is still very much a big task with or without harmony and that my intentions arent to downplay the importance of european harmony! i am just not willing to say that jazz isnt jazz without it!.......voila!
 
#56 ·
at the same time, i must mention that improvisation is still very much a big task with or without harmony and that my intentions arent to downplay the importance of european harmony! i am just not willing to say that jazz isnt jazz without it!.......voila!
That's fair enough. This isn't: ". . . it obvious some people have serious problems giving credit to some because it would open up an re evauation of everything we are taught!" If you're going to write something like that, you should at least be honestly forthright, and not hide behind weasel words like 'some people' and 'credit to some.' That allows everyone to tiptoe around what you clearly meant. Only Pete addressed it, but in an equally round-about way. How did we all become so friggin scared?
 
#58 ·
I play in an Afrobeat/ traditional band called Marafani World Beat. I'm the only horn.

There's Balophone, Kora, Dunes, Djembe's as well as guitar rhythm section and dancers.

All of the music is in different modes of the same key. Concert B major.

The rhythms, Harmony and general vibe I would say is the least like jazz of any group I've ever played with. It was also the hardest to learn my parts for. But honestly one of the most fun.
 
#63 ·
Hey Click, can you provide a link to this? Can't seem to find it referred to elsewhere on the interwebs and that sounds like an interesting assertion by De Paris, since Bix is always presented as representing a sort of white alternative to Armstrong. Maybe the opposite of Sudhalter's thesis will turn out to be true (I'm mainly trolling with this, by the way). "60 years of jazz, an historical survey" by Leonard Feather
 
#71 ·
It seems to me that the backbone or skeleton of Jazz harmony is clearly European. I think it's what players do "against" that harmony is to me what seems mostly like African influence. It seems like there is a lot more dissonance/tension on an improvisatory level that directly expresses strong or passionate emotions. I view it like taking the incredibly complex and sophisticated form of Classical music and injecting the passion of Folk music (and also performing it in smaller folk-like settings). Music by the people for the people.
 
#73 ·
I don't think level of emotion is a realistic, let alone constructive measure. Realistically, injecting the passion of Folk music into, say randomly, Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, or Brahm's Violin Conc.,, or any of Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninoff, etc., etc., would be like shooting a water gun into a tsunami. The other problem with it is that it suggests that there is something elite about classical music that is not accessible to "the people." That is totally untrue, although it's belief has kept many run-of-mill people from giving classical music an honest hearing, at their incalculable loss.
 
#72 ·
The question is whether jazz harmony has African roots. That's a different question than Hadamard's simplistic false dichotomy that says some songs use exclusively European harmony, so if others do not exclusively use African harmony, then there is no influence. Obviously, the level of ignorance in that thinking is staggering, but we have him to thank for pointing out that there is music outside of the USA. Without that reminder, one would think it difficult to discuss European harmony or African influence at all.

Western harmony is a theory of vertical polyphonic function that attempted to codify the various tensions and releases found in voice-led music in Europe around the turn of the 17th century. It was a radical idea at its inception, and quite controversial. As a field practiced by academics and theorists, it expanded to name and codify any concept it encountered, which means that today, we can use the tools of harmonic analysis to describe music from any part of the world. By definition, the musician's idea of harmony is a European idea... "European harmony" is redundant, and "African harmony" doesn't exist. That doesn't mean that that music owes all of its harmonic roots to Europe, just as it doesn't mean Ars Nova can't be analyzed with the theoretical tools of European Harmony. It would be equally idiotic to suggest that Guillaume de Machaut owes his compositional tenets to the functional tonal harmony that evolved 250 years later, although the piece I'm listening to right now just cadenced on V7/ii ==> V7/V before returning to I three times in a row.

African influence in jazz music is pervasive, not exclusive. Due to the way African American culture developed in the US (where jazz was formed... not by Beethoven), tracing roots to specific geographical influences is as impossible as tracing family names back more than 150 years for most blacks in America. Compounding that problem is that African musical traditions vary from region to region and from person to person.

One interview I remember described a musician heading out into small villages in Benin to study music. When they arrived, they learned rhythms from the locals... each local person would demonstrate and teach "their" rhythm... a rhythmic pattern that was unique to them, often in its own meter, partly improvised around a basic pattern. When the people would come together, the various rhythms would be played together, mixed meters and all, creating a spontaneous new beat while the singers and tonal instruments played. These rhythms were only taught in person, by ear, and changed over time.

As none of the music was written and no over-arching system of polyphonic theory was developed, tracing or even naming "harmonic" traditions back through the diaspora is next to impossible. The only way to do that is to compare current musics, which have been diluted on both sides of the ocean by cross-influences, and make assumptions about what comes from where and when. Like the Malaguena in flamenco, though-- a compas of Spanish flamenco derived from a latin American song form which was based on Spanish flamenco-- it doesn't matter... jazz and blues are unique in their blending of harmonic influences.

There are definitely elements that do not come from the contemporary tonal harmony of the time. You only have to look to the first bar of the blues for that: I7 does not have dominant function. That's not borrowed from European harmony. Is it from a particular African culture? I've looked, and I don't know. But what it is, is something that exists AFTER the mix of European and African traditions, so that says there are African roots in jazz harmony.

**********************

To address some ignorant ideas I've seen in this breathtaking thread: no. Beethoven did not invent swing. Ragtime is not jazz. The French baroque style of dotted 8th - 16th phrasing is also not jazz. Rhythm is not used in jazz only at the most primitive level... whoever thinks it is literally is terrible at jazz. The pentatonic scale is universal. It's not owned by any culture, and appears spontaneously in every culture's music, including the music of previously secluded tribes when they make contact with the modern world. Citing the Real Book in a conversation with jazz musicians is like citing wikipedia in a conversation with academics. You shouldn't have to listen to jazzman1945's links to know what he's talking about... in fact if you don't already know the recordings in question, you're not qualified to have this discussion.
 
#95 ·
To address some ignorant ideas I've seen in this breathtaking thread: [...] Ragtime is not jazz.
Many of the old "jazz" players called their music "ragtime". If you start listening to records from 1915 and keep listening through to 1925, you will gradually hear the emergence of jazz from ragtime. But it is very difficult to pinpoint exactly when and how that transition occurs. There is no bright line distinguishing the two styles. Ragtime just very gradually and almost imperceptibly becomes jazz. The only way to realize this is to actually do that listening exercise.
 
#74 ·
We are lucky, we have DanPerez who knows everything (even when his nose is, according to his profile picture) and who says that I'm ignorant and a couple of lines after he writes:

"European harmony" is redundant, and "African harmony" doesn't exist.

Which, frankly, looks a lot like my "simplistic false dichotomy".
The first chord in a blues is a chord made stacking thirds, as per European harmony rules: there are no other musical systems we are aware of that ever had a chord that's the same as an European dominant chord. No matter where you put it or how you use it, it's a chord that has his roots in European tradition.

I find "idiotic" (am I qualified to use your lexicon, Dan?) the simple single idea that "European harmony" is considered as set in stone, when it's clearly something that constantly evolves with the taste of people.

If only we think about the blues chords as triads and not as dominant chords we have an harmony that's as old as harmony itself. I find more logical to suppose that someone, someday just played everything as dominant chords and discovered that it sounded good, than postulating some now-extinct African musical system that reached the same result in a totally indipendent way.


BTW: I'm not ashamed to cite Real Books, as -most- of the harmonic content is correct, as you may verify listening to the records (which, I also cited, but you were mainly interested in your badassery to notice). And you're not an Accademic, isn't it? You just wanted to look cool ignoring the content of what was written and bash whoever dared to name a Real Book. I won't ask what are the spiraled books in the library behind you in your Youtube videos...

BTW: I'm not ashamed if I haven't listened to every single jazz video on Youtube as I listened enough to have a more-than-vague idea of the history of music. I feel "qualified" as anyone if I want to participate to a public discussion.

BTW: you should really reconsider your attitude, it will make your liver sore...
 
#75 ·
We are lucky, we have DanPerez who knows everything (even when his nose is, according to his profile picture) and who says that I'm ignorant
I said your argument is ignorant, but hey, if the shoe fits...

and a couple of lines after he writes:

"European harmony" is redundant, and "African harmony" doesn't exist.

Which, frankly, looks a lot like my "simplistic false dichotomy".
A false dichotomy is when you try to reduce a complex issue into two mutually exclusive statements. What you're confusing here is an issue of definition. Tonal harmony is by definition a system of European rules, and that is what is functionally meant by "harmony" in this context. As such, it is not African or anything other than European.

The first chord in a blues is a chord made stacking thirds, as per European harmony rules: there are no other musical systems we are aware of that ever had a chord that's the same as an European dominant chord. No matter where you put it or how you use it, it's a chord that has his roots in European tradition.
The chord in question clearly has influence that does not stem from Europe. I7 was not a common tonic chord in European concert music, and from the time of Monteverdi onward, demonstrated dominant function, even before tonal harmony solidified the idea of function.

I find "idiotic" (am I qualified to use your lexicon, Dan?) the simple single idea that "European harmony" is considered as set in stone, when it's clearly something that constantly evolves with the taste of people.
Your English is fine, so you're qualified. This straw man argument is also not in dispute. In fact, I said something very similar in my first post. You've scored a good point in an argument that's not taking place here!

If only we think about the blues chords as triads and not as dominant chords we have an harmony that's as old as harmony itself.
If my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a bike.

I find more logical to suppose that someone, someday just played everything as dominant chords and discovered that it sounded good, than postulating some now-extinct African musical system that reached the same result in a totally indipendent way.
This is plausible. A musician's output is the sum total of musical experience and the creative avenues that experience opens. The result of commonly using I7 as a tonic did not occur until after musicians were commonly exposed to both European tradition and African slave chants/field songs.

BTW: I'm not ashamed to cite Real Books, as -most- of the harmonic content is correct, as you may verify listening to the records (which, I also cited, but you were mainly interested in your badassery to notice). And you're not an Accademic, isn't it? You just wanted to look cool ignoring the content of what was written and bash whoever dared to name a Real Book. I won't ask what are the spiraled books in the library behind you in your Youtube videos...
The Real Book isn't the source, so citing it is puerile. You can cite the tunes without reproach. While I appreciate a good ad hominem as much as the next guy, if you've seen me on youtube, you know I don't give a rat's *** about appearing cool hahaha. Point of interest, I have no problem with using the Real Book as a resource when there's no time to learn a tune properly. I've owned a couple through the years. You're off the mark with your ad hominem, though. That's not my house.

BTW: I'm not ashamed if I haven't listened to every single jazz video on Youtube as I listened enough to have a more-than-vague idea of the history of music. I feel "qualified" as anyone if I want to participate to a public discussion.
Oh, was that you who didn't know those tunes? I didn't check. I don't know all of them, myself, but the basics are the basics. If you haven't heard those tunes, you're doing yourself a disservice. You can participate in the discussion, sure... anyone can have an opinion. Without knowing at least a cross-section of the basic tunes, though, you demonstrate that your opinion is not well-informed. At least one of them should have been very familiar to you, as the selection covers a wide swath of jazz history, which is what you are opining on.

BTW: you should really reconsider your attitude, it will make your liver sore...
It's a reactionary attitude, mirroring the one I was responding to.
 
#76 ·
So...

Setting aside invective, let's consider the (to me) interesting case of I7 as the first chord in a 12 bar blues.

A couple of observations:

- A C7 in the first bar of a C blues would tend to lead toward the F in the second or fifth bar, no? So from the "functional harmony" standpoint, couldn't you justify the use of the 7 chord in that 1st bar because of the F7 chord it leads to?
- If you accept the hypothesis that some practicioners of early African-American music were using a sort of "pentatonic" scale wherein semitones are widened to avoid the use of semitones (trying to divide the octave into more even intervals), then I think it would follow that you would find "thirds" played or sung somewhat flat to our ears, "fourths" played or sung somewhat sharp, and "sevenths" played or sung somewhat flat to European ears. Then if you try to force this into a diatonic framework using instruments with fixed pitches, you might find that the thing on the piano that sounds closest to that pitch somewhere between B and Bb, would be the Bb; and BOOM we have the I7 that is in the first bar of a 12 bar blues. On guitar or fiddle or a wind instrument you can bend pitches, but on a piano or accordion you have the note you have. I also remember early in my piano life playing tunes that were kiddie versions of boogie-woogie where a common pattern would be something like G-G-Bb-B-G-G-Bb-B and so on. Couldn't this be a way to use the Bb-B notes as a way to kind of sound like that note halfway in between?

The thing is, by let's say 1940, everyone was using the 12 standard notes of equal temperament to play jazz, and using chords and voice leading techniques that are straight out of European harmony textbooks, with as I noted above an emphasis on the subdominant and four note chords. I believe that by that time pretty much all jazz playing had been forced into the European (forgive me) harmony framework.

Maybe the closest thing to accuracy would be to say that African MELODIC practices were adjusted to fit European harmonic practices, and that elements of European harmonic practices were adjusted to fit the African-derived melodic practices.

Finally, to address in plain words the racial aspects of this question:

I think anyone even a wee bit familiar with the history of this music understands that the major work in the development of jazz at least through the 1940s was done by African American musicians. The fact that these musicians were largely working in a European-derived harmonic framework does not mean that they were not the major movers in creating this music. If you think the fact that European harmony was used in creating this music in some way invalidates the creation of those African American musicians, that's like saying that if an American Indian artist paints subjects from his experience using paints bought from France, that his art is really French in origin. Or that the art of John Coltrane, created using an instrument invented in Belgium, is clearly of Belgian origin. Or that Einstein, who used Arabic numerals and algebra (both invented by Arabs) was therefore essentially an Arab.
 
#78 ·
So...

Setting aside invective...
Haha, sorry.

...let's consider the (to me) interesting case of I7 as the first chord in a 12 bar blues.

A couple of observations:

- A C7 in the first bar of a C blues would tend to lead toward the F in the second or fifth bar, no? So from the "functional harmony" standpoint, couldn't you justify the use of the 7 chord in that 1st bar because of the F7 chord it leads to?
Sometimes I think it has dual function like that, especially as used in Bird blues, but it's also clearly a tonic function. For example, when the tune resolves to it at the end, or in the case of a blues that just stays on the I7 for the first 8 bars or even the whole form.

- If you accept the hypothesis that some practicioners of early African-American music were using a sort of "pentatonic" scale wherein semitones are widened to avoid the use of semitones (trying to divide the octave into more even intervals), then I think it would follow that you would find "thirds" played or sung somewhat flat to our ears, "fourths" played or sung somewhat sharp, and "sevenths" played or sung somewhat flat to European ears.
This is a really interesting idea that I haven't found before. Where'd you come across it?

Maybe the closest thing to accuracy would be to say that African MELODIC practices were adjusted to fit European harmonic practices, and that elements of European harmonic practices were adjusted to fit the African-derived melodic practices.
Yeah, that's probably the right way to say it, IMO.

Finally, to address in plain words the racial aspects of this question:

I think anyone even a wee bit familiar with the history of this music understands that the major work in the development of jazz at least through the 1940s was done by African American musicians. The fact that these musicians were largely working in a European-derived harmonic framework does not mean that they were not the major movers in creating this music. If you think the fact that European harmony was used in creating this music in some way invalidates the creation of those African American musicians, that's like saying that if an American Indian artist paints subjects from his experience using paints bought from France, that his art is really French in origin. Or that the art of John Coltrane, created using an instrument invented in Belgium, is clearly of Belgian origin. Or that Einstein, who used Arabic numerals and algebra (both invented by Arabs) was therefore essentially an Arab.
+100 Yes, obviously, of course. When people flirt with denying this fact it doesn't come across well at all.
 
#82 ·
@DanPerezSax
"To address some ignorant ideas I've seen in this breathtaking thread: ... Ragtime is not jazz."

This is an interesting assertion, and I am not sure what you are trying to convey by making it.

1. The historical evidence seems to suggest that the people who developed, formed and played the music we now call "jazz" often referred to the music they played as "ragtime" before the term "jazz" or "jass" started to be used.

2. Are you asserting that this early music was not jazz, and that until the word jazz was used there was also not jazz music?

3. Are you asserting instead that there was jazz before that word was used to describe it, and that Armstrong, Blake, and others were inappropriately applying the word "ragtime" to what was going on, because they did not understand what constituted "ragtime" and fell into a verbal error thereby? [Some people, for example, have asserted that ragtime is played on a piano, period.]

4. Perhaps you are asserting that, in looking back on what happened, there is a clear demarcation between ragtime and jazz, that every musical piece can be solidly placed into either one or the other, and that it is only ignorance which causes a person to mix the two forms?

If you could point out some area for further reading, that would be helpful.

I found these a good read:

http://www.newworldrecords.org/liner_notes/80235.pdf

http://www.newworldrecords.org/liner_notes/80269.pdf

I highly recommend the listen, also.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
You have insufficient privileges to reply here.
Top