Escáner, Código de Barras y Avances en Telecomunicaciones

Th e media did not notice that in the year of Whiteman’s Aeolian Hall tri-umph, a relatively unknown Louis Armstrong had arrived in New York to take a seat in Fletcher Henderson’s orchestra. Whiteman, however, did notice, and in 1926 he decided it was time for the King of Jazz to hire a few jazz mu-sicians. Initially, he wanted to recruit black musicians, but his management convinced him that he couldn’t get away with a racially integrated band: he would lose bookings, and the black musicians would be barred from most ho-Early fusion

Bing Crosby, advertised on a Broadway billboard, brought jazz rhythms and infl ections to popular ballads, revolutionizing radio and breaking the all-time house record at the Paramount Theater in New York, 1931.

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tels and restaurants. Whiteman countered that no one could stop him from hiring black arrangers; he traded orchestrations with Henderson and added African American composer William Grant Still to his staff .

Whiteman’s fi rst important jazz hire came from vaudeville: singer Bing Crosby (1903–1977) and his pianist and harmonizing partner Al Rinker.

Never before had a popular bandleader hired a full-time singer; in the past, instrumentalists had assumed the vocal chores. During his fi rst week with the Whiteman organization, in Chicago in 1926, Crosby heard Louis Armstrong, and was astonished by Armstrong’s ability to combine a powerful art with bawdy comedy, ranging from risqué jokes to parodies of a Southern preacher.

Crosby became the most popular singer in the fi rst half of the twentieth cen-tury, a decisive force on records and radio and in the movies. An important aspect of his accomplishment was that he helped make Armstrong’s musical approach accessible to the white mainstream public, by adapting rhythmic and improvisational elements of Armstrong’s singing style to his own. In turn, Crosby inspired Armstrong to add romantic ballads to his repertory.

Th ey often recorded the same songs within weeks of each other.

Whiteman then signed up the most admired young white jazz instrumen-talists in the country, including Bix Beiderbecke, Frank Trumbauer, and Eddie Lang (see Chapter 6). An especially infl uential new recruit was the highly original arranger Bill Challis, who had an uncanny ability to combine every aspect of Whiteman’s band—jazz, pop, and classical elements alike. Th anks to Challis and the other new additions, Whiteman released innovative jazz records in the years 1927–29, until fi nancial considerations exacerbated by the Depression obliged him to return to a more profi table pop format.

“Changes”

In 1927, the Whiteman band served as a microcosm of the three-way battle involving jazz, symphonic jazz, and pop. Bill Challis favored Crosby and the jazz players, but when the band’s old (symphonic) guard complained of ne-glect, he found ways to bring everyone into the mix. His arrangement of Walter Donaldson’s “Changes” opens with strings, incorporates pop and jazz singing, and climaxes with a roaring Bix Beiderbecke solo, the sound of his cornet tightened by a straight mute inserted into the bell of his horn.

Th e title itself is signifi cant, suggesting changes in the band, changes in taste as ballroom music assimilated the vitality of jazz, and changes in im-provisation techniques as harmonic progressions (noted in the lyrics) took the place of polyphonic elaborations of the melody. Th e title also signifi es broader cultural changes that were transforming the United States. In the several months before the recording was made, Charles Lindbergh had fl own the Atlantic Ocean, Babe Ruth had hit sixty home runs, and talking pic-tures had premiered. Th e national mood was optimistic, as refl ected in songs like “Good News,” “Hallelujah,” “’S Wonderful,” “Smile,” “Th ere’ll Be Some Changes Made,” and many others.

Challis emphasizes changes between new and old with contrasting rhythms and vocal groups. Rhythmically, a Charleston beat (two emphatic beats fol-lowed by a rest; see Listening Guide), usually enunciated by the trumpets, alternates with the more even rhythms stated by the violins. Th e performance never sticks to any one sound, preferring to cut back and forth between strings, brasses, saxophones, and voices, with solo spots interspersed.

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118 ■ CHAPTER 5 NEW YORK IN THE 1920s

LISTENING GUIDE

changes

PAUL WHITEMAN

Paul Whiteman, director; Henry Busse, Charlie Margulis, trumpets; Bix Beiderbecke, cornet; Frank Trumbauer, C-melody saxophone; Wilbur Hall, Tommy Dorsey, trombones; Chester Hazlett, Hal McLean, clarinets, alto saxophones; Jimmy Dorsey, Nye May-hew, Charles Strickfaden, clarinets, alto and baritone saxophones; Kurt Dieterle, Mischa Russell, Mario Perry, Matt Malneck, violins; Harry Perrella, piano;

Mike Pingitore, banjo; Mike Traffi cante, brass bass;

Steve Brown, string bass; Harold McDonald, drums;

Bing Crosby, Al Rinker, Harry Barris, Jack Fulton, Charles Gaylord, Austin Young, vocals

■ Label: Victor 21103; Paul Whiteman and His Dance Band (Naxos 8.120511)

■ Date: 1927

■ Style: early New York big band

■ Form: 32-bar popular song (A B C A!), with interlude and verses

What to listen for:

■ full instrumentation of a large commercial dance band, including strings

■ Charleston rhythm

■ vocalists: “sweet” trio vs. “jazz” trio (with scat-singing)

■ Beiderbecke’s “hot” cornet solo

INTRODUCTION

0:00 The brass section rises through unstable chromatic harmonies until it fi nally settles on a consonant chord.

SONG (D♭ _major)

0:10 A The saxophones play the melody, decorated above by short, syncopated trumpet chords and supported by the strings. Underneath, the banjo and piano play four beats to the bar, while the bas plays two beats.

0:19 B The melody shifts to the violins.

0:28 C The trumpets play a jaunty Charleston rhythm, , answered fi rst by the saxophones, then by the strings.

.œ> > œ jœ Œ .œ> > œ jœ

Note that although six vocalists are listed among the personnel, they never sing in tandem. Th ree of them, representing Whiteman’s old guard, were full-time instrumentalists (trombonist Jack Fulton and violinists Charles Gaylord and Austin Young) who were occasionally deputized to sing pop refrains.

Shortly after Crosby and Rinker joined Whiteman, they recruited singer-pianist Harry Barris to form a novel group called the Rhythm Boys. Of the singers, Crosby was by far the most gifted. Accordingly, Challis divided the vocal chorus into sections, employing both vocal trios and Crosby as soloist.

Th e chorus begins with the old guard (“Beautiful changes”), then—with Barris signaling the change by imitating a cymbal (“pah”)—switches to the Rhythm Boys, who blend high-pitched harmonies and a unifi ed scat break (wordless vocalizing). Th is is followed by the old guard setting up a solo by Crosby, who mimics a trombone slide on the words “weatherman” and “Dixieland.”

Crosby’s solo leads to the record’s fl ash point: Beiderbecke’s improvisation.

1.17

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0:38 A! The saxophones return to the opening melody, which moves toward a full cadence.

INTERLUDE

0:45 The rhythmic accompaniment temporarily stops. Over changing orchestral textures (including a violin solo), the piece modulates to a new key.

VERSE 1 (16-bar A A B A)

0:52 A The trumpets and strings return to the Charleston rhythm, underscored by the trombones’ offbeat accents. The phrase begins in minor but ends in major.

0:56 A

1:01 B For the bridge, the saxophones quietly sustain chords.

1:05 A SONG (E♭ _major)

1:10 A “Beautiful changes in different keys, beautiful changes and harmonies.”

The “sweet” vocal trio harmonizes the melody in block-chord harmony, accompa-nied by the rhythm section (string bass, banjo, drums).

1:19 B “He starts in C, then changes to D. He’s foolin’ around most any old key.”

The harmonies shift away from the tonic, matching the intent of the words.

1:28 Break: Barris introduces the “jazz” vocal trio (Rhythm Boys) by imitating a quiet cymbal stroke (“pah”).

1:29 C “Watch that—hear that minor strain! Ba-dum, ba-dum,”

The Rhythm Boys adapt to the new style by singing a more detached and “cooler”

series of chords.

1:35 “Bada(ba)da-lada(bada-lada)-la-dum!”

During a break, the vocalists imitate scat-singing, changing the dynamics to match the rhythm.

1:38 A! “There’s so many babies that he can squeeze, and he’s always changing those keys!”

The fi rst trio returns to set up Crosby’s solo.

1:46 The voices retreat to background chords.

VERSE 2

1:47 “First, he changes into B, changes into C, changes into D, changes into E, As easy as the weatherman! Now, he’s getting kinda cold, getting kinda hot, Listen, I forgot, since he was a tot, he’s been the talk of Dixieland!”

Crosby sings the verse with ease, ending each phrase with a rich, resonant timbre.

SONG

2:05 A While the voices continue their background harmony, Beiderbecke takes a cornet solo with a sharp, focused sound. Underneath him, the bass switches to a four-beat walking bass.

2:14 B

2:24 C The full band returns with the Charleston rhythm.

2:33 A! In full block-chord texture, the band plays a written-out version of the melody with syncopations.

CODA

2:40 The tempo moves to free rhythm. Over sustained chords, a saxophone plays a short solo.

2:49 As the chords dissipate, all that’s left is the sound of a bell.

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120 ■ CHAPTER 5 NEW YORK IN THE 1920s

■ FLETCHER HENDERSON (1897–1952)

Like every other bandleader in New York, black and white, Fletcher Hender-son initially looked to Whiteman for inspiration, seeking to emulate his opu-lent sound and diverse repertory as well as his public success. Yet he would ultimately take big-band music down a very diff erent, far more infl uential route as he developed into an outstanding arranger.

An unassuming, soft-spoken man who initially had no particular alle-giance to jazz, Henderson, like Paul Whiteman, grew up in a middle-class home with parents who disdained jazz. Born in Cuthbert, Georgia, he stud-ied classical music with his mother but seemed determined to follow in the footsteps of his father, a mathematics and Latin teacher, when he graduated from Atlanta University with a chemistry degree. Soon after traveling to New York in 1920 for postgraduate study, he switched from chemistry to music, overcoming his class resistance to the blues by learning how to play piano well enough to record dates with singers Ethel Waters and Bessie Smith. From there, he went on to organize dance bands for nightclubs and ballrooms.

In 1924, Henderson began a lengthy engagement at the luxurious Rose-land Ballroom at 51st Street and Broadway, New York’s preeminent dance palace. As a black musician working in midtown venues with exclusively white clienteles, Henderson off ered polished and conventional dance music:

fox-trots, tangos, and waltzes. At the same time, he had access to the best black musicians, including an attention-getting young saxophonist named Coleman Hawkins (see Chapter 6), and, like Whiteman, felt a desire to keep up with the ever-changing dance scene.

Fletcher Henderson, seated at the piano, organized the fi rst great black orchestra in New York and introduced many major jazz musicians. The 1924 edi-tion of his band included tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins (third from left) and trumpet player Louis Armstrong (sixth from left).

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Henderson’s band grew in confi dence, stature, and size over the next sev-eral years. By 1926, it was widely regarded as the best jazz orchestra anywhere, a standing it began to lose in 1927, with the rise of Duke Ellington and other bandleaders who elaborated on the approach pioneered by Henderson and his chief arranger, Don Redman. Although Henderson never achieved a popular renown equal to that of Ellington, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, and other big-band stars, his infl uence among musicians increased during the 1930s, as he produced a stream of compositions and arrangements that helped to defi ne big-band music in the Swing Era.

■ DON REDMAN (1900–1964)

At fi rst, Henderson relied primarily on stock arrangements, anonymous versions of standard popular songs made available by publishing companies, which tended toward basic harmonies with no jazz content. As his pioneer-ing arranger Don Redman began revispioneer-ing them, makpioneer-ing increaspioneer-ingly radical changes, the arrangements took on a distinct and exciting character. Duke Ellington would later recall that when he came to Manhattan with the dream of creating an orchestra, “[Fletcher’s] was the band I always wanted mine to sound like.”

Redman, a child prodigy from West Virginia, who received a degree in music from Storer College at age twenty, played all the reed instruments and composed songs and instrumental novelties, often characterized by his wry sense of humor. His most famous work, “Chant of the Weed,” was a hymn to marijuana. Redman’s great achievement as arranger was to treat the band as a large unit made up of four interactive sections: reeds (saxophones and clari-nets), trumpets, trombones, and rhythm section. Over the decade 1924–34, the orchestra grew to an average of fi fteen musicians: typically three trumpets, two to three trombones, up to fi ve reeds, and four rhythm (piano, bass or tuba, banjo or guitar, drums). Th is basic big-band instrumentation, notwithstand-ing numerous variations, remains unchanged even now.

Redman and Henderson closely studied jazz records coming out of Chi-cago, and adapted these tunes to a more orchestral approach. Redman espe-cially liked the New Orleans custom of short breaks, which allowed him to constantly vary the texture of a piece. Yet he avoided the anarchy of New Or-leans style: when he used polyphony, it was usually not collectively improvised but composed in advance. His principal organizing technique, derived from the church, was a call-and-response interchange, pitting, say, the saxophone section against the trumpets. His best arrangements retained the vitality of a small jazz band, but were scrupulously prepared.