Big band
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| Big band | |
| Stylistic origins | |
|---|---|
| Cultural origins | |
| Typical instruments | |
| Mainstream popularity | 1920s-1950s |
| Derivative forms | Jump blues, Swing |
A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with playing jazz music and which became popular during the Swing Era from the early 1930s until the late 1940s. A big band typically consists of approximately 12 to 25 musicians and contains saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. The terms jazz band, jazz ensemble, stage band, jazz orchestra, and dance band are also used to refer to this type of ensemble. This does not, however, mean that each one of these names is technically correct for naming a 'big band" specifically.
In contrast to smaller jazz combos, in which most of the music is improvised, or created spontaneously, music played by big bands is highly "arranged", or prepared in advance and notated on sheet music. The music is traditionally called 'charts'. Improvised solos may be played only when called for by the arranger.
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[edit] History and style
There are two distinct periods in the history of popular bands. Beginning in the mid-1920s, big bands, then typically consisting of 10–25 pieces, came to dominate popular music. At that time they usually played a sweet form of jazz that involved very little improvisation, which included a string section with violins, which was dropped after the introduction of swing in 1935. The dance form of jazz was characterized by a sweet and romantic melody. Orchestras tended to stick to the melody as it was written and vocals would be sung sweetly (often in a tenor voice) and in tune with the melody.
Typical of the genre were such popular artists as Paul Whiteman, Ted Lewis, Harry Reser, Leo Reisman, Abe Lyman, Nat Shilkret, George Olsen, Ben Bernie, Bob Haring, Ben Selvin, Earl Burtnett, Gus Arnheim, Henry Halstead, Rudy Vallee, Jean Goldkette, Isham Jones, Roger Wolfe Kahn, Sam Lanin, Vincent Lopez, Ben Pollack, Shep Fields and Fred Waring. Many of these artists changed styles or retired after the introduction of swing music. Although unashamedly commercial, these bands often featured front-rank jazz musicians - for example Paul Whiteman employed Bix Beiderbecke and Frankie Trumbauer. There were also "all-girl" bands such as "Helen Lewis and Her All-Girl Jazz Syncopators". Lewis and her band, Ben Bernie's band "Ben Bernie and All the Lads", and Roger Wolfe Kahn's band were filmed by Lee De Forest in his Phonofilm sound-on-film process in 1925, in three short films which are now in the Library of Congress film collection.
Towards the end of the 1920s, a new form of Big Band emerged which was more authentically "jazz," in that more space was given to improvised soloing. This form of music never gained the popularity of the sweet dance form of jazz. The few recordings made in this form of jazz were labelled race records and were intended for a limited urban audience. The three major centres in this development were New York City, Chicago and Kansas City. In the former, a sophisticated approach to arranging predominated, first in the work of Don Redman for the Fletcher Henderson band, later in the work of Duke Ellington for his Cotton Club orchestra, and Walter 'Foots' Thomas for Cab Calloway's.
[edit] Radio
Earl Hines became the star of Chicago with his Grand Terrace Cafe band and began to broadcast live from The Grand Terrace nightly coast-to-coast across America. Meanwhile in Kansas City and across the Southwest, an earthier, bluesier style was developed by such bandleaders as Benny Moten and, later, by Jay McShann and Jesse Stone. Big band remotes on the major radio networks spread the music from ballrooms and clubs across the country during the 1930s and 1940s, with remote broadcasts from jazz clubs continuing into the 1950s on NBC's Monitor.
Gloria Parker, Princess of the Marimba, conducted the 21-piece Swingphony whose performances were broadcast nationally from the Kelly Lyceum Ballroom in Buffalo, New York. This was the largest big band ever led by a female bandleader.[citation needed]
Swing music began appearing in the early 1930s, distinguished by a more supple feel than the more literal 4/4 of earlier jazz and a walking bass - Walter Page is often credited with developing this, though isolated earlier examples exist (eg by Wellman Braud on Ellington's Washington Wabble from 1927).
This type of music flourished through the early 1930s, although there was little mass audience for it until around 1936. Up until that time, it was viewed with ridicule and looked upon as a curiosity. After 1935, big bands rose to prominence playing swing music and held a major role in defining swing as a distinctive style. Western Swing musicians also formed very popular big bands during the same period.[1][2][3].
By this time the Big Band was such a dominant force in jazz that the older generation found they either had to adapt to it or simply retire - with no market for small-group recordings (made worse by a depression-era industry reluctant to take risks), some musicians such as Louis Armstrong and Earl Hines fronted their own bands, whilst others, like Jelly Roll Morton and King Oliver, lapsed into obscurity.
The major "black" bands of the 1930s included, apart from Ellington's, Hines' and Calloway's, those of Jimmie Lunceford, Chick Webb, and Count Basie. Ironically, the "white" bands of Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Tommy Dorsey, Shep Fields and, later, Glenn Miller far eclipsed their "black" inspirations in terms of popularity from the middle of the decade.
[edit] Since 1945
Major band performances of note occurred from the 1950s to the 1970s. Noteworthy performers included: Dizzy Gillespie, Gene Krupa, Buddy Rich, Gil Evans, Johnny Richards, Sun Ra, Gary MacFarland, Charles Mingus, Oliver Nelson, Carla Bley, Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Big Band, Sam Rivers, Don Ellis, Toshiko Akiyoshi – Lew Tabackin Big Band. Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and Anthony Braxton.
Later bandleaders pioneered the performance of various Brazilian and Afro-Cuban styles with the traditional big band instrumentation, and big bands led by arranger Gil Evans, saxophonist John Coltrane (on the album Ascension from 1965) and electric bassist Jaco Pastorius introduced cool jazz, free jazz and jazz fusion, respectively, to the big band domain. Modern big bands can be found playing all styles of jazz music. Some large contemporary European jazz ensembles play mostly avant-garde jazz using the instrumentation of the big bands. Examples include the Vienna Art Orchestra, founded in 1977, and the Italian Instabile Orchestra, active in the 1990s. In the late 1990s, swing made a comeback in the US. The Lindy Hop has taken hold on both coasts, and many younger people took an interest in big band styles again.
African "Afrobeat" big bands have existed from 1970 to the present when Fela Kuti of Nigeria, fused big band jazz with Yoruba tribal rhythms, highlife, and American James Brown soul music. As of 2008 there are over 40 working afrobeat big bands including Antibalas, Chicago Afrobeat Project, Chopteeth, Femi Kuti, and Seun Kuti.
[edit] Instrumentation
In the second half of the twentieth century, a standard 17-piece instrumentation evolved, for which many commercial arrangements are available. This instrumentation consists of five saxophones (most often two altos, two tenors, and one baritone), four trumpets, four trombones (including one bass trombone) and a four-piece rhythm section (composed of drums, bass, piano, and guitar).
However, variants to this instrumentation are common. Composers, arrangers, and bandleaders have utilized sections with more or fewer players, and additional instruments, such as vibes, French horn, tuba, and string section. Male and female vocalists have also joined big bands to perform particular arrangements.
Some arrangements call for saxophone players to double on other woodwind instruments, such as flute or clarinet. Trumpet players are sometimes called upon to use various sound-changing mutes or play flugelhorn. In some rhythm sections, a guitar player is omitted. Players in the rhythm section may be called upon to play acoustic or electric instruments. Latin or other auxiliary percussion instruments may be added.
[edit] Big band arrangements
Typical big band arrangements of the swing period are written in strophic form with the same phrase and chord structure repeated several times. Each iteration, or chorus, most commonly follows Twelve bar blues form or Thirty-two-bar (AABA) song form. The first chorus of an arrangement typically introduces the melody, and is followed by subsequent choruses of development. This development may take the form of improvised solos, written soli sections, and shout choruses.
An arrangement's first chorus is sometimes preceded by an introduction, which may be as short as a few measures or may extend to chorus of its own. Many arrangements contain an interlude, often similar in content to the introduction, inserted between some or all choruses. Other methods of embellishing the form include modulations and cadential extensions.
[edit] See also
- List of big bands
- Swing (jazz performance style), a term of praise for playing that has a strong rhythmic "groove" or drive
[edit] References
William Russo, Composing for the Jazz Orchestra University of Chicago Press, Library of Congress no. 61-8642
[edit] External links
- State University of New York, Fredonia. Rockefeller Arts Center. Jazz Big Band Arrangements
- Christopher Popa's Big Band Library
- (blog) The Palomar: Remembering the big bands, the Swing Era....
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