Jazz your Lifes

Posts Tagged ‘jazz musicians’

Jazz Improvisation Transports the Human Brain to a Different Realtiy
New research by John Hopkins University and National Institute of Health scientists found that the brains of improvising jazz musicians operate in a fundamentally different way than those of musicians playing a memorized, composed melody. .
The study was under the direction of Charles Limb, a hearing specialist at Johns Hopkins Hospital and teacher at the University, lecturer on the neuroscience of music and music perception at Peabody Conservatory of Music, is also a jazz saxophonist.
Jazz and the Brain Research Methods
Designing effective equipment for watching the brain at work is difficult. Limb and Allen Braun, who co-authored the paper published in the journal PLoS One, used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to look into their subject brains. The device emits a strong magnetic field, which creates images based on the movement of blood through the brain. Interpreting the images is based on the idea that blood flows in larger amounts to active areas of the brain.
A Jazz Instrument that would Work inside a Scanner
The researchers created a keyboard with no magnetic parts that could be linked to a computer outside the scanner. It plays like a piano, but when someone presses a key, it actually sends a signal to a computer, which then sends a sound sample from a real piano into a set of headphones worn by the musician in the scanner. Read the rest of this entry »

Jazz is an American style of music. It began in America’s Deep South and has spread throughout the country. Jazz festivals and concerts are now part of American culture and pop culture. In the film High Society, the Newport (Rhode Island) Jazz festival was part of the story. The Newport Jazz Festival began in 1954. In the years since the Newport Jazz Festival began, Jazz has worked its way across the country from Newport, Rhode Island to Newport Beach, California.
The 2010 Newport Beach Summer Jazz Series
“With an ensemble of top musicians in the genre for the 2010 series, this year’s outstanding group of performers showcase a range of jazz sonance from traditional to contemporary and smooth jazz, to R&B and big band,” said Event Producer and Promoter Jim “Fitz” Fitzgerald of Wendy Jayne Productions, Inc. “Our vision this year – as the new event management company – is to enhance the popular series with expanded talent, increase outreach to the public, heighten community involvement and sponsorships, and give an overall polished identity to grow the series for years to come,” explained Fitzgerald in a press release to publicize the event. Read the rest of this entry »

When jazz musicians finally connected with sound recording studios in a big way during the 1920s, jazz was quickly carried beyond clubs and ballrooms and into America’s living rooms. Jazz’s most creative players soon relied upon 78-rpm (revolutions per minute) records to document each new development in their style – preserving each new piece of music, making it available to music fans in the United States, and even overseas.
Heavily reliant upon improvisation, jazz could never be effectively captured or passed around via sheet music. But with the advent of records, the new music spread quickly as musicians heard what their peers elsewhere were playing.
So who made the first jazz recording? While African American musicians such as Buddy Bolden, Sidney Bechet, and King Oliver laid the groundwork, the all – white Original Dixieland Jass Band (ODJB), made the first jazz record. The group formed in New Orleans, and after a stint in Chicago, opened at a popular restaurant in New York in 1916. Their performances in New York had an immediate effect on the music scene, so the Victor Talking Machine Company seized on their popularity and recorded the band in early 1917. Read the rest of this entry »

The big Apple became jazz’s capital during the late 1920s and early 1930s, but it had been a vital jazz city since the turn of the century. Several artists sealed New York’s place in early jazz history.
James P. Johnson (1894-1955)
Blending the primal power of blues with the more elaborate song structures of ragtime and classical music, Johnson was an innovative pianist and founding father of ragtime – as well as one of jazz’s greatest composers. Born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, he was writing sophisticated original music and playing it in New York by the teens. Whereas New Orleans jazz was loose and largely spontaneous, the music that Johnson played in New York City’s upscale nightclubs was meticulously composed
James Reese Europe (1881-1919)
Europe laid the groundwork for the greatest big bands of the 1930s with music he made in 1923 and 1914. Europe composed pieces for ensembles as large as his 50-piece Hell Fighters Band, yet he infused the music with ragtime’s rhythmic momentum. His bands also served as a training ground for early jazz musicians. Europe proved that tightly composed music played by a big band could swing even harder than the ragtime’s careful compositions
Will Marion Cook (1869-1944)
Yet another major mentor to young musicians (including clarinet/saxophonist player Sidney Bechet and pianist/band leader Duke Ellington), Cook was a classical violinist who led the 50-piece New York Syncopated Orchestra. Cook was African American, and he wanted his orchestra to capture some of the raw power of authentic African music. He believed that James Europe had watered down African American music for the sake of commercial success. Cook also helped open Broadway productions to black players.
Born in the plantation South, the best New Orleans jazz was played by African Americans. New York City’s jazz was made from a slightly different recipe. Big bands in New York City didn’t really swing until the Original Dixieland Jazz Band came up from New Orleans in 1926. new York players began to transform the feel of their music by heating it up with New Orleans and Chicago flavors and rhythms. Read the rest of this entry »