Module 2

In this module, we begin moving from folk songs and the work songs of slavery being the musical voice of the people to the start of America's first native musical art form, jazz.

I was reminded last night about the strong role that folk songs have always played in our vernacular musical culture, however.  There is a group of young rock stars (wannabes), made up of students from the school I teach at.  They had a "bar gig" last night at a local bowling alley.  As three of the five members are currently students of mine (and a fourth is now an alum), at their invitation I came out to listen.  Sitting at the bar with the drummer's dad (my booster club president), the drummer's mom (my colorguard instructor), whilst the barmaid (the bass player's girlfriend's mom) served our tasty beverages, I was enjoying their music making, er, rock'n'rolling.  At one point, I leaned over to my booster president and shouted, "ARE THEY REALLY SINGING 'LOCH LOMOND?'" He smiled and shouted back, "YES!" and the barmaid smiled too and shouted, "KIND OF A DROPKICK MURPHY'S VIBE, HUNH?"  Right isles, wrong island, but close enough.  Yet the point is this, folk music has always been a part of our popular musical culture, and ancient folk songs still are even now in the 21st Century.  The boys of Barely Civil showed me that last night.

And it was this initial fusion of folk music and work songs that melded into the jazz art form that would later give rise to rock'n'roll.  The boys last night opened with a cover of a Beatles tune.  In the time period of this week's module, the rhythm section is primarily only the piano and drums.  Strings, and especially the upright bass, are still the property of classical music and the orchestra world, but it won't be much longer and the primary rhythmic force of the rhythm section will be appropriated.  In fact, as this module wears into the next module, that transformation of the addition of the upright bass is already happening.  The saxophone is not yet on the scene either.  About the same time as this module, military bands like the ones Holst was writing for are using the "outdoor" clarinet more as a reinforcement of the alto lines in the music that what vernacular and big band composers would use it for.  This, it is the clarinet and trumpet that we hear doing the counter melodies and solos in I Got Music.  Grainger loved the Sax for what he considered its tuning capabilities and used it in his contemporaneous music almost to death, and in popular music today it is often relegated to be of a more schmaltzy “love” nature (as well as an even more erotic nature), but it would be the big bands that followed Gershwin that would use it to its best ability.

Going back to the lack of bass, I can hear this clearly in My Blue Heaven.  It’s a jazz ballad (indeed readily available from stock arrangers for all level of public school big band), but the piano is the main accompaniment with little or no percussion or other rhythm section.  When we get to the 30s and we have this instrument fully integrated, my ears become much happier.

The Tiger Rag is a chart that has been around in many incarnations, much like Barbara Allen from last week’s listening. I played the “Tuba” Tiger Rag version at University of Wisconsin.  It’s a jazzy, proto-big band rag with everything we’d expect from music of this time, while the more modern arrangements almost seem to amplify the bass-line as if to make up for the lack of it during its original existence.