The History of Jazz Music

Louis Armstrong (1901-1971)

Louis Armstrong was a very influential jazz musician whose career spanned over five decades. He increased the range of the trumpet, popularized “scatting,” and was an incredible improviser. He also helped bring people together at a time of segregation.

The Life of Louis Armstrong

Louis was born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1901. His mother, Mary Estelle, was only sixteen when she had him. She also had a daughter, born shortly after. Louis Armstrong’s father abandoned the family, and Louis went to live with his grandmother until the age of five when they were able to return to the care of their mother.

Louis Armstrong had to work to help the family. By the age of eleven, he dropped out of school and joined a quartet of boys who sang for money on the streets. This is where he also learned to play the cornet. Armstrong said, “Every time I close my eyes blowing that trumpet of mine—I look right in the heart of good old New Orleans … It has given me something to live for.”

In 1912, Armstrong took his stepfather’s gun without permission and got arrested for shooting a blank into the air. As a result, he was put in the Colored Waif’s Home. He continued to learn the cornet and joined a band where he became a bandleader. This attracted the attention of Kid Ory, who recognized his talent at only thirteen and asked him to join his band.

King Oliver moved to Chicago, and Louis Armstrong replaced King Oliver as the group’s bandleader. Louis Armstrong was also a second trumpet player for the Tuxedo Brass Band during this time. King Oliver asked Louis Armstrong to follow him to Chicago, and so Louis moved to Chicago and played second cornet in Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band. The Creole Jazz Band was one of the first Dixieland jazz bands to be recorded. The first recording was from the “Original Dixieland Jass Band,” who were made up of all white members.

Lil Hardin, was a jazz pianist in their band and would eventually become Louis’ wife in 1924. Lil Hardin urged Louis to go on his own and develop his playing skills. Louis started dressing nicely and playing classical music in church concerts to improve his technique. It paid off, and he was invited to play trumpet with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra, a top-paying African-American band of the time.

Louis Armstrong formed a band called Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five. Kid Ory played trombone, Johnny Dodds played clarinet, Johnny St. Cyr played banjo, his wife, Lil Armstrong, played the piano, and Louis Armstrong played the trumpet. Together, they recorded twenty-four records in one year. Louis was an important figure during the Harlem Renaissance. His incredible trumpet playing expanded the accepted range of the trumpet and spotlighted the trumpet as an improvisational instrument.

Louis Armstrong began performing as a vocalist in 1929. He popularized “scatting,” a vocal technique that uses syllabic sounds to emulate an instrument soloing. Louis’ charisma on stage often stole the show. An example of this was when Louis performed in Barbra Streisand’s 1969 movie “Hello Dolly.” They had made a demo recording in 1963 to promote the Broadway show “Hello Dolly,” and Louis Armstrong released his own recording in 1964. His version of “Hello Dolly” reached No. 1 on the charts and even ended the Beatles’ 3 chart-topping streak!

During the swing era, there were many important singers. Ella Fitzgerald was a singer who became famous for her single “A-Tisket, A-Tasket.” She would later be part of the bebop era and got the title “The First Lady of Song.” She sold over 40 million albums during her lifetime. 

History of Jazz and The Life of Ella Fitzgerald

Ella had a rough life as a child and eventually had to go to a reform school. She escaped from the school when she was only fifteen and found herself alone and without money. But in 1934, her luck changed when her name was drawn to be able to sing at the Apollo Theater and compete in Amateur Night. She had wanted to dance but decided at the last minute to sing. The audience loved her singing and asked her for an encore! 

Ella Fitzgerald is an important musician in the history of jazz and had a long career in music, performing with many legendary musicians. Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Dizzy Gillespie, and Benny Goodman are just a few of the greats she performed with. She was the first black woman to headline the famous Copacabana nightclub. She was also one of the first stars to perform during the Super Bowl Half Time Show.

Scatting

Ella Fitzgerald was one of the musicians who popularized scatting. Scatting is a vocal technique in the jazz genre where singers improvise melody and rhythm using nonsense syllables called “vocables” instead of words. The object was to imitate instruments soloing. Louis Armstrong was the first musician to scat.

Duke Ellington (1899-1974)

Duke Ellington was a pianist, composer, and big bandleader. Duke Ellington wrote thousands of pieces of music for his big band. He was born in a middle-class family in Washington D.C. He not only loved music, but baseball, and art as a child. He was such a gifted artist that Duke received a scholarship to go to an art school called the Pratt Institute. He decided to start performing music instead, but many of his compositions have artistic names like “Black and Tan Fantasy” and “Mood Indigo.” 

Duke Ellington moved to New York and began leading bands in 1923. His most famous job was at the Cotton Club in Harlem. He led a big band there from 1927 to 1932. His musicians were very good and they stayed with him a long time. So, Duke Ellington was able to write specifically for his musicians. This made his music very unique.

After World War II, Duke Ellington toured around the world. He wrote music for films in the 1950s and was awarded many awards before he died in 1974.

Miles Davis (1926-1991)

Miles Davis was a trumpet player, composer, and bandleader. His career spanned over five decades, and he was at the forefront of many jazz subgenres. He was born into an upper-middle-class family and even studied at the Institute of Musical Art (now Julliard) in New York for a short time. Miles Davis dropped out of college to join Charlie Parker’s bebop group. Bebop is a subgenre of jazz that is characterized by complex harmony and rhythms with fast melodic lines. He played with Charlie Parker from 1944-1948.

Miles Davis and the Birth of Cool Jazz

Davis then recorded his album The Birth of the Cool from Capitol Records in 1949. This recording began the new movement of cool jazz. Cool jazz was a reaction to the fast bebop sounds. It focused on slower tempos and more restrained soloing. Cool jazz emphasized simple melodic lines. Miles Davis’ “Kind of Blue” album in 1959 was a very influential recording. The first track, “So What,” is an example of modal jazz and Miles Davis’ signature melodic composition and improv skills. Miles Davis’ love of art greatly influenced his music. He would often use titles that reflected art such as “Blue in Green,” “Flamenco Sketches,” and “Venus de Milo,” a reference to the famous Greek sculpture.

Jazz Fusion: A New Subgenre of Jazz

Miles Davis recorded “My Funny Valentine” in 1965 and many other significant jazz standards. He joined keyboardists, Chick Corea and Joe Zawinul, and guitarist John McLaughlin, in 1969. They recorded In a Silent Way together. This famous album fused rock and roll and jazz, creating a new subgenre called Jazz Fusion. Some critics thought Miles Davis was selling out, but the album still reached 134 on the US Billboard Top LPs chart.

Conclusion

Due to the creativity and originality of Miles Davis, many people consider him one of the most prominent figures in the history of jazz. Miles Davis was able to tear down the typical standards of jazz and create something significant and compelling each time. In his personal life, Miles struggled with drug and alcohol addiction and was often abusive. He passed away at the age of 65 from stroke, pneumonia, and respiratory failure.

Charlie Parker

Charlie Parker was a jazz saxophonist, bandleader, and composer. He helped develop the bebop style. Bebop is jazz with fast tempos, virtuosic improvisation, smaller groups, and complex harmonies. Parker’s highly complicated music helped take jazz out of the mainstream and make it an intellectual art form.

The Life of Charlie Parker: Making History in Jazz

Charlie Parker Jr was born in Kansas City, Kansas. His father played music and worked with the railways as a chef and his mother worked nights at a Western Union office. His parents separated in 1930. When Charlie Parker was eleven years old he began to play the alto saxophone. He joined the Lincoln High School band but dropped out in 1935. Parker decided to join the musician’s union and pursue a music career.

Overcoming Failure

In 1936, Charlie Parker participated in a jam session with the Count Basie Orchestra. He forgot the changes, so the drummer removed a cymbal from his drum set and threw it at Parker’s feet. It was a message for Parker to leave the famous band.

Instead of being discouraged, Parker spent the next three to four years practicing up to fifteen hours a day. It was during this time that he became a virtuosic improviser. An improviser is someone who can make up a melody on the spot, typically over set chord changes. Parker figured out new combinations of chords called “chord substitutions.” He also altered chords, creating a new and unique sound.

In 1939, Charlie Parker moved to New York. He was a dishwasher at Jimmie’s Chicken Shack working for nine dollars an hour, at the same place pianist, Art Tatum, often performed. Impoverished, Parker asked his friend to help him to get work as a musician. His friend let him play in his band and this attracted the attention of bandleader, Earl Hines.

By 1942, Parker was playing with Dizzy Gillespie. As he continued his musical journey, Parker discovered that using the chromatic scale, you can easily shift from key to key within a song. In an interview Parker said, “I’d been getting bored with the stereotyped changes that were being used all the time at the time, and I kept thinking there’s bound to be something else. I could hear it sometimes but I couldn’t play it … Well, that night I was working over ‘Cherokee’ and, as I did, I found that by using the higher intervals of a chord as a melody line and backing them with appropriately related changes, I could play the thing I’d been hearing. I came alive.”

Charlie Parker proves that anything is possible if you try hard enough. He overcame failure and paved the way for a new subgenre of jazz. He pioneered many jazz ideas that are still used today, making him a major figure in the history of jazz.