Archive for October, 2009

Charlie Parker Jazz Biography

Very few jazz musicians affected the history of their musical style as much as Charlie “Bird” Parker. And certainly no saxophonist was more important than Charlie Parker. His innovations in creating the style of “bebop” forever changed the jazz idiom and the minds of jazz musicians. Unfortunately, his career was cut short in 1955 when he died in Baroness Nica’s apartment. Had Bird lived longer, the impact he would have further had on jazz music would have been incredible. 

Charlie Parker was born on August 20th, 1920 in Kansas City, Kansas. His father, Charles, was a pianist and provided young Charlie with his first exposure to music. Charlie began to pick up the alto saxophone around age 11 and he began playing with his school band by age 14, although he was reportedly kick out because he was so bad. This incident was probably one of the reasons why, later in life, Bird would often spend the majority of his days practicing. Bird’s earliest exposure to professional jazz music was around the age of 15 when he began playing with jazz groups semi-professionally. His family had moved to Kansas City, Missouri which ad experienced growth in the jazz music field. Bird played with local jazz groups from 1935 until 1938 when he joined Jay McShann’s territory band.

Bird made his first record debuts with McShann’s group and he toured with the group between 1939 and 1940. In 1939 he had moved to New York City and began working odd jobs to make money during the day. He would attend jazz shows at night and start focusing more on his improvisational skills and form. In 1942 Bird left McShann’s group and joined Earl Hines’ group where he began working with trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie. It was Bird’s relationship with Dizzy along with pianist Thelonious Monk that would allow him to help create the style known as bebop.

After staying with Earl Hines’ group for roughly a year, Bird left and worked on developing bebop. The style of bebop was created by taking the basic form of jazz improvisation to the next level. Bird and Dizzy no longer focused on taking melodies already present in the music and developing them. Instead, they took the chord structure and used it, along with extended tones from each chord (such as 9ths, 11ths, and 13ths) to move from chord to chord, key to key, creating new melodic lines. Bird’s mastery of the alto saxophone allowed him to play very fast with little to no flaws, moving seamlessly from chord to chord, and key to key. 

Unfortunately, due to the 1942-1944 strike of the American Federation of Musicians, no commercial recordings of Charlie Parker in his early stages of bebop were released. Once the ban was listed however, Bird began heading his own records and he also began working on records with Dizzy. In November 1945 Bird led a recording that featured tracks such as “Koko” and “Now’s The Time”. This record would later become a jazz classic; it would solidify Bird’s status as a jazz legend and as a leading innovator. Later in 1945 Bird traveled with Dizzy to Los Angeles to play a string of gigs, which weren’t as successful as their east coast counterparts, and the group returned to New York with the exception of Bird. The group could not find Bird when it was time to leave California and eventually decided that Bird would find his was home. Unfortunately at this point in his life Bird was fighting an addiction to heroin, and his missing the flight was partly because he had cashed in his return plane ticket in order to buy heroin.

Charlie Parker had suffered from an addiction to heroin after being in a car accident while he was a teenager. He was actually addicted to morphine, but turned to heroin, which was more accessible. After several incidents involving Bird’s heroin addiction, he was sent to Camarillo State Hospital to be treated for his heroin addiction. After spending six months at Camarillo Bird was declared clean and was able to move back to New York, but not before recording “Relaxin’ at Camarillo”, a song describing his stay at the State Hospital. When Bird returned to New York he quickly got back into his music and recorded a series of records with his “classic quintet” (which included Miles Davis, and Max Roach), which are universally thought to be his absolute best recordings.

In November 1949 Bird finally achieved one of his dreams: recording with strings. Recording with strings in the jazz world meant that the musician had really become famous because the recordings were expensive, and for a record company to spend so much money on a jazz musician meant a lot. Bird had been interested in “classical” music for some time now, most notably his interest in the music of Igor Stravinsky. The chance to record with strings was something Bird had always wanted, and the recordings are classic. His improvisations are more subdued than in other Bird recordings, but they are no less expressive.

Bird had reached a level of stardom by 1950, and jazz did not escape his realm of influence. A jazz club in New York City, called “Birdland”, had opened up and named itself after Charlie Parker. Bird was touring nightclubs in New York City, as well as touring in Europe. However, this return to New York also meant a return to Bird’s heroin addiction. While this had left him completely debilitated before, it was not wreaking such havoc on his life this time. He was able to perform coherently, and this period is considered to be a period of his best playing. Unfortunately his addiction to heroin cost him his cabaret license, which in turn kept him from performing in many of the major New York City nightclubs. Unfortunately it kept going downhill from there. In 1954 Charlie Parker’s two and a half year old daughter, Pree, had died of pneumonia. The news of his daughter’s death sent Bird into a depression and he attempted suicide, twice. He also admitted himself to a mental institution, but later released himself. On March 12th 1995, Bird died in Baroness Nica’s apartment, reportedly while watching Tommy Dorsey on television. The death certificate listed “pneumonia” as the cause of death, but it was obvious that several factors, such as drug abuse, alcohol abuse, and depression had played a bigger role in his death.

Charlie Parker influenced generations of jazz musicians, and will continue to influence generations of jazz musicians to come. His playing on the alto saxophone was unique in its tone, speed, ferocity, and expressivity. His innovations in bebop affected the outcome of jazz history forever. Bird’s work with musicians such as Miles Davis, Max Roach, and occasionally John Coltrane had an impact on the direction jazz history would take.

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Simone Dinnerstein Brings Bachs Music Back to Life

Simone Dinnerstein’s performance of Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Goldberg Variations” was simply incredible. The first thing I want to address is the actual performance. Simone’s skill is at a virtuosic level that I can’t even comprehend. How can one’s fingers move that quickly? The amount of emotion she put into the piece was astonishing. I really felt like she took the piece to heart, and that she made it a part of her own being. Just an interesting thought; while she was playing all I could think about was the fact that over two hundred and fifty years ago this piece was being performed by Bach.

The piece itself was also incredible, although hard to follow at times. The main theme, the “Aria”, was easy to remember and when it came back at the end of the piece it was very refreshing. Although each variation is not a variation on the original theme you can hear the basic harmonic structure of the theme, and at some points you can hear allusions to the theme. It’s also amazing how Bach structured every third variation to be a canon at the ascending intervals, i.e. variation 3 is at the unison, 6 is at the second, etc. The piece stays in one key, although sometimes going into the minor mode, which makes it easy to follow and it makes the variations seem coherent and tied together.

The piece was written during the Baroque era and this fact is very obvious in the music. Chords resolve where they should, for the most part, and there is little dissonance. Since this piece was so long I had a lot of time to think about it in comparison to the 20th century music we are currently studying. It was during this time that I finally realized the difference in tonal resolution between music of the Baroque and Classical era, and music of the 20th century. There are dissonances in the Goldberg Variations, but they resolve to pitches that are more “pleasant” or “desirable” even. In 20th century music we also see dissonances, but they resolve to “wrong” or “unpleasant” pitches. I just thought it would be nice to tie this piece into what we’re studying now, and how to contrast the 20th century with other musical periods.

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Sara Dylan: The Inspiration Behind Bob Dylans Songs

The influence Sara Dylan had on her husband, Bob Dylan can be seen through out Dylan works. Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, author, musician, poet who has been a major figure in popular music for five decade. Sara’s influence on Dylan is portrayed in many of his music, especial the album Blood on the Tracks. There is no doubt that Sara influenced Dylan’s song the “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands”, “Sara”, “Idiot Wind” and “Simply Twist of Fate”. Because Dylan’s song talks about simple concept of love, people in this generation and the future generation can easily understand love through Dylan’s work.

Sara Dylan, a fusion model and playboy bunny, was born in October 28, 1939 in Wilmington, Delaware. Her original name is Shirkey Marlin Noznisky. Before marring Bob Dylan, she was married to magazine photographer Hans Lownds, who requested that Sara change her name to Sara Lownds. In November 22, 1965 Sara Lownds was secretly married to Bob Dylan during Dylan’s tour break in Long Island. During her marriage to Bob Dylan, Sara Dylan had three sons and a daughter: Jesse, Anna, Samuel, and Jacob. Later in June 29 of 1977 the couple became divorced. 

Bob Dylan’s birth name is Robert Allen Zimmerman. He was born in May 24, 1941 in Duluth, Minnesota. His music genres include folk, rock, blues and country. He is well known singer-song writer, author, poet, artist, actor, screenwriter, and disc jockey. In Wikipedia it is written that he is consisted the greatest artist of all time by the Rolling Stone magazine. In 1999, Dylan was included into TIME magazine’s 100 most influence people in the 20th century. His most beloved work is Blood on the Tracks which is considered the best album of all times and standard for his future music to be measured against.

The turmoil that Dylan needed was given by his wife, Sara Dylan, to bring about Dylan masterpiece, Blood on the Tracks. Williamson, further states, that “we’re never left in any doubt that he’s dealing directly with the pain of the break-up of his marriage-“a corkscrew to my heart”, as he sang on You’re Big Girl Now. The song in the album consisted of tormented and bittersweet song. The songs in the legendary album, which sold 2 million copies is arranged delicately and the songs are sung with devotion that a psycho-spiritual folk gestalt is created. The album was recorded in September through December 30, 1974. It was released on January 17.  The album is  known for its naked pain and its brilliant, crystalline expression  include song like Tangles up In Blue, Simple Twist of Fate, You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When you Go, Meet Me In The Morning, Lily, Rose Mary &Jack of Hearts, If You See Her, Say Hello, Shelter From the Strom and Buckets of Rain. In recent time, Blood on the Tracks, has emerged in many surveys as the most revered of All Dylan release. According to Williamson, the songs on Blood on the Tracks Dylan expose his feeling honestly, painfully and with raw emotion.

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Classical Music History Overview

Ludwig van Beethoven:
Beethoven is important to the 19th Century because he is considered the first Romantic composer. The compositions in his late period are considered to be the Romantic compositions as they tend to evoke more emotions, and one can even hear the emotional struggle that Beethoven had gone through. His use of musical “satz” is also particularly Romantic because he often develops these satzs. Beethoven’s Violin Concerto makes great use of developing musical satz and is an incredibly beautiful and Romantic piece.

Richard Wagner:
One can’t ignore Wagner when it comes to 19th century music. He pushed the limits of tonality while keeping his music clear and keeping a steady theme or idea. Wagner’s creation of  “gesamtkuntswurk”, or “total work of art”, is a very Romantic idea since it includes all works of art (music, poetry, acting, architecture). Wagner’s operas are all very important and most people would know themes from some of his pieces such as Lohengrin (“Bridal Chorus”), The Valkyrie (“Ride of the Valkyries”) as they are two commonly used pieces of music.

Gustav Mahler:
If Richard Wagner pushed the limits of tonality then Mahler helped to break the old limits of tonality and build new ones, along with other composers. Mahler’s music can be very emotional, and quite Romantic, such as the first movement of his Fifth Symphony. The piece begins with a funeral march and continues to switch back and forth between different styles and themes.

Modest Mussorgsky:
Mussorgsky’s nationalist approach to music was part of a new generation of composers. His style dwelled on Russian themes and folk tunes for music. His most famous composition, Pictures at an Exhibition, is a very nationalist piece and also a very interesting piece because of its somewhat programmatic theme. Another representative piece of Mussorgsky would be Boris Godunov, which we did not listen to, but it is his well-known opera.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Tchaikovsky’s music is not as nationalist as Mussorgsky’s, although it still has that Russian “vibe.” His famous ballets (Nutcracker Suite, Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty) all are wonderful compositions that are representative of his style. These pieces are also very Romantic because of their use of new harmonies, theme development, and emotion.

John Philip Sousa:
America’s own John Philip Sousa could be called the “Marching King.” He didn’t compose much other than marches, although he did compose several operettas. His marches have become famous American themes and some are even associated with several universities in the United States. His most famous march is The Stars and Stripes Forever, which is the United States’ official march. Also, Sousa’s “Semper Fidelis” is also a well known piece, being the United States Marine Corps official march.

Franz Liszt:
Liszt is another composer who also “wears his heart on his sleeve.” It’s very easy to feel certain emotions through Liszt’s music, and he also tended to prefer conveying emotions rather than telling a story, just as Brahms. However, this doesn’t mean that Liszt didn’t write programmatic music. Liszt used the technique of thematic transformation in a lot of his music, which was similar to theme and variation and to other forms such as idée fixe and leitmotif. Liszt’s Symphonic Poems are some of his more representative works.

Richard Strauss:
Strauss makes the listener think, mostly because Strauss is trying to tell a story but by using music. For example, in Don Quixote Strauss uses different instruments and different themes to represent two characters. Strauss’ tone poems usually function in this manner, and are very artistic pieces. His “Vier Letzte Lieder” are also incredibly beautiful and Romantic songs.

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Popular Classical Composers

Ludwig van Beethoven
Date: 1770-1827
City and Country: b. Bonn, Germany. Active mainly in Vienna
Genres Known For: Piano works, Orchestral works, Sonatas
Repertoire: Piano Concertos, Symphonies 1-9, Various violin, piano, and string sonatas

Johannes Brahms
Date: 1833-1897
City and Country: b. Hamburg, Germany. Active in Dusseldorf while staying with the Schumanns.
Genres Known For: Orchestra works, String music (including quartets, sonatas, and concertos), Theme and Variations
Repertoire: Symphonies 1-4, String Quartets, Piano Concertos, Violin Concerto

Richard Wagner
Date: 1813-1883
City and Country: b. Leipzig, Germany. Active in Dresden, Bayreuth, and Venice (where he died)
Genres Known For: Operas
Repertoire: Tristan und Isolde, The Ring Cycle, Der Meistersingers von Nurnburg, Lohengrin

Gustav Mahler
Date: 1860-1911
City and Country: b. Kalischt, Bohemia. He moved around a lot, but he did a lot of composing while conducting the Hamburg Opera.
Genres Known For: Symphonic works, Lieder, and Songs
Repertoire: Symphonies 1-9, Das Lied von der Erde

Modest Mussorgsky
Date: 1839-1881
City and Country: b. Karevo, Russia. Active mainly in Russia
Genres Known For: Piano works, Songs, Operas
Repertoire: Pictures at an Exhibition, Boris Godunov, Sunless

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Date: 1840-1893
City and Country: b. Votkinsk, Udmurtia. Active mainly in Russia
Genres Known For: Ballets, symphonic works, operas
Repertoire: Nutcracker Suite, Symphonies 1-6 and the Manfred Symphony, 1812 Overture

John Philip Sousa
Date: 1854-1932
City and Country: b. Washington D.C., United States. Active in the United States
Genres Known For: Marches, Operettas
Repertoire: The Stars and Stripes Forever, Semper Fidelis, The Washington Post, El Captain

Franz Liszt
Date: 1811-1886
City and Country: b. Raiding, Hungary. Active all over Europe!
Genres Known For: Piano works, Symphonic Poems
Repertoire: Piano etudes, Symphonic poems 1-13

Frederic Chopin
Date: 1810-1849
City and Country: b. Zelazowa Wola, Duchy of Warsaw. Active in Paris.
Genres Known For: Piano works, Ballades, Impromptus
Repertoire: Piano Etudes, Revolutionary Etude, Minute Waltz, Funeral March

Richard Strauss
Date: 1864-1949
City and Country: b. Munich, Germany. Actively mainly in Germany
Genres Known For: Tone Poems, Symphonic works, Operas
Repertoire: Don Juan, Don Quixote, Vier Letzte Lieder

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Bix Beiderbecke an American Jazz Composer

Leon “Bix” Beiderbecke was one of the most influential jazz musicians and trumpet players of the early 20th century, rivaled only by Louis Armstrong. Born in Davenport, Iowa, on March 10th 1903, Bix had an interest in music at an early age. Unfortunately, a long bout with alcoholism slowly began to deteriorate his health and Bix died on August 6th, 1931 from an alcoholic seizure.

When Bix was a boy he was sick often and he received poor grades in school. This led his parents to enroll him in a military boarding school just north of Chicago. While attending school Bix would often break curfew to go to Chicago and visit clubs and speakeasies to see jazz shows. He was highly influenced by the Original Dixieland Jass Band, and this is evidenced by the fact that he would later cover many of their songs. Eventually, skipping class and breaking curfew caught up to Bix and he was expelled from the boarding school. This allowed him to pursue a career in music. Bix didn’t have much formal training in music, but he had a good ear for music and was skilled on both the piano and trumpet. He would eventually gain much of his musical abilities, such as reading and writing music, while performing with various ensembles.

The first group that Bix joined and became known for being a part of was The Wolverines. It was with the Wolverines that Bix made his first recordings in 1924. The Wolverines played in many different venues, such as colleges, clubs, and bars. As the group gained popularity Bix became more sought after in big cities such as New York and Chicago. Bix soon joined Jean Goldkette’s Orchestra in 1924 and enjoyed some success with the group. Unfortunately, his poor sight-reading skills led to him losing his job with Jean Goldkette’s Orchestra.

Bix was never so much a band leader, but he was a very renowned soloist during his time. After leaving Jean Goldkette’s Orchestra, Bix joined Frankie Trumbauer’s Orchestra in 1926. It was during this time that Bix began to flourish and fine tune his musical abilities. It was during this time that Bix also recorded his first piano solo, “In a Mist”, and many pieces showcasing his abilities as a trumpet player. After playing with Trumbauer’s Orchestra Bix was finally able to sight-read well enough to re-join Jean Goldkette’s Orchestra. However, this didn’t last long, as Bix soon signed a contract with Paul Whiteman’s Orchestra, the most popular jazz ensemble of the time. During his time with Paul Whiteman’s Orchestra Bix began to develop a very smooth style of playing. His tone was soft and beautiful, and his solos were often more lyrical and introverted as opposed to the show-stopping solos of Louis Armstrong. Also during this time, Bix was paid a large salary and he began drinking very heavily. In 1929 Bix suffered from delirium tremens and left Paul Whiteman’s Orchestra and headed back home to Davenport. During this time Whiteman continued to pay Beiderbecke and remind him that his position in the orchestra would always be open. Bix returned to New York in 1930 and made a few recordings with a group he called Bix Beiderbecke and His Orchestra, the only group Bix would lead.

Bix Beiderbecke’s bout with alcohol and sickness finally caught up to him on August 6th 1931, and he died at the age of 28. His style and music became very popular after his death and he influenced many great musicians.

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