Early Jazz: Its Roots and Musical Development
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| Series | The History of jazz; v. 1 |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Oxford University Press |
Publication date | 1968 |
| ISBN | 0195040430 |
| OCLC | 13331781 |
Early Jazz: Its Roots and Musical Development, by Gunther Schuller, is a seminal study of jazz from its origins through the early 1930s, first published in 1968.[1] When it was published, it was the first volume of a projected two volume history of jazz through the Swing era. (Schuller died before he could write a promised third volume, on the bebop period and after.) The book takes an enthusiastic tone to its subject.[2] A notable feature of the series is transcriptions of jazz performances, which increase its value for the musically literate.
Chapters
1. The Origins
This chapter briefly covers the sociological and musical backgrounds of jazz. It then goes into detail regarding what Schuller takes to be the major elements of jazz. In the section on rhythm, the book describes swing technically, while first admitting that "a definition of swing has about the same sketchy relationship to swing itself as jazz notation has to performed jazz." The section includes observations made in the ante-bellum and Civil War periods, as well as references to African rhythms and the jazz of the period that is the book's subject.
The section on form covers African elements, European influences, and forms developed by African-Americans in the wouth. Schuller concludes that the blues "left enough room to preserve a number of African rhythmic-melodic charcteristics." In a brief discussion of the role of harmony in the origins of jazz, the book notes that African and European systems of harmony overlapped sufficiently to allow their synthesis without "profound problems." The section on melody again finds African characteristics in a fundamental characteristic of jazz melody: the use of blue notes. An additional African influence is the way that melody in predecessors of jazz followed speech characteristics.
A brief section on timbre again emphasizes the African roots of an emphasis on the individuality of a performer's tone color. Schuller notes that "African instrumentation reflects the vocal quality of African speech." He cites various jazz performers for the natural quality of their sound production, sound that makes each performer readily identifiable. A final brief section in this chapter, on improvisation, states that group improvisation, a hallmark of early jazz, is a distinctively African practice. Schuller counters a variety of other theories of the historical basis of jazz improvisation. He summarizes the "Origins" chapter by observing, "Many more aspects of jazz derive directly from African musical-social traditions than has been assumed."
2. The Beginnings
While focusing with considerable detail on New Orleans, Schuller is at pains to emphasize that jazz arose in the period immediately after 1900 in many places in the United States, even while other African-American music that may have incorporated some jazz characteristics was simultaneously taking shape without actually being jazz. Regardless, the varied kinds of music that soon fused as jazz had the blues in common. For both the varied locations and the commonality of blues, Schuller details as examples developments in Denver and Springfield, Ohio, as well as New Orleans.
Some of the already great jazz musicians came to wider public notice when they made their first issued recordings, in 1923. This group included King Oliver, Freddie Keppard, Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, Sidney Bechet and Bennie Moten. (The blues singer Bessie Smith also began recording that year.) Despite having these recordings in hand, Schuller is unwilling to extrapolate historically back to what earlier jazz would have sounded like, preferring to rely on written and verbal reports.
Reception
Reviewed Work(s): Early Jazz: Its Roots and Musical Development by Gunther Schuller Review by: Frank Tirro Source: Notes, Dec., 1968, Second Series, Vol. 25, No. 2 (Dec., 1968), pp. 227-229 Published by: Music Library Association Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/893984
GEORGE A. BOECK https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article/75/7/2130/320954 by The Wikipedia Library on 28 September 2020
References
- ^ Schuller, Gunther (1968). The history of jazz. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195040430. OCLC 13331781.
- ^ Austin, William W. (1969). "Gunther Schuller. Early Jazz: Its Roots and Musical Development". Journal of the American Musicological Society. 22 (1): 135–138. doi:10.2307/830823.