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A Topical Exploration of the Jazz Messengers’ 1963 Recording “One by One”

Daniel J. Thompson Florida State University

Society for Music Theory Joint Annual Meeting with the

American Musicological Society Vancouver, BC

3 November 2016

Tracks on original album: 1. “One by One” (W. Shorter) 2. “Ugetsu” (C. Walton) 3. “Time Off” (C. Fuller) 4. ”Ping-Pong” (W. Shorter) 5. “I Didn’t Know What Time It

Was” (Rodgers/Hart) 6. “On the Ginza” (W. Shorter) 7. ”Eva” (W. Shorter) 8. “The High Priest” (C. Fuller) 9. “The Theme” (M. Davis)

Intro I. II. III. IV. Outro

Wayne Shorter’s “One by One”

Ugetsu: Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers at Birdland, 1963

Personnel: Wayne Shorter, Tenor Sax Freddie Hubbard, Trumpet Curtis Fuller, Trombone Cedar Walton, Piano Reggie Workman, Bass Art Blakey, Drums

“Topics can get us into the musical story.”

Michael Klein (2013)



Primary Objectives1. Validate the relevance of bringing a topical perspective to hard bop (c. 1954–65).

2. Survey hard bop’s body of musical topics.

3. Examine the strategic deployment of topics in “One by One” as the basis for a

narrative interpretation.


Part I What is a Musical Topic?


C.S. Peirce’s Trichotomy of Sign-Object RelationsICON

(resemblance)SYMBOL

(arbitrary, culturally defined)INDEX

(co-occurrence)

= signification

• Topics are icons of musical styles and genres. • Musical styles and genres are indices of social contexts and functions. • These connections enable a musical topic to function as a symbol of a

cultural value.


Topical Semiosis (Mirka 2014)

Topics Styles or genres

Social contexts and functions

ICON INDEX


Part II Hard Bop’s Time and Place


Hard Bop (c. 1954-1965): Quick Facts• East-Coast trend (especially New York and Philadelphia) • Rekindled the blues and gospel roots of jazz. • Associated with notable artists such as: • Trumpeters Miles Davis and Lee Morgan • Saxophonists Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane • Pianists Horace Silver and Elmo Hope • Bassists Charles Mingus and Paul Chambers • Drummers Art Blakey and Philly Joe Jones


Hard Bop (c. 1954-1965): Stylistic Context

• Builds upon the bebop (bop) style that crystallized in the 1940s.

• Stood in clear opposition to “cool jazz,” which emerged in the 1950s as a mild alternative to bebop.

• Contemporaneous to the African-American Civil Rights Movement (from Brown v. Board in 1954 to the Fair Housing Act in 1968)


Part III Survey of Topics in Hard Bop


Example 1: Blues TopicBobby Timmons’s Piano Solo from “Moanin’" (First A, First Chorus)Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers – Moanin’, 1958

Blues elements: • Nearly exclusive use of the “blues scale” (1, flat-3, 4, sharp-4, 5, flat-7) • Repeated riffs • Imitation of bends (with grace notes) and guitar dyads


Example 2: Gospel Topic (“Amen” Gesture) [1/2]Bobby Timmons’s Piano Head to “Moanin’" (Second A)Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers – Moanin’, 1958

“A – men” “A – men”


Example 2: Gospel Topic (“Amen” Gesture) [2/2]Bobby Timmons’s Piano Head to “Moanin’" (Second A)Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers – Moanin’, 1958

“A – men” “A – men”


Example 3: Gospel Topic (Melodic Gesture) [1/2]Head to “Better Git It in Your Soul" (Second A)Charles Mingus – Mingus Ah Um, 1959


Example 3: Gospel Topic (Melodic Gesture) [2/2]Head to “Better Git It in Your Soul" (Second A)Charles Mingus – Mingus Ah Um, 1959

Bluesy ad-lib


Example 4: Nostalgic Topics (New Orleans) [1/2]Intro to “My Jelly Roll Soul" Charles Mingus – Blues and Roots, 1960

“Sousaphone bass line” 6th tremolos in piano


Example 4: Nostalgic Topics (New Orleans) [2/2]Intro to “My Jelly Roll Soul" Charles Mingus – Blues and Roots, 1960

chromatic walk-up chromatic third turnaround


Example 5: Nostalgic Topics (Stride Piano)Opening of “Body and Soul”Thelonious Monk – Monk’s Dream, 1958

Stride LH


Example 6: Exotic Topics (Mambo) [1/2]Intro and A Section of Head to “De-Dah”Elmo Hope – Here’s Hope, 1962

Mambo feel Swing feel Mambo feel



Mambo feelSwing feel Swing feel



Mambo feel Swing feel Mambo feel



Mambo feelSwing feel Swing feel

( )


Part IV“One by One” as Comic Narrative


Example 7 [1/5]Intro and Head to Wayne Shorter’s “One by One”Ugetsu: Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers at Birdland, 1963

Intro:

Pseudo-Bossa Nova comping pattern

unmarked



Diatonic harmony & applied chords

g: ii 7 V7 i7 V7/VI VI ii7 V7 III V7/V V7 i7 V7/VI ii 7 V7 V7 i7 III V

Tritone substitution


Harmonic elision

Blues topic

Head: A A B A

Rhetorical gesture

unmarked marked







Harmonic elision

Blues topicRhetorical gesture

Head: A A B A unmarked marked



… still blues topic

Shuffle feel

= last 4 mm. of A section

Head: A A B A







Harmonic elision

Blues topic

Head: A A B A

Rhetorical gesture

unmarked marked


Example 8 [1/4]Wayne Shorter’s Tenor-Sax Solo on “One by One”Ugetsu: Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers at Birdland, 1963

Form: A A B A



Form: A A B A

Blues topic



Form: A A B A

Blues topic



Form: A A B A

Blues topic


Example 9 [1/4]Cedar Walton’s Piano Solo on “One by One”Ugetsu: Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers at Birdland, 1963

Form: A A B A

Blues topic

Blues topic


Example 9 [2/4]Cedar Walton’s Piano Solo on “One by One” Ugetsu: Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers at Birdland, 1963

Form: A A B A

Blues topic



Form: A A B A

Blues topic



Form: A A B A

Blues topic

Blues topic


Concluding Remarks

Selected Bibliography [1/3]Agawu, V. Kofi. Music as Discourse: Semiotic Adventures in Romantic Music. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.

———. Playing with Signs: A Semiotic Interpretation of Classic Music. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991.

Allanbrook, Wye Jamison. Rhythmic Gesture in Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1983.

Almén, Byron. A Theory of Musical Narrative. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008. Al-Zand, Karim. "Improvisation as Continually Juggled Priorities: Julian 'Cannonball' Adderley's 'Straight, No Chaser.'" Journal of Music Theory 49/2 (Fall 2005): 209-239.

Berliner, Paul F. Thinking in Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation. University of Chicago Press, 1994.

Davis, Miles. Miles: The Autobiography. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990.

DeVeaux, Scott. “The Advent of Bebop,” in The Oxford Companion to Jazz, edited by Bill Kirchner, 292–304. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

———. The Birth of Bebop: A Social and Musical History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.

Floyd, Samuel A. “African Roots of Jazz,” in The Oxford Companion to Jazz, edited by Bill Kirchner, 7–16. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

———. The Power of Black Music: Interpreting its History from Africa to the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Garofalo, Reebee. “Crossing Over: From Black Rhythm and Blues to White Rock and Roll,” in Rhythm and Business: The Political Economy of Black Music, edited by Norman Kelly, 112–137. New York: Akashit Books, 2002.

Gioia, Ted. “Cool Jazz and West-Coast Jazz,” in The Oxford Companion to Jazz, edited by Bill Kirchner, 332–342. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Selected Bibliography [2/3]Hatten, Robert. Interpreting Musical Gestures, Topics, and Tropes: Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004.

———. Musical Meaning in Beethoven: Markedness, Correlation, and Interpretation. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994.

———. “The Troping of Topics in Mozart’s Instrumental Works,” in The Oxford Handbook of Topic Theory, edited by Danuta Mirka, 514 – 536. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Jones, Leroi. Blues People: Negro Music in White America. New York: Harper Perennial, 1999.

Klarman, Michael J. From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Klein, Michael. “Chopin’s Fourth Ballade as Musical Narrative.” Music Theory Spectrum 26/1 (Spring 2004): 23–56. ———. “Ironic Narrative, Ironic Reading.” Journal of Music Theory 53/1 (Spring 2009): 95–136.

———. “Musical Story,” in Music and Narrative since 1900, edited by Michael Klein and Nicholas Reyland, 1–28. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013.

Larson, Steve. Analyzing Jazz: A Schenkerian Approach. Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 2009.

———. “Composition versus Improvisation?” Journal of Music Theory 49/2 (Fall 2005): 241-275.

Martin, Henry. Charlie Parker and Thematic Improvisation. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 1996.

———. “Expanding Jazz Tonality: The Compositions of John Coltrane.” Theory and Practice 37–38 (2012–2013): 185–219.

———. “Schenker and the Tonal Jazz Repertory.” Tijdschrift voor Muziektheorie 16/1 (2011): 1–20.

Selected Bibliography [3/3]Maxile, Horace J. Jr. “Churchy Blues, Bluesy Church: Vernacular Tropes, Expression, and Structure in Charles Mingus’s ‘Ecclusiastics.’” Annual Review of Jazz Studies 14 (2009): 65–81.

Michaelsen, Garrett. “Groove Topics in Improvised Jazz,” in Analyzing the Music of Living Composers (and Others), edited by Jack Boss, Brad Osborn, Tim S. Pack, and Stephen Rodgers, 176–190. New Castle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013.

Mingus, Charles. Beneath the Underdog: His World as Composed by Mingus. New York: Random House, Inc, 1991.

Mirka, Danuta. “Introduction,” in The Oxford Handbook of Topic Theory, edited by Danuta Mirka, 1–56. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Monelle, Raymond. The Sense of Music: Semiotic Essays. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000.

Monson, Ingrid. Saying Something: Jazz Improvisation and Interaction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.

Oakley, Giles. The Devil’s Music: A History of the Blues. Boston: Da Capo Press, 1997.

Ratner, Leonard. Classic Music: Expression, Form, and Style. New York: Schirmer Books, 1980.

Rosenthal, David. “Conversation with Art Blakey: The big beat!” The Black Perspective in Music 14/3 (Autumn 1986): 267-289.

———. Hard Bop: Jazz and Black Music 1955–1965. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.

Smith, Christopher. “A Sense of the Possible: Miles Davis and the Semiotics of Improvised Performance.” TDR Volume 39, No. 3 (Autumn 1995): 41-55.

Strunk, Steven. “Bebop Melodic Lines: Tonal Characteristics.” Annual Review of Jazz Studies 3 (1985): 97-120.

———. “Notes on Harmony in Wayne Shorter's Compositions, 1964-67.” Journal of Music Theory 49/2 (Fall 2005): 301-332.

Taylor, Jeff. “The Early Origins of Jazz,” in The Oxford Companion to Jazz, edited by Bill Kirchner, 39–52. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Walser, Robert. “Out of Notes: Signification, Interpretation, and the Problem of Miles Davis.” Musical Quarterly 77/2 (Summer 1993): 343–365.

———. “Valuing Jazz,” in The Cambridge Companion to Jazz, edited by Mervyn Cooke and David Horn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

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A Topical Exploration of the Jazz Messengers' 1963 ... · PDF fileA Topical Exploration of the Jazz Messengers’ ... Head to “Moanin’" (Second A) Art Blakey and the ... of the