7/23/2019 W2-V1 All-Time Jazz Greats Transcript
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All-Time Jazz Greats
Welcome to Week Two of Jazz Appreciation. As an introductory way
of getting started
talking about the history and people of jazz, I'll give an
overview of the jazz eras and talk
about some of the most highly regarded improvisers in jazz.
We'll go over everything in
these two segments in more depth as the course progresses. You
also will be presentedwith this information in our Cerego courses,
which will allow you to learn the
information effectively.
We'll start with all-time greats in this section, and then we'll
have a survey of the eras of
jazz. All-time jazz greats are musicians who transcended their
instrument to influence all
of the art form. Their contribution to jazz was so remarkable
and so major that they went
well past influencing only musicians who played their instrument
and influenced and
changed the course of the art form.
The information you'll receive today in this video is the
instrument these people played,
their era, and the time period that their most highly regarded
music is associated with,and a few reasons why they are so highly
revered. We'll have a good number of videos
dedicated to these musicians as the course progresses.
Our first all-time great is Louis Armstrong, trumpet player from
the Early Jazz era from
the 1920s. Louis Armstrong was the first great jazz improviser
and brought improvisation
to an art form. He also became the visual image of jazz in the
1920s, the 1930s and
beyond. His popularity extended in the 1960s. Some people call
him the great entertainer,
because his visual image was very outgoing and he was very
engaging, a great person to
get jazz into the popular culture.
Our second all-time jazz great is Duke Ellington, composer and
pianist from the Swingera from the 1930s. One of America's most
prolific and highly regarded composers in any
genre, not just jazz. Duke Ellington led a remarkable,
individualistic big band for
decades. And he brought the art of arranging to a high level. He
also gave us thousands of
standard songs that have been part of the jazz repertoire that
jazz musicians play to this
very day.
Our third all-time jazz great is Charlie Parker, also known as
Bird, an alto saxophone
player from the Bebop era in the 1940s. He was a technically
amazing improviser. He
developed a new improvisational vocabulary that revolutionized
improvisation and
elevated it to a true art form. Bebop was an era that was a
dramatic change from the
Swing era that came before. And Charlie Parker, along with Dizzy
Gillespie, was one ofthe protagonists of that era, bringing jazz to
new technical heights.
Our next all-time jazz great is Miles Davis, a trumpet player,
innovator in four jazz eras.
So Miles was quite unique. He was an innovator in the Cool jazz
era, the Hard Bop jazz
era, the Modal and Free era, and then in the Fusion era. Much of
Miles Davis' playing
was about less is more. He often left more space than other
improvisers so that his ideas
7/23/2019 W2-V1 All-Time Jazz Greats Transcript
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in between the spaces meant more. He assembled a variety of
bands that blazed new trails
in jazz and always was evolving throughout his long and colorful
career.
Our final all-time great is John Coltrane, tenor saxophonist
from the Modal and Free jazz
era in the 1960s. John Coltrane developed "sheets of sound."
These were rapid arpeggios
that gave the impression of playing a chord since they were
played so quickly. He tooktechnical proficiency to new heights. He
created unusual chord progressions in music
such as Giant Steps. And then he went on to explore other types
of improvisation in the
Free Jazz era before his untimely death in 1967.
So our all-time jazz greats are Louis Armstrong, trumpet from
Early Jazz; Duke
Ellington, pianist/composer from the Swing era; Charlie Parker,
known as Bird, alto
saxophonist from the Bebop era; Miles Davis, trumpeter who
influenced four styles of
jazz; and John Coltrane, tenor saxophonist from the Modal/Free
era.
Our next segment will present an overview of jazz eras.
