CHAPTER 47
American Intersections: Jazz and Blues Traditions
OVERVIEW
This chapter discusses the intersections of blues, jazz, and the offshoot genres of big-band swing,
bebop, cool, and Latin jazz in American popular music of the early and mid-twentieth century.
Billie Holiday and Duke Ellington are noted as important figures in establishing the legacy of these
traditions.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. To understand the musical traditions of blues and New Orleans jazz as significant markers
of early jazz in America
2. To recognize the music of Billie Holiday and Duke Ellington as representative of blues and
jazz styles of the 1930s and 1940s
3. To understand the later manifestations of jazz expression in the genres of bebop, cool, and
Latin jazz
LECTURE SUGGESTIONS
1. Display on the board and play for students a major scale, a pentatonic scale (minor form),
and a blues scale, all in the same key. Ask students to recognize the intervallic differences
and similarities among the scales. Emphasize the lowered third, fifth, and seventh of the
blues scale as blue notes.
2. To illustrate the musical connections between ragtime, blues, and New Orleans jazz, play
Scott Joplin’s piano roll of Maple Leaf Rag followed by Jelly Roll Morton’s version. Ask
students to compare Morton’s version with Joplin’s. Emphasize the improvisational
approach and lilting swing rhythm of Morton’s jazz version.
3. Follow these examples with a blues from Morton’s catalog (e.g., Honky Tonk Blues and
Mamie’s Blues). Ask students to identify both the classic features of these blues (blue notes
and repetitive poetic-musical structure) as well as the jazz components (improvisation and
swing rhythm).
4. Have students form pairs and identify the role of each instrument in Billie’s Blues. Ask the
pairs to describe how the instruments function independently and collectively in the
ensemble. How do the instruments interact with the voice? What cues signal the important
structural moments of the A-A-B blues form?
5. Follow the same procedure in Lecture Suggestion 4 for Billy Strayhorn’s Take the A Train,
which is an instrumental. Discuss the intersections of composition and improvisation in this
piece and emphasize them as a common feature of 1940s big-band swing. Play other
versions of Take the A Train from the different genres discussed in this chapter. For a bebop
version, see Clifford Brown and the Max Roach Quintet’s recording from the 1955 album
Study in Brown; for a cool jazz rendition, see the Dave Brubeck Quartet’s album Jazz Goes
to College, recorded in 1954; and for a Latin jazz arrangement, see Tito Puente’s 1955
album Mambo on Broadway.
ASSIGNMENT SUGGESTIONS
1. Listen to the lyrics of Billie’s Blues. What is this song about? How do the lyrics reflect the
meaning of blues? How does the music reflect this meaning?
2. Compare the blues of Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, and Bessie Smith. How does each
artist communicate an individual interpretation of the blues? How would you describe the
blues voice of each? What are the textual themes of their blues? What role do
instrumentalists play in these various blues?
3. As the textbook mentions, dance played an important role in the creation and popularity of
jazz, especially during the big-band swing era. Do some research on the kinds of dances that
were commonly associated with big-band swing. What were the names of these dances?
How does each reflect the rhythm and character of the music associated with it?
TEACHING CHALLENGES
Addressing the intersections of blues, jazz, and swing can quickly become a confusing game of
competing terminology. For example, Billie Holiday is often described as a jazz singer who sang
blues, whereas Bessie Smith is described as a blues singer who sings in a jazz style (i.e., with
instruments). If this becomes a point of confusion for your class, address the complexity of these
competing yet compatible concepts and the limitations that too-rigid genre boundaries place on
capturing the essence of these styles and art forms.
SUPPLEMENTAL REPERTORY
Armstrong: West End Blues
Smith: Mistreatin’ Daddy
Ellington: Black and Tan Fantasy
Davis: Kind of Blue
SUPPLEMENTAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
Cohen, Harvey G. Duke Ellington’s America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010. A
captivating biography with emphasis on Ellington’s impact on the American racial
imagination.
Davis, Angela. Blues and Black Feminism: Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie
Holiday. New York: Pantheon, 1998. Davis discusses the commercial success of the blues
during the 1920s and 1930s from the perspectives and experiences of the women who recorded
them.
Giddins, Gary, and Scott Deveaux. Jazz. New York: W. W. Norton, 2009. A comprehensive
history of jazz from the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first.
Jones, Leroi (Amiri Baraka). Blues People. New York: William Morrow, 1963. For a thoughtful
reading of the intersections of blues and jazz, see Chapter 6, “Primitive Blues and Primitive
Jazz.”
CHAPTER OUTLINE
American Intersections: Jazz and Blues Traditions (Chapter 47)
I. Roots of Jazz and Blues
A. Primary antecedents
1. West African musical traditions
a. 18th-century slaves: call and response, vocal inflections, storytelling techniques
b. 19th-century America: work songs, ring shouts, spirituals
2. Euro-American vernacular traditions; minstrelsy
3. music from the Americas, ragtime
4. 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
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, 12 or 16 bars in length
C. New Orleans jazz
1. fusion of ragtime and blues with other traditional styles
a. spirituals, work songs, ring shouts, Caribbean and Euro-American styles
2. music from Congo Square
a. strong underlying pulse, syncopations, polyrhythms
b. African-derived techniques in melody
i. rhythmic interjections
ii. vocal glides
iii. percussive vocal sounds
iv. use of blue notes
3. improvisation created polyphonic texture
4. Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong (1901–1971)
a. brilliant trumpet player, improviser
b. transformed jazz into a solo art
c. “scat–singing” influenced Billie Holiday
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
4. moved to New York, probably worked as a prostitute
5. sang in clubs, Brooklyn and Harlem
6. 1933 recorded with white clarinetist Benny Goodman
7. broke color barrier: sang in public with a white orchestra
8. memorable recordings
B. Listening Guide 36: 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
4. chorus 4: clarinet improvisation
5. chorus 5: “gut bucket” trumpet (raspy tone quality)
C. 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 wider audience
b. black and white audiences
c. dance clubs, hotel ballrooms
d. collaborated with Billy Strayhorn, composer/arranger
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; piano
2. substyles of bebop: cool jazz, West Coast jazz, hard bop, soul jazz
3. cool jazz
a. laid-back style, dense harmonies
b. lower volume levels, moderate tempos, new lyricism
c. principal exponent: Miles Davis, trumpet
4. West Coast jazz
a. small group, cool jazz style
b. mixed timbres, sometimes without piano
c. contrapuntal improvisations
B. Latin Influence
1. 1930s and 40s Latin dance music, mainstream
2. dance rhythms, percussion instruments (conga drum, bongos, cowbells)
3. integral to bebop style
4. Brazilian and Cuban elements in later decades