The teaching of Jazz is now legit!

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

I've posted this before...

"under great criticism Bernhard Sekles initiated the FIRST academic jazz studies anywhere at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt in 1928 - the first courses in the United States were started in the mid-1940s. The director of the jazz department was Mátyás Seiber. The jazz studies were closed by The Nazis in 1933"

Just owning jazz records could get you sent to a concentration camp in Nazi Germany. Not unlike my old grammar school.
"

[Serial_Apologist]

I've posted this before...

"under great criticism Bernhard Sekles initiated the FIRST academic jazz studies anywhere at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt in 1928 - the first courses in the United States were started in the mid-1940s. The director of the jazz department was Mátyás Seiber. The jazz studies were closed by The Nazis in 1933"

Just owning jazz records could get you sent to a concentration camp in Nazi Germany. Not unlike my old grammar school.
"

Has anyone "authoritative" written on the subject of what it is about jazz that has elicited greater support for the music in Europe than in its original homeland, does anyone here know? Is this difference of appreciation largely down to the downgraded status of black people in the US, even compared with over here? Or maybe it reflects America's only coming into being as an independent nation 3 centuries after colonialism had been instigated from within Europe? America's exploitation of the third world was initially through its treatment of immigrants - Europe's enslaved colonies were "somewhere else" - its peoples' plights out of public knowledge, its peoples did not experience mass immigration to the same degree or way America had responded to it (civil war, segregation) until post WW2, by which time American global dominance was exercised through planting American-owned companies in Third World countries - beyond sight, beyond questioning.

[Ian Thumwood]

It is well documented that the Europeans understood the significance of Jazz well ahead of the Americans. However, it is interesting to read through these posts which would give you the impression the jazz musicians just rolled out of bed in the 1920s playing this stuff! Although criitcism and appreciation of jazz was a significant developmemt in Europe in the 1930s, I think it would have been fascinating to have been a musician in the first decade of 20th Century plying your trade and understanding the shift in musical taste which was heralded by the popularity of Ragtime in 1890's. Someone had to work out how the music went together. It is worthwhile noting that the people performing this music were classically trained and technically advanced. The implication that Jelly Roll Morton did not have a formal training is incorrect. From recollection there are a couple of Classical pieces on the Library of Congress recordings. The preponderance of pianos and their popularity before the advent of radio would have already produced an extensive generation of musicians familiar with classical repertoire even before the likes of the Asutin High School gang were checking out Debussy. There was a pool of talent already in place to exploit jazz. Many families would have had pianos in the absence of radios.

I have to say that I think that so much of the basic elements in the early history of jazz are overlooked in the rush for Left-leaning historians to romanticise jazz. Alot of the people playing piano or involved in orchestration would have some from middle class backgrounds where they had learned and absorbed the Western classical tradition. They would not have had the tools in their box without this training. If you take musicians working in the areas of piano playing or involved with orchestras, these musicians would all have been able to read music to a high standard and possessed really good techniques. If you look at the likes of Eubie Blake, Duke Ellington, Fletcher Henderson, etc, etc they all fit this bill. Same applies to JRM. They cme from musically literate backgrounds.

The other point which is the elephant in the room with the history of jazz is the abundance of printed music. Again, with no radios, the latest hits and styles of music have been promoted by music publishers for consumption at home. It always strikes me as amusing that historians talk about the likes of Don Redman amending stock arrangements to create his own style. Well, someone muct have written these arrangements i the first place !! I think you would find such arrangements fo rorchestras and solo piano at a really early date if you bothered to look them up. It was Paul Whiteman who wrote a treatise on jazz arrangement which was published in 1924. I am sure he was not unique in this respect even if what might have been considered "jazz" under the ban mentioned at the head of the thread would not fit most people's definition of jazz today. Thee must have been a market for this even back then to have written the book in the first place. Back in 1922, "jass" wuld have covered a multitude of sins between unpolished groups like ODJB that had an almost slap-stick feel about them to the kind of sophisticated stuff Paul Whiteman's was gettng Ferdie Grofe to write for him.

For me, the big question is where has all this manuscript gone? My Mum had a collection of music from the early 1900s and i am sure that there must be loads of other families in America who have retained such manuscript too. There were plenty of "Hot Dance bands" in the early 1920s for whom someone much have written charts and you wonder what happened to them. If you were studying Classical music in the 1910's, I have no doubt that these youngs musicians who have also played the latest hit music too on their instruments. It always amazes me just how quickly jazz became ubiquitous in the States within the matter of a few years. This would also have been at the same time there was a craze for saxophnes brought about by bands such as The Brown Brothers. I can imagine a massive melting pot of ideas being created at that time amngst a musically literate youth and increased income to spend on new technology such as gramophones and radios to allow the ideas to spread really rapidly.

The romantic idea of black musicians picking up their instruments and creating jazz as if by magic detracts from the fact that many of these musicians were both musically literate and well informed with regards to musical theory. I agree that there would have been musicians like your Boldens, Keppards, Olivers, etc who might have been less informed but I sometimes wonder if they were actually the exception rather than the rule. It is worthwhile noting that many of the black communities in the North had been at the vangard of American popular music since the late 1800s with venues such as the Pekin Theatre in Chicago employing musicians like Joe Jordon who produced revues which sound like Ragtime meets G&S. I love reading about these musicians and when you learn about their lives you realise that Pre / early jazz has been seriously underrated.

I think the intriguing thing is the process of passing the information on. The music publishing business always seems slightly overlooked in the history of jazz. There must have been publishers producing music for dance bands very early on and the more savvy musicians would be making trasncriptions of records for their own bands as well. Louis Armstrong published his set of Hot breaks and choruses for trumpet in the 1920s . I appriate that there would have been an aural / experience-based process to education yet the complexity of jazz piano at that time does make me curious as to how this was taught. I cannot recall reading any account of a musician from pre-Swing jazz explaining how they learned to apply harmony, rhythm or even composition / arranging. The appetite for this music at that time must have ben huge. We tend to think of this era in terms of the great recordings of that era but jazz was ubiquitous and the interest would have gone well beyond professional musicians and picked up by college bands and amateurs in the towns and cities across the country.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I've posted this before...

"under great criticism Bernhard Sekles initiated the FIRST academic jazz studies anywhere at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt in 1928 - the first courses in the United States were started in the mid-1940s. The director of the jazz department was Mátyás Seiber. The jazz studies were closed by The Nazis in 1933"

Just owning jazz records could get you sent to a concentration camp in Nazi Germany. Not unlike my old grammar school.
"

Not at my Grammar school where the music teacher had been taught by Seiber himself at , I think , Morley College. The school had one or two phenomenal jazz players in the sixth form.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Yes, I was a bit tongue in cheek. My school music society did allow me to bring in the EP of Miles "Milestone" and play it for them in the lunchtime. A change from Brahms.

[Quarky]

This news item was actually widely reported (see Guardian 25/03/2022) in US & Europe.

I assume Mrs. Adolph Baumgartner is a fictitious name.

[Ein Heldenleben]

This news item was actually widely reported (see Guardian 25/03/2022) in US & Europe.

I assume Mrs. Adolph Baumgartner is a fictitious name.

No there really was such a person in New Orleans. The only thing that appears to be slightly fake is the original news story or more accurately the title of this thread. The ban was not on the teaching of jazz but on its performance in schools particularly in dances . I would be amazed if jazz was taught at all in any US in schools in the 20’s . It wasn’t even taught in the New York US school I went to for a year in the 60’s . We did sing a lot of African American spirituals though ( the US is very much more religious then we are ) . They were amazed that I knew the words to John Brown’s Body ( aka the Battle Hymn of The Republic ) but I went to a very right- on sixties primary school.

[Dave2002]

It always strikes me as amusing that historians talk about the likes of Don Redman amending stock arrangements to create his own style. Well, someone muct have written these arrangements i the first place !! [sic]

Depends what you mean by "writing". It is not completely impossible that a modest size band, playing by ear could have evolved new tunes over a relatively short period. Certainly some would have had conventional musicians - or "writers" who could transcribe sounds into musical notation - but it is also possible that some didn't, and that the tunes and arrangements were passed on orally.

In the early part of the 20th Century there were indeed many homes which had pianos, and people bought notated arrangements of all kinds of music. However, somewhat later on a lot of jazz and popular music was issued in the form of lead sheets, with a melody and a suggested set of harmonies, which someone with a modicum of harmony training could then use to put together a performance.

Maybe later came the Real and Fake books, which were produced by students and others writing down what they heard in performances or on records, in order (perhaps) to popularise the music, and avoid paying publishers or copyright issues.

That's my understanding anyway. So - to summarise - some jazz musicians would have been highly accomplished and able to read and write standard notation, but some would perhaps "only " have been able to play "by ear", and would have generally improvised, and maybe not used any form of notation at all. Notated forms of some music may only have been by writing down chords in lead sheet formats.

[Alyn_Shipton]

To reply to S-A's points above. One of the first books to consider the comparative critical reception of jazz in the US and Europe was James Lincoln Collier: The Reception of Jazz In America: A New View, ISAM Monographs no 27, Brooklyn Collage, CUNY, 1988. This involved a comparative trawl through early literature about the music on both sides of the Atlantic, and preceded some of Collier's more - er - controversial works. (Though his Goodman bio from the later period is pretty good). I can't see why one would look at the Rough Guide to see about Morton's education. In Mr Jelly Roll, (1949 edition p 9) Morton explains to Alan Lomax how - while still at school - he was taught classical piano technique by Professor Nickerson of St Joseph's University - a catholic institution in New Orleans. Morton notated his compositions (in a very distinctive hand) from the 1910s onwards. Several of his MSS survive and were published by Bill Russell in his book Oh Mr Jelly (which I read in MS and advised Bill on before publication). It is, however, somewhat pricey to get hold of nowadays: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Oh-Mister-J.../dp/8788043266

[Ein Heldenleben]

Depends what you mean by "writing". It is not completely impossible that a modest size band, playing by ear could have evolved new tunes over a relatively short period. Certainly some would have had conventional musicians - or "writers" who could transcribe sounds into musical notation - but it is also possible that some didn't, and that the tunes and arrangements were passed on orally.

In the early part of the 20th Century there were indeed many homes which had pianos, and people bought notated arrangements of all kinds of music. However, somewhat later on a lot of jazz and popular music was issued in the form of lead sheets, with a melody and a suggested set of harmonies, which someone with a modicum of harmony training could then use to put together a performance.

Maybe later came the Real and Fake books, which were produced by students and others writing down what they heard in performances or on records, in order (perhaps) to popularise the music, and avoid paying publishers or copyright issues.

That's my understanding anyway. So - to summarise - some jazz musicians would have been highly accomplished and able to read and write standard notation, but some would perhaps "only " have been able to play "by ear", and would have generally improvised, and maybe not used any form of notation at all. Notated forms of some music may only have been by writing down chords in lead sheet formats.

An excellent summary . Louis Armstrong (I’ve read ) learnt notation in his twenties . It strikes me that a lot of jazz musicians follow exactly the same path as young classical prodigies . They can play by ear and pick out melodies from an early age. Sometimes , as with piano prodigies, they can almost exactly replicate harmonised music. The classical prodigies would have gone down the formal tuition path . From what I remember of Louis’s early life he was adopted by a Jewish family and first started playing the trumpet as a way of drumming up business for their junk shop. He was taken under the wing of a local cornet player who taught him a few tunes by ear. He was also in a vocal quartet - good introduction to harmony.Presumably he realise it would be useful to learn the dots or out of musical curiosity wanted to know what they meant.
Being able to follow a lead sheet is pretty essential now especially if you are a pianist but I’ve played with musicians who can literally pick up any tune and work out some form of harmony on the hoof. As long as the bass player and pianist are in some sort of agreement on the changes ( the harmonic substitutions that most non Trad jazz relies on) the horns can more or less busk it. Once or twice I’ve seen world class pros apologise when there’s been a harmonic disagreement- it’s nearly always in the middle eight for some reason.

[Old Grumpy]

Depends what you mean by "writing". It is not completely impossible that a modest size band, playing by ear could have evolved new tunes over a relatively short period. Certainly some would have had conventional musicians - or "writers" who could transcribe sounds into musical notation - but it is also possible that some didn't, and that the tunes and arrangements were passed on orally.

In the early part of the 20th Century there were indeed many homes which had pianos, and people bought notated arrangements of all kinds of music. However, somewhat later on a lot of jazz and popular music was issued in the form of lead sheets, with a melody and a suggested set of harmonies, which someone with a modicum of harmony training could then use to put together a performance.

Maybe later came the Real and Fake books, which were produced by students and others writing down what they heard in performances or on records, in order (perhaps) to popularise the music, and avoid paying publishers or copyright issues.

That's my understanding anyway. So - to summarise - some jazz musicians would have been highly accomplished and able to read and write standard notation, but some would perhaps "only " have been able to play "by ear", and would have generally improvised, and maybe not used any form of notation at all. Notated forms of some music may only have been by writing down chords in lead sheet formats.

Orally, or indeed, in the case of instrumental music, aurally.

[Ein Heldenleben]

To reply to S-A's points above. One of the first books to consider the comparative critical reception of jazz in the US and Europe was James Lincoln Collier: The Reception of Jazz In America: A New View, ISAM Monographs no 27, Brooklyn Collage, CUNY, 1988. This involved a comparative trawl through early literature about the music on both sides of the Atlantic, and preceded some of Collier's more - er - controversial works. (Though his Goodman bio from the later period is pretty good). I can't see why one would look at the Rough Guide to see about Morton's education. In Mr Jelly Roll, (1949 edition p 9) Morton explains to Alan Lomax how - while still at school - he was taught classical piano technique by Professor Nickerson of St Joseph's University - a catholic institution in New Orleans. Morton notated his compositions (in a very distinctive hand) from the 1910s onwards. Several of his MSS survive and were published by Bill Russell in his book Oh Mr Jelly (which I read in MS and advised Bill on before publication). It is, however, somewhat pricey to get hold of nowadays: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Oh-Mister-J.../dp/8788043266

Think at that price I might have to pass. I see from his wiki entry that Bud Powell was an exceptionally good sight reader. I have a theory that the arrival of bebop meant musicians esp pianists (and bass players ? ) heard to learn to read or at least follow a lead sheet just because of the growing harmonic complexity . But it’s only a theory.

[Serial_Apologist]

Orally, or indeed, in the case of instrumental music, aurally.

Either suit in this context, I would say. Orally, referring to transmission of an oral (by word of mouth) tradition; aurally, as in received by ear.

[Alyn_Shipton]

It goes back way before the arrival of bebop. Fletcher Henderson (a chemistry graduate) was a fluent sight-reader and a song-plugger in the early 20s, and he expected similar standards from the members of his band. Armstrong's sight reading was brushed up considerably during his time with FH. Redman arranged for Henderson before moving to assist John Nesbitt in McKinney's Cotton Pickers. Another fluent reading band. Doc Cheatham (who learned to read music at school in Nashville, and learned jazz by sitting in with the pit band at a TOBA Theatre) told me that McKinney's in common with almost all the other early bands he played with (after working with Ma Rainey and Albert Wynn, whose bands did play by ear) were packed with fluent readers and writers. That includes Sam Wooding's and Cab Calloway's orchestras. Jimmie Lunceford gained his BMus music degree from Fisk in 1926, a college that taught music to African Americans since the days of the Jubilee Singers in the mid 19th century. So it'd be good to see some of those who post here recognising that jazz musicians have been musically literate, good sight readers and accomplished arrangers from the outset of the music. Morton reminds us that in the time of Bolden's early bands John Robichaux led a "reading" orchestra.

[Serial_Apologist]

To reply to S-A's points above. One of the first books to consider the comparative critical reception of jazz in the US and Europe was James Lincoln Collier: The Reception of Jazz In America: A New View, ISAM Monographs no 27, Brooklyn Collage, CUNY, 1988. This involved a comparative trawl through early literature about the music on both sides of the Atlantic, and preceded some of Collier's more - er - controversial works. (Though his Goodman bio from the later period is pretty good). I can't see why one would look at the Rough Guide to see about Morton's education. In Mr Jelly Roll, (1949 edition p 9) Morton explains to Alan Lomax how - while still at school - he was taught classical piano technique by Professor Nickerson of St Joseph's University - a catholic institution in New Orleans. Morton notated his compositions (in a very distinctive hand) from the 1910s onwards. Several of his MSS survive and were published by Bill Russell in his book Oh Mr Jelly (which I read in MS and advised Bill on before publication). It is, however, somewhat pricey to get hold of nowadays: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Oh-Mister-J.../dp/8788043266