The document summarizes the roots and development of jazz and blues music in America. It discusses how jazz and blues originated from a fusion of West African, European, and American folk musical traditions. Key figures like Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday are profiled for their innovations in early jazz. The era of bebop and cool jazz is also outlined, which featured developments led by musicians like Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and Miles Davis. Additionally, the document covers the Harlem Renaissance period and the contributions of composer William Grant Still to artistic expression during this time.

1. CHAPTER 46
American Intersections:
Jazz and Blues Traditions
Copyright © 2020 W. W. Norton & Co., Inc.

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Roots of Jazz and Blues, Part 1
I. Roots of Jazz and Blues
A. Primary antecedents
1. West African musical traditions
a. storytelling techniques through music and praise singing
b. eighteenth-century slaves: call and response, distinctive
vocal inflections
c. nineteenth-century America: work songs, ring shouts,
spirituals
2. Euro-American vernacular traditions; minstrelsy
3. music from the Americas

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Roots of Jazz and Blues, Part 2

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Roots of Jazz and Blues, Part 3
4. ragtime
5. musicians attempted “cross pollinations”
a. jazz and blues
b. jazz and Euro-American cultivated music
B. Blues
1. post-Civil War, Mississippi Delta
2. derived from works songs of Southern Blacks
3. elements of folk songs: poor Euro-Americans in
Southern Appalachians

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Roots of Jazz and Blues, Part 4
4. country, rural blues
a. male singer, steel-string guitar
b. voiced difficulties of everyday life
c. three-line stanza, first two identical
d. blue notes: “pitch bending”
e. standard harmonic progression (chord changes),
twelve or sixteen bars in length

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Roots of Jazz and Blues, Part 5
C. New Orleans jazz
1. fusion of ragtime and blues, spirituals, work songs, ring
shouts, Caribbean and Euro-American styles
2. music from Congo Square, pre-Civil War era
a. dance accompanied by drums, gourds, mouth harps,
banjos
b. strong underlying pulse, syncopations, polyrhythms
c. African-derived techniques in melody
i. rhythmic interjections
ii. vocal glides
iii. percussive vocal sounds
iv. musical scale with lowered third, fifth, or seventh

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Roots of Jazz and Blues, Part 6

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Roots of Jazz and Blues, Part 7
3. improvisation created polyphonic texture
4. Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong (1901–1971)
a. brilliant trumpet player, improviser
b. transformed jazz into a solo art; improvised
fantasies on chord changes
c. “scat-singing” influenced Billie Holiday

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The Jazz Singer Billie Holiday, Part 1
II. The Jazz Singer Billie Holiday
A. Billie Holiday (1915–1959)
1. blues singer, known as Lady Day
2. born in Philadelphia, grew up in Baltimore
3. little formal education; no formal vocal training
4. 1928, moved to New York, probably worked as a
prostitute
5. 1930, sang in clubs, Brooklyn and Harlem

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The Jazz Singer Billie Holiday, Part 2

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The Jazz Singer Billie Holiday, Part 3

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The Jazz Singer Billie Holiday, Part 4
6. 1933, recorded with white clarinetist Benny Goodman
7. performed with several prominent bands
8. broke color barrier: sang in public with a white
orchestra
9. 1940s, alcohol and drug abuse, health and voice suffered
10. memorable recordings, died age forty-four

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The Jazz Singer Billie, Part 5
B. Billie’s Blues
1. written by Billie Holiday
2. chorus: single statement of a melodic-harmonic pattern
3. vocal verses: intersection between jazz and blues
C. Listening Guide 35: Holiday: Billie’s Blues (recorded 1936)
1. 12-bar blues: short introduction, six choruses
2. laid-back slow tempo, steady accompaniment
3. vocal choruses 2, 3, 6
a. masterly rhythmic flexibility
b. jazz embellishments: scoops, dips

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The Jazz Singer Billie Holiday, Part 6
4. chorus 4: clarinet improvisation, Artie Shaw
5. chorus 5: “gut bucket” trumpet (raspy tone quality),
Bunny Berigan
D. 1930s and 40s: big-band or swing era
1. arranged and composed music
2. Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington (1899–1974)
a. unique big-band style won over wide
audience
b. black and white audiences
c. dance clubs, hotel ballrooms across the
country
d. collaborated with Billy Strayhorn (1915–
1967), composer/arranger

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“Billie’s Blues”
Billie's Blues

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The Jazz Singer Billie Holiday, Part 7

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Bebop, Cool, Latin Jazz, Part 1
III. Bebop, Cool, Latin Jazz
A. Rebellion against big-band jazz
1. late 1940s bebop (or bop): word mimics typical two-
note phrase
a. fast tempos, complex harmonies
b. leaders of bebop movement:
i. Dizzy Gillespie, trumpet
ii. Charlie Parker, saxophone
iii. Thelonius Monk, pianoa

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Bebop, Cool, Latin Jazz, Part 2
2. substyles of bebop: cool jazz, West Coast jazz, hard bop,
soul jazz
a. cool jazz
i. principal exponent: Miles Davis, trumpet
ii. laid-back style, dense harmonies
iii. lower volume levels, moderate tempos, new
lyricism
b. West Coast jazz
i. small group, cool-jazz style
ii. mixed timbres, often without piano
iii. contrapuntal improvisations

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Bebop, Cool, Latin Jazz, Part 3
3. Latin influence
a. 1930s and 40s Latin dance music, mainstream
b. dance rhythms, percussion instruments (conga
drum, bongos, cowbells)
c. integral to bebop style
d. Brazilian and Cuban elements in later decades

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Bebop, Cool, Latin Jazz, Part 4

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The Harlem Renaissance, Part 1
I. The Harlem Renaissance
A. 1920s and 30s literary, artistic, sociological movement
highlighting African American intellectual life
1. sparked by The New Negro (1925), edited by Alain Locke
a. call for racial equality, pride in Black cultural heritage
2. Langston Hughes (1902–1967) poet and novelist
a. depicted struggles of working-class Blacks
b. frequent visitor of Harlem jazz clubs
c. wrote uniquely African American poetry: imitated
rhythms and flow of jazz

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The Harlem Renaissance, Part 2
3. Cotton Club: Harlem jazz club
4. growth of black cultural prestige
a. musical traditions fostered: blues, jazz,
spirituals
b. less interested in development of modernist
art music
B. William Grant Still (1895–1978)
1. African American composer, violinist
2. most important musical voice of Harlem Renaissance
3. Memphis and New York: arranger for radio and
musical theater

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The Harlem Renaissance, Part 3

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The Harlem Renaissance, Part 4
4. broke numerous racial barriers
a. Afro-American Symphony (1931): first symphony by
African American composer performed by major
American orchestra
b. Troubled Island (1949): first African American
composer performed in major opera house
5. Guggenheim Fellowship; honorary degrees
6. film and television scores
7. deliberately moved away from avant-garde
8. music infused with elements of spirituals, blues, and jazz
9. output: four symphonies; orchestral suites; film scores;
stage works; operas; chamber, vocal, piano, and choral
music

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The Harlem Renaissance, Part 5

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The Harlem Renaissance, Part 6
C. Still’s Suite for Violin and Piano
1. drawn on established genre: modernist neo-Classical
trend
2. movements inspired by African American artworks
a. African Dancer by Richmond Barthé
b. Mother and Child by Sargent Johnson
c. Gamin by Augusta Savage; bust of a street-smart
kid in Harlem

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The Harlem Renaissance, Part 7

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The Harlem Renaissance, Part 8
D. Listening Guide 36: Still: Suite for Violin and Piano, III
(1943)
1. sectional form, opening returns frequently
2. “rhythmically and humorously”
3. bluesy melodies, modal harmonies
4. quick duple meter, flashy syncopated violin line
5. insistent bass pattern, “Harlem stride piano” (offbeat
chords: 2 and 4)
6. call-and-response exchanges between violin and
piano
7. violin effects: ornamentations, glissandos, double
stops

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Suite for Violin and Piano, III
Suite for Violin & Piano, III

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The Harlem Renaissance, Part 9

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Credits
This concludes the Lecture PowerPoint presentation for “The Enjoyment of Music, 4th Edition, Chapter 46: American
Intersections: Jazz and Blues Traditions”
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