My Collision With Jazz

When I first decided to take this course I was disappointed that the music genre would be jazz and not another more exciting style of music. The disappointment stemmed from my previous perception of jazz as very dull soothing music, and I had only heard it playing in elevators or when I was driving in the car with my Grandmother. However, I have come to learn that while the jazz I had heard (and avoided) was dull, jazz as a bigger genre incorporates a great deal of flamboyancy and excitement, a trait Robert Farris Thompson attributes to an African principle called Vital Aliveness. My enlightenment on variations of jazz and the presence of Vital Aliveness in multiple art forms with African influence have changed my perception of the music entirely.    

It was not until I heard and analyzed vibrant and energetic jazz sounds did I understand the concept of Vital Aliveness existing in Music. When we originally read the piece African Art in Motion the author purposed that Vital Aliveness existed where ever there is an African aesthetics, including dance and music. I could comprehend that the concepts that defined Vital Aliveness, such as vitality of the body, an attack quality, strength and speed, were present in dance, but I did not understand how these concepts manifested themselves in music. My understanding changed, however, as we continued to study specific jazz musicians unique styles that presented themselves through the principle of Vital Aliveness. 

Two musicians who created the most unique styles and perpetuated Vital Aliveness in their music were Louis Armstrong and Thelonious Monk, both of which demonstrate the existence of Vital Aliveness in music as well as changing my perception of the excitability of jazz. The attack quality of Vital Aliveness clearly manifests itself in Louis Armstrong’s trumpet playing. He is legendary for his “hot” style of playing, as he plays with powerful long notes and lyricism (lecture). Armstrong’s stage performance and music both had an attack quality as he would hit notes long and hard with a showboat style, creating a sound that was unable to be replicated(Gioia). When a person listens to Armstrong’s music, they do not simple hear it, but they are attacked by the notes being played. 

Thelonious Monk is another artist who demonstrates the concept of Vital Aliveness through his unpredictability and energy in his music and performance. His music incorporates such a great deal of improvisation it is impossible to predict what note he will play next, as even his fellow band members struggled to keep up with him (Kelley). Monk’s performance as a whole exuberated an incredible amount of Vital Aliveness, from his dancing to his unorthodox body movements, and most of all with his dissonant unpredictable sound. Overall I found an abundant presence of Vital Aliveness in jazz music that before I could only see within dance. 

My original perception of jazz as boring also changed, as my exposure to different styles revealed the exciting and intriguing sounds jazz music has to offer.  I have come to learn that jazz is an umbrella term and there are many variations and styles besides the unrelieved music I had pigeonholed the entirety of the jazz genre into. Some of the most lively varieties of jazz I have been exposed to are early New Orleans jazz and swing, both of which largely incorporate the African aesthetic of Vital Aliveness. Early jazz in New Orleans consisted of bands such as Jelly Roll Morton’s ragging on European classical music to produce a bolder more boisterous sound (Gioia). This genre of jazz was perhaps the biggest indication I was misinformed, as the sensual sounds of Morton’s and other New Orleans jazz bands that played in brothel houses were far from my Grandmother’s music. New Orleans jazz incorporated African musical traditions, such as brash and bold sounds in an overall display of Vital Aliveness, into European music to produce the flashy sound that it did. 

As I continued to learn about the evolution of jazz the course approached the Swing Era and the concept of Big Bands. This style of jazz was specifically a response to peoples desire for entrainment in the form of dancing after a long day of work, as it grabbed audiences attention and was anything but dull (Gioia). The markability of jazz as entrainment gave birth to places like the Cotton Club, the Savoy, and Carnegie Hall where Big Bands played for the entertainment of others. Perhaps of all the genres Swing manifest the concept of Vital Aliveness the most, as it is so rhythmic is actually evokes aliveness in the audience by creating the urge to dance. Bands like Benny Goodman and Chick Web are hard to listen to without at least the urge to tap ones toe. Jazz incorporates many styles of music, many of them vibrant and full of energy, and I learned that jazz is not boring music as I had previously assumed.  

    Before this class I believed jazz music was uninteresting and functioned as a space filler that would not draw attention to itself. However, I learned that there were many genres of jazz that I had not been exposed to, and many of these genres were full of energy and were interesting. This is due to the the principle of Vital Aliveness that exist in some forms of jazz, a concept I thought only applied to dance. Not only did I learn a great deal about the evolution of a   type of music, but I also discovered music I enjoy listening too.