Give a short answer to each question (Use whole sentences!) 1-10. 1. The reading lists three qualities that can be used to describe and categorize “cool” jazz. What are they? 2. What Qualities are
Blue Rondo Á La Turk Another great tune off of the “Take Five” album is “Blue Rondo a la Turk”. This tune’s time signature is 9/8. There are nine beats per measure (or group) in this tune. See if you can count them out. The pulses move by quickly in a pattern of “one -two, one -two, one -two, one - two -three” (2+2+2+3). Listen to the melody to count it out. Notice the almost classical, symphonic kind of composition going on. Then , right when you start to wonder what could happen next, the tension is relieve d with a section of a simple, swinging twelve bar blues with Desmond providing the solo improvisation . Listen to: “Blue Rondo Á La Turk” (link on next page) while reading the liner notes and descriptions of the tunes. Liner notes were a major way to sell and learn about jazz on records from the 1950 and 60s. Most jazz records had very detailed liner notes designed to describe the music within and tempt the buyer to make that purchase. Here are the opening paragraphs and song descriptions of our two exampl es from Steve Race’s original liner notes: Should some cool -minded Martian come to earth and check on the state of our music, he might play through 10,000 jazz records before he found one that wasn’t in common 4/4 time. Considering the emancipation of jazz in other wa ys, this is a sobering thought…and an astonishing one. The New Orleans pioneers soon broke free of the tyranny imposed by the easy brass key of B -flat. Men like Coleman Hawkins brought a new chrom aticism to jazz. Bird, Diz and Monk broad ened its harmonic horizon. Duke Ellington gave it structure and a wide palette of colors. Yet rhythmically, jazz has not progressed.Born within earshot of the street parade, and with the stirring songs of the Civil War still echoing through the South, jaz z music was bounded by the left -right, left -right of marching feet. Dave Brubeck, pioneer already in so many other fields, is really the first to explore the uncharted seas of compound time. True, some musicians before him experimented with jazz in waltz time, notably Benny Carter and Max Roach. But Dave has gone further, finding still more exotic time signatures, and even layering one rhythm in counterpoint over another. The outcome of his experiments is this alum. Basically it shows the blending of three cultures: the formalism of classical Western music, the freedom of jazz improvisation, and the often complex pulse of African folk music. Brubeck even uses, in the first number, a Turkish folk rhythm . “Blue Rondo Á La Turk” plunges straight into the most jazz -remote time signature, 9/8, grouped not in the usual form (3 -3-3) but 2 -2-2-3. When the gutsy opening section gives way to a more familiar jazz beat, the three eighth notes have become equivalent to one quarter -note, and an alternating 9/8 – 4/4 time leads into a fine solo by Paul Desmond. Dave follows, with a characteristically neat transition into the heavy block chords which are a familiar facet of his style, and before long “Rondo Á La Turk” is a stamping, shouting blues. Later the tension is dropp ed deliberately for Paul’s re -entry, and for the alternate double -bars of 9 and 4 time which herald the returning theme. The whole piece is in classical rondo form. …… “Take Five” is a Desmond composition in 5/4, one of the most defiant time signatures in all music, for the performer and listener alike. Conscious of how easily the listener can lose his way in a quintuple rhythm, Dave plays a constant vamp figure throughout, maintaining it even under Joe Morello’s drum solo. It is interesting to notice how M orello gradually releases himself from the rigidity of the 5/4 pulse, creating intricate and often counter -patterns over the piano figure. And contrary to any normal expectation -perhaps even the composer’s! - “Take Five” really swings. ……..
