JAZZ SINCE 1946: FREEDOM AND FORM
ANTHONY DAVIS
This course will examine the evolution of Jazz from 1943 to the present. Our study begins with the dramatic arrival of Charlie Parker and the genesis of BEBOP with such innovators as Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk and Kenny Clarke. We will discuss the emergence of this new harmonic system and the implications of this critical innovation. We will explore the evolution of Jazz in the fifties with the contrary styles of COOL and HARD BOP and particularly follow the career of Miles Davis who was the principle instigator of COOL JAZZ with the release of the recording BIRTH OF THE COOL in 1949 and also a leader in the HARD BOP movement of the fifties. We will also study such seminal figures as Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Clifford Brown, Max Roach, Tadd Dameron, Lee Morgan and Horace Silver. The course will focus on the important composers of the fifties and sixties who helped to expand the harmony and forms of BOP taking on the challenge of the emerging new music. Thelonious Monk and Charles Mingus will be viewed not only as pioneering and innovative composers, but as important links to the legacy of Duke Ellington and a pre-Bird past of formal complexity and elegance.
The course will evaluate the impact of the arrival of Ornette Coleman in 1959 and the emergence of so-called FREE JAZZ as an alternative to the orthodoxies of BOP. We will discover what made Ornette Coleman’s music so revolutionary and why this music was so threatening to the mainstream of Jazz. 1960 marks a point of divergence in Jazz; there would be no commonly agreed upon aesthetic guiding the evolution of the music. The future of Jazz after 1960 would be permanently splintered and this would create incredible diversity and contention.
The course will follow the odyssey of John Coltrane and Miles Davis, two musicians whose personal voyages helped define the musical styles of the fifties, sixties and beyond. We will see Coltrane’s transformation from the quintessential HARD BOP saxophonist in the Miles Davis Quintet of the fifties to the acknowledged leader of the avant-guard in the sixties. Similarly, we will continue to trace the evolution of Miles Davis from the BIRTH OF THE COOL to the quintets of the fifties, to the development and refinement of modal jazz in the sixties, to the creation of jazz-rock fusion in the seventies with IN A SILENT WAY, BITCHES BREW and most importantly FILLE DE KILMANJARO.
The course will also examine the emergence of the avant-guard in the sixties with influential figures such as Eric Dolphy, Albert Ayler, Cecil Taylor and Don Cherry contributing in re-defining Jazz. We will study the development of this new music outside of New York with the creation of the AACM, the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, in Chicago and BAG, the Black Artist Group, in St. Louis. From these artist collectives emerged many of the musicians who helped define the avant-guard in the seventies, including Anthony Braxton, Muhal Richard Abrams, Julius Hemphill, Lester Bowie, Roscoe Mitchell, Oliver Lake, Leo Smith, Leroy Jenkins and Henry Threadgill and important groups like the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Air, the Creative Construction Company and the World Saxophone Quartet. We will also witness the development of extended works for improvisers in the seventies and eighties by composers such as Anthony Braxton, Leo Smith, Anthony Davis, James Newton and Julius Hemphill and the development of new technologies by composers George Lewis, Earl Howard and Richard Teitelbaum.
We will look at the dichotomies facing Jazz today: the Jazz at Lincoln Center of Wynton Marsalis which implicitly rejects all the post-Coleman developments in favor of a return to the aesthetic values of HARD BOP, the M-BASE group of improvisers such as Steve Coleman and Greg Osby who not only experiment with new forms but find interesting connections with HIP-HOP music, and the new music at downtown venues like the Knitting Factory with collage artists like John Zorn, Elliott Sharp and Tim Berne. Can Jazz survive the cultural wars? Does it face a cultural balkanization or will it thrive in its ever-evolving diversity?
MATERIALS
Required texts are What is This Thing Called Jazz?: African American Musicians as Artists, Critics and Activists by Porter, Eric and a READER available at Cal Copy. There will be listening assignments for each class.
REQUIREMENTS
REVIEW OF FILM, MIDTERM, FINAL EXAM, TWO ONE PAGE REVIEWS OF LIVE CONCERTS AND ONE PAPER, 5-7 PAGES OR FINAL PROJECT
GRADE BREAKDOWN
2 reviews = 20%, Film Review = 10%, Midterm = 20%, Final Exam = 25% and Paper = 25%
ANTHONY DAVIS OFFICE PHONE 822-2543
office hours Thursdays 2:00-5:00 at 232 Conrad Prebys Music Center
E-MAIL: adavis ["at"] ucsd ["dot"] edu
PLEASE, NO COMPUTERS OR CELLPHONES IN CLASS!
TEACHING ASSISTANTS
JEFF DENSON jeffdenson ["at"]hotmail ["dot"] com
PHIL SKALLER philskaller ["at"] gmail ["dot"] com
STEVE WILLARD swillard ["at"] ucsd ["dot"] edu
SCHEDULE ANTHONY DAVIS
MARCH 31 FILM: Write a review of the film due on Thursday, April 2nd
READ: What is This Thing Called Jazz, pp. 1-53
APRIL 2ND INTRODUCTION
BE-BOP REVOLUTION
CHARLIE PARKER, DIZZY GILLESPIE
AND BUD POWELL
LISTENING UNIT 1
READ: What is This Thing Called Jazz, pp. 54-100
Assignment from the Reader
APRIL 7 COOL AND HARD BOP ORTHODOXY
SONNY ROLLINS, CLIFFORD BROWN
MAX ROACH AND ART BLAKEY
LISTENING UNIT 2
Assignment from the Reader
APRIL 9 MILES DAVIS IN THE FIFTIES
QUINTET WITH COLTRANE
THE DEVELOPMENT OF MODAL JAZZ
LISTENING UNIT 3
Assignment from the Reader
APRIL 14 THELONIOUS MONK
MASTER COMPOSER
LISTENING UNIT 4
Assignment from the Reader
APRIL 16 JOHN COLTRANE
BLUE TRANE TO GIANT STEPS
LISTENING UNIT 5
Assignment from the Reader
APRIL 21 ORNETTE COLEMAN
FREE JAZZ?
LISTENING UNIT 6
Assignment from the Reader
APRIL 23 MODAL JAZZ
COLTRANE
LISTENING UNIT 7
Assignment from the Reader
APRIL 28 CHARLES MINGUS
EXTENDED FORMS, BIG BANDS,
THE LEGACY OF ELLINGTON
LISTENING UNIT 8
READ: What is This Thing Called Jazz, pp. 101-190
Assignment from the Reader
Concert Review Due
APRIL 30 MID-TERM
Jazz: pp.270-291
Submit Proposal for Paper or Final Project
MAY 5 ERIC DOLPHY
LISTENING UNIT 9
Assignment from the Reader
MAY 7 MODAL JAZZ II
MILES DAVIS, WAYNE SHORTER
LISTENING UNIT 10
Assignment from the Reader
MAY 12 PIANISTS EVANS, HANCOCK,TYNER, COREA, JARRETT AND TAYLOR
LISTENING UNIT 11
Assignment from the Reader
MAY 14 THE AVANT-GARDE
CECIL TAYLOR, ALBERT AYLER AND
PHAROAH SANDERS
Jazz: pp. 292-323
Assignment from the Reader
MAY 19 FUSION
MILES DAVIS, JIMI HENDRIX
JOHN MCGLAUGHLIN
WEATHER REPORT
LISTENING UNIT 13
Review Jazz: pp. 262-264
Assignment from the Reader
MAY 21 THE AACM AND THE BLACK ARTIST GROUP
MUHAL RICHARD ABRAMS
THE ART ENSEMBLE OF CHICAGO
ANTHONY BRAXTON, HENRY THEADGILL, JULIUS HEMPHILL AND LEO SMITH
READ: What is This Thing Called Jazz, pp. 191-286
LISTENING UNIT 14
Jazz: pp. 322-353
Assignment from the Reader
MAY 26 EXTENDED FORMS
A NEW THIRD STREAM?
ANTHONY DAVIS AND JAMES NEWTON
LISTENING UNIT 15
READ: What is This Thing Called Jazz, pp. 287-334
Assignment from the Reader
FINAL PAPER DUE
MAY 28 WYNTON MARSALIS AND THE NEW TRADITIONALISTS
LISTENING UNIT 16
Assignment from the Reader
JUNE 2 COLLAGE ART OR JAZZ MEETS
DOWNTOWN AND MINIMALISM
JOHN ZORN AND GEORGE LEWIS
JAZZ MEETS HIP-HOP, NEW RHYTHMS
STEVE COLEMAN, GREG OSBY
JAZZ AND THE OTHER
LISTENING UNIT 17
Assignment from the Reader
JUNE 4 REVIEW AND PRESENTATION OF PROJECTS
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