Jazz: A Quick Immersion (Video)
- [Music]
- Hey, I'm Joel Dinerstein. I'm a Professor of English at Tulane University. I've
- been teaching here since 2003. I work on American literature and
- culture, and popular culture, and music, and I'm a jazz scholar.
- And my new book is just called Jazz. It's for a series called Quick Immersion,
- because it's a short narrative history accessible to any
- reader and to students, for example. Even if you have no knowledge of music
- or any technical knowledge or any knowledge of jazz, it is an introduction
- that I wrote for that kind of general audience.
- The book is a story of jazz as about art,
- and race, and freedom, and it's a fascinating story that I tell
- through the five major cities of the music's development:
- New Orleans, of course, Chicago, Kansas City, New York, and Los Angeles.
- And I'm going to talk a little bit about New Orleans because it's the place we
- share, and a little bit about what I
- emphasize in the book. And so the short introduction is about
- how to listen to jazz. And I just say there are two things to
- focus on. There's the solo and there's the groove.
- And so pick one, whichever one that most appeals
- to you and follow it. And sooner or later you
- will realize that the actual performances will
- open up to you. So you follow the groove so you have
- something to sort of give you traction, and then you follow each of the soloists
- as they work. Play the changes, as jazz musicians
- call it, which is solo on the chords of the composition.
- Jazz is known as the art of improvisation.
- It's also known as America's classical music. But in terms of improvisation,
- it is the form in which you are constantly
- paying attention and responding to other musicians
- in the band. So you are always improvising. You are almost
- never working from a written score, except when you play
- the theme or the beginning that is written down like a classical piece.
- In any case, jazz hides in plain sight in American culture.
- It's one thing that upsets me is that it is actually the genre
- that sells the least music, even less then classical or opera. And I think
- people don't understand the level at which jazz was kind of the original
- music revolution that leads to rock, and soul, and funk, and
- hip-hop. And none of that happens without jazz
- happening first in New Orleans. What's also interesting
- for those of us in New Orleans, is that actually the music that starts
- in New Orleans is not that different from the brass
- band funk that we hear now of the Rebirth Brass Band, and the Hot 8,
- and the Soul Rebels. 100 years ago, a little more than a 100 years ago,
- in the early 1900s, there was a combination of sort of
- the brass band and of this new improvisational music
- where there was a soloist, who was playing call and response with the brass
- music. And this is really what became jazz. And
- of course jazz in the 20s, people danced to it. It was
- the popular music not only in the 1920s, at
- colleges, for example. But it was America's popular music from-
- 30 years, from 1917 to 1945. So it is therefore in a sense the
- hip-hop or the rock of today, or of the 70s,
- 80s, etcetera, etcetera.
- So, that's what I mean by jazz hides in plain sight. It's actually part of all
- the music. Most American musicians have studied it,
- and loved it, and bring it into their work.
- And so the other thing I want to bring up
- is that the book has five major chapters about
- the cities, and then five short playlist chapters in which
- there are 12 tunes that I do one or two sentences about.
- There are actually playlists you can listen to on Spotify.
- Because I wrote this book in part because Spotify changes
- everything. Books like mine used to come with a CD.
- And you would say, we'll put this on and here's the example from track
- three. And that's kind of a pain and nobody really did that.
- And now you don't have to do that. Like, you can literally read a chapter and
- have my playlist up and I'm reliable
- if you think I'm a good somebody who analyzes the tune in a way you find
- useful. And if I don't, well, I'm not the writer
- for you. But that's sort of how the book works.
- Now what I want to say about New Orleans again
- is I also wrote this book in part because I'm a scholar of New Orleans
- music and culture. I have written four or five academic articles about
- second line culture. I'm a member of the second line crew,
- the Original Prince of Wales, so I know a lot about New Orleans culture. And one of
- the things about jazz writing and jazz scholarship is
- that almost everyone gets New Orleans wrong,
- unless you have lived here for a while. Because you don't understand the way in
- which the music is integral to everyday life in a way that is not true
- of any other city in America, unless you
- live here. So if you're just doing your research, or you're listening to the
- records, or you're reading the oral histories, you
- don't get that. And if you're here during Mardi Gras and go to second lines,
- and you understand that music appears everywhere,
- then you understand and go, oh, well that must be why the music started there.
- And that's one reason. The other reason is that in the
- 1800s, New Orleans was the second most important musical city in America next to
- New York. New Orleans had two opera houses, it had
- many, many theaters, it had a lot of french culture, and
- all of this is actually, sort of jumbles
- up into jazz. Jazz musicians talk about
- whistling arias from opera when they were kids.
- And I mean all of them. People who are disadvantaged, the poor,
- you know, didn't take music lessons. Like, everybody's whistling opera arias,
- right. That's how much music was on the streets.
- The other reason was that bands used to actually
- drive around the streets and trucks and play music,
- just going by. And every now and then they'd pass another truck with another
- band and they would pull over and have a battle of the bands
- on the street. So New Orleans has always been a very exciting musical culture and
- again, if you don't live here you do not get that that actually
- still happens. The other reason is that most jazz writing and scholarship has
- been focused on its complexity, right. Music scholars like to talk about
- how harmonically complex or how complex the melodies are,
- or what's innovative of avant-garde. And that's all
- great. Except, first of all, it's not something all listeners want
- and second of all, it's why they get New Orleans wrong, right.
- In New Orleans, this is where it all starts: the rhythm, the ensemble, the
- revolution, the improvisation. But once it leaves New
- Orleans, everyone in jazz focuses on the solo
- and how it gets more complex musically. Whereas here in New Orleans,
- we still have that party street music, that public celebration, music on the streets
- a hundred years later, and it's not that different.
- So, you know, if you only want to write about how complex the music is, well,
- then you care more about the solos and New Orleans seems like
- the place it started, but now it's over. But if you live here, you know
- actually, it's the place it started and it's always still here.
- And it's completely circulating into American culture all the time.
- And so that is my introduction to the book
- with an obvious kind of emphasis on New Orleans, because that's where we live.
- I encourage everyone to go out and see as much live music as you can once
- covid time is over and... that's it. Hope you enjoy my book if
- you get to read it or take a look at it.
- [Music]