Scott Jeppesen

Abstract

I have heard it said that Beethoven cast a shadow that was so large it covered the next hundred years. As musicians, we have been taught to idolize certain figures in music history. Figures such as these are untouchable, unassailable, and unquestionably brilliant. This practice is ever more evident within jazz music where our collection of indefectible geniuses have mostly resided in the last one hundred years. Figures like Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, and Miles Davis have all undergone a virtual apotheosis placing them upon thrones above all others. While there is no question of their importance in the evolution of musical art, the idolization of these people makes attaining what they have done difficult to grasp. Aside from declaring a self-imposed assault on any of our musical ambitions, we have dug a chasm between aspiring musicians and the music itself. This virtual gap is wide in that we regard these figures and their music so profoundly that relating to them becomes difficult. Students must understand that these figures were ordinary people. Through technology and creative storytelling, students can explore the world in which these musicians lived. Providing context to surround the legends that frame our history can help students to gain a better understanding of how jazz music has evolved and why. Furthermore, students can use this knowledge to develop confidence in their creative process and in how it relates to their unique life context.

Keywords: jazz, context, history, musicology, pedagogy, ethnomusicology

Humanizing the Deities of Jazz

I am guilty. I have adorned the walls of my home studio with framed images of John Coltrane, Wayne Shorter, Charles Mingus, Clifford Brown and Miles Davis. Over my computer desk, Art Kane’s famous photograph “A Great Day in Harlem” is prominently displayed like an altar to those I hold most dear. Admiration for those who have contributed to your field is entirely reasonable. However, particularly in the arts, we maintain an obsessive and almost religious infatuation with our idols. Our admiration can be devastatingly heavy, crushing us under the weight of ambition and envy while driven by the presence of the giants of our art. How can one ever hope to gain membership in the fraternity of such notables? Can my art ever be deemed worthy while residing under the shadow cast by such heroes? Sadly, it is not rare to encounter aspiring jazz musicians incapable of accepting compliments on performance due to a constant feeling of inadequacy due to comparisons of their imposition. It is by no accident that to this point I have avoided using the term people. These musical icons are, in fact, ordinary people. Brilliant, hard-working, and often flawed, lack of context of their achievements have dehumanized them to the extent that we view them as so much more. Instantiation of context to their tales not only shows younger musicians that achievement is the result of hard work and dedication but can also lead them down a path of exploration and discovery in an art form that is much deeper than the rabbit hole initially suggests.

Always A Bigger Fish

I remember during the summer of 1997 I received Joe Henderson’s phone number from a good friend. Joe had long been my hero, and I was thrilled at the prospect of potentially studying with him. I dialed the number and listened to the ring. I found myself secretly hoping that he would not answer — he did not. “This is Mr. J., leave a message,” I heard. Both deflated and relieved I could not bring myself to leave a message. After all, why would Joe Henderson ever call me back? Several times I called until one day while expecting to hear the usual message prompt, he answered. While I am usually well spoken, I found myself stumbling over my words. I was utterly starstruck. Joe was kind and supportive. He counseled me not to be embarrassed for being a fan of his playing and recounted how, in his youth, he “didn’t want to play like Prez, he wanted to be Prez.” He recalled going so far as to don Lester’s trademark pork pie hat. It was stunning to me to come to the realization that even my hero understood the feeling of idolizing another as if wearing a hat would make them peers.

In his autobiography, Miles Davis admits taking drugs at the age of twenty because “the idea was going round that to use heroin might make you play as great as Bird”¹. Miles pursued potentially devastating activities in his pursuit of reaching the heights that Charlie Parker was already occupying. He, like so many others after him, did not see Parker as another struggling musician but something greater. This need to reach the point of our idols can be inspiring, debilitating, or both.

As his career developed, Miles became known as the ‘Prince of Darkness.’ Nicknames in jazz are far from rare. Many of these nicknames bestow an air of importance and dominance. We find these authoritative nicknames amongst many of our most revered musicians: Lester Young(‘Prez’), William ‘Count’ Basie, Benny Goodman(‘The King of Swing’), Paul Whiteman(‘The King of Jazz’), Thelonious Monk(‘The High Priest’), Joe (‘King’) Oliver, and Ella Fitzgerald(‘The First Lady of Song’). While these nicknames were used during their lives, they only contribute further to posthumous deification.

Edward (‘Duke’) Ellington bears the name of royalty. With god-like status, Ellington holds a well-deserved place in the jazz lineage. Perhaps the most important composer in the history of jazz, Ellington had his idols. Duke’s early years were spent idolizing James P. Johnson. Ellington is known to have spent countless hours at a player piano allowing his fingers to follow those of Johnson while performing “Carolina Shout”².

Earlier in this essay, I mentioned the prominent placement of ‘A Great Day in Harlem’ on my wall. This photo became a central plot point of the 2004 film, ‘The Terminal,’ starring Tom Hanks. In the movie, Hanks plays an immigrant trapped in the JFK airport terminal while attempting to visit a jazz club to obtain an autograph from one of the participants in the photo — saxophonist Benny Golson. Interviewed for John Coltrane’s biography, Golson recalls “I told [Dizzy Gillespie] how John [Coltrane] and I came to get his autograph and he laughed years later. We didn’t think we would come to know him and actually play with him and record with him. If somebody told us then, we’d be falling down on the floor”³.

Further deification exists outside of the minds of jazz musicians. Praise and discussion by writers, filmmakers and audiences add to the legends surrounding many of the jazz greats. Jazz musicians often played central roles in the poetry of the era. Charlie Parker, considered by many to be the father of modern jazz, received extreme reverence in the eyes of poets. “Humbled by Parker’s mythic legacy,” poets would “praise him with embarrassingly hagiographic detail, equating him to Christ, Buddha, and other gods and saints”⁴. Throughout their lives and, particularly, posthumously these artists have become less and less human in our eyes.

Adding Context

It is perfectly understandable that aspiring musicians view their idols with such levels of admiration. They are our idols due to the very fact that their music touched us in a way that others did not. Their influences combine within each of us to form unique individual artistic styles⁵. However, it is important to understand that the music created by our heroes was not done so in a vacuum but rather within a larger social and cultural context. In understanding the extra-musical world in which they lived, we can better understand how those influences have imprinted themselves on the musicians we revere.

Influences in jazz come from so many places. From early roots in slave spirituals and work songs to classical music and the eventual influence of music from Cuba and South America, jazz has thrived because of its vast array of sources. These sources exist in both cultural and political forms. It is important to understand that while singular events may not cause the creation of a new style, music or societal events may positively reflect one another⁶. For example, while a music style may be created independent of cultural happenings, that style may catch on or gain in popularity due to extra-musical parameters. In addition to thoughtful consideration between music and cultural framing, we must also provide context for musical events that are non-style specific. Tracing the music through the slave trade from the Ivory Coast, through the Caribbean and South America, and into America is essential to see where and how some of the early aspects of jazz originated. Observing the effects of the closure of Storyville by the United States government and its influence on the migration of musicians from New Orleans to Chicago⁷ is a great example of how the musical and the socio-cultural overlap.

We can help to establish a clearer historical picture by discussing the roles that class, race, and gender have played in the development of jazz music. These parameters have been integral in defining prominence of individual artists and their artistic contributions. A thorough discussion of the beginnings of jazz music must include a look at the environment that encouraged its conception. Jazz was conceived in economically challenged neighborhoods of New Orleans. Fostered by a diverse congregation of Blacks, Creoles, and Whites, the music developed more out of utility than convenience⁸. Instruments used were portable and inexpensive. Commonly used for funerals and celebration, jazz quickly evolved into an art form facilitating entertainment and personal expression⁹. The same class to jazz relationship can be seen in Prohibition-Era “Rent Parties” in Harlem that brought to prominence pianists such as Willie “The Lion” Smith and Thomas “Fats” Waller¹⁰.

Facing racial bias was nothing new to early jazz musicians. Constantly touring, often through racially stressed areas, jazz musicians had to find ways of coping with tension. Many big bands of the swing era would form baseball teams to compete and pass the time.¹¹ Others turned to immersing themselves in work or drugs. Aside from its effect on daily life, racial bias can be seen directly affecting the perceived success of musicians. The top two bands of the Swing Era were those of Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman. Both bands were groundbreaking in that they were integrated. However, despite Duke’s interest, it was Benny Goodman who performed first at Carnegie Hall in 1938, a whole five years before Ellington. Until his debut at Carnegie, Ellington felt humiliated to have been beaten to the punch by Goodman¹².

Music, throughout its history, has been decidedly patrilineal; this is no less true of jazz. Why is it that so few prominent female jazz instrumentalists and composers have achieved notoriety? Jazz history contains many famous women jazz vocalists: Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Billie Holliday, Dinah Washington, and Etta James to name a few. The problem isn’t that there weren’t women instrumentalists; it’s that they don’t receive the same level of attention as their male counterparts. Wife of Louis Armstrong and pianist for his “Hot 5” and “Hot 7,” Lil Hardin wrote many songs commonly attributed to Louis — including the well-known “Struttin' With Some BBQ”¹³. This again shows a strong connection to the non-musical world where women of the time were often relegated to lesser statures than men. It is still common in contemporary jazz to find the number of instrumentalists dominated by men while women occupy more “feminine” roles as vocalists.

Acknowledging and discussing parameters such as gender, race, and class is essential to humanizing the figures that have shaped jazz. It is important to recognize that artists' create music, not only, because of their environment but often in spite of it. While indeed requiring additional thought and effort by teachers to implement, it would be illogical to deprive the students of a more vivid picture of the world inhabited by the jazz artists we study.

Pedagogy

As educators, we teach jazz history with text books and the analysis of recordings; both are great resources. However, we are fortunate to live in an age where vast technological resources are now easily and immediately available. These resources can be used to present the history of jazz in a way that offers cultural context to humanize the people and events that have continuously evolved. Perhaps in doing so, we can increase the enjoyment of our students in their pursuit of experiencing the music that we love so much.

The rest of this article will discuss some of the tools that can help to diversify lessons in jazz history and facilitate the reintroduction of context to jazz curricula. By no means should these devices be considered a replacement for listening as there is no greater gift that we have than our recorded history. Nor should these tools be used exclusive of each other. Lessons that integrate many of these tools together form an enriching and engaging look at jazz history. Students can discover that jazz did not evolve independent of culture, but is, in fact, dependent and reflective of the culture in which it was developed. Activities that utilize many of these can help students learn that the arts exist to preserve elements of our society and culture while offering a means for human thought and exploration¹⁴. The technological resources available to us now can help students to experience more than just the sound of these musicians. Educators can expose students to the multitude of other factors within these musicians’ surroundings that may have influenced artistic development. Furthermore, the cultural context added through the use of these tools will serve as a reminder that the evolution of jazz did not happen magically but was, instead, propagated by real people reacting to their environments.

Tools for Exploration

I should note that this is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all tools available for teaching jazz history. As I have mentioned, most jazz history education has revolved around the use of textbooks and recordings. These are irreplaceable. However, since they are staples within most classrooms, I will not focus on these resources. Additionally, I am choosing to omit discussions about biographies. Like textbooks and recordings, biographies are immensely useful. However, like textbooks, they can be a somewhat impersonal and external view of the world in which jazz evolved. I will, instead, discuss the use of autobiography since it reflects the views of the artists’ themselves. The materials presented from here on out focus on those that seek to personalize the musicians and their music: 1) Recordings, 2) Photos, 3) Videos, 4) Autobiographies, 5) Additional online resources.

Listen

Technological advancements are never without controversy. We now have the ability to listen to almost any recording ever made through the multitude of streaming services available on the internet. While these services still need to figure out a way to get musicians adequately compensated for their work, they provide an incredible resource to aspiring musicians and educators. No discussion about a figure in jazz history should occur without some time spent listening to the recordings. After all, that is the reason we are studying them in the first place! Teachers should use these services to, not only, explore the iconic recordings of the jazz canon but also broaden the number of artists studied. Increasing the number of artists that students are exposed to helps to improve context because the students are allowed to see what more musicians were doing during that era. For example, studying the music of Louis Armstrong is an unquestionably important part of an education in jazz history. However, to gain a clear picture of jazz in the 1920s and 1930s, it is also necessary to explore the music of Jelly Roll Morton, Kid Ory, The Original Dixieland Jazz Band, Bessie Smith, and Jack Teagarden. Access to a broader wealth of recorded history facilitates this by providing the same collection of recordings to all teachers.

In addition to broadening the historical context of an artist study, educators can draw direct connections between the records and performance practices of their students. Teachers should encourage their students to partake in directed and focused listening exercises. Directed listening can help students to understand better the role that different artists, or instruments, played in performances. For example, the class could listen to Ella Fitzgerald’s 1947 recording of “Lover Man.” Teachers can instruct students to pay particular attention to bassist Ray Brown’s performance leading to a discussion about the role of a bassist in a jazz ensemble and the ways in which he constructed bass lines. Additionally, teachers can note that shortly after the recording, Fitzgerald and Brown were married.

Online listening also empowers teachers to use technology to add additional interactive possibilities to their classes. Using Spotify, teachers can share interactive music playlists with their students. Students can freely add tracks to the playlist from home and come prepared to discuss the tracks in class or through writing assignments.

A Picture is Worth A Thousand Words

Online resources allow the opportunity to put a face to the music. Accessing such treasures as the William P. Gottlieb Collection at the Library of Congress gives access to thousands of photographs of jazz luminaries. The photos brilliantly capture musicians on-stage, in practice, and candidly showing them both professionally and personally. A simple search on Google Images will often return many valuable images of these same artists. In addition to photos of musicians, using images that depict the cityscapes, clothing, clubs, dancing, and transportation of the time helps to paint a better picture of the environment that framed the music and the artists. Photos portray musicians in situations ranging from the heat of live performance to candidly interacting with fans and colleagues. Performance photos can be used by educators and students alike to examine instrument technique. Teachers may encourage their alto saxophone students to compare and contrast the embouchures of Charlie Parker, Paul Desmond, and Johnny Hodges. How may those differences have contributed to their individual sounds? Is it possible that any similarities found indicate one artist influenced by another? Why or why not?

Perhaps even more poignant than the action shots are the shots of musicians being regular people. The quiet before going on stage. The smile, or lack thereof, on an artist’s face when interacting with members of their audience. Count Basie and his band playing baseball outside their bus to kill time before a show. Louis Armstrong as a child unaware that he would someday rise to the heights of celebrity. Teachers should encourage discussion of these photographs surrounding, not only, the musicians but also the venues and audiences. Teachers can help to shed further light on the context by leading discussions of photos of the main jazz hubs in America: New Orleans, New York, and Chicago. Examining pictures of these cities during the Great Depression opens many avenues for discussion. How did the Depression affect musicians during the 1930s? Exploring images of Chicago during the 1920s can lead to a discussion of how prohibition may have affected the evolution of jazz. Where was jazz mostly performed during this era? How was the demise of prohibition related to the women’s suffrage movement? Teachers can initiate a valuable lesson about race and class by examining photos of Harlem’s Cotton Club and the Savoy Ballroom. Only blocks apart, the two clubs catered to different audiences. The Cotton Club, a segregated establishment featuring bands such as Fletcher Henderson and Ellington¹⁵, attracted members of the upper class. In contrast, the Savoy had a “no discrimination” policy accepting members of all races, genders, and classes¹⁶. How could this distinction have affected the musicians that performed at each club?

A Video is Worth A Million

Certainly the next best thing to time travel, YouTube is full of videos taken of these artists at work. It is increasingly easy to find videos of Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, and John Coltrane performing live. Students can view and analyze the performances and discussions can be made surrounding the videos. Students can witness demeanor on stage to gain insight into these performers’ personalities — something not easily deciphered by listening to recordings. Similar to the inclusion of photography in jazz history studies, videos allow teachers to appeal to the visual senses when discussing music. The same approaches to discussion can be employed when working with videos. However, since virtually every student has access to YouTube, teachers may offer at-home exploration assignments to students asking them to find videos and post to a discussion forum similar to Blackboard. For example, the class might be studying Harry Warren’s “There Will Never Be Another You.” The teacher could then assign the class to search YouTube and post the video performance of the piece that each student likes best. Most likely, students will post performances on their individual instruments as their favorites. Ask that students accompany their posted video with a short written excerpt describing why they chose the video. Encourage them to use music terminology in their assessment. In addition to their post, students should view and comment on, at least, one other student's posting. However, these discussion boards must be strictly mediated to avoid inappropriate behavior.

In addition to videos of musicians performing, lessons can be learned from videos that demonstrate the way that society viewed jazz music. The 1943 film Cabin in the Sky features many prominent black jazz musicians of the era including Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Lena Horne, and Ethel Waters in acting roles. In Armstrong’s scene, he is a trumpet playing minion of the devil who conceives of a plan to tempt the movie’s protagonist, Little Joe Jackson. The climactic final scene comes in a jazz club where the Duke Ellington Orchestra provides the visuals and soundtrack for Joe’s ultimate temptation¹⁷. Even though the film features a brilliant jazz-inspired score by Vernon Duke and Harold Arlen, the scenes featuring on-screen jazz musicians are always full of turmoil. What does this say about the way audiences may view jazz music and those who perform it?

In Their Words

The historical accuracy surrounding most musicians’ autobiographies is disputable. However, there are invaluable lessons to be learned from hearing the story told in their own words. At the very least, we can see how history occurred through their eyes; accurate or not. At the best, we can see how they viewed their legacy as well as their peers. We can learn about the places they visited and lessons that they learned. All of this can help to humanize the protagonist and offer some insight into the way they thought. We can also get ideas about the way that person viewed the world by the type of narration they offer. There are three primary forms of autobiography: a) Epic, b) Mythic, c) Labyrinth¹⁸.

Epic

An epic autobiography attempts to follow a chronological account of the author’s life. These accounts use storytelling as a means to give meaning to their lives effectively contributing a final testimony toward their own legacy¹⁹.

Examples: Ray Charles - Brother Ray, Duke Ellington - Music is My Mistress

Mythic

A mythic autobiography does not follow a specific chronology but rather offers collections of asides that could offer a complete change of scene. These embrace the idea of a myth that surrounds the artist and offers a complex and artistic view on the way that the narrator considered life²⁰.

Examples: Sidney Bichet - Treat It Gentle, Charles Mingus - Beneath the Underdog

Labyrinth

A labyrinth autobiography presents the biography in a way that shows the narrator following through life as a quest. These tend to characterize the artist showing a lack of personal fulfillment further propagating the struggle that is commonly associated with jazz²¹.

Examples: Miles Davis - Miles: The Autobiography, Cab Calloway - Of Minnie the Moocher and Me

A Vast Digital World

The online resources available to educators are endless. Among other things, these resources can be used to fill gaps in historical knowledge, explore new and unfamiliar music, and find interesting anecdotes. A common shortcoming of consuming music through internet services is the absence of liner notes and complimentary information about the music. Liner notes are useful in adding context by providing personnel and stories surrounding the conception and production of recordings. Educators can easily find this information on websites such as AllMusic (http://www.allmusic.com). AllMusic contains an extensive database of artists and recordings that can be searched to find most of the information included in the original liner notes. These liner notes are interactive allowing users to click on song titles, artists, albums and follow a path of exploration through music beginning with the original search. Another website offering this same level of interactivity is The Red Hot Jazz Archive (http://www.redhotjazz.com). This resource enables interactive exploration of early jazz artists and music from the beginning of the twentieth century. These websites can serve dual purposes for educators and students. For teachers, these resources can be used to compliment the audio, video, and photography studied in class. Additionally, the interactive element can be used to expand educators’ understanding of history and its context by gaining familiarity with corners of the art that may have otherwise gone unnoticed due to their lack of prominence or popularity. For students, these resources can serve as great springboards for student research projects.

Conclusion

Jazz is a highly technical and demanding art form. Advancing our abilities with studies in improvisation, music literacy, composition, orchestration, arranging, and advanced technical skills on individual instruments are all required to be considered even moderately proficient. We spend exhaustive hours exploring the ‘how’ and ‘what’ aspects of jazz: chords, melodies, rhythms, substitutions. Jazz musicians possess fanatical views of jazz history. However, careful considerations of the context in which history happened allow us an avenue to explore the ‘why’ aspect. Helping students learn ‘why’ jazz happened helps to foster greater curiosity and need to explore further the vast lineage of jazz artists and styles²². Finding where these musicians are from and who influenced them facilitates humanizing these brilliant artists but also exposes students to new music existing within the jazz canon. Gaining an understanding fosters further curiosity and will help to guide students to be more aware of their surroundings and how it can, in turn, affect their artistic contributions.