Jazz definition for kids. Jazz Message

Jazz is the music of the soul, and there is still an endless amount of debate about the history of the emergence of this musical direction. Many believe that jazz originated in New Orleans, someone thinks that jazz was first performed in Africa, arguing with complex rhythms and all kinds of dances, stomping and clapping. But I suggest you get to know live, vibrant, ever-changing jazz a little better.

The origin of jazz is due to numerous reasons. Its beginning was extraordinary, dynamic, and miraculous events contributed to this to some extent. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the formation of jazz music took place, it became the brainchild of the cultures of Europe and Africa, a kind of fusion of the forms and trends of the two continents.

It is generally accepted that the birth of jazz somehow began with the importation of slaves from Africa to the territory of the New World. People who were brought to one place most often did not understand each other and, as necessary, a combination of many cultures took place, including this was due to the merging of musical cultures. This is how jazz was born.

South America is considered the epicenter of the formation of jazz culture, and to be more precise, it is New Orleans. Subsequently, the rhythmic melodies of jazz flow smoothly into another capital of music, which is located in the north - Chicago. There, night performances were in special demand, incredible arrangements gave special poignancy to the performers, but the most important rule of jazz has always been improvisation. The outstanding representative of that time was the inimitable Louis Armstrong.

Period 1900-1917 in New Orleans, a jazz direction is actively developing, and the concept of a “New Orleans” musician, also the era of the 20s, is also in use. The 20th century is commonly referred to as the Jazz Age. Now that we have found out where and how jazz appeared, it is worth understanding the distinctive features of this musical direction. First of all, jazz is based on a specific polyrhythm, which relies on syncopated rhythms. Syncopation is a shift in emphasis from a strong beat to a weak one, that is, a purposeful violation of the rhythmic accent.

The main difference between jazz and other areas is also the rhythm, or rather its arbitrary performance. It is this freedom that gives musicians the feeling of free and unconstrained performance. In professional circles, this is called swing (English-rocking). Everything is supported by a bright and colorful musical range and, of course, you should never forget about the main feature - improvisation. All this, combined with talent and desire, results in a sensual and rhythmic composition called jazz.

The further development of jazz is no less interesting than its origin. Subsequently, new directions appeared: swing (1930s), bebop (1940s), cool jazz, hard pop, soul jazz and jazz funk (1940s-1960s). In the era of swing, collective improvisation faded into the background, only the soloist could afford such a luxury, the rest of the musician had to adhere to the prepared musical composition. In the 1930s there was a frenzied growth of such groups, which later became known as big bands. The most prominent representatives of this period are considered to be Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller.

Ten years later, a revolution in the history of jazz takes place again. Small groups, predominantly composed of black performers, are returning to fashion, where absolutely all participants could afford improvisation. The stars of the turning point were Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. The musicians sought to return to jazz its former lightness and ease, to move away from commercialization as far as possible. Big band leaders came to small orchestras who were simply tired of loud performances and large halls that just wanted to enjoy the music.

Music 1940-1960s has undergone a tremendous change. Jazz was divided into two groups. One adjoined the classical performance, cool jazz is famous for its restraint and melancholy. The main representatives are Chet Baker, Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis. But the second group developed the ideas of bebop, where the main ones were bright and aggressive rhythms, explosive soloing and, of course, improvisation. In this style, the top of the pedestal was taken by John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins and Art Blakey.

The final point in the development of jazz was the 1950s, it was then that jazz merged with other styles of music. Subsequently, new forms appeared, jazz developed in the USSR and the CIS. Outstanding Russian representatives were Valentin Parnakh, who created the first orchestra in the country, Oleg Lundstrem, Konstantin Orbelyan and Alexander Varlamov. Now, in the modern world, jazz is also intensively developing, musicians are implementing new forms, trying, combining and achieving success.

Now you know a little more about music, and specifically about jazz. Jazz is not music for everyone, but even if you are not the biggest fan of this direction, it is definitely worth listening to in order to plunge into history. Happy listening.

Victoria Lyzhova

Municipal budgetary educational institution of additional education for children

"Children's Art School No. 3 named after Vasily Vasilyevich Andreev"

Tver

Methodical message on the topic:

"Jazz - its origins and development"

"Jazz"! Where did this resilient, bright name “jazz” come from, and why is it interesting for us to listen and play jazz music, and the performance of jazz requires a certain performing style, a good sense of rhythm, and enthusiastic listening and performing those dissonances that jazz music abounds in. One of the jazz performers, Louis Armstrong, expressed the opinion of many jazz lovers: "At the heart of this music is something that can be felt, but cannot be explained."

But let's try to look into the distant past, where jazz came from. And so… The beginning of the 19th century. America was already discovered, and Europe had long known about this fertile unexplored land. The countries of Western Europe, France, England, Spain, and others, seized the lands of this continent, created their colonies there, and guarded them with outposts. Many thousands of Europeans moved, as they said then, from the Old World to the New World, mastered these lands, acquired a household. It took a lot of hands to work on the huge sugar cane plantations, to work in the shipyards of the Mississippi River, on construction sites. And then from the coast of West Africa to the delta of the Mississippi River in the dirty holds of ships, hundreds of African blacks were carried.

In America, they were used in the most difficult jobs. Often they were brought from different tribes, sometimes it was difficult for them even to communicate with each other. And after a hard day at work, in rare hours of rest, they poured out the pain of a slave position in their songs. A natural inclination towards music, a special sense of rhythm united them. They accompanied themselves by hitting boxes with sticks, empty cans, or simply by clapping their hands. At first it was like that distant native music, the sound of tom-tom, but gradually the memory of African music was erased, as everything that they had lived before was erased. Slaves lost not only their normal existence, their families, but also their gods, in which they used to believe. And the missionaries who moved with the settlers and preached Christianity began to convert the slaves to the Christian faith, taught them religious chants. But the Negroes sang them in their own way, with a special, characteristic timbre of their voice. It was a special, rhythmic music, characteristic of their nature and temperament. These religious hymns, chants were called spiritual-s.

Now we come to the origins of jazz. Of course, no one then recorded these rhythmic Negro chants with notes. And who among the blacks knew them? There were no phonographs either. The tunes passed in a modified improvisational form. Only the text has not changed.

1865 Slavery in America was abolished. But the misfortunes of the Negroes did not end there. They were separated for residence in the most unfavorable dirty quarters along the railroad tracks, in marshy places. Between the Negro and the white, as before, there remained the relationship of the lower to the higher. It is clear that the music of Negroes also developed separately, somewhere by chance it came into contact with the life of whites. During this period, the Negro folk song blues flourished. Perhaps the word "blues" comes from the American word "blue", which means blue, blue, and this color is considered the color of melancholy, melancholy. The blues is a complaint, the cry of a negro's soul, but this music is not too dreary. The Negro does not like to moan, to suffer about his misfortunes. He who sings about his grief sings it in his songs. The lyrics of the blues were composed by the performers themselves. They sang about hard work, and about deceived love, about need. Negroes accompanied themselves on the guitar. At first they were homemade - they adapted the neck and strings to old cigar boxes. If they could buy, they bought real guitars from white people. Basedspirituals and blues jazz emerges.

If spirituals were sung both in rural and urban churches, and the blues arose in the countryside, then jazz is orchestral music and jazz could only appear in a big city, where real European instruments could be purchased from whites. And that city was New Orleans - New Orleans. The Negroes had their own brass bands. Such orchestras traveled the streets, announced balls, and participated in folk festivals. Sometimes it was more than one orchestra, and then the competition began. All this music sounded in characteristic Negro rhythms, with an unusual dissonant blues sound, in an unusual manner for Europeans. In a jazz orchestra, the evenness of the tempo is set by the rhythmic group: drums, double bass, which plays only pizzicato, guitar and banjo. The drummer is the heart of the orchestra, he sets the live pulsation, as jazzmen say:« plays with good swing" , inspires other musicians who improvise on the go, compose, unexpectedly accentuate the weak beat - swing.

The 20th century has arrived. The era of street jazz is over. Many New Orleans musicians began to leave their homes in search of work. They traveled up the Mississippi to the big cities of North America. It took quite a long time before jazz entered the scene, but for now it had a place in the Negro neighborhoods. Even at the end of the 19th century, there were so many Negro musicians that the authorities were forced to forbid them to practice their profession anywhere except for nightclubs, roadside cafes, and cheap dance halls, which at that time were opening in large numbers. Jazz musicians formed jazz bands. Such an orchestra included: trumpeter, trombonist, clarinetist, banjoist, double bassist, percussionist and pianist.

But before jazz entered the stage, it was preceded by the emergence of such a genre ascakewalk and ragtime. This is music of a motor character, with a characteristic rhythm, and it is associated with the appearance in North America of entertainment nightclubs - dance halls - dancing . And an integral part of these institutions was the piano. Both cakewalk and ragtime are music exclusively for the piano. What is characteristic of this music? Percussive accents on the weak beat, chords imitating the banjo. Ragtime is translated as “torn rhythm”, although among Americans ragtime “to rag” means to tease, to joke. At that time in America, the piano became the most popular instrument, it was in every family, the instruments were brought from Europe; cakewalk and ragtime music spread throughout the country. The creator of classical ragtime is an American composer, musician, pianist, black by birth - Scott Joplin. The publisher who published his ragtimes called them classic because, of course, they rise in their artistic value above the music of those years. That's how spiritual, blues and ragtime merged into what is called jazz.

The city of Chicago - in the north of America - is a huge industrial center. Genuine jazz has established itself in the Negro quarter of this city. Here were the best jazz orchestras. Record production is developing in Chicago, and thanks to this, music that used to sound only in nightclubs and dance halls in America came to Europe and has reached our time. What is the fate of jazz in our country? In 1922, the first jazz bands were organized in Moscow. Jazz in our country experienced both ups and downs, at one time it was even considered music of bad taste, but time passed, large orchestras were created - a big band. Composers created arrangements of wonderful songs by Soviet composers in a jazz style. There was a jazz orchestra conducted by Leonid Utesov, V. Knushevitsky, Oleg Lundstrem, Yu. Saulsky. D. Shostakovich composes a jazz suite, I. Dunayevsky - jazz rhapsody. In 1938, a state jazz orchestra was created in Moscow, led by M. Blanter.

Once, our great poetess A. Akhmatova wrote: “If only you knew from what rubbish sometimes poems grow.” So the art of jazz, which is now considered elitist, was born and grew not even out of "rubbish". Harbor, dissonant, New Orleans spawned rhythmic and almost obscene music in the Negro neighborhoods. And the fact that for several decades this specific genre made its way into the aristocrats is the merit of literally a few people, though they were real masters: Louis Armstrong, Teddy McCray, Duke Elligton, vocal jazz performers Bessie Smith, Ella Fitzgerald, American composer George Gershwin.

Why do we still love jazz?

Because it feels the freshness of harmonies, an excess of vitality, which are so clearly expressed in it.

List of used literature

1. Koller J. L. Formation of Jazz. M.: Raduga, 1984.
2. Panasier Yu. The history of true jazz.2nd ed., - L .: Music, 1979.
3. Batashev A.N. Soviet jazz. M., Music, 1972.

Understanding who is who in jazz is not so easy. The direction is commercially successful, and therefore often about the "only concert of the legendary Vasya Pupkin" they shout from all the cracks, and really important figures go into the shadows. Under the pressure of Grammy winners and advertising from Jazz radio, it is easy to lose focus and remain indifferent to style. If you want to learn how to understand this kind of music, and maybe even love it, learn the most important rule: do not trust anyone.

It is necessary to make judgments about new phenomena with caution, or like Hugues Panasier - the famous musicologist who drew a line and branded all jazz after the 50s, calling it "fake". In the end, he turned out to be wrong, but this did not affect the popularity of his book, The History of Genuine Jazz.

It is better to treat the new phenomenon with silent suspicion, so you will definitely pass for your own: snobbery and adherence to the old is one of the brightest characteristics of the subculture.

In conversations about jazz, Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald are often mentioned - it would seem that you can't go wrong here. But such remarks betray the neophyte. These are emblematic figures, and if you can still talk about Fitzgerald in a suitable context, then Armstrong is the Charlie Chaplin of jazz. You won't talk to an arthouse movie buff about Charlie Chaplin, will you? And if you do, then at least not in the first place. Mentioning both famous names is possible in certain cases, but if you have nothing in your pocket besides these two aces, hold them and wait for the right situation.

In many directions there are fashionable and not very fashionable phenomena, but to the greatest extent this is characteristic of jazz. A mature hipster, used to looking for rare and strange things, will not understand why Czech jazz of the 40s is not interesting. It will not be possible to find something conditionally “unusual” and trump with your “deep erudition” here. In order to imagine the style in general terms, one should list its main directions since the end of the 19th century.

Ragtime and blues are sometimes called proto-jazz, and if the former, being not quite a complete form from a modern point of view, is interesting simply as a fact of music history, then the blues is still relevant.

Ragtime by Scott Joplin

And although researchers call the psychological state of Russians and a total sense of hopelessness the reason for such a surge of love for the blues in the 90s, in reality everything can be much simpler.

A selection of 100 popular blues songs

Classic boogie woogie

As in European culture, African Americans divided music into secular and spiritual, and if the blues belonged to the first group, then spiritual and gospel - to the second.

Spirituals are more austere than gospels and are performed by a choir of the faithful, often accompanied by even-numbered clapping—an important feature of all styles of jazz and a problem for many European listeners who clap out of place. The music of the Old World most often makes us nod to odd beats. In jazz, it's the other way around. Therefore, if you are not sure that you feel these second and fourth beats, which are unusual for a European, it is better to refrain from clapping. Or watch the performers themselves do it, and then try again.

Scene from the film "12 Years a Slave" with the performance of the classic spiritual

Contemporary spiritual by Take 6

Gospel songs were more often performed by one singer, they have more freedom than spirituals, so they became popular as a concert genre.

Classical gospel music performed by Mahalia Jackson

Modern gospel music from the film Joyful Noise

In the 1910s, traditional or New Orleans jazz took shape. The music from which it arose was performed by street orchestras, which were then very popular. The importance of the instruments increases dramatically, an important event of the era is the emergence of jazz bands, small orchestras of 9–15 people. The success of the Negro bands motivated white Americans who created the so-called Dixielands.

Traditional jazz is associated with films about American gangsters. This is due to the fact that its heyday fell on the days of Prohibition and the Great Depression. One of the brightest representatives of the style is the already mentioned Louis Armstrong.

Distinctive features of the traditional jazz band are the steady position of the banjo, the leading position of the trumpet and the full participation of the clarinet. The last two instruments over time will replace the saxophone, which will become the permanent leader of such an orchestra. By the nature of the music, traditional jazz is more static.

Jelly Roll Morton Jazz Band

Modern Dixieland Marshall's Dixieland Jazz Band

What is wrong with jazz and why is it customary to say that no one can play this music?

It's all about her African origin. Despite the fact that by the middle of the 20th century whites had defended their right to this style, it is still widely believed that African Americans have a special sense of rhythm that allows them to create a feeling of swinging, which is called “swing” (from English to swing - “to swing "). It is risky to argue with this: most of the great white pianists from the 1950s to our times have become famous thanks to their direction or intellectual improvisations that betray deep musical erudition.

Therefore, if in a conversation you mentioned a white jazz player, you should not say something like “how great he swings” - after all, he swings either normally or not at all, such is reverse racism.

And the word "swing" itself is too worn out, it is better to pronounce it in the very last place, when it is probably appropriate.

Each jazz player must be able to perform "jazz standards" (main melodies, or, in other words, evergreen), which, however, are divided into orchestral and ensemble. For example, In the Mood is rather among the first.

In the Mood. Performed by the Glenn Miller Orchestra

At the same time, the famous works of George Gershwin appear, which are considered both jazz and academic at the same time. These are Blues Rhapsody (or Blue Rhapsody), written in 1924, and the opera Porgy and Bess (1935), famous for its Summertime aria. Prior to Gershwin, jazz harmonies were used by such composers as Charles Ives and Antonin Dvorak (symphony "From the New World").

George Gershwin. Porgy and Bess. Aria Summertime. Academically performed by Maria Callas

George Gershwin. Porgy and Bess. Aria Summertime. Jazzed by Frank Sinatra

George Gershwin. Porgy and Bess. Aria Summertime. Rock version. Performed by Janis Joplin

George Gershwin. Blues Rhapsody. Performed by Leonard Bernstein and his orchestra

One of the most famous Russian composers, like Gershwin, writing in the jazz style is Nikolai Kapustin. .

Both camps look askance at such experiments: jazz musicians are convinced that a written work without improvisation is no longer jazz “by definition”, and academic composers consider jazz expressive means too trivial to work with them seriously.

However, classical performers play Kapustin with pleasure and even try to improvise, while their counterparts act wiser, not encroaching on someone else's territory. Academic pianists who put their improvisations on public display have long been a meme in jazz circles.

Since the 1920s, the number of cult and iconic figures in the history of the direction has been growing, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to put these numerous names in your head. However, some can be recognized by their characteristic timbre or manner of performance. One of these memorable singers was Billie Holiday.

All of Me. Performed by Billie Holiday

In the 50s, a new era begins, called "modern jazz". The musicologist Yug Panasier, mentioned above, denied it from her. This direction opens with the bebop style: its characteristic feature is high speed and frequent change of harmony, and therefore it requires exceptional performing skills, which were possessed by such outstanding personalities as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane.

Bebop was created as an elite genre. Any musician from the street could always come to a jam session - an evening of improvisations, so the pioneers of bebop introduced fast tempos to get rid of amateurs and weak professionals. This snobbery is partly inherent in fans of such music, who consider their favorite direction the pinnacle of jazz development. It is customary to treat bebop with respect, even if you don’t understand anything about it.

Giant Steps. Performed by John Coltrane

A special chic is to admire the outrageous, deliberately rude manner of Thelonious Monk's performance, who, according to gossip, perfectly played complex academic works, but carefully concealed it.

Round Midnight. Performed by Thelonious Monk

By the way, the discussion of gossip about jazz performers is not considered shameful - rather, on the contrary, it indicates a deep involvement and hints at a great listening experience. Therefore, you should know that Miles Davis's drug addiction affected his stage behavior, Frank Sinatra had connections with the mafia, and there is a church named after John Coltrane in San Francisco.

Mural "Dancing Saints" from a church in San Francisco.

Along with bebop, another style was born within the framework of the same direction - cool jazz(cool jazz), which is distinguished by a "cold" sound, moderate character and unhurried pace. One of its founders was Lester Young, but there are also many white musicians in this niche: Dave Brubeck , Bill Evans(not to be confused with Gil Evans), Stan Getz and etc.

take five. Performed by the Dave Brubeck Ensemble

If the 50s, despite the reproaches of conservatives, opened the way for experiments, then in the 60s they become the norm. At this time, Bill Evans is recording two albums of arrangements of classical works with a symphony orchestra, Stan Kenton, representative progressive jazz, creates rich orchestrations, the harmony in which is compared with Rachmaninov's, and in Brazil there is its own version of jazz, completely different from other styles - bossanova .

Granados. Jazz arrangement of the work "Maja and the Nightingale" by the Spanish composer Granados. Performed by Bill Evans with symphony orchestra

Malaguena. Performed by the Stan Kenton Orchestra

Girl from Ipanema. Performed by Astrud Gilberto and Stan Getz

Loving bossanova is as easy as loving minimalism in modern academic music.

Thanks to its unobtrusive and "neutral" sound, Brazilian jazz found its way into elevators and hotel lobbies as background music, although this does not detract from the importance of the style as such. Claiming that you love bossa nova is worth it only if you really know its representatives quite well.

An important turn was outlined in the popular orchestral style - symphojazz. In the 1940s, jazz, powdered with academic symphonic sound, became a fashionable phenomenon and a standard of the golden mean between two styles with a completely different background.

Luck Be a Lady. Performed by Frank Sinatra with Jazz Symphony Orchestra

In the 1960s, the sound of the sympho-jazz orchestra lost its novelty, which led to Stan Kenton's experimentation with harmony, Bill Evans' arrangements, and Gil Evans' themed albums such as Sketches of Spain and Miles Ahead.

Sketches of Spain. Performed by Miles Davis with the Gil Evans Orchestra

Experiments in the field of symphonic jazz are still relevant, the most interesting projects in recent years in this niche are the Metropole Orkest, The Сinematic Orchestra and Snarky Puppy.

Breathe. Performed by The Cinematic Orchestra

Gretel. Performed by Snarky Puppy and Metropole Orkest (Grammy Award, 2014)

The bebop and cool jazz traditions have merged into hard bop, an improved version of bebop, although it can be difficult to tell one from the other by ear. Prominent performers in this style are The Jazz Messengers, Sonny Rollins, Art Blakey and some other musicians who originally played bebop.

hard bop. Performed by The Jazz Messengers Orchestra

Moanin'. Performed by Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers

Rich improvisations at a fast pace required ingenuity, which led to searches in the field fret. So born modal jazz. It is often singled out as an independent style, although similar improvisations are also found in other genres. The most popular modal piece was "So What?" Miles Davis.

So What? Performed by Miles Davis

While brilliant jazz players were figuring out how to further complicate an already complex music, blind authors and performers Ray Charles and walked the path of the heart, combining jazz, soul, gospel and rhythm and blues in their work.

Fingertips. Performed by Stevie Wonder

What'd I say. Performed by Ray Charles

At the same time, jazz organists are loudly declaring themselves, playing music on the Hammond electric organ.

Jimmy Smith

In the mid-60s, soul jazz appeared, which combined the democratism of soul with the intellectualism of bebop, but historically it is usually associated with the latter, silent about the significance of the former. The most popular soul jazz figure was Ramsey Lewis.

The 'In' Crowd. Performed by the Ramsey Lewis Trio

If from the beginning of the 50s the division of jazz into two branches was only felt, then in the 70s it was already possible to speak of this as an irrefutable fact. The pinnacle of the elite trend was

For decades, they tried to ban, silence and ignore jazz, they tried to fight it, but the power of music turned out to be stronger than all dogmas. By the 21st century, jazz has reached one of the highest points of its development, and does not intend to slow down.

Throughout the world, 1917 was in many respects an epochal and turning point. Two revolutions are taking place in the Russian Empire, Woodrow Wilson is re-elected for a second term in the United States, and microbiologist Felix d'Herelle announces the discovery of a bacteriophage. However, this year an event took place that will also forever go down in the annals of history. On January 30, 1917, the first jazz record was recorded at Victor's New York studio. These were two pieces - "Livery Stable Blues" and "Dixie Jazz Band one Step" - performed by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, an ensemble of white musicians. The eldest of the musicians, trumpeter Nick LaRocca, was 28 years old, the youngest, drummer Tony Sbarbaro, was 20 years old. The natives of New Orleans, of course, heard "black music", loved it, and passionately wanted to play jazz of their own performance. Quite quickly after recording the disc, the Original Dixieland Jazz Band got a contract in prestigious and expensive restaurants.

What did the first jazz records look like? A gramophone record is a thin disk made by pressing or molding plastic of various compositions, on the surface of which a special groove with sound recording is carved in a spiral. The sound of the record was reproduced by means of special technical devices - a gramophone, a gramophone, an electrophone. This method of recording sound was the only way to "perpetuate" jazz, since it is almost impossible to accurately convey all the details of musical improvisation in musical notation. For this reason, music experts in the course of discussing various jazz pieces, first of all, refer to the number of the record on which this or that piece was recorded.

Five years after the original Dixieland Jazz Band's debut debut, black musicians began recording at the studio. Among the first to be recorded were the ensembles of Joe King Oliver and Jelly Roll Morton. However, all recordings of black jazzmen were released in the States as part of a special "racial series" that was distributed in those years only among the black American population. Records, released in the "racial series", existed until the 40s of the XX century. In addition to jazz, they also recorded blues and spirituals - the spiritual choral songs of African Americans.

The first jazz records were 25 cm in diameter at 78 rpm and were recorded acoustically. However, since the mid-1920s In the 20th century, recording was done electromechanically, and this contributed to an increase in sound quality. This was followed by the release of records with a diameter of 30 cm. In the 40s. such records were mass-produced by a number of record labels who decided to release both old and new compositions performed by Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Sidney Bechet, Art Tatum, Jack Teagarden, Thomas Fets Waller, Lionel Hampton, Colman Hawkins, Roy Eldridge and many others .

Such phonograph records had a special label marking - "V-disc" (short for "Victory disc") and were intended for American soldiers who participated in World War II. These releases were not intended for sale, and jazzmen, as a rule, transferred all their fees to the Victory Fund in World War II.

Already in 1948, Columbia records launched the first long-playing record (the so-called "longplay", LP) on the music recording market with a denser arrangement of sound grooves. The record was 25 cm in diameter and rotated at 33 1/3 rpm. The LP contained already as many as 10 plays.

Following Columbia, the production of their own long plays in 1949 was established by representatives of RCA Victor. Their records were 17.5 cm in diameter with a rotation speed of 45 revolutions per minute, and later similar records began to be produced already with a rotation speed of 33 1/3 revolutions per minute. In 1956, the release of LPs with a diameter of 30 cm began. 12 pieces were placed on two sides of such records, and the playing time increased to 50 minutes. Two years later, stereophonic records with two-channel recording began to displace monophonic counterparts. Manufacturers also tried to push 16 rpm records into the music market, but these attempts ended in failure.

After that, for many years, innovation in the production of records dried up, but already in the late 60s. quadraphonic records with a four-channel recording system were introduced to music lovers.

The production of LPs gave a huge leap to jazz as music and served the development of this music - in particular, the emergence of larger forms of composition. For many years, the duration of one play was no more than three minutes - these were the conditions for sound recording on a standard gramophone record. At the same time, even with the development of progress in the release of records, the duration of jazz pieces did not increase immediately: in the 50s. LPs were made mainly on the basis of the matrixes of publications of previous years. Around the same time, records were released with recordings by Scott Joplin and other famous ragtime performers, which were recorded in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. on cardboard perforated cylinders for a mechanical piano, as well as on wax cylinders for a gramophone.

Over time, long-playing records began to be used for recording works of a larger form and live concerts. The release of albums from two or three records, or special anthologies and discographies of one or another artist, has also become widespread.

But what about jazz itself? For many years it was considered "the music of an inferior race". In the United States, it was considered the music of blacks, unworthy of high American society; in Nazi Germany, playing and listening to jazz meant being "a conductor of the Negro-Jewish cacophony", and in the USSR - "an apologist for the bourgeois way of life" and "an agent of world imperialism."

A characteristic feature of jazz is that this music has worked its way to success and recognition for decades. If musicians of all other styles could from the very beginning of their career strive to play on the largest venues and stadiums, and there were many examples for them, then jazzmen could only count on playing in restaurants and clubs, without even dreaming of large venues.

Jazz as a style originated over a century ago on cotton plantations. It was there that the black workers sang their songs, fused from Protestant chants, African spiritual choral hymns "spirituals", and harsh and sinful secular, almost "criminal" songs - the blues, widespread in dirty roadside eateries, where the foot of a white American would not step. The crown of this "cocktail" was the brass bands, which sounded as if barefoot African-American children took decommissioned instruments in their hands and began to play in all sorts of ways.

The 20s of the XX century became the "Jazz Age" - that's what the writer Francis Scott Fitzgerald called them. Most of the black workers were concentrated in the criminal capital of the United States of those years - Kansas City. The spread of jazz in this city was facilitated by a large number of restaurants and eateries where the mafiosi liked to spend their time. The city has created a particular style, the style of big bands playing fast blues. During these years, a black boy named Charlie Parker was born in Kansas City: it was he who, more than two decades later, was to become a jazz reformer. In Kansas City, he walked past the places where concerts were held, and literally absorbed snatches of the music he loved.

Despite the great popularity of jazz in New Orleans and its wide distribution in Kansas City, a large number of jazzmen still preferred Chicago and New York. Two cities on the East Coast of the United States became the most important points of concentration and development of jazz. The star of both cities was young trumpeter and vocalist Louis Armstrong, successor to New Orleans' greatest trumpeter, King Oliver. In 1924, another native of New Orleans arrived in Chicago - pianist and singer Jelly Roll Morton. The young musician was not modest and boldly declared to everyone that he was the creator of jazz. And already at the age of 28, he moved to New York, where just at that time the orchestra of the young Washington pianist Duke Ellington was gaining popularity, which was already crowding out the Fletcher Henderson orchestra from the rays of glory.

A wave of popularity of "black music" breaks into Europe. And if jazz was listened to in Paris even before the start of the First World War, and not in "taverns", but in aristocratic salons and concert halls, then in the 20s London surrendered. Dark-skinned jazzmen loved to travel to the British capital - especially taking into account the fact that there, unlike the States, they were treated with respect and humanely and behind the scenes, and not only on it.

It is noteworthy that the poet, translator, dancer and choreographer Valentin Parnakh became the organizer of the first jazz concert in Moscow in 1922, and 6 years later the popularity of this music reached St. Petersburg.

The beginning of the 30s of the XX century was marked by a new era - the era of big bands, large orchestras, and a new style began to rumble on the dance floors - swing. Duke Ellinton's orchestra was able to overtake their colleagues from the Fletcher Henderson orchestra in popularity with the help of non-standard musical moves. Collective simultaneous improvisation, which has become a trademark of the New Orleans school of jazz, is becoming a thing of the past, and instead complex scores, rhythmic phrases with repetitions, and roll calls of orchestra groups are gaining popularity. As part of the orchestra, the role of the arranger is increasing, who writes orchestrations that have become the key to the success of the entire team. At the same time, the soloist-improviser remains the leader in the orchestra, without which even a team with perfect orchestrations will go unnoticed. At the same time, from now on, the soloist strictly observes the number of "squares" in the music, while the rest support it according to the written arrangement. The popularity of Duke Ellington's orchestra was brought not only by non-standard solutions in arrangements, but also by the first-class composition of the orchestra itself: trumpeters Bubber Miley, Rex Stewart, Cootie Williams, clarinetist Barney Bigard, saxophonists Johnny Hodges and Ben Webster, double bassist Jimmy Blanton knew their job like no other. Other jazz orchestras also demonstrated teamwork in this matter: saxophonist Lester Young and trumpeter Buck Clayton played at Count Basie, and the backbone of the orchestra was "the most swing in the world" rhythm section - pianist Basie, double bassist Walter Page, drummer Joe Jones and guitarist Freddie Green .

The clarinetist Benny Goodman's orchestra, consisting entirely of white musicians, in the mid-1930s gained off-scale popularity, and in the second half of the 1930s dealt a crushing blow to all racial restrictions in jazz: on the stage of Carnegie Hall in an orchestra led by Goodman at the same time black and white musicians performed! Now, of course, such an event is not new for a sophisticated music lover, but in those years, the performance of whites (clarinetist Goodman and drummer Gene Krupa) and blacks (pianist Teddy Wilson and vibraphonist Lionel Hampton) literally tore all the patterns to shreds.

In the late 30s, Glenn Miller's white orchestra gained popularity. Spectators and listeners immediately drew attention to the characteristic "crystal sound" and masterfully worked out arrangements, but at the same time stated that there was a minimum of jazz spirit in the orchestra's music. During the Second World War, the "swing era" ended: creativity went into the shadows, and the "entertainment" shone on the stage, and the music itself turned into a consumer mass that did not require any special frills. Along with the war, despondency came to the camp of jazzmen: it seemed to them that their favorite music was smoothly moving into the sunset of existence.

However, the beginnings of a new jazz revolution were sown in one of the native cities for this style of music - New York. Young musicians, mostly black, unable to bear the decline of their music in orchestras in official clubs, after concerts late at night, gathered in their own clubs on 52nd Street. Mecca for all of them was the club Milton Playhouse. It was in these New York clubs that young jazzmen did something unimaginable and radically new: they improvised as much as possible on simple blues chords, building them in a seemingly completely inappropriate sequence, turning them inside out and rearranging them, playing extremely complex and long melodies that started right in the middle of the measure, and ended there. Milton Playhouse in those years had a lot of visitors: everyone wanted to see and listen to the outlandish beast, ornately and unimaginably born on the stage. In an effort to cut off random profane people who often love to get on stage and improvise with musicians, jazzmen began to take a high tempo of compositions, sometimes accelerating them to incredible speeds that only professionals could handle.

This is how the revolutionary jazz style, be-bop, was born. Kansas City-raised alto saxophonist Charlie Parker, trumpeter John Berks Gillespie, nicknamed "Dizzy" ("Dizzy"), guitarist Charlie Christian (one of the founding fathers of the harmonic language), drummers Kenny Clarke and Max Roach - these names are forever inscribed in golden letters to the history of jazz and, specifically, be-bop. The rhythmic basis of the drums in be-bop was transferred to the plates, special external attributes of the musicians appeared, and most of these concerts took place in small closed clubs - this is how the band's music-making can be described. And above all this seemingly chaos, Parker's saxophone rose: there was no equal to him in level, technique and skill. It is not surprising that the musician's temperament simply burned his master: Parker died in 1955, "burned out" from constant and high-speed playing the saxophone, alcohol and drugs.

It was the creation of be-bop that not only gave impetus to the development of jazz, but also became the starting point from which the branching of jazz as such began. Be-bop went in the direction of the underground - small venues, select and dedicated listeners, and also interested in the roots of music in general, while the second branch represented jazz in the realm of the consumer system - this is how pop jazz was born, which exists to this day. So, over the years, elements of pop jazz were used by such music stars as Frank Sinatra, Sting, Kathy Melua, Zaz, Amy Winehouse, Kenny G, Norah Jones and others.

As for the less popular branch of jazz, hard bop followed be-bop. In this style, the bet was made on the blues, ecstatic beginning. The development of hard bop was influenced by the playing of saxophonist Sonny Rollins, pianist Horace Silver, trumpeter Clifford Brown and drummer Art Blakey. By the way, Blakey's band called The Jazz Messengers became a forge of jazz personnel around the world until the musician's death in 1990. At the same time, other styles of their own were developing in the States: cool jazz, common on the East Coast, won the hearts of listeners, and the West was able to oppose the West Coast style to its neighbors. A member of the Parker Orchestra, black trumpeter Miles Davis, along with arranger Gil Evans, created cool jazz ("cool jazz") using new harmonies in be-bop. The emphasis was shifted from the high tempos of the music to the complexity of the arrangements. At the same time, white baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan and his ensemble were banking on other accents in cool jazz - for example, on the simultaneous collective improvisation that came from the New Orleans school. The West Coast, with white saxophonists Stan Getz and Zoot Sims playing west coast ("west coast"), presented a different picture of be-bop, creating a lighter sound than Charlie Parker's. And pianist John Lewis became the founder of the Modern Jazz Quartet, which basically did not play in clubs, trying to give jazz a concert, wide and serious form. Approximately the same, by the way, was achieved by the quartet of pianist Dave Brubeck.

Thus, jazz began to take on its own shape: the compositions and solo parts of jazzmen became longer. At the same time, a trend appeared in hard bop and cool jazz: one piece lasted for seven to ten minutes, and one solo - five, six, eight "squares". In parallel, the style itself was enriched by various cultures, especially Latin American.

In the late 1950s, a new reform fell upon jazz, this time in the field of harmonic language. The innovator in this part was again Miles Davis, who released his famous recording "Kind of Blue" in 1959. Traditional keys and chord progressions have changed, the musicians could not leave two chords for several minutes, but at the same time they demonstrated the development of musical thought in such a way that the listener did not even notice the monotony. Davis' tenor saxophonist, John Coltrane, also became a symbol of reform. Coltrane's playing technique and musical thought, demonstrated on recordings in the early 60s, are unsurpassed to this day. Alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman, who created the style of free jazz ("free jazz"), also became a symbol of the turn of the 50s and 60s in jazz. Harmony and rhythm in this style are practically not respected, and the musicians follow any, even the most absurd melody. In harmonic terms, free jazz became the pinnacle - then there was either absolute noise and cacophony, or complete silence. Such an absolute limit made Ornette Coleman a genius of music in general and jazz in particular. Perhaps only the avant-garde musician John Zorn came closest to him in his work.

The 60s also did not become the era of the unconditional popularity of jazz. Rock music came to the fore, whose representatives willingly experimented with recording techniques, loudness, electronics, sound distortion, academic avant-garde, playing techniques. According to legend, at that time the idea of ​​a joint recording of virtuoso guitarist Jimi Hendrix and the legendary jazzman John Coltrane was hatched. However, already in 1967, Coltrane died, and a couple of years later Hendrix died, and this idea remained in legend. Miles Davis also succeeded in this genre: in the late 60s, he was quite successfully able to cross rock music and jazz, creating the jazz-rock style, the leading representatives of which in their youth mostly played in the Davis band: keyboardists Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea, guitarist John McLaughlin, drummer Tony Williams. At the same time, jazz-rock, aka fusion, was able to give birth to its own, individual prominent representatives: bass guitarist Jaco Pastorius, guitarist Pat Metheny, guitarist Ralph Towner. However, the popularity of fusion, which arose in the late 60s and gained popularity in the 70s, quickly declined, and today this style is a completely commercial product, turning into smooth jazz ("smoothed jazz") - background music in which the place rhythms and melodic lines gave way to improvisations. Smooth jazz is represented by George Benson, Kenny G, Fourplay, David Sanborn, Spyro Gyra, The Yellowjackets, Russ Freeman and others.

In the 70s, a separate niche was occupied by world jazz ("music of the world") - a special fusion obtained as a result of the fusion of the so-called "worlmusic" (ethnic music, mainly from the Third World countries) and jazz. It is characteristic that in this style the emphasis was placed equally on both the old jazz school and the ethnic structure. For example, the motifs of Latin American folk music (only the solo was improvised, the accompaniment and composition remained the same as in ethno music), Middle Eastern motifs (Dizzy Gillespie, Keith Jarrett's quartets and quintets), Indian music motifs (John McLaughlin) became famous. , Bulgaria (Don Ellis) and Trinidad (Andy Narrell).

If the 60s became the era of mixing jazz with rock and ethnic music, then in the 70s and 80s the musicians again decided to start experimenting. Modern funk takes its roots from this period, with accompanists playing black pop soul and funk music, while extensive solo improvisations are more creative and jazzy. Prominent representatives of this style were Grover Washington Jr., members of The Crusaders Felder Wilton and Joe Semple. Subsequently, all the innovations resulted in a wider range of jazz funk, the brightest representatives of which were Jamiroquai, The Brand New Heavies, James Taylor Quartet, Solsonics.

Also, acid jazz ("acid jazz") gradually began to appear on the stage, which is characterized by lightness and "dancing". A characteristic feature of the musicians' performances is the accompaniment of samples taken from vinyl magpies. The ubiquitous Miles Davis again became the pioneer of acid jazz, and Derek Bailey began to represent the more radical wing of the avant-garde plan. In the United States, the term "acid jazz" has practically no popularity: there such music is called groove jazz and club jazz. The peak of the popularity of acid jazz came in the first half of the 90s, and in the "zero" the popularity of the style began to decline: new jazz came to replace acid jazz.

As for the USSR, the Moscow orchestra of pianist and composer Alexander Tsfasman is considered to be the first professional jazz ensemble to perform on the radio and record a record. Before him, young jazz bands focused mainly on the performance of dance music of those years - foxtrot, Charleston. Thanks to the Leningrad ensemble led by actor and singer Leonid Utyosov and trumpeter Ya. B. Skomorovsky, jazz entered the major venues of the USSR already in the 30s. The comedy "Merry Fellows" with the participation of Utyosov, filmed in 1934 and telling about a young jazz musician, had a corresponding soundtrack by Isaac Dunayevsky. Utyosov and Skomorovsky created a special style called tea-jazz ("theatrical jazz"). Eddie Rosner, who moved from Europe to the Soviet Union and became a popularizer of swing, along with Moscow bands of the 30s and 40s, made his contribution to the development of jazz in the USSR. under the leadership of Alexander Tsfasman and Alexander Varlamov.

The government itself in the USSR was rather ambiguous about jazz. There was no official ban on the performance of jazz songs and the distribution of jazz records, however, there was criticism of this style of music in light of the rejection of Western ideology in general. Already in the 40s, jazz had to go underground due to the persecution that had begun, but already in the early 60s, with the advent of Khrushchev's "thaw", jazzmen came out again. However, criticism of jazz did not stop even then. Thus, the orchestras of Eddie Rozner and Oleg Lundstrem resumed their activities. New compositions also appeared, among which the orchestras of Joseph Weinstein (Leningrad) and Vadim Ludvikovsky (Moscow), as well as the Riga Variety Orchestra (REO), stood out. Talented arrangers and solo improvisers also take the stage: Georgy Garanyan, Boris Frumkin, Alexei Zubov, Vitaly Dolgov, Igor Kantyukov, Nikolai Kapustin, Boris Matveev, Konstantin Nosov, Boris Rychkov, Konstantin Bakholdin. Chamber and club jazz is developing, whose adherents are Vyacheslav Ganelin, David Goloshchekin, Gennady Golshtein, Nikolai Gromin, Vladimir Danilin, Alexei Kozlov, Roman Kunsman, Nikolai Levinovsky, German Lukyanov, Alexander Pishchikov, Alexei Kuznetsov, Viktor Fridman, Andrey Tovmasyan, Igor Bril and Leonid Chizhik. The Mecca of Soviet and then Russian jazz was the Blue Bird club, which existed from 1964 to 2009 and brought up such musicians as the brothers Alexander and Dmitry Bril, Anna Buturlina, Yakov Okun, Roman Miroshnichenko and others.

In the "zero" jazz found a new breath, and the rapid spread of the Internet served as a colossal impetus not only for commercially successful recordings, but also for underground performers. Today, anyone can go to concerts of the crazy experimenter John Zorn and the "airy" jazz-pop singer Cathy Malua, a resident of Russia can be proud of Igor Butman, and a Cuban can be proud of Arturo Sandoval. Dozens of stations appear on the radio, broadcasting jazz in all its forms. Undoubtedly, the 21st century has put everything in its place and given jazz the place where it should be - on a pedestal, along with other classical styles.

Jazz is a musical direction that began in the late 19th and early 20th century in the United States. Its emergence is the result of the interweaving of two cultures: African and European. This trend will combine the spirituals (church chants) of American blacks, African folk rhythms and European harmonious melody. Its characteristic features are: flexible rhythm based on the principle of syncopation, use of percussion instruments, improvisation, expressive manner of performance, characterized by sound and dynamic tension, sometimes reaching ecstatic. Initially, jazz was a combination of ragtime with elements of the blues. In fact, it resulted from these two directions. A feature of the jazz style is, first of all, the individual and unique play of the virtuoso jazzman, and improvisation endows this movement with constant relevance.

After jazz itself was formed, a continuous process of its development and modification began, which led to the emergence of various directions. There are currently about thirty of them.

New Orleans (traditional) jazz.

This style usually means exactly the jazz that was performed between 1900 and 1917. We can say that its emergence coincided with the opening of Storyville (New Orleans red light district), which gained its popularity due to bars and similar establishments, where musicians playing syncopated music could always find work. The street bands that had been common earlier began to be supplanted by the so-called "storyville ensembles", whose playing became more and more individual in comparison with their predecessors. These ensembles later became the founders of classical New Orleans jazz. Vivid examples of performers of this style are: Jelly Roll Morton (“His Red Hot Peppers”), Buddy Bolden (“Funky Butt”), Kid Ory. It was they who made the transition of African folk music into the first jazz forms.

Chicago Jazz.

In 1917, the next important stage in the development of jazz music begins, marked by the appearance in Chicago of immigrants from New Orleans. There is a formation of new jazz orchestras, the game of which introduces new elements into early traditional jazz. This is how an independent style of the Chicago school of performance appears, which is divided into two directions: hot jazz of black musicians and dixieland of whites. The main features of this style are: individualized solo parts, change in hot inspiration (the original free ecstatic performance became more nervous, full of tension), synth (music included not only traditional elements, but also ragtime, as well as famous American hits) and changes in instrumental game (the role of instruments and performing techniques has changed). The fundamental figures of this direction ("What Wonderful World", "Moon Rivers") and ("Someday Sweetheart", "Ded Man Blues").

Swing is an orchestral style of jazz in the 1920s and 30s that arose directly from the Chicago school and was performed by big bands (, The Original Dixieland Jazz Band). It is characterized by the predominance of Western music. Separate sections of saxophones, trumpets and trombones appeared in the orchestras; the banjo is replaced by a guitar, a tuba and a sazophone - double bass. Music moves away from collective improvisation, the musicians play strictly adhering to pre-scheduled scores. A characteristic technique was the interaction of the rhythm section with melodic instruments. Representatives of this direction:, (“Creole Love Call”, “The Mooche”), Fletcher Henderson (“When Buddha Smiles”), Benny Goodman And His Orchestra,.

Bebop is a modern jazz that got its start in the 40s and was an experimental, anti-commercial direction. Unlike swing, it is a more intellectual style that emphasizes complex improvisation and emphasizes harmony rather than melody. The music of this style is also distinguished by a very fast pace. The brightest representatives are: Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Max Roach, Charlie Parker (“Night In Tunisia”, “Manteca”) and Bud Powell.

Mainstream. Includes three currents: Stride (Northeast Jazz), Kansas City Style and West Coast Jazz. Hot stride reigned in Chicago, led by such masters as Louis Armstrong, Andy Condon, Jimmy Mac Partland. Kansas City is characterized by lyrical pieces in a blues style. West Coast jazz developed in Los Angeles under the direction of, and subsequently resulted in cool jazz.

Cool Jazz (cool jazz) originated in Los Angeles in the 50s as a contrast to the dynamic and impulsive swing and bebop. The founder of this style is considered to be Lester Young. It was he who introduced a manner of sound production unusual for jazz. This style is characterized by the use of symphonic instruments and emotional restraint. In this vein, such masters as Miles Davis (“Blue In Green”), Gerry Mulligan (“Walking Shoes”), Dave Brubeck (“Pick Up Sticks”), Paul Desmond left their mark.

Avante-Garde began to develop in the 60s. This avant-garde style is based on a break from the original traditional elements and is characterized by the use of new techniques and expressive means. For the musicians of this trend, self-expression, which they carried out through music, was in the first place. The performers of this trend include: Sun Ra (“Kosmos in Blue”, “Moon Dance”), Alice Coltrane (“Ptah The El Daoud”), Archie Shepp.

Progressive jazz arose in parallel with bebop in the 40s, but was distinguished by its staccato saxophone technique, the complex interweaving of polytonality with rhythmic pulsation and symphojazz elements. Stan Kenton can be called the founder of this direction. Outstanding representatives: Gil Evans and Boyd Ryburn.

Hard bop is a type of jazz that has its roots in bebop. Detroit, New York, Philadelphia - in these cities this style was born. In terms of its aggressiveness, it is very reminiscent of bebop, but blues elements still prevail in it. Character performers include Zachary Breaux (“Uptown Groove”), Art Blakey and The Jass Messengers.

Soul jazz. This term is used to refer to all Negro music. It is based on traditional blues and African American folklore. This music is characterized by ostinato bass figures and rhythmically repeated samples, due to which it has gained wide popularity among different masses of the population. Among the hits of this direction are the compositions of Ramsey Lewis “The In Crowd” and Harris-McCain “Compared To What”.

Groove (aka funk) is an offshoot of soul, only its rhythmic focus distinguishes it. Basically, the music of this direction has a major color, and in terms of structure it is clearly defined parts of each instrument. Solo performances harmoniously fit into the overall sound and are not too individualized. The performers of this style are Shirley Scott, Richard "Groove" Holmes, Gene Emmons, Leo Wright.

Free Jazz got its start in the late 50s thanks to the efforts of such innovative masters as Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor. Its characteristic features are atonality, a violation of the sequence of chords. This style is often called "free jazz", and its derivatives are loft jazz, modern creative and free funk. Musicians of this style include: Joe Harriott, Bongwater, Henri Texier (“Varech”), AMM (“Sedimantari”).

Creativity appeared due to the widespread avant-garde and experimentalism of jazz forms. It is difficult to characterize such music in certain terms, since it is too multifaceted and combines many elements of previous movements. Early adopters of this style include Lenny Tristano (“Line Up”), Gunther Schuller, Anthony Braxton, Andrew Cyril (“The Big Time Stuff”).

Fusion combined elements of almost all existing musical movements at that time. Its most active development began in the 70s. Fusion is a systematized instrumental style characterized by complex time signatures, rhythm, lengthened compositions, and lack of vocals. This style is designed for less broad masses than soul and is its complete opposite. Larry Corell and Eleventh, Tony Williams and Lifetime ("Bobby Truck Tricks") are at the head of this movement.

Acid jazz (groove jazz or club jazz) originated in the UK in the late 80s (heyday 1990 - 1995) and combined the funk of the 70s, hip-hop and dance music of the 90s. The appearance of this style was dictated by the widespread use of jazz-funk samples. The founder is DJ Giles Peterson. Among the performers of this direction are Melvin Sparks (“Dig Dis”), RAD, Smoke City (“Flying Away”), Incognito and Brand New Heavies.

Post bop began to develop in the 50s and 60s and is similar in structure to hard bop. It is distinguished by the presence of elements of soul, funk and groove. Often, characterizing this direction, they draw a parallel with blues-rock. Hank Moblin, Horace Silver, Art Blakey (“Like Someone In Love”) and Lee Morgan (“Yesterday”), Wayne Shorter worked in this style.

Smooth jazz is a modern jazz style that originated from the fusion movement, but differs from it in its deliberately polished sound. A feature of this direction is the widespread use of power tools. Notable Artists: Michael Franks, Chris Botti, Dee Dee Bridgewater (“All Of Me”, “God Bless The Child”), Larry Carlton (“Dont Give It Up”).

Jazz manush (gypsy jazz) is a jazz direction specializing in guitar performance. It combines the guitar technique of the gypsy tribes of the manush group and swing. The founders of this trend are the brothers Ferre and. The most famous performers: Andreas Oberg, Barthalo, Angelo Debarre, Bireli Largen (“Stella By Starlight”, “Fiso Place”, “Autumn Leaves”).