Why jazz happened review

Myers talks of the importance of the G. I Bill, the American Federation of Musicians strike s , the development of radio, the creation of the LP, and the populating of the west coast suburbs as formative and influential events in jazz.

From swing, to bop, to hard bop, to African influences, to jazz rock fusion, right through to the resurgence of jazz in the CD age, Myers covers it all A great look at the development of the true American musical art form from its earliest days in the early s. From swing, to bop, to hard bop, to African influences, to jazz rock fusion, right through to the resurgence of jazz in the CD age, Myers covers it all in a well-researched and well-written overview.

Far more historical and academic than I expected, this book is very detailed. Can't vouch for accuracy but hard to argue against the wealth of research.

Makes a convincing argument for the rise and decline of mainstream jazz during the 50's and 60's. An incredibly detailed I thought fascinating description of the arc of recording technology and the commercialization by the recording companies, radio stations and the key personalities. Excellent history Myers doesn't stick strictly to the history of the music, but instead uses jazz as a vehicle through which to explore a number of different aspects of 20th century American history.

Oct 18, Rob Saunders rated it it was amazing. Really an outstanding history of culture, business, technology, and the artists.

I used various music apps to listen to a lot of the recordings mentioned which added greatly. Great research. Very enjoyable. Nov 18, Steven Whitted rated it it was amazing. Outstanding book. I had no idea that so many non-music events helped shape jazz as we know it today.

Mar 17, Martin rated it really liked it Shelves: jazz. Very interesting look at jazz history. Read this after The history of Jazz by Ted Gioia. Dec 22, Dave Ciskowski rated it really liked it Shelves: donated-lost. Very interesting as a capsule history of jazz and an investigation of the impact of several external factors on its development.

Myers tracks the changes in jazz from around through , and draws connections between specific events and specific jazz movements. This is a little bit too just-so; it would be arbitrary and a bit too reductive to expect that the events he discusses were directly tied to specific stylistic movements in jazz. But the connections are interesting, and the book als Very interesting as a capsule history of jazz and an investigation of the impact of several external factors on its development.

But the connections are interesting, and the book also serves as a good short history of jazz, tying it to larger developments in American society. The style is accessible and enjoyable, and the book does a good job of being entertaining and scholarly at the same time. May 09, Mike Ehlers rated it really liked it. Read about this book on a jazz blog I follow when it came out, but I didn't realize this jazz history was limited to post WWII thru the early 70's.

Although that is the time period jazz seems to have changed itself the most. The sub-genres of jazz the author lays out in the intro don't always line up perfectly with the outside forces he discusses, but that's really a minor complaint. I enjoy stories of disruptive technology, so I liked reading about things like recording technology and electric i Read about this book on a jazz blog I follow when it came out, but I didn't realize this jazz history was limited to post WWII thru the early 70's.

I enjoy stories of disruptive technology, so I liked reading about things like recording technology and electric instruments impacting the music.

Some chapters are slower than others, but a good look at what shaped jazz. Apr 02, Chris Lilly rated it liked it Shelves: music-and-similar. Lots on recording technology and how to build speaker-stacks at Woodstock, not much to say about the musicians or what they thought they were doing. Can you talk about the Black Consciousness jazzers of the early '60's without acknowledging them? And when we get to rock-influenced jazz-fusion, it's mostly the Mahavishnu Orchestra, not Davis and "Bitches Brew".

He gets to tell his story not mine, of course he does, but ther Lots on recording technology and how to build speaker-stacks at Woodstock, not much to say about the musicians or what they thought they were doing. He gets to tell his story not mine, of course he does, but there are some very big omissions.

Not sure I'll be keeping this for a go-to reference book. Feb 05, Tracy Pierce rated it really liked it. Not only is this a good source for the history of Jazz but it also discusses the record industry. How and why the 78 record evolved into the 45 and 33 long playing albums. The economy and geography of America had a lot to do with Jazz and still does.

Mar 10, Ken Nielsen rated it it was amazing. And of course, jazz history seemed neatly to line-up with—or, arguably, tell—the story of the United States in the 20th century. As the above paragraph implies, these key moments in jazz may have paralleled cultural trends, but they were typically told as the stories of great individuals: a history of artists as visionaries, essentially. That kind of thing always makes for a great story, right?

Meyers has written a great mass of articles for The Wall Street Journal about jazz, including many to-the-point interviews, and he also has a masters in US history from Columbia University. So Why Jazz Happened has the pedigree of promise. Like a good journalist, Myers focuses on a clear story, backed up by copious interviews with sources that certainly know what really happened. That said, Why Jazz Happened makes its points like a snazzy lawyer in the courtroom: zip, zam, zot.

And that is true. We spent as much time as possible there but we only picked up so much. It wasn't long after that night that Parker started making records with Dizzy Gillespie, introducing the idea of bebop. We played their records over and over again when we began to figure out what they were doing. Dodo said to me, 'Why don't you try to play the clarinet like Parker? Bebop's roots can be traced back to the early s, when black big-band musicians began experimenting with new ways of playing improvised solos.

From the start, their goals were to gain the admiration of their audiences with these solos and to achieve a level of fame and respect from their peers.

A black musician who became a renowned soloist could start his own band or land a coveted record deal with a major label. By , several black jazz musicians, including Louis Armstrong, Art Tatum, Fats Waller, Lionel Hampton, Teddy Wilson, and Coleman Hawkins, had already reached star status by having commercial crossover success as soloists. For young black musicians in bands in the s, the only way out was up, and the only way up was to stand out by being exceptional.

But from the perspective of bandleaders, the success of individuals was bad for business. Running a swing orchestra was a daily challenge requiring entrepreneurial skill. Bandleaders had to resort to managerial and psychological tricks to retain top young talent. The stakes were highest for the major swing bandleaders who had lucrative contracts with record companies and appeared on the labels' radio networks.

Similar contracts did not exist between the bandleaders and the musicians they hired and had to retain. Without formal contracts with bandleaders, musicians in swing orchestras typically remained with a band until they received a better offer from another one-or were fired, a frequent occurrence, since bands were constantly being overhauled and fine-tuned by bandleaders.

Musicians who wanted to break free of this hired-fired cycle and improve their job security had to develop a distinct sound on their instrument. In other words, their performances had to wow audiences without eclipsing the talent and egos of bandleader bosses.

For an individual musician, quitting a band without having lined up another offer was risky. Leave a band to do what? Without star power and sizable capital from a backer, forming one's own band was a challenge for the novice. Record companies were few during the s, with Columbia, RCA Victor, and Decca making up 85 to 90 percent of the market in From the record company's standpoint, recording, to be cost-efficient, required perfection.

The odds were slim that one of these record companies would take a chance on an unknown musician or a band whose errors could result in cost overruns and subpar music. Though a handful of smaller jazz labels existed before World War II, they recorded primarily older styles, and their products were marketed to record clubs and collectors and other enthusiasts of traditional jazz.

If you were a jazz musician in the late s and early s, you had little choice but to cling to the swing bands that recorded and toured. In turn, bandleaders constantly had to develop ways to feed the egos of their talented sidemen-without overinflating them. As many bandleaders discovered, a fine line existed between recognizing talent and heaping on too much praise.

Keeping star musicians happy compelled swing bandleaders to order up arrangements that provided solos for them. Bandleaders also formed small groups within their bands to give their best musicians a chance to be heard and to shine. For a time, these spotlight opportunities satisfied the ambitions of many leading band musicians. But by the novelty of playing in a big band's small breakout group began to wear thin for younger and more talented sidemen, particularly in black bands.

With rpm records able to hold only about three minutes of music on each side, solo time was minimal even in small-group settings. Increasingly, this spare solo space failed to satisfy the creative spirit and abilities of top talent. These musicians came to realize that they had only one shot: to stand out with hopes of developing a following and being discovered by record companies. It was a risk, but a risk many felt they had to take.

More ambitious artists began to experiment with new ways of playing solos, to make them memorable. Chief among these musicians was Gillespie.

Born in Cheraw, South Carolina, Gillespie had attended a nearby music school on scholarship and studied piano and trumpet. In he traveled to New York and joined Teddy Hill's band, emulating the famed trumpeter Roy Eldridge's fiery style. In Gillespie joined Cab Calloway's orchestra, one of the most successful black bands in the country. But the bandleader didn't particularly appreciate Gillespie's approach to soloing, calling the unorthodox notes "Chinese music. In addition, Gillespie was increasingly excluded from the band's small group, the Cab Jivers.

Gillespie's frustration grew, and in response he boldly exhibited his penchant for sophomoric pranks. In September , the two men came to blows. Calloway, after a performance during which he thought Gillespie had thrown a spitball, took the trumpeter to task. Words were exchanged, and when Calloway reached out to strike Gillespie, the trumpeter reportedly pulled a knife. The bassist Milt Hinton interceded, but Calloway grabbed Gillespie's wrist, and the two men scuffled until other band musicians pulled them apart.

But by then, the knife had cut Calloway, and Gillespie was fired. Jam sessions at Minton's Playhouse, Clark Monroe's Uptown House, and other establishments typically featured small clusters of musicians, mostly horn players, backed by an aggressive rhythm section. At these clubs, musicians played extended improvised solos based on blues and Tin Pan Alley standards, and they competed for peer and audience approval. The musicians in the house rhythm sections prodded and provoked soloists with unexpected piano chords, bass lines, and drum patterns, hoping to egg them on to even more exciting results-or failure and humiliation.

Gillespie, during the months after he left Calloway's band, sharpened his ideas at these clubs and in the sextet of the alto saxophonist Benny Carter.

In early Gillespie subbed in Woody Herman's band and sold several of his arrangements to Herman and Jimmy Dorsey. The record was a hit, and Gillespie was only too happy to share his new musical discoveries with other musicians.

The trumpeter Joe Wilder, who sat next to Gillespie in Hite's band, recalls that Gillespie's bebop style was already in place in "We didn't call it bebop then, of course. It was just a new way of playing, and Dizzy had already recorded some of those new things months earlier in Cab Calloway's band.

Instead of playing the chords that were written, Dizzy was into flatted sevenths and ninths, and harmonic playing. What was fascinating was that Dizzy could be both precise and loose. Between songs, Dizzy would start telling me jokes and cracking me up. Then Les would give a downbeat and I couldn't stop laughing.

Les would say, 'Hey Junior-that was my nickname-you had better play and stop fooling around back there. He wasn't trying to throw me. Dizzy wasn't competitive like that. He was happy to show me things all the time on the trumpet and he also had solos on songs, just like I did. Dizzy's humor kept him relaxed, and his style of playing in Les' band was very different.

Halfway across the country, the saxophonist Charlie Parker was experimenting with a new solo approach for many of the same reasons as Gillespie. Born in Kansas City, Kansas, Parker began by playing baritone horn in a school marching band and eventually picked up the alto saxophone. In the fifteen-year-old Parker was urged to sit in with seasoned members of Count Basie's band, including the tenor saxophonist Lester Young and the drummer Jo Jones. But Parker played Body and Soul in the wrong key and was so lost in thought that the didactic Jones tossed one of his cymbals at Parker's feet to get his attention.

The brass disc fell with a deafening crash and Parker, humiliated, packed up his instrument and departed. Discouraged but undeterred, Parker spent the next year practicing intensively-mastering scales and blues runs in every key.

Because jazz in Kansas City in the mids relied more on improvisation than on elaborate arrangements, Parker was forced to develop fingering for speed and an ear for inventing blues riffs. In , when he returned to the jazz scene in Kansas City after his self-imposed exile, he was a more mature and confident player. During the next three years, he moved from Kansas City to Chicago and then to New York in search of playing opportunities-at one point washing dishes at a Harlem club just to hear the pianist Art Tatum.

By Parker had become bored with the static music he had been playing in bands: "I kept thinking, there's bound to be something else.

I could hear it sometimes but I couldn't play it. Well that night I was working over 'Cherokee,' and as I did I found that by using the higher intervals of a chord as a melody line and backing them with appropriately related [chord] changes, I could play the thing I'd been hearing.

I came alive. Parker returned home to Kansas City in for his father's funeral and soon took a job in Harlan Leonard's band. But Parker's chronic lateness forced Leonard to fire him. Parker joined Jay McShann's swing band and toured the Southwest with the blues orchestra for the next year and a half.

Like Gillespie, Parker also played jam sessions in after-hours clubs. During one of these appearances, in at Clark Monroe's Uptown House, Parker's improvised performance of "Cherokee" was captured on an acetate disc recorded by Jerry Newman, a Columbia University student.

As evidenced by the recording, Parker's solo was breathtakingly fast and fluid, demonstrating an unrivaled feel for the new modern sound that Gillespie and his disciples were crafting in Harlem clubs. By the summer of , Gillespie was experimenting with new chord voicings and harmony while Parker was exploring how to phrase solos differently and infuse the blues into virtually every solo he played.

Both Parker and Gillespie had just about perfected their new approach to jazz when their ambitions to record were halted. In August the American Federation of Musicians launched a job action against record companies that prohibited all union musicians from recording. The ban was the culmination of a fifteen-year battle the AFM had been waging over new sound-recording technologies that had displaced thousands of musicians.

Bebop in would have to wait a little longer to be recorded. In the years preceding World War II, music had become the country's most affordable form of entertainment. Movies were popular, too, of course, but they had two big drawbacks: They could not be viewed at home, and you had to pay each time you wanted to see them. By contrast, music could be heard for free-again and again-after the initial purchase of a radio, phonograph, and records. As radio networks expanded their reach nationwide in the s, music became an even more popular pastime, with millions of Americans listening to the same programs at the exact same time, often in the comfort of their living rooms.

As the quality of recorded music improved, starting in the late s with the introduction of the electronic microphone, the recording and radio industries prospered. Network radio featured live performances of musicians in their studios while records allowed consumers to hear favorites artists on their own phonographs and on jukeboxes in public.

The two media-radio and records-worked hand in hand, and sales of both soared. From to , the bandleader Duke Ellington appeared more than two hundred times on the radio, establishing himself as a formidable recording artist and major crossover attraction. But radio and records spelled trouble for the vast majority of average musicians who earned a living performing in theaters, taverns, and other public places in America's small towns and big cities. Owners of bars or restaurants who added a radio, phonograph, or jukebox to their establishments no longer had to worry about musicians' salaries or the rules imposed by the musicians' union.

They simply flipped a switch and turned up the volume. In , soon after radio sets began to be mass-produced, the American Federation of Musicians' president promised members that there was "absolutely nothing to fear from radio.

Radio will have the same result as the phonograph But after the development of electric recording equipment in the mids, the sound of records began to improve dramatically, as did the at-home phonograph. During this period, the simplicity and affordability of the radio made it a family necessity. In there were radio stations in operation in the United State, and radios in more than four million households, or about 10 percent of the total, leaving enormous room for growth.

In the struggling UIB was sold and renamed CBS by its new owner, which expanded the network by emphasizing dramatic programming for the at-home market. In its infancy, radio was a mess. Signals weren't uniform, causing one station to override another on the dial as the number of operators increased. With the passage of the Radio Act of , the government began to license stations, bringing order to the near-chaotic market and the signals beamed by stations.

With efficiency came a well-ordered radio dial, leading to a surge in sales. In three hundred thousand employees worked in twelve hundred radio plants, most of them in seven major cities. By some plants were producing a thousand radios a day. The first significant threat to musicians from technology came in That year, Warner Brothers introduced its Vitaphone sound-picture system in short-subject films, laying the groundwork for the "talkie" movie.

From the start, music for talkies was recorded at movie studios in California and then synchronized to the action in films. The new technology's impact took a little time but ultimately proved devastating for movie theater organists and orchestras. The number of musicians employed to accompany silent films in movie houses around the country began to drop precipitously. Within a few years of the Vitaphone's launch, an estimated twenty-two thousand musicians-half of the instrumentalists employed by movie theaters at the time-were out of a job.

Smaller movie theaters continued to play the older silent movies with live music behind them. The big theaters got the new movies with the sound. But as the years went on and talkies took hold, the live orchestras were cut down to smaller groups, and then to just a violin and piano and drums for local theaters.