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Файл:About Music at the Lessons of English. Хрестоматия по чтению на английском языке для студентов очного и заочного отделений специальностей 070100 «Музы.pdf
whether they worked. Often a composition was changed after it had been per-
formed three or four times, sometimes resulting in an entirely new work.
Duke's constantly reiterated statement was, "Good music is music that sounds
good". Sometimes other musicians of the orchestra would bring their composi-
tions to "creating sessions" to be worked out by the entire group.
A haunting tune Ellington composed Mood Indigo in 1930 and arranged
innumerable times for many combinations of instruments. The chromatic
melodies, bitonal harmonies (juxtaposing one key over another), and dreamy
mood made Mood Indigo music to both listen and dance to; and lyrics added
later rendered the piece a popular song of lasting appeal.
Ellington also wrote more serious concert music, including tone poems,
ballet suites, and short concerto-like pieces such as Concerto for Cootie, one
of Ellington's most beautiful compositions, which he wrote to feature the
trumpeter Charles "Cootie" Williams. Among his best-known symphonic
works is Black, Brown, and Beige, written in 1943 and played by the New
York Philharmonic Orchestra in 1949 and by other orchestras in later years.
He even wrote a concerto grosso – a multimovement Baroque form for orches-
tra and a small group of solo instruments, which in Ellington's piece Harlem
(1950) is a jazz band. Another well-known Ellington piece, Ko-Ko, has a
bluesy mood but modal effects and complex harmonies placing it in the realm
of concert music.
Later, Ellington wrote several choral compositions with sacred texts, us-
ing jazz rhythms, timbres, and melodic effects, and including brief improvisa-
tory passages. At the time of his death, he was writing a comic opera, Queenie
Pie, which finally was staged on Broadway in 1986.
Ellington left more than 2,000 compositions; among them are sym-
phonic suits, ballets, musicals and songs. Ellington made enormous contribu-
tions to the development of jazz and to American music in general.
Notes:
1. to haunt – преследовать;
2. to juxtapose – помещать рядом, сопоставлять;
3. mood – настроение;
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4. choral compositions with sacred music – духовная музыка в произве-
дениях для хора;
5. Mood Indigo – название песни, написанной Д. Эллингтоном в 1930;
6. Concerto for Cootie – концерт для «Кути» (для трубача) – по имени
Charles “Cootie” Williams;
7. Black, Brown and Beige – сюита «Черный, Коричневый и Бежевый»,
1943.
BENNY GOODMAN
The white clarinetist and bandleader Benny Goodman (1909-1986)
brought big band music to national attention through his many recordings, and
radio programs. Although Goodman's unprecedented inclusion of outstanding
African American soloists in his band was warmly appreciated, his exploita-
tion of the contributions of black musicians sometimes caused resentment.
Many of the Goodman band's best arrangements, for example, were by
Fletcher Henderson, but while the band made Henderson's arrangements ex-
tremely popular, Henderson never earned the money that Benny Goodman and
his band accrued. Both Goodman and Henderson had received classical music
training; both insisted on disciplined musicianship from their band members;
and the fact that Goodman's band became more popular than Henderson's was
a source of some bitterness by the end of the decade.
Goodman later divided his playing and recording between big bands
and various smaller ensembles; for while big bands remained highly popular
well into the forties, the range of jazz styles expanded greatly during that dec-
ade, offering musicians and listeners alike a wealth of exciting new musics.
CHARLIE "BIRD" PARKER
As a youngster in Kansas City, Missouri, Charlie Parker (1920-1955)
absorbed the sounds of Lester Young, Count Basie, and other outstanding jazz
musicians active in his musical home town. Later Parker moved to New York
City, where he jammed in Harlem clubs with pianist Thelonious Monk (1920-
1982) and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, inspiring and inspired by them to de-
velop the complex new music.
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Not only was Charlie "Bird" Parker an amazing saxophone virtuoso, his
sax tone dry and biting and his melodies highly jagged in contour, but he also
introduced new rhythmic, melodic, and improvisational techniques that lifted
jazz to a different plane. A knowledgeable musician, he sometimes quoted
fragments of popular and classical compositions, moving rapidly from such
familiar phrases to soaring flights of melodic virtuosity. Parker often per-
formed with a fiercely rapid tempo and an unrelenting emotional intensity that
left the weak behind but offered adventurous listeners glorious new insights to
jazz.
Addicted to drugs and alcohol and ill for much of his short life, Parker –
whom some consider the most influential of all jazz musicians – died when he
was only thirty-four. In 1988, the movie Bird brought the story of Charlie
Parker to popular attention; but among serious jazz afficionados, his memory
and influence have never faded.
ELLA FITZGERALD – A FIRST JAZZ LADY
Ella Fitzgerald was born on April 25, 1918. She is an American singer
who became world famous for the wide range and rare sweetness of her voice.
She became an international legend during a career that spanned some six
decades. She developed a singing style that was much imitated in the 1950s
and '60s.
Fitzgerald worked in the Chick Webb orchestra from 1935, and in the
1940s she created a solo cabaret act. She toured internationally with such pop
and jazz stars as Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Dizzy
Gillespie.
During much of her early career she had been noted for singing and re-
cording novelty songs. Her status rose dramatically in the 1950s when jazz
impresario Norman Granz became her manager. He gave her better material to
sing, along with ideal jazz instrumental support. For many years the star at-
traction of Granz's Jazz at the Philharmonic, she was also one of the best-
selling vocal recording artists in history. From 1956 to 1967 she recorded on a
19-volume series of "song books," in which she preserved for posterity nearly
250 outstanding songs composed by Richard Rodgers, Cole Porter, George
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Gershwin, Duke Ellington, Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, and Johnny Mercer.
Although her diction is excellent, her interpretation of words is intuitive rather
than studied.
She appeared in films, on television, and in concert halls throughout the
world. She also recorded a number of live concert albums and produced a no-
table duet version of Porgy and Bess with Louis Armstrong.
Fitzgerald's clear tone and wide vocal range were complemented by her
mastery of rhythm, harmony, intonation, and diction. She was an excellent
ballad singer. Her mastery of "scat" singing, a technique in which the singer
improvises as a trumpet or saxophone would and uses nonsense syllables, was
widely imitated by both male and female jazz vocalists. Her most exciting re-
corded performances, such as Mack the Knife: Ella in Berlin, possess the
imagination and skill of a modern jazz horn player translated into scat.
Ella Fitzgerald won 12 Grammy Awards and several other honours.
Notes:
1. “scat” singing – пение по слогам (в джазе).
2. to span – охватывать, распространяться;
3. wide range – широкий диапазон.
STYLES OF JAZZ
RAGTIME
Ragtime is a propulsively syncopated musical style, one forerunner of
jazz and the predominant style of American popular music from about 1899 to
1917. Ragtime evolved in the playing of honky-tonk pianists along the Missis-
sippi and Missouri rivers in the last decades of the 19th century. It was influ-
enced by minstrel-show songs, blacks' banjo styles, and syncopated (off-beat)
dance rhythms of the cakewalk, and also elements of European music. Rag-
time found its characteristic expression in formally structured piano composi-
4
tions. The regularly accented left-hand beat, in
/4 or 2/4 time, was opposed in
the right hand by a fast, bouncingly syncopated melody that gave the music its
powerful forward impetus.
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Scott Joplin, called “King of Ragtime,” published the most successful of
the early rags, “The Maple Leaf Rag,” in 1899. Joplin, who considered rag-
time a permanent and serious branch of classical music, composed hundreds
of short pieces, a set of études, and operas in the style. Other important per-
formers were Louis Chauvin, Thomas M. Turpin and Tony Jackson.
Notes:
1. Ragtime – рэгтайм – стиль фортепьянной игры и связанный с ним
жанр танцевальной пьесы, распространившийся в США в период
"беспечных 90-х" и первые десятилетия XX в. Основан на сочетании
остросинкопированной, импровизационной темы и ритмически четкого аккомпанемента. Основоположниками и пропагандистами стиля считаются композитор С. Джоплин, способствовавший его восприятию как серьезной музыки, Дж. Лэм и Джелли Ролл Мортон.
Рэгтайм оказал большое влияние на джаз, танцевальную музыку и
массовую культуру 1910-20-х в целом. От него ведут свое начало
фокстрот, тустеп, уанстеп и др.;
2. cakewalk – кейк-уок, танец афро-американского происхождения;
пара, которая продемонстрировала наиболее сложные фигуры,
получает премию в виде торта;
3. bouncingly syncopated melody – остросинкопированная мелодия;
4. honky-tonk pianists – пианисты, исполняющие на пианино блюз
с характерным "разбитым" звуком;
5. the early rags – (пренебрежительно) первые газетенки.
BEBOP
Disliking the polished performances of written, rehearsed "jazz" and re-
sentful of the broad popularity of a music that had once belonged to an exclu-
sive few, a few black jazz musicians introduced in the early 1940s a tight, dif-
ficult, virtuosic instrumental music called bebop. While its inventors con-
ceived it as a return to the ideals of early jazz – improvisation, virtuosity, and
close interaction between soloist and combo – bebop or bop is generally con-
sidered the first truly modern jazz.
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Like much of the concert music of the forties and later, bebop was per-
formed by a small ensemble of virtuoso performers. Each instrumental line
was stark, clear, and technically demanding, the angular melodies moving by
large unpredictable leaps instead of narrow steps. Rather than following prear-
ranged or familiar harmonic progressions, bop musicians challenged each
other to chart new harmonic paths and make them work. Their chords, large
and richly dissonant, startled ears accustomed to tame and forever-pleasant
sounds. Conversely, they sometimes improvised on the harmony of a famous
tune rather than on the melody, which remained obscure to puzzled listeners.
The best bebop musicians in fact achieved a revolutionary sound that effec-
tively changed the course of jazz.
The typical bebop combo consisted of trumpet and saxophone, double
bass, piano, and percussion. The melody instruments (trumpet and sax) some-
times began a composition by playing a pop, blues, or original melody in uni-
son, then alternating with increasingly complex improvisations while sup-
ported by the other players. The double bass, which marked the beat, some-
times took melodic responsibility as well in a pattern inherited from the swing
era called the walking bass, while the piano and percussion supplied unex-
pected, irregular accents.
Notes:
1. jazz – джаз – этимология неясна. Вид музыкального искусства,
возникший в начале XX века на юге США. Джазовой музыке свой-
ственны импровизация, ритм, полиритмия, синкопы;
2. bebop – бибоп – джазовый стиль, возникший в Нью-Йорке в начале
40-х. Основатель – Диззи Гиллеспи; среди ведущих мастеров –
Чарли Паркер.
COOL JAZZ
At the same time that Desmond, Brubeck, and Mingus were evolving
their "progressive" ideas, other jazz musicians were developing a style they
called cool, closely related to and sometimes indistinguishable from progres-
56
sive jazz. In reaction to the complexity and exclusive nature of bebop, they or-
ganized larger bands that included the sensuous sounds of symphonic instru-
ments such as the French horn and oboe. More elegant and less hot than be-
bop, cool jazz clearly reflected the influence of European concert music – es-
pecially the Impressionistic harmonies of Claude Debussy and the sharp dis-
sonances of Russian composer Igor Stravinsky.
The important musicians involved in cool jazz included Miles Davis
(1926-1991) who in 1949-1950 led the nine-piece orchestra that recorded the
album later titled Birth of the Cool. But cool jazz was only one of the myriad
interests of Miles Davis, who made important contributions to several jazz
styles over many years. He became particularly interested in expanding the
melodic possibilities of jazz by basing melodies on modes rather than on the
major, minor, or blues scales. The music on Davis' album Kind of Blue, largely
modal, had important influence on many jazz musicians of varied tastes. A
virtuoso trumpet player, Davis was also an outstanding bandleader, composer,
and innovator who continued throughout his life to experiment with creative
ideas in jazz.
Notes:
1. “cool” – кул – стиль в джазе, основанный в 50-е годы XX столетия;
дирижеры вводили в состав оркестра некоторые симфонические
инструменты;
2. Miles Davis – Майлз Дэйвис (1926-1991) – американский джазовый
трубач, основоположник стиля “cool” (англ. – прохладный);
3. indistinguishable – неразличимый, незаметный;
4. to involve – вовлекать, влечь за собой;
5. myriad interest – бесчисленный интерес.
FREE JAZZ
In 1960, Ornette Coleman (b. 1930) introduced free collective improvi-
sation in an album titled Free Jazz, defying the common perception of jazz as
generally accessible to the ordinary listener. Free jazz was a difficult music,
57
challenging to performers and listeners alike, with no familiar chord changes,
no references to popular songs or blues, and ho steady beat. In free jazz, each
musician improvised independently, aware of and responsive to the other
players but bound by no preset obligations. Even the initial phrases of a com-
position, played by the soloists together, were not necessarily in unison.
It has been suggested that free jazz expressed in musical terms the same
sorts of freedom African Americans were demanding and finally achieving in
many areas of life. And the new significance free jazz gave rhythm instru-
ments – assertive and independent rather than supportive as before – might be
compared to the respected positions African Americans were now assuming in
life. Free from the tyranny of bar lines, familiar melodies, established chord
changes, and traditional instrumentation, the new music also bore relationship
to chance music and to abstract expressionist art.
Free jazz also reflects an interest in some of the non-Western musics
that have intrigued twentieth-century composers of classical music. With no
chord changes to play, free jazz ensembles required no piano with its restric-
tive keyboard limited to the tones of the black and white keys, freeing musi-
cians to explore non-Western scales and encouraging them to include instru-
ments from other cultures in their ensembles and to play Western instruments
in nontraditional ways. For example, the use of microtones and certain rhyth-
mic techniques derived from the music of India heighten the emotional effect
and the intellectual challenge of Coleman's performances.
Notes:
1. Free jazz – фри джаз – авангардный стиль джаза «свободный», ос-
нованный в начале 60-х годов XX столетия. Ярким представителем
является Орнетт Коулман. Джазовая импровизация соединяется с
ритмами рок-музыки и с электронным усилением инструментов;
2. to reflect – отражать, отображать;
3. traditional instrumentation – традиционная инструментовка.
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JAZZ AS CONCERT MUSIC
Given that folk music and popular dances have always enlivened Euro-
pean concert music, it seems natural now for contemporary classical musicians
to be inspired by popular vernacular musics, which are more varied and so-
phisticated than ever. Jazz in fact has become a particularly fertile source of
inspiration for concert music. Almost from the start of jazz, some European
composers, including Darius Milhaud, Bela Bartok, and Maurice Ravel, inte-
grated the distinctive rhythms, timbres, and performance techniques of the
new music in their classical compositions. Impressed by Woody Herman's
band, which included such symphonic instruments as French horns and a tuba
and performed multimovement orchestral works much in the style of Euro-
pean concert music, the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky wrote his Ebony
Concerto specifically for Herman's band – perhaps the only and certainly the
most famous piece written by a classical composer for a jazz ensemble. Cer-
tain American classical composers, too, found jazz a source of stimulation.
Charles Ives was as impressed by good jazz as by any other music, classical or
popular; Aaron Copland based some of his, most successful early pieces upon
the new popular music; and Milton Babbitt also has been seriously interested
in jazz.
Conversely, a number of Americans writing music in the vernacular tra-
dition have applied their knowledge of classical techniques to popular pieces;
and many composers have simply refused to distinguish between classical and
popular musics in terms of either quality or preference. Among those we have
studied, John Philip Sousa, the march king, composed operettas and sym-
phonic works; Scott Joplin, the king of ragtime, wrote operas; and George
Gershwin wrote one opera and several symphonic pieces as well as the many
Broadway show tunes we still listen to and romance to today.
Thus during the forties, as jazz steadily grew more serious, dissonant,
intellectual, and complex, some jazz musicians absorbed influences from con-
temporary classical music, reversing the process by which classical musicians
had borrowed jazz techniques for their purposes. No longer music for dancing
and entertainment alone but for serious listening as well, jazz had become, in
fact, a kind of classical or concert music in its own right. By the early 1950s,
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jazz was performed frequently in concert, especially on college campuses or at
huge jazz festivals. Both black and white jazz musicians and their listeners as
well took a more intellectual approach to jazz than had earlier been customary,
and jazz criticism became a recognized field. Today certain jazz composers
collaborate with poets, choreographers, and classical musicians to produce
serious concert works.
Notes:
1. popular vernacular music – популярная национальная музыка;
2. Ebony Concerto – «Черный концерт» для кларнета и джаз-бэнда,
написан И. Стравинским в 1945;
3. to absorb influences from – «впитывать» (воспринимать) чье-либо
влияние (воздействие);
4. to collaborate with somebody – сотрудничать с кем-либо.
SOME ACADEMIC COMPOSERS
ROGER SESSIONS
Roger Sessions was born in Brooklyn, New York, on December 28,
1896. The composer occupied various teaching posts and in 1945 became pro-
fessor of music at the University of California in Berkeley.
Roger Sessions, a man of marked originality and uncompromising mu-
sical ideals, is an excellent example of a composer whose music must be ac-
cepted on purely musical grounds. The complex texture of Sessions's music
results from intense contrapuntal activity, highly dissonant harmony, and
combinations of different rhythms. A long lyric melody is characteristic of
slow sections. His music is basically tonal, but, like Bartok's, the tonality is
determined by free association or context. Leading tones are more important
than chord progressions in determining the tonality. Some forms resemble
those of the sonata, while others are like Bach arias that evolve from germinal
motives contained in a condensed initial statement (Second Symphony, first
movement).
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