from the 13in13
production
SOLOS timeline
The life and times of Jazz
In Solos, "Blue" Miller and Ellie Grace are fictitious characters living in a real world of jazz. The times they move through were the most dynamic for the artform; it is unlikely that a jazz fan from 1900 could have connected to or even understood the music of 1960.
This is what happened ...
"Life is a lot like jazz ... it's best when you improvise" ~ George Gershwin
1939
Act 1: Drums and Heartbeats
Immigrants from around the world brought the precursors of jazz to New Orleans, Chicago and Kansas City in the 1900s and beyond. Scott Joplin and Jelly Roll Morton brought ragtime to the mass consciousness; Buddy Bolden and King Oliver tested improvisation and syncopation in the fertile musical breeding ground of Storyville in New Orleans, influenced by Eastern European instrumentation and Gypsy and klezmer song forms as much as African sensibilities. By the 1920s, jazz bands were touring the world, bringing the new sounds to the farthest reaches of America and around the world.
Swing music, synchopated big band arrangements set to dance rhythms, took over from Dixieland and "hot" jazz as the popular music of the day by the 1930s. Rhythms borrowed from stride piano lent themselves to dancing, and in the Depression years and during WWII, dancing was a necessary escape. Duke Ellington, Count Basie, the much underrated Fletcher Henderson, Paul Whiteman, and Benny Goodman led the bands that everyone wanted to see. Goodman, the "King of Swing", had taken Carnegie Hall by storm in 1938, presenting jazz music in the prestigeous hall for the first time. Even then, Broadway and Hollywood dominated popular music, with "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and "Darn That Dream" from the musical Swingin' the Dream topping the charts. Big bands were the rage; Woody Herman's "Woodchopper's Ball" and Glenn Miller's lovely "Moonlight Serenade" vied for attention. Fletcher Henderson became the first black musician who was a regular member of a white big band when he became Goodman's pianist.
Women had influential but rather overlooked roles in this era of jazz. Mother/daughter team Dyer and Dolly Jones toured in Irene Eadey’s band and with Lillian Armstrong’s Harlem Harlicans. Blanche Calloway, sister of the flamboyant Cab, was likely the first woman to lead an all-male orchestra in the early 30s. Saxophonists Vi Burnside and Margaret Backstrom squared off at co-ed jam sessions in the 1930s and 1940s; Mary Lou Williams wrote arangements for Duke Ellington for a short while, and wrote for Dizzy Gillespie's Big Band. Woody Herman hired trumpet player Billie Rogers and vibist Marjorie Hyams; Gerald Wilson hired trombonist Melba Liston; Lionel Hampton hired saxophonist Elsie Smith; and Benny Carter hired trumpet player Jean Starr.
Throughout the 40s, bebop found its first roots in experimentation by young Charlie Parker and Coleman Hawkins.
1949
Act 2: Trumpets and Heat
Bebop. "If you really understand the meaning of bebop, you understand the meaning of freedom," says Thelonious Monk. In the early 1940s, jazz musicians were looking for new directions to explore. A new style of jazz was born, called bebop, with fast tempos, intricate melodies, and complex harmonies from smaller groups that did not play for dancing audiences but for listening audiences. Jazz becomes "cool" under the tutelage of Miles Davis and Gil Evans. Recorded music moves from the 78 to long-playing vinyl and 45s.
Bebop marked the dismissal of syncopation from jazz music, the emancipation of jazz from the dancehall and its transfer to the loft. Bebop was structurally and emotionally more complex than swing, emphasizing the emotional power of the solo. Latin influences from Cuba and Brazil make themselves known, Dizzy Gillespie becoming an Afro-Cuban acolyte. Recreational drugs had always been a part of the jazz culture, but frenzied Beboppers embraced hard drugs, with heroin a favorite of many highly talented and ultimately doomed players. Charlie Parker, the poster child of hard drugs, became the first modern jazz soloist to perform with strings and woodwinds in a symphony style group.
Doris Day, Mel Torme, Dinah Shore took over the record charts; Billy Strayhorn's "Lush Life", written when the composer was still a teenager, became a hit for Duke Ellington. Lenny Tristano and Cecil Taylor laid down the foundation of what would become free jazz.
Small combos started to emerge as an alternative to the multi-piece big bands, and many were led by women, including Barbara Carroll, Hazel Scott, Nellie Lutcher, Hadda Brooks, and Marian McPartland. Scott was the first woman of color to have her own television show in 1950.
1959
Act 3: Piano and Passion
Several records were made in 1959 which changed the landscape of modern jazz: Miles Davis' Kind of Blue, Dave Brubeck's Time Out, John Coltrane's Giant Steps, Charles Mingus' Mingus Ah Um, and Ornette Coleman with The Shape of Jazz to Come. In those five discs were the birth of cool jazz, freeform avant-garde, intellectual West Coast post-bop and fervent, strident expressionism. An immediate best-seller, Kind of Blue was flying off record store shelves, while at the same time Miles Davis was clubbed and arrested for loitering by police outside of Birdland, where he was playing at the time and had just stepped outside for a break. Horace Silver and Art Blakey heralded in the era of "hard bop", influenced by elements of gospel, soul and R&B. An extremely dynamic rhythm-and-blues scene took shape in Black America, and this more than jazz from the bandstand shaped hard bop. Young jazz musicians, listening to R & B sounds began the amalgam of blues and gospel that would later be dubbed "soul". "Take Five" and Mongo Santamaria's "Afro Blue" competed on the record charts with Bobby Darin's "Mack the Knife" and "Lipstick On Your Collar" by Connie Francis.
Women involved in jazz activities of the transformative 1960s include pianist/harpist/percussionist/composer Alice Coltrane, who replaced McCoy Tyner in John Coltrane's group in 1966, and pianist/organist Amina Claudine Myers.
And beyond ...
Coda: Bass and Redemption
Jazz is no longer the popular music of the day. ​Free jazz, a fusion of rock and bebop, marked the growth of jazz in Europe while it slowly faded from the American consciousness; "soft", "smooth" and "easy" enters the jazz vocabulary and listeners dismiss the entire form without understanding its depth and variety. Jazz listening becomes an intellectual experiment and coursework in universities. Meanwhile talented young players continue to innovate, create vibrant and exciting music and find new ways to keep this American artform alive.
And even with brilliant women such as Amy Denio and the Tiptons Saxophone Quartet, Anat Fort, Angelica Sanchez, Helen Sung, Jenny Scheinman, Kaki King, Marilyn Crispell, Myriam Alter, Sophie Solomon, Zoe Rahman, Olivia Sellerio and an innumerable host of others continuing to create and invent in the jazz form, most listeners still just want to hear the girl sing.