Download Chicago, Illinois

Chicago, Illinois
Chicago
• Multiple music styles were honed in Chicago
• We’ll look at two:
• Jazz: 1920, 1930s
• Blues: 1940s, 1950s
• But first… why Chicago?
The Great Migration
• Post‐Civil War: explain Sharecropping
• 6 million African Americans, 1910‐1970, mostly after the Depression
• Train routes (see map next slide)
Train routes
Northern cities
• Chicago, Detroit, New York
• To a lesser extent Pittsburg, Cleveland
• 24 hour factories
• Higher wages and standard of living
• Less racism
• Chicago, 1940s and 1950s: all hours blues clubs
The Spread of New Orleans Jazz
• Many of the top N.O. jazz musicians loved to Chicago or New York
• By the late 1910s/early 1920, these are the biggest centres for N.O. style jazz
Jelly Roll Morton (1890‐1941)
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B. New Orleans
Piano, vocals, composer, band leader
1923: moves to Chicago
“Piano professor” Ex: Jelly Roll Morton’s Hot Peppers – “Black Bottom Stomp” (1926)
• Tailgate trombone: swoops, sliding sound
Louis Armstrong (1901‐1971)
• B. New Orleans
• Trumpet, vocals, composer
• 1922: Chicago
Ex: Louis Armstrong and His Hot Seven – “Potato Head Blues” (1927)
• Less polyphony • Dixieland style but with more solos
• Louis on cornet (lower, mellower than trumpet)
Louis Armstrong (cont.)
• Established soloist as central figure in small jazz groups
• No distinguishing of “artistic” and “entertainment”
• Pop songs with solos
• Vocals and pop
Ex: Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five – “West End Blues” (1928)
• Pop/Jazz
• Solos; Call and Response
Louis Armstrong (cont.)
Ex: Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five – “Heebie Jeebies” (1926)
• Pop vocal performance
• Polyphonic horns
• Scat solo: horn solo done by the voice
Ex: Louis Armstrong – “I Cover The Waterfront” (1933)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIIZ3hQEsqs
Jazz’s Critical Reception
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Discussed critically as of late 1910s
Racial divide
High/low art divide
“Racial Characteristics” of jazz playing
– Evil influence on young people
– Immorality
Post‐Ragtime Piano Styles
• These set the stage for jazz piano:
Stride and Boogie‐Woogie
• Both grew out of the piano professor tradition
• But more urban and Northern (Chicago and NYC)
Stride Piano
• Left hand like ragtime, but with more melodic runs
• Right hand, more improv and blues elements
Ex: James P. Johnson – “Carolina Shout” (1921)
Ex: Willie The Lion Smith – “Fingerbuster” (1964)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDMOkgSdy3E
Boogie‐Woogie Piano
• Left hand: riffs; either walking bass or the fives
• Right hand: riffs, more rhythmically repetitive
Ex: Pinetop Perkins – “Pintop’s Boogie Woogie” (1928)
Ex: Meade Lux Lewis – “Honky Tonk Train Blues” (1940)
Chicago Blues
• After the Great Migration to northern cities, a
new electric blues style emerged, known as Chicago blues.
• Delta vs. Chicago
Muddy Waters
• Delta:
Ex: Muddy Waters –
“I Be’s Troubled” (1942)
• Later re‐recorded in Chicago:
• Ex: Muddy Waters –
“I Can’t Be Satisfied” (1948)
• What is Muddy using on his guitar?
Recognize the form?
Chess Records
• Most important Chicago blues record label/studio
• Leonard and Phil Chess, Polish, Jewish
• Role of Willie Dixon
• Influence back in the Delta
Ex: Muddy Waters –
“I Just Want to Make Love to You” (1954)
• Hyper‐masculinity
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Classic Chess sound:
Muddy (vocals and guitar)
Little Walter (Harmonica)
Otis Spann (Piano)
Jimmy Rogers (Guitar)
Willie Dixon (Bass)
Elgin Evans (Drums)
Howlin’ Wolf
• Chester Arthur Burnett
• 1910‐1976
• b. White Station, Mississippi
• Learned guitar from Charley Patton
• The other major Chess performer
Howlin’ Wolf
• 1951 recorded at Memphis Recording Service with Sam Phillips
• Songs licensed by Chess • 1952 moved to Chicago
Ex: Howlin’ Wolf – “Smokestack Lightnin’” (1956)
Muddy/Wolf Rivalry
Little Walter
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1930‐1968, b. Louisiana
Harmonica player (harp)
Amplification creates new sound: distortion
Recorded and toured with Muddy
Only harmonica player in Rock n Roll Hall of Fame
Ex: Little Walter –
“Juke” (1952)
The “Blue” Note
• 12 tone system
• Other ways to divide notes
• Demo
• Africanism
• Crush notes on piano
Chuck Berry
• b. 1926, St. Louis, Missouri
• Chess Records
• First recording 1955
Ex: Chuck Berry –
“Maybellene” (1955)
Top 10 R&B and Pop (significance)
Chuck Berry
• Ex: Chuck Berry – “Johnny B. Goode” (1957)
• How is this blues? Or is it something else? (guit. demo)
• How is it different from the Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters songs we heard?
• John Lennon: “If you had to try and give rock ‘n’ roll another name, you might call it Chuck Berry”
Bo Diddley
• AKA Ellas McDaniel
• 1928‐2008
• b. McComb, Mississippi
• Blues to rock n roll
• Chess
Ex: Bo Diddley – “I’m A Man” (1955) see lyrics
Bo Diddley
• The Bo Diddley Beat: Clave (Sub‐Saharan Africa and Afro‐Cuban music) – demo
Ex: Bo Diddley –
“Bo Diddley” (1955)
• Self‐mythologizing
• Beatles and Stones
Detroit, Michigan
John Lee Hooker
• 1917‐2001
• b. Coahoma County, Mississippi
• Detroit 1943
• Difficult to play with
• One chord, boogie‐rhythm style (demo)
Ex: John Lee Hooker – “Boogie Chillen” (1949)
Regional Centers for R&B/Soul • Stax in Memphis, and Memphis sound generally
• Motown in Detroit: pop crossover
• Chicago sound: Curtis Mayfield
• Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama
• Atlantic Records, NYC: Distribution
• Smaller: Philadelphia, Cincinnati Gospel
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Fisk Jubilee Singers (1871‐2000s)
Fisk U, Nashville, est. 1866
European and Northern tours
African‐American religious songs influenced by Western Classical tradition
Gospel
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John Alexander’s Sterling Jubilee Singers
Continues Concert Spiritual Tradition
Gospel quartet sound (but 5)
Marketing, crossover both ways
Ex: John Alexander’s Sterling Jubilee Singers –
“Jesus Hits Like an Atom Bomb” (late 1940s)
Gospel
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Rev. CL Franklin (1915‐1984)
b. Sunflower County, Mississippi
Started preaching at 16
Detroit
Ex: “Two Fish and Five
Loaves of Bread”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLdrFtxKq5s
Soul Music
• Starts same time as Rock n Roll
• Gospel: Divine love, God
• R&B: Human love, sex
• Taboo mix of blues and gospel
• Very connected to R&B: labels, audience, performers, and releases and re‐releases
Ray Charles (1930‐2004)
• b. Albany, Georgia, grew up in Greenville, Florida
• Blind by 6
• Crooner since late 40s
• Often credited with starting Soul (“I Got a Woman”)
• Atlantic, 1954
Ex: Ray Charles –
“I Got a Woman”
(1954)
Aretha Franklin (1942‐)
. Memphis, Detroit at 5
ospel with Dad
een Gospel records
8: Columbia – lush pop
967: Atlantic (grittier, FAME band)
Aretha Franklin –
• Detroit, Michigan: 1959‐1972
• LA: 1972‐1998
• Modern relaunch/use of name
• Berry Gordy, Jr.
• African‐American‐owned
Independent label, run like a major: Division of labour, Professional songwriters, arrangers, etc.
otown (cont.)
harm School:” etiquette, choreography, vocal coaches, etc.
Competitive atmosphere: hits and you’re in
Deliberately aimed at crossover, white clubs
Funk Brothers
“Hidden” house band at Motown in Detroit
More technically‐oriented, jazz background (compared to Stax)
Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” (1971):
First time Motown credited
backup musicians
Standing in the Shadows Motown Sound
op production style:
Orchestration, strings
Horn and vocal arrangements
Prominent tambourine
Flawless performance, groove not as central Little improv
rocess:
Division of labour
Martha Reeves & The Vandellas
1957‐1972 (various names); 2010‐Present
“Girl Group”
Holland‐Dozier‐Holland
Pop values, orchestral brass
Less funky, less improv
: Martha Reeves & The Vandellas –
Marvin Gaye
(1939‐1984)
ession musician
arly pop style
ocial consciousness
What’s Going On (1971): Berry Gordy’s “No” o politics, esp. black politics
typical jam style, spacey, less pop‐oriented
Stevie Wonder
(1950‐)
Motown at 11
Multi‐instrumentalist
Clavinet:
Ex: Stevie Wonder –
“Superstition” (1972)