RED MUSIC

Five Minutes

2009-09-26T16:02:00.000-07:00

Biografi :

Five Minutes, adalah grup musik asal Bandung yang kerap mengenakan sarung dalam penampilannya. Personel mereka terdiri atas Ricky Tjahyadi (keyboard), Richie Setiawan (vokal), Drie Warnanta (bass), Aria Yudistira (drum) dan Rulhilman (gitar).

Album terbaru Five Minutes bertajuk Rockmantic (2007) yang penggarapannya dilakukan selama rentang Maret 2004 hingga Maret 2007.

Dalam album tersebut, terdapat sepuluh lagu, di antaranya, Menahan Perih, Bertahan, Tak`kan Rela, Bersalah, Bidadari, Tanpamu, Jangan Sakiti Aku, Masihkah Aku, Jauhi Dirinya dan Benarkah Itu?.

Download lagu-lagu mereka:
Five Minutes - Salam Terakhir
Five Minutes - Selamat Tinggal

Adegan

2009-03-27T12:40:00.000-07:00

Tahun 1992 menjadi waktu bersejarah yang tidak bisa dilupakan sejumlah musisi kondang seperti: Indra Lesmana, Gilang Ramadhan, Hari Mukti, Donny Suhendra, dan AS Mates. Ya, tahun disaat penulis gandrung dengan program persiapan ujian SMA, mereka yang tergabung dalam ADEGAN meluncurkan album pertama dan terakhir bertitel “Selangkah di Depan”. Untungnya, hits mereka “Satu Kata” sempat merajai tangga lagu di sejumlah radio anak muda saat itu, diantaranya Prambors.

Nah, bila Anda ingin mengetahui bagaimana bentuk musik rock yang dipadu Jazz ala ADEGAN, nah bisa dibayangkan kan ?? keren abis! Nah dari sini memang sangat terlihat dan terbukti bahwa mereka adalah musisi handal yang patut diacungi jempol.

Tembang pembuka di album yang diproduksi Musica Studio ini adalah “Satu Kata”. Masih ingat liriknya ? Hanya satu kata/tiada sempat terucap/walau kita berjumpa dan saling menyapa/ Hanya satu kata/kembali karam di hati/walau sering bicara sampai lupa waktu/Dimanaku harus mencari Sebuah kata yang hilang saat denganmu.

Tak salah memang, jutaan pasang telinga yang mendengar lagu yang liriknya dibuat Wisnu Soeyono langsung memberi penilaian bagus. Hasil aransemen Gilang Ramadhan dibawakan secara lambat (slow) pada intro dan makin meninggi saat reff. Apalagi lengkingan vocalis Hari Mukti yang khas dan berkarakter. Begitu juga dengan sentuhan keyboard Indra Lesmana yang begitu pas, sehingga masih terdengar sentuhan jazzy-nya.

Beda halnya dengan lagu berjudul “Tujuh Belas Tahun” yang nge-beat. Hentakan drum Gilang Ramadhan dan cabikan gitar Donny Suhendra seakan menenggelamkan keterlibatan Indra Lesmana yang mencoba memberikan sentuhan Jazz. Apalagi dengan liriknya yang menggambarkan suasana anak ABG yang pertama kali merasakan jatuh cinta; Tujuh belas tahun usiamu saat ini/Peganglah tanganku dan jangan dilepaskan/Kita terbang dan melayang putari dunia biar semua orang tahu bahwa kita bahagia…. Hal yang sama juga terdapat pada lagu “Perbedaan”, cuma saja unsur koor yang ditambahkan pada reff menjadikan lagu ini berbobot.

Nah, lagu yang penuh dengan nuansa Jazz bisa disimak pada “Biarkan saja” garapan Indra Lesmana. Meskipun penuh dengan alunan Jazz, namun sepertinya Indra Lesmana mencoba “bijak” dengan tetap memasukan beat-beat rock.

Alunan berbau-bau rock ala Van Hallen bisa disimak pada “Ku Genggam Matahari”, “Dunia Jingga”, dan “Raksasa Jalanan”. Pada tembang “Dunia Jingga” misalnya, sangat terlihat sekali eksperimentalist-nya Indra Lesmana dalam bermusik. Ya, dia coba memasukan unsur-unsur tekno dengan suara keyboardnya, menjadikan lagu semakin berbobot. Cabikan gitar Donny Suhendra yang meraung-raung mampu ditandingi dengan kecepatan tangan Indra Lesmana pada tuts.

Tak kalah menariknya pada tembang penutup yang juga menjadi judul album ini, “Selangkah Didepan”. Bisa dibilang,lagu ini merupakan pencapaian kolaborasi unik dari ADEGAN. Sifat-sifat ekploratif, ekperimental dan kolaboratif sangat jelas terlihat pada lagu ini. Jangan-jangan ini merupakan “keinginan terpendam” dari para musisi ADEGAN untuk menumpahkan Ide segenap rasa. Sayangnya kelanjutan dari karya lima anak muda ini tidak dilanjutkan lagi, bak hilang ditelan bumi. Masing-masing kini berkiprah dengan jalannya, tentunya masih dibidang musik.

Silahkan sedot lagunya di sini:

Adegan - Biarkan Saja
Adegan - Satu Kata

U'Camp

2009-03-27T12:28:00.000-07:00

Jakarta – Sikap optimistis melandasi U’Camp melalui album terbaru, Apa Kabar yang resmi diluncurkan, Minggu lalu. Grup band rock era 1990-an asal Bandung ini meyakini “perbedaan” musik yang diusungnya itu akan tetap bisa disambut baik.

Lagi pula kami adalah band lama yang menunjukkan kemampuan dan berjalan di jalur yang sebenarnya,” kata gitaris Iram sebagai satu-satunya “orang lama” U’Camp yang masih tersisa.
Diakui Iram, musik mereka masih tak jauh berbeda dengan ketika Ovy (kini gitaris /rif) dan drumer Sandy (Pas Band) masih bergabung.
“Kalau pun ada kelainannya, itu hanya tergantung pada keadaan. Hanya aransemen yang benar-benar baru dibandingkan hit lama, ‘Bayangan’,” ungkapnya.
“Saya memang mau mempertahankan warna lama karena tak ingin bermaksud jualan saja. Yang paling berbeda pada penampilan kami, adalah tidak lagi seperti dulu bergaya rock jadul dengan wajah sampai ketutupan rambut,” papar Iram, mengenang.
Menurutnya, U’Camp perlu menjajal kekuatannya terjun di tengah-tengah kejenuhan segmen tertentu pada musik mellow yang kini merajai gelanggang industri pop Indonesia.
“Formasi terbaru U’Camp ini lebih semacam kolaborasi dengan pemusik dan penyanyi muda agar ada corak kekinian,” sambung lelaki bernama lahir Azram Azyb itu.
Seperti diketahui, Iram kini didampingi empat pemuda segar yakni Ozy (bas), Dimitri (gitar), Arie (drum) dan Dhino (vokal).
Ada catatan tersendiri yang terbilang unik, karena Dino ternyata adalah penyanyi yang sempat ikutan Kontes Dangdut TPI (TPI). Maka lengkaplah, bila kemudian tontonan panggung realitas (“reality show”) seperti juga “Indonesian Idol” dan “Dream Band” ikut menghasilkan potensi baru di bisnis industri rekaman.
Ovy, suami Titi DJ, mensyukuri U’Camp masih berlanjut dengan komitmen lama. “Bagus, karena masih ada Iram sang pencetus yang juga rela menggabungkan idealismenya dengan selera sekarang,” komentar Ovy.
Sampai saat ini, ujarnya, ada kebanggaan diri sebagai mantan gitaris U’Camp karena ketika melakukan tur konser dengan /rif, masih ada saja yang menghubung-hubungkan ia dengan band lamanya itu.
“Saya harap U’Camp bisa maju lagi tetap dengan warna rock yang sesungguhnya,” tambah dia.
Melalui apa yang telah dilihatnya dari “U’Camp baru”, Ovy mengatakan puas karena ciri aslinya tetap ada.

Iram Dominan
Rasa puas yang sama dilontarkan oleh Sandy. “Apalagi U’Camp muncul kembali pada saat sekarang di mana begitu banyak band saat ini yang bersuara sama dengan karakter yang tidak khas,” katanya.
Moga-moga, begitu harapan Sandy, U’Camp yang sekarang bisa jadi “something”.
“Karena saya melihat fenomena serupa saat ini yang mirip ketika Pas Band, Netral, /rif tiba-tiba muncul dan disukai pada saat lalu ketika band pop melulu bermanis-manis. Apalagi, sekarang di tengah lirik-lirik selingkuh,” kata Sandy.
Dari dulu, kata Sandy, Iram memang dominan di U’Camp. “Sebagai gitaris ia berkarakter. Liar, walau main gitar tanpa edukasi resmi,” kenangnya.
Sisi harapan lain dari kemunculan U’Camp saat ini, menurut Sandy, adalah mungkin kekuatan mereka dalam berperforma panggung. “Seperti /rif yang sudah sekian lama tidak menghasilkan hits, tetapi tetap bagus di atas panggung,” sambungnya.
“U’Camp tetap harus mempertahankan keliarannya yang lama serta menjaga performanya, sambil terus berproses kreatif. Bongkar pasang personel tidak masalah,” demikian ujar Sandy, yang belum lama ini dengan Pas Band meluncurkan album terbaru, Romantic…Lies…and Bleeding.

U'Camp - Bayangan (1992)

U'Camp pernah ngetop tahun 90an, album ini adalah album pertama yang melambungkan nama U'Camp sejajar dengan group band terkenal lainnya, saya masih ingat dulu pasti main Band, lagu Bayangan merupakan lagu wajib yang harus dibawakan.
Sayang group ini tidak bertahan lama, gara-gara ketidak cocokan antar personil.

Sedot nih lagu-lagu mereka:
U'Camp - Bayangan

U'Camp - Melangkah

Produksi Metrotama
Tahun 1992
List Lagu:
1.Bayangan
2. Bukalah Hatimu
3. Bandel
4. We Believe in you
5. Aku Bukan Kamu
6. Untukmu
7. Kutantang Badai
8. Anak Metal
9. Lokeloll
10. U'Camp

Sahara

2009-03-27T11:51:00.000-07:00

Lirik Lagu:

Biarlah Sepi

Sejenak aku pandangi
Batas cakrawala
Sang surya pun perlahan tinggalkan bayangan

Ada setangkup rasa
Yang akan tertinggal
Dan mungkin terus tertinggal jauh disana.

Seakan aku terkunci
Tanpa dapat dan sempat bertanya.

Biarlah sepi
Mengurung diri

Dalam seribu tanya yang ada
Biarlah saja
Serangga malam menjadi temanku ..
oohh.

Hari2 tetap sama
Tanpa ada yang berubah
Membuat diriku semakin kian tersudut

Walau telah ku coba
Tuk menepis semua
Namun yang ada hanya ruangan yang hampa

Seakan aku terkunci
Tanpa dapat dan sempat bertanya..

( Reff )
Biarlah sepi
Mengurung diri
Dalam seribu tanya yang ada
Biarkah saja
Serangga malam
Senandungkan nada indah.

Hingga ku tak kuasa merasakan semua yang ada
Biarlah waktu yang kan bicara…
(back to Reff)…

Sahara - Bangkit
Sahara - Kau Bukan Untukku
Sahara - Biarlah Sepi
Sahara - Satu Rasa
Sahara - Angin Malam

Modulus Band

2009-03-27T11:33:00.000-07:00

Album : Ulang Tahun
Artist : Modulus Band
Studio : Midilab & Triple M
Distributor : Hins Collection / Total Record
Rilis : 1991
Harga : Rp. 3.500
Pertama kali beli bulan September 1991

Setelah melalui perjalanan yg cukup panjang selama 4 tahun di kancah musik Indonesia (sejak 1987), akhirnya Modulus Band dapat menyelesaikan album pertama mereka yg diberi judul "Ulang Tahun" pada bulan Juli 1991. Sebenarnya Modulus Band sudah pernah merilis hit's single mereka sebelumnya yg diberi judul Saat-saat bahagia yg terdapat dlm album 10 Bintang Nusantara 2 produksi Team Record.

Modulus Band adalah band yg anggotanya adalah merupakan anak2 Mahasiswa ITI (Institut Teknologi Indonesia)pada saat itu, kecuali Adelansyah yg dulunya kuliah di Gunadarma. Hanya ada 4 lagu pada album ini, pada side A ada lagu Ulang Tahun (cipt. Agus Hendra Jaya/Iwang Wahyudi) dan Nada Asmara (cipt. Edwin Saladin/Adelansyah), pada side B ada lagu Berikanlah(cipt.M. Parulian/Adelansyah) & One Night in Bali (modulus).

Lagu Ulang Tahun vokal Bimo Chondro dan dibantu penyanyi latar Babsye dan Anti A (Neneng) dan Rap oleh Adrian Mazhar, suasana era 80-an sangat kental utk lagu ini. Nada & Asmara adalah merupakan lagu yg diunggulkan sebagai "best cut" pada album ini,lewat vokal Bimo Chondro yg khas serta backing vokal Adelansyah & Uki Utama. Pada lagu Berikanlah dgn tempo yg slow mendeskripsikan perasaan seorang Cowok yg merindukan "cinta" dari pujaan hatinya. Penutup album ini adalah sebuah instrumentalia ethnic yg diberi judul One Night in Bali yg direkam secara Live recording, dapat kita simak permainan drums yg handal dari drumer-nya Modulus Auditya yg "rajin" mukul cymbals.

Modulus Band telah bubar, dan hingga saat ini telah mengeluarkan 3 Album dan 1 hit's single, sudah beberapa kali ganti personil, mulai dari petama kali dibentuk mereka tampil dgn Ricky pada Guitar, tp setelah itu Ricky keluar dan Modulus tampil tanpa gitaris, di Album ke 2 mereka M Parulian (keyboard)dan Bimo Chondro (Vokal) keluar krn kesibukan Parulian di musik Gereja dan Bimo Chondro yg kerja di konsultan Arsitek, ada penambahan yaitu Gitar diisi oleh Daniel Sigarlaki yg merupakan adik dari Morgan Sigarlaki (gitarisnya Emerald), vokal
diisi oleh Stanley Sagala.

Modulus Band - Kamu Ya Cuma Kamu

Formasi dan peralatan yg digunakan Modulus pada album Ulang Tahun :
Edwin Saladin : Pogramming, Keyboards,dan vokal ( Atari Stacy 4, Alesis HR 16B, Roland U
220, Digitech GSP 5, KORG Wave Station, Midi Controller)
Agus Hendra Jaya: Programming, Piano dan Keyboards (Roland MC 500, Roland U 220, Roland D70, Roland RD 1000)
M Parulian : Piano & Keyboards (Yamaha DX7 FD II, Roland D50, Proteus/1)
Iwang I Wahyudi : Bass & Vokal (Yamaha Electric Bass Motion MB II)
Auditya : Drums & Percussions (Yamaha Drums YD 9000RF, Roland Drum Machine R8)
Bimo Chondro : Lead Vokal

Bayou - Hanya Dirimu

2009-03-21T07:31:00.000-07:00

Lirik lagu Bayou - Hanya Dirimu

Ada rasa di hatiku
Saat kupertama bersamamu
Senyum manis di bibirmu membuat

Diriku terpesona kepadamu

Ingin kuungkapkan semuanya
Padamu…(padamu…)
Akan kucurahkan segalanya
Untukmu

Biarkanlah kugenggam kasihmu
Lupakanlah segala prasangka
Hanya engkau yang ada di hatiku slalu
Hanya ..kau seorang

Saat ini segalanya jadi kenyataan
Yang terindah
Tiada lagi keraguan itu di antara
Kita yang tersisa .. slamanya

Download lagunya

Bayou - Hanya Dirimu

Bayou - Kali Ini

EXTREME

2009-03-21T05:30:00.000-07:00

Biography

Gary Cherone (Lead Vocals)
Nuno Bettencourt (Guitar)
Pat Badger (Bass)
Kevin Figueiredo (Drums)

Extreme’s first album in thirteen years doesn’t just mark the band’s hotly anticipated return to the studio and stage.

Saudades de Rock (pronounced “sow-dodge”) is a groundbreak record that reaffirms the beloved, Boston-bred foursome’s stature as innovators in the world of rock & roll.
Fostered by the same unwavering songcraft and diverse musical approaches that first earned the band – vocalist Gary Cherone, guitarist Nuno Bettencourt, bassist Pat Badger and new drummer Kevin Figueiredo – multi-platinum albums with chart topping hits and sold-out tours the globe over, Extreme’s fifth studio offering just may be its finest hour yet.

“A record is what makes a band vital,” says Bettencourt, who recorded Extreme’s comeback disc at NRG Studios in Los Angeles and served as the project’s producer and mixer. “For the fans, it’s like, ‘Show me if you still got it.’ And we’ve done that. I really think this is the best record we’ve ever done.”

Boasting badass, groove-laden, swaggering numbers (“King”), raw funk metal (“Learn To Love”), expressive ballads (“Interface”) and soulful, piano steered winners (“Ghost”), the raw, organic Saudades de Rock is the next logical step in a catalog that’s as ambitious and expressive as it is thought provoking.

Anchored by the amazingly memorable “Star” where Cherone’s vocals launch the forceful song before giving way to a brilliant hook and a topical observation of starlets falling from grace. Elsewhere, the anthemic rocker “King” is similarly lighthearted, as its mojo works a chorus that just won’t quit. “It’s one of those songs made for driving around with the top down,” Bettencourt asserts.

If the arc of Extreme seems surprisingly in synch, considering the large decade-plus gap between records, it’s because Bettencourt and Cherone kept in touch during the years when the band was dormant. Then, in 2004, a series of hometown reunion gigs planted the seed for what has ultimately become the outfit’s official regrouping. When the pair came together to pen the tunes that would comprise Saudades de Rock in late 2007, the creative floodgates were open. Says Nuno, “The chemistry was there from day one, as we suspected it would be.”

To which Cherone marvels, “I’ve spent my whole life trying to keep up with Nuno. There was actually too much material! We were doing a song or two a day, and we wound up with 23 or 24 songs in a two week writing session.”

“We knew within an hour of Gary and I getting back together to write, that we still had something relevant to offer,” Bettencourt continues. “And while there are great bands out there, from Muse to the Raconteurs, we felt like there was a void as far as straight up rock and roll goes.”

Consider that hole filled by the blistering, Zeppelin-minded riffs and powerful rhythms that that elevate “Slide” into a raw rock opus. Less bombastic, but equally scorching is the passionate, blues-y “Last Hour,” which Nuno describes musically as “something you’d hear in the 1960s. It reminds me of “House of the Rising Sun, but heavier.”

Bettencourt also calls the latter “Gary’s shining moment,” insisting, “he’s reached the mountain vocally.” Meanwhile, the two piano-steered numbers, the important, Lennon-minded “Peace” and the aforementioned atmospheric “Ghost,” exhibit Extreme’s broad stylistic abilities.

“We’ve always had a track or two where I sat at the piano with Gary,” Nuno says of “Ghost”. “But we wanted to make that one more upbeat.” Equally hypnotic and undeniably great, “Take Us Alive” incorporates a thumping country blues approach with Gary’s exceptional vocal performance and Nuno’s breathtaking guitar picking.”

“We’ve always had these ‘Right-turn-at-Albuquerque tracks’,” Nuno says, reminding us that Sirs Page & Plant utilized similar approaches long ago. Speaking of the ZOSO purveyors, he is quick to acknowledge that Extreme has always nodded proudly to its heroes.

“We’ve never had a problem wearing our influences on our sleeve,” the guitarist says. “I don’t care if it’s Zeppelin, the Beatles, Nirvana or Prince. You’d have to literally rise from the dead, get a guitar strapped on and write and record your record to not be touched by the music all around you. Going back to when we started, we always thought that Zeppelin and the Beatles were the greatest bands ever, and if we could fall somewhere in between them, we’d be doing something right.”

Based on the enthusiasm of the rock aficionados and diehard fans that have followed the band since its self-titled debut, Extreme’s 2008 ‘Take Us Alive’ world tour (with support from Kings X plus Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy Camp on select dates) is destined for success. Showcasing material from the majestic new album and classics from discs like 1990’s multi-platinum, Pornograffitti, not to mention 1992’s critically acclaimed III Sides to Every Story, the members of Extreme are thrilled to be heading out on the road.

“As much as we enjoy recording, for me, I’ve always loved playing live for the fans,” Cherone says. “We can’t wait to get out there and play this music live.” Staying clear of a common practice in recording studios, Bettencourt shunned computer trickery and vocal tweaks associated with Auto-Tune software.

“We’re having none of that,” Nuno explains. “Things can get really complicated in the studio if you let them. That’s why we wanted to do so much of this album live – these songs will translate easily to the stage. We’re really looking forward to getting out on tour, putting on a show. That’s really where the band shines.”
And for those still pining for the approach of Extreme’s chart smashes, “More Than Words” and “Hole Hearted,” where Cherone and Bettencourt harmonized with such effortless grace, look no further than “Interface,” which celebrates that proven formula while arguably trumping it.

Saudades de Rock finds the men of Extreme excited to be back together and playing to their collective strengths. And clearly, the accomplishment is not lost on them. “It didn’t take long for us to be reminded of what we were capable of,” Cherone enthuses. “We always knew Extreme was special. We always knew it was a matter of time.”

It’s a sentiment that carries over to the title of Extreme’s phenomenal new disc. “’Saudades’ was always a beautiful word to me,” Nuno explains. “It expresses a longing; an underlying sadness for something or someone that’s been missing in your life, and never quite sure if it will ever return. In this case, for us, it’s Rock and Roll. Saudades de Rock.”

Or as Gary concludes, “I like how it expresses that longing we’ve been feeling to play for our fans and be together again.” Amen.

To date, the Grammy-nominated EXTREME have released four albums, plus a greatest hits set—selling over 10 million records worldwide. On the strength of multiple world tours, they also achieved a #1 hit single, “More Than Words”—from their 1990 multi-platinum album Extreme II: Pornograffitti—on the Billboard Hot 100, which they followed with the Top Five “Hole Hearted.” Although these two acoustic hits brought the band great mainstream success, it overshadowed the band’s trademark sound: a mix of hard rock funk in the spirit and style of their predecessors Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Queen and Van Halen—fueled by BETTENCOURT’s signature guitar flights and CHERONE’s resonant vocals—and matched with a social consciousness in their lyrics. A career highlight came for EXTREME when Queen’s Brian May asked them to perform at the Freddie Mercury Tribute concert in 1992, which gave the band considerable credibility beyond the hard rock fraternity.

Discography

Saudades de Rock (2008)
1. Star
2. Comfortably Dumb
3. Learn To Love
4. Take Us Alive
5. Run
6. Last Hour
7. Flower Man
8. King Of The Ladies
9. Ghost
10. Slide
11. Interface
12. Sunrise
13. Peace (saudade)

20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection: The Best of Extreme (2002)
1. Kid Ego
2. Decadence Dance
3. More Than Words
4. Hole Hearted
5. Get The Funk Out
6. Rest In Peace
7. Stop The World
8. Am I Ever Gonna Change
9. Tragic Comic
10. Hip Today

An Accidental Collocation of Atoms: The Best of Extreme (2000)
1. Decadence Dance
2. Rest in Peace
3. Kid Ego
4. Get the Funk Out
5. Tragic Comic
6. Hip Today
7. Stop the World
8. More Than Words
9. Cupid’s Dead [Horn Mix]
10. Leave Me Alone
11. Play With Me
12. Hole Hearted
13. Am I Ever Gonna Change

Waiting for the Punchline (1995)
1. There Is No God
2. Cynical
3. Tell Me Something I Don’t Know
4. Hip Today
5. Naked
6. Midnight Express
7. Leave Me Alone
8. No Respect
9. Evelangelist
10. Shadow Boxing
11. Unconditionally
12. Waiting For The Punchline (Hidden Bonus Track)

III Sides to Every Story (1992)
1. Warheads
2. Rest in Peace
3. Politicalamity
4. Color Me Blind
5. Cupid’s Dead
6. Peacemaker Die
7. Seven Sundays
8. Tragic Comic
9. Our Father
10. Stop the World
11. God Isn’t Dead?
12. I Rise ‘N Shine
13. II Am I Ever Gonna Change
14. III Who Cares?

Extreme II: Pornograffitti (1990)
1. Decadence Dance
2. Li’l Jack Horny
3. When I’m President
4. Get the Funk Out
5. More Than Words
6. Money (In God We Trust)
7. It (’s a Monster)
8. Pornograffitti
9. When I First Kissed You
10. Suzie (Wants Her All Day What?)
11. He Man Woman Hater
12. Song for Love
13. Hole Hearted

Extreme (1989)
1. Little Girls
2. Wind Me Up
3. Kid Ego
4. Watching Waiting
5. Mutha (Don’t Wanna Go to School Today)
6. Teacher’s Pet
7. Big Boys Don’t Cry
8. Smoke Signals
9. Flesh ‘N’ Blood
10. Rock a Bye Bye
11. Play With Me

@extreme-band

Kindern

2009-03-17T12:47:00.000-07:00

Buat kmu yg lg kasmaran ato yang pengen denger lagu ini dan kembali mengenang masa indah dulu mungkin lagu dari Kindern (Masih Ada) bisa menjadi penyejuk hati. Cheers.....

Lirik lagu:
Masih Ada

Masih ada yang tersisa
Saat kutulis

lagu tentang kita
Lupa kupaparkan bahwa sesungguhnya
Kita masih saling cinta
Kita masih saling rindu

Dan bila kita berjumpa
Takkan berpisah 'kan tetap bersama
Terpatri di jiwa bahwa sesungguhnya
Memang masih ada cinta
Sungguh masih ada rindu

Kita masih suka, kita masih sayang
Seperti pertama kasih tercipta
Kita masih rindu, kita masih cinta
Mungkinkah berakhir sampai disini

Dan bila kita berjumpa
Takkan berpisah 'kan tetap bersama
Terpatri di jiwa bahwa sesungguhnya
Memang masih ada cinta
Sungguh masih ada rindu

Kita masih suka, kita masih sayang
Seperti pertama kasih tercipta
Kita masih rindu, kita masih cinta
Mungkinkah berakhir sampai disini

Kita masih suka, kita masih sayang
Seperti pertama kasih tercipta
Kita masih rindu, kita masih cinta
Mungkinkah berakhir sampai disini

Lupa kupaparkan bahwa sesungguhnya
Memang masih ada cinta

Kindern - Masih Ada

Protonema

2009-03-17T12:41:00.000-07:00

Protonema sebenarnya adalah istilah Biologi yang artinya ‘tunas lumut’. Band ini diawali oleh gabungnya Doddy (bas), Gun gun (kibor), Didiet (dram) dan Sidik (gitar), tanggal 5 November 1991 di Bandung. Jumlah personel Protonema bertambah setelah Benny (kibor) dan Ozie (vokal, perkusi) bergabung. Mereka pun manggung di berbagai cafe di Bandung. Mereka juga sempat menjadi homeband Radio Oz dalam format acara "Pub On The Air" setiap malam Jum’at serta acara "Music Cafe" di Radio Ardan Bandung.

Merasa sudah cukup kenyang menjajal dunia musik Bandung, Protonema pun mulai merambah Jakarta. Tahun ‘93, Hard Rock Cafe Jakarta mengontrak mereka untuk mengisi acara rutin "Sunday Special". Begitu juga dengan Hard Rock Cafe Bali selama satu bulan. Sepanjang tahun 1993 - 1994, nama Protonema kian sering beredar. Sayangnya, saat nama Protonema mulai menanjak, Gun gun dan Ozie mengundurkan diri. Dan tahun 1994, Micko mengalami musibah kecelakaan yang mengharuskannya istirahat. Posisinya lantas digantikan sementara oleh Ian. Ketika Micko pulih, Protonema pun mulai menggarap demo lagu sendiri. Kedekatan mereka dengan radio Prambors akhirnya membukakan jalan ke dapur rekaman.

Album Protonema
Album pertama Protonema (1996) yang menjagokan lagu Kiranya membawa mereka untuk promo tur dan konser ke hampir seluruh wilayah Indonesia. Pertengahan April 1996, mereka kembali masuk studio untuk membuat album kedua. Di album kedua ini, Protonema membuat sedikit pergeseran pada musiknya. Mulai dari pemilihan sound, unsur etnis hingga penggarapan aransemen diperhatikan dengan seksama.

Protonema - Rinduku Adinda
Protonema - Seluruh Hati

Namun sekali lagi, pergantian personel mewarnai perjalanan Protonema. Karena merasa tidak sepaham dan sulitnya berkomunikasi, akhirnya para personel Protonema melepas Micko. Dan setelah menjalani beberapa proses audisi, pilihan untuk vokalis pengganti kembali dipercayakan kepada Ian. Dengan formasi inilah, Protonema merilis album Pilihan Pertama (2000). @an3dis123

Voodoo

2009-03-17T12:34:00.000-07:00

MASIH ingat dengan lagu ‘Salam Untuk Dia’ yang ngetop tahun 90-an awal? Yap, lagu yang dilantunkan oleh band bernama Voodoo, ketika itu menjadi ‘most request’ yang cukup berkibar. Sayangnya, ketika era pop-rock mulai meredup, nama Voodoo pun pelan-pelan mulai tergerus. Malah mereka sempat “bubar” dan membentuk band bernama Opera.

Tapi kini, band ini malah mengumpulkan lagi personil lawasnya dan bersiap merilis album baru. Hanya kini mereka punya vokalis baru bernama Sule, menggantikan Oppie Danzo. Kabarnya, dengan formulasi musikal yang berbeda, Voodoo “edisi baru” ini bakal merilis album. Begitulah yang dikatakan Sule.

Ditemui di MU Cafe, Senin [9/6/2008], band yang bakal tampil dalam perhelatan besar Jakarta Rock Parade [JRP] ini mengaku sedang mempersiapkan diri untuk merilis album baru yang lebih fresh. “Kita sekarang memainkan modern rock, lebih danceable,” ujar Sule, vokalis baru yang punya karakter rock modern.

Sule sendiri merupakan personil baru, yang membawa warna modern rock ke dalam tubuh Voodoo. “Sebenarnya anak-anak ingin memberikan pelajaran, musik rock itu bagaimana sih? Dan kita mau kasih tahu bahwa main rock tidak selalu harus keras dan menyanyi teriak, suara parau dan sebagainya,” katanya.

Namun demikian, ia menolak bila dikatakan Voodoo mulai luntur dan ingin merangkul pasar pop. “Tidak juga. Kita nggak mau dibilang berkompromi dengan pasar pop. Kita cuma ingin musik kita diterima semua kalangan, mulai dari anak-anak, orang dewasa hingga orang tua. Ada kalanya kita teriak, menyanyi dengan suara parau, tetapi harus tetap bisa dinikmati pendengar,” katanya.

Ia juga mengatakan para penggemar Voodoo terbukti menyambut gembira perubahan warna musik yang dilakukan band idola mereka itu. “Kita sudah bawain lagu-lagu yang menjadi materi album baru waktu konser keliling lima kota belum lama ini, dan penggemar ternyata suka,” jelas Sule.

Voodoo terbentuk di Jakarta tahun 1990-an. Kini beranggotakan Sule, Edo (gitar), Ateng (bass), dan Osa (drum). Band ini meraih popularitas sejak melempar album debut NURANI BADAI, di mana lagu Salam Untuk Dia meraih hits di berbagai stasiun radio. @benih.net

Dengerin lagunya disini:

Voodoo - Hasrat Jiwa
Voodoo - Salam Untuk Dia

Voodoo - Hitam Putih

Voodoo - Dawai Nurani

Voodoo - Selamanya

Whizzkid

2009-03-17T12:15:00.000-07:00

Baru-baru ini (2006), Whizzkid meluncurkan album teranyar mereka, SATU NAFAS CINTA, yang mereka yakini siap untuk berlaga kembali, khususnya di kancah musik rock tanah air. Tiga cabang musik kemudian mereka klaim menjadi ramuan manis dalam album ini, yakni, ballad, funky dan blues.

Di tahun '90-an, Whizzkid termasuk salah satu grup band rock yang tenar. Para personel grup Whizzkid, yakni Andi M. Yusuf alias Achonk (bas), Andi M. Hidayat alias Ayat (gitar), Muhammad Idrus alias Agil (drum) dan Henky Supit (vokal), saat itu mampu mengukuhkan diri sebagai grup band rock tanah air yang layak diperhitungkan.

Setelah sang vokalis, Henky Supit hengkang,Whizzkid memang sempat vakum lama. Posisi Henky sempat diisi oleh Benny, yang tak berapa lama kemudian digantikan oleh Salim Affian alias Salim, hingga saat ini.

Warna vokal Salim, menurut para personel Whizzkid, dianggap mampu untuk menggantikan posisi Henky, dengan ciri khas vokalis grup band rock di era '90-an, yakni dengan suara vokal yang tinggi melengking.

Dalam album terbaru ini, mereka juga menghadirkan empat judul lagu yang dulu pernah menjadi hit di radio. Lagu-lagu tersebut adalah PERCAYALAH, 4 TAHUN, LEPASKAN dan BIAR KUTEMUI. Keempat lagu itu diaransemen dengan menyesuaikan pada kebutuhan pasar musik masa kini.

"Karena sudah lama absen, maka dengan keempat lagu tersebut kami berusaha mengingatkan kembali kehadiran kami kepada penggemar Whizzkid khususnya, pecinta musik Indonesia umumnya," begitu penuturan Achonk dan Ayat, selaku pendiri grup Whizzkid.

Sejak mengawali karirnya di blantika musik Indonesia, Whizzkid cukup rajin mengikuti festival. Mereka pernah menjadi juara festival rock Jakarta, yang kemudian dilanjutkan ke festival tingkat nasional, festival rock yang diadakan Log Zhelebour, promotor dan produser musik rock. Gelar juara ke-2 untuk 'best performance' dan 'best vocalist' (Henky) juga pernah mereka raih.

Lagu NYANYIAN KEHIDUPAN, berhasil menjadi bagian dari album kompilasi Festival Rock IV, yang dirilis tahun 1991. Tahun berikutnya, mereka diasuh oleh gitaris Godbless, Ian Antono. Single yang direkam waktu itu adalah PERCAYALAH. Tahun 1994, mereka masih dalam asuhan Ian Antono dan mengeluarkan album Gadis Kecil.

Saat karir musik mereka semakin maju, Whizzkid mengalami guncangan. Henky Supit, vokalis mereka, memilih jalur musik solo. Posisi Henky kemudian digantikan oleh Benny.

Tahun 1997, dengan vokalis Benny, Whizzkid sempat meluncurkan album Langgam Cinta. Setelah itu, tepatnya tahun 2000, Whizzkid masih sempat menelorkan album Whizzkid 2000. Album inilah yang menjadi album terakhir mereka, hingga sekarang.

Kini, Whizzkid kembali dan ingin menunjukkan kepada dunia bahwa mereka masih mampu memberikan yang terbaik bagi penggemar mereka. Album Satu Nafas Cinta, mereka harap bisa mengembalikan grup Whizzkid ke posisi yang dulu mereka pernah raih. Semoga. (rea/bun)

Whizzkid - Gadis Kecil
Whizzkid - Percayalah

Hengky Supit

2009-03-17T11:35:00.000-07:00

JUJUR SAJA, tidak mudah menemukan jejak langkah dan profil penyanyi yang satu ini. Namanya HENGKY SUPIT. Cowok satu ini tergolong penyanyi lawas di Indonesia. Hengky juga menjadi salah satu penyanyi yang punya karakter vokal yang khas, tinggi melengking sampai beberapa oktaf.

Namanya kembali disebut-sebut ketika setahun silam digelar Konser Kantata Takwa Kesaksian 2003 di Parkir Timur Senayan, Sabtu (29/8/2003). Hengky menjadi salah satu backing vokal dari Kantata bersama beberapa penyanyi lain.

Bicara soal pria berdarah Manado ini, memang bicara soal talenta bernyanyi yang cukup potensial sejak kecil. Saat dia berusia 12 tahun, Hengky sudah memperlihatkan ketertarikannya dalam dunia musik. Dia sering mendengarkan koleksi musik yg dimiliki ibunya [ibunya konon suka mengkoleksi kaset-kaset lawas model Led Zeppelin, Paul Anka, sampai Frank Sinatra]. Ketertarikannya itu kelak sangat mempengaruhi setiap lagu ciptaannya.

Hengky menghabiskan masa kecilnya hingga SMA di Palu kota di Sulawesi Tengah. Di SMA itulah, Hengky memulai petualangan dalam dunia musik dengan mendirikan band pertamanya yang bernama Interview.

Band ini cukup punya nama waktu itu. Mereka kerap diundang untuk acara sekolah dan pesta ulang tahun. Istilahnya, band ini cukup bekenlah di Palu dan sekitarnya. Sampai akhirnya ketika lulus SMA [1991], Hengky dikirim oleh orangtuanya untuk kuliah di Jakarta Orang tuanya mengirimnya ke Jakarta agar ia masuk perguruan tinggi. Ta[i dasar lebih menikmati musik, di Jakarta Hengky malah memutuskan untuk bergabung dengan beberapa temannya, teman-temannya mantan satu band Interview di Palu. Mereka sepakat untuk menjadi musisi di Jakarta. Resikonya? Hengky Supit tidak dikirimi lagi uang oleh orangtuanya untuk biaya hidup sehari-hari di Jakarta.

Bermodal suara dan band, mereka --Hengky dan teman-temannya-- memainkan musik dan "ngamen" di beberapa klub. Mereka awalnya memainkan lagu-lagu Top 40. Itulah cara Hengky membiayai dirinya sendiri sejak kedua orang tuanya memutuskan untuk tidak mengirimkannya uang lagi karena kecewa ia tidak kuliah di perguruan tinggi.

Interview Band kemudian mulai menulis lagu mereka sendiri, tetapi mereka tak pernah punay kesempatan membawakan lagu mereka sendiri. Kemudian satu kesempatan besar datang, mereka diminta untuk bermain di 'breaking record' untuk acara khusus bagi Jelly Tobing, salah satu pemain drum ternama di Indonesia, yang dapat bermain drum selama 10 jam.

Di acara 'pemecahan rekor' tersebut, banyak band-band dan artis ternama tampil dalam acara tersebut, antara lain Jockie Suryoprayogo, Donny Fatah dan Tedy Sudjaja [God Bless], Totok Tewel, Didik Sucahyo, Edy Darome, Dody Keswara dan Tato [El Pamas], Iwan Fals, Ikang Fawzi, Nicki Astria, Gito Rollies, Whizzkid dan lain-lain.

Aksi Hengky Supit rupanya menggoda personil Whizzkid untuk menggaetnya menjadi vokalis. Hengky diminta bergabung dengan Whizzkid. Mulailah kariernya terbentang lebar. Di setiap kesempatan Whizzkid dan Hengky Supit memutuskan untuk memainkan lagu mereka sendiri daripada menyanyikan lagu orang lain.

Mereka ikut serta dalam beberapa kontes dan festival. Sampai puncaknya mereka ikut salah satu kontes besar, Festival Rock VI versi Log Zhelebour. Whizzkid menjadi juara II, sementara Hengky Supiot mendapatkan penghargaan sebagai penyanyi terbaik. Kemenangan ini membawa Whizzkid masuk dapur rekaman, bersama 10 finalis lainnya dalam sebuah album kompilasi. Album mereka terjual dengan baik dan Whizzkid kemudian melakukan tur, tidak hanya di Jawa tetapi juga di luar Jawa.

Album pertama Whizzkid berjudul "Percayalah" terjual sebanyak 200.000 kopi di seluruh Indonesia. Angka yang cukup tinggi di masa itu. Whizzkid kemudian melakukan pertunjukan di beberapa kota di seluruh penjuruh Indonesia. Album kedua Whizkid "Lepaskanlah" dikeluarkan pada tahun 1997.

Hengky sempat melakukan rekaman solo dalam album kompilasi rock Indonesia khusus penyanyi pria. Lagu, "Bila Engkau Izinkan" menjadi terkenal dan sempat menduduki posisi pertama dalam radio charts selama beberapa minggu, tahun 1995.

Sayangnya, terjadi 'friksi' di band yang mulai besar ini. sampai akhirnya Hengky Supit memutuskan untuk keluar dan bersolo karir. Solo album pertamanya berjudul "Isi Hati" keluar.

Hengky Supit kemudian diminta oleh Ian Antono untuk menjadi penyanyi latar dalam tur Gong 2000, dan Jockie Suryoprayogo memintanya untuk menjadi penyanyi latar Kantata Takwa (sebuah grup baru yang membicarakan masalah sosial dan politik di Indonesia bersama Iwan Fals, Rendra, Sawung Jabo dan Setiawan Djodi), Hengky Supit juga pernah konser bareng Geger Band [band rock yang personilnya cewek semua di Ancol tahun 1998.

Usai kesibukan yang padat itu, nama Hengky Supit tiba-tiba menghilang. Ternyata, pria yang sekarang bertubuh gemuk ini "merantau" ke negeri Belanda. Selama beberapa tahun di Belanda, Hengky sibuk belajar bahasa dan mengikuti beberapa kursus tetapi dia tak pernah meninggalkan dunia musik.

Hengky Supit - Isi Hati

Hengky Supit - Bila Engkau Ijinkan

Namun dunia musik memang "darahnya". Hengky tidak menolak ketika diajak oleh Kantata Takwa untuk menjadi backing vokal konsernya di Plasa Timur Senayan. Meski begitu, sampai saat ini Hengky masih menciptakan lagu. Rupanya dia masih ingin menggunakan kreatifitas musiknya sekali lagi, kali ini melalui media internet. Beberapa lagunya [bahasa Inggris] bisa didownload di internet. Judulnya antara lain Tinombala, Still Waiting dan Cant Live Without. Lumayanlah buat obat kangen dengar suara melengkingnya....[joko/foto: istimewa]

Andy Liani

2009-03-17T11:31:00.001-07:00

Andy Liani adalah salah satu musisi berbakat yang pernah di miliki indonesia, lagu2nya pun menjadi hits di masanya. Ditengah karirnya berada di atas puncak, sang rocker dijemput oleh Yang Maha Kuasa. Tapi lagu2nya tak bisa lekang ditelan masa, msh saja teringat dan indah untuk dinikmati.

Donwload lagunya disini:
Andy Liany - Kata Cinta
Andy Liany - Ingin Rasanya
Andy Liany - Sanggupkah
Andy Liany - Antara Kita

Album Baru Arwana

2009-03-17T11:04:00.000-07:00

Empat musisi asal Kalimantan Barat, Yudi Vhaniago ( Drums), Hendri Lamiri (Violin), Yan Mahmud (Vocals, gitar), Wan Syah (Lead guitar), plus dua additional player, Hendra (bass guitar) dan Kena Lango (Keyboard), yang tergabung dalam Arwana, kini kembali dengan album ketiganya, ‘Kapuas’. Sekedar mengingatkan, album kedua mereka, dirilis sekitar tahun 1999, itu berarti 6 tahun kemudian mereka baru merilis album lagi. Lama bener ?

“Pertama, kita punya kesibukan masing masing, kedua, membuat materi dengan tingkat competitor musik yang begitu padat, ketiga, kita merenovasi dari dalam dulu karena ada beberapa permasalahan,” terang Yudi ketika ditemui di Launching album di Warung Apresiasi Blok M.

Lebih lanjut Yudi menjelaskan, meskipun materi sudah terkumpul, namun apabila para personillnya nggak kompak, tidak akan efektif. “Yang paling penting teamwork,” ujarnya. Nah, sekarang awak Arwana sudah berkumpul dan selesai menggarap album Kapuas. Apa yang ditawarkan band peraih lagu terbaik versi Ballad AMI 2000 ini, “Musik tetap pop, ada etnik dan lebih akustik, pop alternative juga ada, tapi pop nya lebih kental aja,” terang Yudi. Enggak ketinggalan, gesekan maut violin Hendri pastinya bikin album ini jadi berwarna.

Single pertama, Patah Tumbuh Hilang Berganti, sekilas punya nada yang mirip dengan lagu-lagu lawas Arwana, ballad, tapi yang ini lebih riuh. Oh ya, title Kapuas sendiri dipilih berdasarkan kenangan masa kecil mereka, yang banyak dihabiskan dengan bermain-main di sungai Kapuas. Album ini dikerjakan secara Indie, beda dengan dua album sebelumnya, ‘ASA’ dan ‘Nadi Khatulistiwa’, yang diproduksi oleh Sony Music.

Dengan comeback-nya Arwana, mereka berharap agar kehadirannya dapat kembali diterima fans maupun masyarakat. “Targetnya nggak muluk-muluk, strategi kita ya absent aja dulu ke masyarakat, “ tutup Yudi. (Yo)

Download tembang lawas mereka:

Arwana - Angsa Putih

Arwana - Izinkanlah

Arwana - Kunanti

Arwana - Lamunanku

In Memoriam

2009-03-17T10:54:00.000-07:00

Keeping their contributions with us, here is a look at the people who have greatly added to the world of music amd who have passed away in 1999.

Dick Grove: 71, pianist, composer, founder of the Dick Grove School of Music in LA
Fred Hopkins: 51, East Coast bassist
Frances Gershwin: 92, George and Ira's sister, last of the Gershwin siblings
Charles Brown: 76, bluesman and songwriter
Bobby Troup: 80, actor, songwriter wrote "Route 66"
Richard Boone: 68, jazz trombonist sang with Count Basie's band
Jaki Byard: 76, classic jazz pianist
Stanley Dance: 88, jazz critic, friend to the creators of this jazz web site
Horace Tapscott: 64, jazz pianist for Lionel Hampton and Eric Dolphy
Betty Roche: 81, be-bop singer
Teddy McRae: 91, jazz composer wrote for Artie Shaw's band
Joe Williams: 80, jazz singer
Oleh:meltingpot.fortunecity

Modern Creative

2009-03-17T10:50:00.000-07:00

Although partly influenced by the great improvisational masters of the past, modern creative continues to forge ahead by combining older jazz styles such as bop, free, fusion, with newer comtemporary musical styles such as pop music, funk, and rock to create a full body meduim with which to present jazz in a new ‘modern’ light. Modern jazz makes great use of ‘new technologies’ in the form of modern electronic instrumentation and recording devices/mediums to bring compostional and improvisational forms to a new level. Modern creative forms tend to be ‘softer’ than earlier bop derivatives while still maintaing an edge through the incorporation of more diverse, often ethnic, rhythmic approaches to the music. Coming into light in the mid 80’s and being of a predominately improvisational nature, modern creative is greatly a product of its environment - society. Though the players each have unique voices, society blends them to reflect its ‘modern’ sound and feeling.Oleh:meltingpot.fortunecity

Straight Ahead/Neoclassical

2009-03-17T10:48:00.000-07:00

The bop and hard bop styles have become the cornerstones of mainstream jazz, which has two centers of activity, New Orleans and New York. This mainstream can be traced through the activity of player/band leaders like Art Blakey. His playing is rooted in the bop style and his group, the Jazz Messengers, served as a vehicle for launching many jazz players. The self-proclaimed champion of that long list of players now viewed as straight-ahead players. The self-proclaimed champion of that long list of players is Wynton Marsalis who established himself as a premier player and advocate of traditional jazz in the 1980s.

The line of players that follow in his wake have established a style of jazz often referred to as the neoclassical school. The neoclassical label is borrowed from the other art worlds, such as classical music, and represents a looking back to borrow ideas and material from earlier stylistic periods. The neoclassical school of jazz looks back primarily to the Hard Bop era for its expression and to the New Orleans era for its heritage. With the focus on hard bop, that era in jazz emerges as the center of gravity for the jazz tradition. The transition from popular to art music is reinforced in the minds of the world listener. Although the movement is a backward looking one, its demeanor presents jazz in a new posture stressing its contributions as America’s unique art form.Oleh:meltingpot.fortunecity

World Fusion

2009-03-17T10:46:00.000-07:00

World fusion refers to a fusion of Third World music or just world music with jazz, specifically:
(1) Ethnic music that has incorporated jazz improvisations (for example, Latin jazz). Frequently, only the solos are improvised jazz. The accompaniments and compositions are essentially the same as in the ethnic music.
(2) Jazz that has incorporated limited aspects of a particular non-Western music. Examples include performances of Dizzy Gillespie’s "A Night in Tunisia" music on some of the 1970s quartet recordings by Keith Jarrett's quartet and quintet on Impulse, in which Middle Eastern instruments and harmonic methods are modified and used; and some of Sun Ra's music from the 1950s into the l990s, in which African rhythms are incorporated; some of Yusef Lateers recordings that feature traditional Islamic instruments and methods.
(3) New musical styles that result from distinctly original ways of combining jazz improvisation with original ideas and the instruments, harmonies, compositional practices, and rhythms of an existing ethnic tradition. The product is original but its flavor still reflects some aspects of a non-jazz ethnic tradition. Examples include Don Cherry's bands; some of John McLaughlin's music from the 1970s and the l990s that drew heavily on the traditions of India; some of Don Ellis's music of the 1970s that drew upon the music of India and Bulgaria; and work by Andy Narell in the 1990s that melds the music and instruments of Trinidad with jazz improvisations and funk styles.

World fusion jazz did not first occur with modern jazz and its trends are not exclusive to American jazz. For instance, Polynesian music was fusing with Western pop styles at the beginning of the twentieth century, and its feeling attracted some of the earliest jazz musicians. Caribbean dance rhythms have been a significant part of American pop culture throughout the twentieth century, and, since jazz musicians frequently improvised when performing in pop music contexts, blends have been occurring almost continuously. Django Reinhardt was melding the traditions of Gypsy music with French impressionist concert music and jazz improvisation during the 1930s in France.Oleh:meltingpot.fortunecity

Acid Jazz

2009-03-17T10:44:00.000-07:00

The phrase acid jazz was the first jazz term to be coined by a disc jockey rather than by a musician. It is much more a marketing phenomenon than a coherent musical style, even more so than tradition and as with traditional. Acid jazz is very much the commer- cialization of a revival movement. Just like earlier revivals, it was inspired initially by listening to records rather than to live musicians. In this case the original style is that of late-1960s' and early 1970s’ jazz-funk. The sort of music that wasn't heavy enough to be free jazz or early fusion but was more jazz-oriented than the average soul record.

At the time, this found a ready response among black listeners and a few white aficionados. After the usual twenty-year gap, a new generation of fans succeeded in promoting the music to a much wider crossover audience. Most of the creative musicians who have flirted with the acid-jazz market have found it too restricting and have moved on, exactly as with other revivals. and they have taken some of their listeners with them.Oleh:meltingpot.fortunecity

Afro-Latin

2009-03-17T10:42:00.000-07:00

The term Afro-Latin covers a huge variety of music, resulting from the combination of elements of African styles with the Spanish, Portuguese, and even French cultures transplanted to South and Central America. The blend was achieved earlier and more thoroughly than any such hybrid in North American music before the 1970s - indeed, watered-down South American music was being successfully exported to the USA (and Europe) from the time of the tango in the l910s.

However, there were of course hints of African polyrhythms in ragtime and early New Orleans jazz, not to mention occasional borrowings from South American rhythms such as the habanera. So it was only to be expected that, by the 1930s jazzman including Duke Ellington were becoming interested in new Latin imports like the rumba and that bands from those countries who settled in the USA began incorporating jazz-induced improvisation. In this way, the stage was set for the first real collaborations, joining the innovators of bebop such as Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker with the innovators of the mambo such as Machito.

For a while, progress in this direction was sporadic, but since the early 1960s, with the introduction of the bugalu (and its soft-core contemporary, the bossa nova), there has been a continuous interchange in the USA between jazz and Afro-Latin musicians. As with any fusion, the lowest common denominator often seems to predominate but it's increasingly the case that the creative performers who have emerged on each side have real knowledge of both fields. What may be even more significant in the long run is that in the last three decades especially in Paris and London, musicians from Africa have been collaborating with players of a jazz/Afro-Latin background, and the latest fusions from various African counties have achieved some success in the USA.

Africa and Latin America are vast areas, and both still distinct regional styles in the way that North America used to before it became so homogenized. Possibilities for interaction are therefore endless and it has even been suggested that Latin jazz will eventually become the mainstream. John Storm Robert’s The Latin Tinge gives some idea of the ground covered so far.Oleh:meltingpot.fortunecity

Soul Jazz

2009-03-17T10:26:00.000-07:00

Soul Jazz came partly from the funky subcategory of hard bop. Its earthy, bluesy melodic concept and the repetitive, dance-like rhythmic aspects stood as higher priorities than the invention of complex harmonies and intricate solo improvisations jazz swing feeling was foremost. Considerably simplified-often only a hint of bebop harmony or rhythmic complexity remained--soul-jazz became the form of hard bop known to the largest audience, particularly in the music of Jimmy Smith, Shirley Scott, Jack McDuff, Richard "Groove" Holmes, Jimmy McGriff, Ramsey Lewis, Les McCann, Hank Crawford, Stanley Turrentine and Houston Person. Soul Jazz combined the urban, electrified Chicago harp style with that of California swing bands and added a touch of Philadelphia tenor sax jazz from the 1960s.

Note that some listeners make no distinction between soul-jazz, and funky hard bop, and many musicians don't consider soul-jazz to be continuous with hard bop They consider it more an extension of the jazz-influenced popular music called rhythm and blues (as exemplified by Earl Bostic, King Curtis, Clifford Scott, Junior Walker, Bill Doggett). Also remember that many bebop musicians chose to play simply and with bluesy vocabularies for selected contexts: for instance, Kenny Burrell, Stanley Turrentine, J.J. Johnson, Grant Green, David "Fathead" Newman, Gene Ammons, and Ray Bryant. Their overall output is not funky, though a few pieces on isolated recordings meet all the above criteria for soul-jazz. The term, Soul Jazz, has also been linked to the soul singing sound that brought Motown to prominence in the 1960s. When these vocals were added to jazz it often took on the flavor of popular soul music and funk. Artists such as Nina Simon and Lou Rawls added to the vocal expressions of this jazz form, which gave newer audiences an appreciation for jazz. Oleh:meltingpot.fortunecity

Neobop

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By the early 1980’s, the jazz of yester-year had been all but swallowed up in the drastic musical direction which the 70’s free jazz and jazz fusion brought. Young and upcoming jazz players longed for the rhythmic and harmonic sophistication of the bebop and hard bop eras. Spearheaded by players such as Wynton Marsalis, Jeff Watts, Kenny Kirkland, and others, neobop formed in the early 80’s into a viable outlet for a new generation of jazz players influenced by both bop forms and by the current challenges of today’s society. Being a newly developing style, neobop is continually evolving while finding its place in jazz history. New players (such as Roy Hargrove, Joshua Redman, and Benny Green) influnced not only by classic bop artists but also influenced by the originators of the neobop style continue to bring new unique individual sounds helping to develop the style to newer levels accomplishment. Oleh:meltingpot.fortunecity

Jazz/Rock Fusion

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As jazz developed its cannon and rock and roll filled its role as America’s popular music, a new crossover began between the two musical styles. This musical crossover eventually became known as fusion in the jazz community beginning around 1965. Jazz began to import rock’s instruments, volume, and stylistic delivery.

Like bop, fusion did not occur without controversy. As jazz was establishing its legitimacy, it was taking a risk by fusing with rock. Rock also represented a generational division in the American profile. It accompanied the emergence of the post- World War II baby boom to adolescence. It was the first associated exclusively with the young generation and worked as a banner distinction. Its further association with the social and political polarity of the 1960s tended to reinforce the generation lines. Jazz criticism at that time was founded in the swing and, to a lesser extent, the bop traditions. Rock fusion represented a commercialization of an emerging American art form. As the popularity of rock was carried by the baby boom into the adult listening market, its possible fusion seemed guaranteed.

The earliest notable fusion experiments happened again under the guidance of Miles Davis in his albums In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew. This later album included players who later form the most popular fusion groups.

The most prominent later fusion groups belonged to former Davis players, John McLaughlin, Chick Corea, Joe Zawinul, and Wayne Shorter. At the time, this style offered a new virtuosity which, like earlier technical approaches, has become a part of common practice.Oleh:meltingpot.fortunecity

Bossa Nova

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Bossa Nova is a style of Brazilian popular song that was most successful in the early 1960s. Strangely cool by comparison with other exportable by the harmonic language of West Coast Jazz, it soon acquired a permanent place in international middle of the road music.

It has also repaid its debt to the West Coast by entering the repertoire of all easy listening jazz players everywhere. The performers who played Bossa Nova gained almost a cult following in the decades that followed, thanks in large part to Jazz Festivals.Oleh:meltingpot.fortunecity

Free Jazz

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Free jazz is one name for the music of Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Albert Ayler, and their colleagues and disciples. Though Coleman and Taylor had recorded before the '60s, the free jazz term was not common until then. The free designation derives from Coleman's decision to offer performances that were not always organized according to preset melody, tempo, or progression of accompaniment chords. Freedom from these guidelines allows improvisers a greater degree of spontaneity than was available in previous jazz styles.

Though nonmusicians find much of Coleman's music indistinguishable from bebop, musicians make distinctions according to the methods used (lack of preset chords) and the melodic vocabulary (original not bebop-derived). Much of Cecil Taylor's music is extremely active. It is densely packed with rapidly shifting layers of complex harmonies and rhythms. And some recordings of Albert Ayler, Pharoah Sanders, and Ornette Coleman include loud screeches and shrieks from trumpets and saxophones, combined with nonrepetitive, highly complex sounds from basses and drums. For these reasons, some listeners equate the term "free jazz" with high-energy, seemingly chaotic group improvisations, even though freedom from adhering to preset chord progressions does not necessitate high "energy" playing or any particular tone qualities or ways of organizing tones for melodic lines. For example, some of John Coltrane's music of the middle 1960s is often classified with "free" jazz, probably because of its collectively improvised turbulence, despite its using preset arrangements of the harmonies guiding the improvisers. Oleh:meltingpot.fortunecity

West Coast

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The West Coast (or The Coast) was an established jazz center by the 1920s and the first black New Orleans-style band to make records, Kid Ory's did so in Los Angeles in 1922. But what is usually meant by West Coast jazz is a particular type of mutant modernism which became popular in the early 1940s.

Its most typical sounds were associated with former sidemen of the Stan Kenton and Woody Herman bands such as Shorty Rogers and Shelly Manne, who specialized in a brand of easily palatable filleted bebop. The melodies were especially rhythmic, predictability as much of their material was by superior soloists, people like Bud Shank and Art Pepper. The occasional use of European-style counterpoint and of instruments such as flute and oboe was greeted with more enthusiasm than seems justified in retrospect. Other, more distinctive, sounds from the groups of Gerry Mulligan and Dave Brubeck were classified for geographical reasons as West Coast jazz, but the movement as a whole is associated with a watering--down of 1940s bebop, just as European tradition of the 1950s diluted the 1940s New Orleans revival.

Probably more significant in terms of historical impact was the West Coast Blues movement of the late l940s and early 1950s. Groups such as those of Roy Milton and Joe Liggins provided a considerable input into the newly defined field of rhythm and-blues, while leaders such as T-Bone Walker incorporated the style of amplified guitar work that was to become so crucial in the development of rock and roll. During the 1960s, West Coast Jazz fit into the mold of the Cool style. Oleh:meltingpot.fortunecity

Hard Bop

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When introduced, bop was as unpopular as swing had been popular. The complexity of the style often left the audience behind. The funky players were interested in recapturing the audience and reestablishing the hot jazz expression that had been abandoned by the cool style. This return was enthusiastic and reached back to the most communicative music in their past- church music. Another motive, less defined and certainly debatable, was the need to reclaim jazz as a predominantly African-American expression. Cool, and particularly West Coast jazz, was predominantly white even though Davis and Young were the forerunners. The structured, soft-spoken arrangements were certainly more typical of the European tradition than the expressive African-American voice heard in the early blues.

Hard Bop influenced other musical forms beginning in 1955 and thus transcending all future jazz styles. The public accepted this moving music joyful and appreciated the opportunity to participate once again in jazz performances. Funky jazz uses simpler harmonies, an emphasis on rhythm, easily recognizable tunes, and anything else that players like Horace Silver could invent to increase the audience’s involvement and pleasure. Gospel jazz is an extension of funky jazz. Funky jazz can be heard in the performances of Bobby Timmons with Art Blakey, as well as with Cannonball Adderly. The adoption of gospel idioms by Les McCann could place his performances in the church as easily as on stage or in the night club. Oleh:meltingpot.fortunecity

Cool

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Cool jazz followed bop but was entirely different in mood, in its approach to arranging, and even in its choices of instruments. World War II was over-the country was relaxed and jazz relaxed.

In this era, which began in 1947, many instruments were used in jazz for the first time. Softer-sounding instruments, unamplified, created a different mood from that expressed earlier. The G.I. Bill made schooling possible for many jazz players, which encouraged experimentation in jazz that had been previously ignored: new meters, longer forms, and explorations in orchestration. Longer forms were also made possibly by the introduction of long-playing records.

Although Lester Young came primarily out of the swing style and Miles Davis out of the bop style, they are two of the players associated with the development of the cool style. Young’s contribution was the relaxed sound and style of his playing. Davis’s work with Gil Evans that led to the recording of the "Birth of the Cool" signaled the beginning of that period. Although these first recordings appeared in New York, many of he later cool groups worked out of Los Angeles and were former members of the Stan Kenton band. Players like Gerry Mulligan, Shelly Manne, and Stan Getz were often associated with this "West Coast" style. Listen to Young’s style on "Lester Leaps In" and Davis’s "Boplicity" to hear examples of the cool sound. Also listen to Miles Davis on "Summertime" to hear sonorous sounds typical of Gil Evans’s arrangements.

The cool sound was exemplified by players like Paul Desmond on alto saxophone, Chet Baker on trumpet, and George Shearing on piano. These players all typified the relaxed sound and manner of performance associated with cool. Oleh:meltingpot.fortunecity

BeBop

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Although the swing style may have launched the art status of jazz by placing it in the ears and the minds of the world, it was its successor, bop, which claimed mainstream status. More significant changes, both musical and nonmusical, occurred in jazz with the advent of bop than at any other time in jazz history. The military service draft of World War II brought about the dissolution of the big bands and the rise of small combos. The country was nervous, and the music was nervous and agitated. Because many well-known players were in the military, new, young players and their ideas were able to get exposure.

There were considerable changes in techniques and attitudes toward performances. There also were changes of attitude toward audiences. Bop became the first jazz style that was not used for dancing. Consequently, there were great changes in the repertoire. There was also a shift away from the popularity that swing enjoyed to a more elite listening audience. The elitism also expanded to the players. If you were an accomplished swing player, there was no guarantee that you would be able to survive the expectations of the bop musical world. The music’s complexity required players to extend their former playing knowledge. A theoretical underpinning began to emerge as players stretched the harmonic boundaries of early jazz styles. Players had to have a greater and more immediate sense of chord recognition, as well as their extensions and possible substitutions. The music was generally fast, demanding execution on individual instruments seldom required by previous styles. It is interesting that bop is today considered the mainstream of jazz style, yet it was not enthusiastically accepted by the jazz community at the time of its emergence.

BeBop Era

The BeBop era, 1944-1955, represents for many the most significant period in jazz history; several consider it the time when musicians began stressing artistic rather than commercial concerns, put innovation ahead of convention, and looked toward the future instead of paying homage to the past.

Others view bebop as jazz's ultimate dead end, the style that instituted solemnity and elitism among the fraternity stripped jazz of its connection with dance, and made it im- possible for anyone except hard-core collectors, academics, and other musicians to enjoy and appreciate the music. Each assessment contains enough grains of truth to merit closer, more extensive examination, and there have been many studies, dissertations and essays, devoted to addressing and evaluating these contentions. But it's undeniable jazz changed forever during the bebop years. This chapter looks at the musicians who made these sweeping changes and what they were. Oleh:meltingpot.fortunecity

Scat

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"Anyone who attempts to sing extemporaneously, that is scat, will tell you that the hardest aspect of that kind of singing is to stay in tune. You are wondering all over the scales, the notes coming out of your mouth a millisecond after you think of them." ---Mel Torme.

Scat is the art of creating an instrumental-style improvisation vocally. This requires a vocabulary of vowels and consonants related less to identifiable words and more to the tone and articulation of jazz instrumentalists such as in the trumpet-like "Oop-Pop-a-Da" by Babs Gonzales or Sarah Vaughan's saxophonic "Shulie-abop." first done on records by Louis Armstrong.

Scat is most closely associated by the general public with Ella Fitzgerald and her many imitators. Brought to an early peak of perfection by Leo Watson who, by introducing occasional real words inspired the development of a vocal-orchestra.

Louis Armstrong’s improvisational approach to written lyrics, mixing, jumbling, and reinventing the words along expressive musical lines, echoed new directions in jazz. As early as 1926, Armstrong dropped the lyrics to "The Hebbie Jeebies" and spontaneously substituted scatting for the words. The technique was copied so often that an actual jazz form develpoed. Paul Whiteman’s Rhythm Boys, featuring Bing Crosby, were thought to be the first white group to use the scat style. Whiteman’s national radio programs promoted scat, however, it wasn’t until Ella Fitzgerald adopted the styles that scat became a house-hold word.

Ella seemed to add dazzle to scatting and clearly defined it as a vocal improvisation using phonetic sounds similar to the instrumental sounds of jazz. To paraphrase a popular song, if Louis named scat, Ella claimed it! With her recording of "Flying Home" (thought to be her first scat based song, released in 1947) she introduced variations of scat which showcased a segment of songs made famous by other performers. These sampling, variations included the works of Lionel Hampton, Chick Webb, Slam Stewart and Dizzy Gillespie. In fact the recording also showed that Ella was already educated on the fast emerging bebop movement.

Other singers added to the early ideas of scat including Fletcher Henderson’s Orchestra. During the bebop era, Sarah Vaughan was able to vocalize much of the notes that Charlie Parker was playing. Vaughan was also key in bringing jazz, and scat into the American home, with a number of radio and TV programs beginning in the late 1960s. In more recent years, Mel Torme gained fame as a scat singer, again keeping the style alive, thanks to his recordings and world tours. Today scat has scaled new heights of virtuosity with such performers as Bobby McFerrin, who was even able to put a few scat songs on the Top 40 Charts during the late 1980s and early 90s.Oleh:meltingpot.fortunecity

Big Band

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Big band refers to a jazz group of 10 or more musicians, usually featuring at least three trumpets, two or more trombones, four or more saxophones, and a rhythm section of accompanists playing some combination of piano, guitar, bass, and drums. Big-band music as a concept for music fans is identified most with the swing era, though there were large, jazz-oriented dance bands before the swing era of the 1930s and 1940s and large jazz-oriented bands after the swing era. Classification difficulties occur when music stores shelve recordings by all large jazz ensembles as though it were a single style, despite the shifting harmonic and rhythmic approaches employed by new ensembles of similar instrumentation that have formed since the swing era.

By lumping the music of all large jazz bands together marketers overlook the different kinds of jazz that large groups have performed: swing Duke Ellington and Count Basie), bebop (Dizzy Gillespie), cool (Gerry Mulligan, Miles Davis, Shorty Rogers, Gil Evans), hard bop (Gerald Wilson, Charles Mingus), free jazz (some of Sun Ra's work after the l950s) and jazz-rock fusion (Don Ellis's and Maynard Ferguson's groups of the 1970s). Not all of them are swing bands.

Many listeners consider big band to denote an idiom, not just an instrumentation. For them, the strategies of arranging and soloing that were established during the 1930s link all large jazz ensembles more than the different rhythmic and harmonic concepts dis- tinguishing those of one era, for example, bebop, from those of another, for example, jazz-rock. Another important consideration that journalists and jazz fans of the 1930s and 1940s drew was the distinction between bands that conveyed the most hard-driving rhythmic qualities and frequent solo improvisations and those that conveyed less pronounced swing feeling and improvisation. The former were called swing bands or hot bands (for example, Count Basie's and Duke Ellington's bands). The latter were called sweet bands (for example, the bands of Glenn Miller, Wayne King, Freddy Martin, and Guy Lombardo).Oleh:meltingpot.fortunecity

Swing

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Swing is the jazz style that emerged during the early 1930s and emphasized big bands. It spilled into the late 1940s and then remained popular in recordings, film, and television music long after its main proponents had disbanded. Most swing-style groups had at least 10 musicians and featured at least three or four saxophones, two or three trumpets, two or three trombones, piano, guitar, bass violin, and drums. Guitarists, bassists and drummers offered repeating rhythms that were sufficiently simple, buoyant, and lilting to inspire social dancers, the style's largest audience. Musicians strove for large, rich tone qualities on their instruments. Solo improvisers did not seek intricacy in their lines so much as lyricism and a hot, confident feeling that was rhythmically compelling. For these reasons, the musical period of the 1930s and 1940s has been called the swing era and big-band era. Not all dance music played by big bands of the 1930s and 1940s was jazz. A large segment of the public, however considered almost any lively, syncopated popular music to be jazz.

Journalists and jazz fans drew distinctions between bands that conveyed the most hard-driving rhythmic qualities and extensive solo improvisations and those that conveyed less swing feeling and improvisation. The former were called swing bands or hot bands (for example, the bands of Count Basie, Jimmie Lunceford, Andy Kirk and Duke Ellington). The latter were called sweet bands (for example the bands of Glenn Miller, Wayne King, Freddy Martin, and Guy Lombardo). Many listeners, however, did not make such distinctions. They considered all the big dance bands to be swing bands. This is not surprising because all the bands (even Guy Lombardo's) did play some jazz and even the honest of swing bands (like Duke Ellington's) featured some sweet numbers. Conversely, some of the biggest hits by Glenn Miller's sweet band contained brief jazz improvisations and conveyed quite danceable swing feeling. An instructive illustration for this confusion regards Tommy Dorsey's immensely popular bands of the 1940s. The groups had first-rate jazz oriented accompanists, swinging arrangements, and a number of top-notch jazz improvisers. Yet huge portions of their repertory were composed of ballads and vocal features. Therefore, though jazz historians don't usually give Dorsey's bands much attention, jazz musicians generally confer high respect upon them.

Though there were large dance bands before the swing era, big-band music as a concept for music fans developed most firmly during this era and persisted for decades thereafter. This has caused ambiguity in labeling because, for example, record store clerks often catalog big-band music as though it were a single style, despite the many different harmonic and rhythmic approaches that new ensembles of similar instrumentation have used dance the swing era. Large ensembles have performed almost every kind of jazz: swing, bebop, cool, hard bop, free jazz and jazz-rock fusion. Not all big bands are swing bands and so big-band style should not be used routinely to designate the jazz of all large ensembles. But many consider big band to denote an idiom, not just an instrumentation. Also note that there were important jazz improvisers in the swing era, such as Art Tatum and Django Reinhardt, who did not earn their reputations in the context of big bands and there were others, including Lester Young, Charlie Christian, and Coleman Hawkins, who often made their best recordings in small-band formats, though most of their livelihood and exposure came initially as soloists in big bands.

Swing Style

The swing players, generally speaking, were more schooled than their predecessors. Playing exactly in tune was often a more important issue than the feeling of the part. In early New Orleans Dixieland for example, the feeling of the phrase was of much more concern than any other aspect of playing. Some distinction should be drawn between the African-American and white bands in this matter. The white bands tended to avoid inflections that would disturb the ensemble’s blend. Because of their size and the nature of the sectionalization, everyone in the ensemble had to conscientiously start and stop each note together. There was a protocol that was silently agreed upon. Some bands played a bit on top of the beat and some played a trifle behind the beat. A newcomer to a band would do well to listen intently to the rhythmic approach of that particular group in order to fit well into the ensemble. The African-American bands generally had a looser ensemble style that reflected more individual inflections. The Count Basie band became an ensemble machine. Its controlled balance among players has seldom been rivaled. However, even that balance was a result of listening more than reading. The musical reading skills of the players were not necessarily their strong point. The notation of the arrangements could not possibly reflect such nuances of performance interpretations.

Progressive Swing:

Progressive swing, also known as Progressive Jazz was an extension of the jazz orchestras following the decline of the big band era. The style is closely associated with the output of Stan Kenton beginning in the late 1940s, however, the term applied to a number of bands and small groups who played a darker sound than their big band era counterparts. Moreover, Progressive Swing was modernistic with a more dissonant harmonic turbulence, as rebellious as swing could get.

The term, Progressive Swing, is referred to in the post-bop era as Progressive Jazz and hence has become synonymous with modern jazz. A few examples of Progressive Swing are Stan Kenton’s "Chorale for Brass, Piano and Bongos" recorded in 1947 and "Invention for Guitar and Trumpet" in 1952. Boyd Raeburn also performed Progressive Swing for a short time with output that included "Boyd Meets Stravinsky" which his orchestra recorded in 1946.Oleh:meltingpot.fortunecity

Boogie-Woogie

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Boogie-woogie is a jazz style that seems quite accessible to the listener. It is a piano style that was occasionally orchestrated successfully. This full-sounding style came into existence when it became necessary to hire a piano player to substitute for an orchestra. The resulting "barrel-house" piano which could be found in rural southern juke joints tried to imitate the sound of three guitars: one playing the chords, one melody, and one bass.

Most boogie-woogie is played on the blues chord progression with a repeated ostinato. The definite feeling of eight beats to the measure is the signature of this style.

During the 1930s, the strict blues form was being used more in jazz recordings as the tempos were speeding up. In the years just before 1940, the primitive blues form of boogie woogie became a popular fad. Music historians have credited Meade Lux Lewis for the boogie woogie craze. All during the 40s boogie influenced a number of arrangements within the big bands. The swing bands found great success when they added the element of boogie, such as the case of Will Bradley’s "Beat Me Daddy, Eight To The Bar," and Tommy Dorsey’s "Boogie Woogie."

Of the boogie woogie players who came to promeinence during the boogie fad; seven stand out as the major contributors and influences: Pine Top Smith, Albert Ammons, Jimmy Yancey, Joe Sullivan, Clarence Lofton, Pete Johnson and Meade Lux Lewis. In later years Freddie Slack, Cleo Brown and Bob Zurke came to promidence as the younger generation of boogie woogie players.

The blues based boogie would later merge with the stride style to became the main line of development of jazz piano playing, a form that would lead to a major movement in jazz, led by the "Fatha," Earl Hines.Oleh:meltingpot.fortunecity

Tin Pan Alley

2009-03-13T11:11:00.000-07:00

"Tin Pan Alley was a real alley on East Fourteenth Street near Third (in New York). But it was never just a place, Tin Pan Alley has come to be known for an era of songwritting when many musical ideas mixed together to form American Popular Music. Tin Pan Alley brought together many styles, blues, jazz, musical scores and ragtime." - --Burton Lane, 1995.

A new breed of popular music publishers were established in New York in the 1890s. These publishers were, essentially, salesmen who didn’t sit in their offices waiting for performers to come to them, but went out to the entertainment palaces and badgered not only the singers but also the orchestra leaders, dances, and comedians to use their numbers. This act developed into the profession of song-plugging. They hustled themselves, as well as their hired singers and whistlers into the finest theaters and lowest dives. After a few years on creation, Tin Pan Alley published its first song in 1892, "After The Ball" by Charles Harris, selling six million copies of sheet music!

This sale of millions of copies marked a significant development in the publishing industry and in the way music was being presently to the public. Music publishers were surprised to learn that popular tunes were being sold to individuals with the hopes of playing the songs at home. Up to that point, sheet music was almost exclusively sold to professional performers. Beginning around 1910, Tin Pan Alley found a great resource in sheet music, resulting in the sales of millions of copies. Not only was the Music Chart created (A tracking system of the country’s most popular songs), but the sale of sheet music put enormous resources (cash) into Tin Pan Alley. Music publishing companies skyrocketed and, as Johnny Mercer once recalled, "those composers all whistle a happy tune on the way to the bank, because America was whistling their some tune!"

American Popular Music had arrived!

Within a year, Irving Berlin published "Alexander’s Ragtime Band," which mixed the popular beat of the day along with the legend of Ragtime. The song gave Tin Pan Alley its crowning achievement and Berlin his first million. The song also changed the way America listened to music, "Alexander’s Ragtime Band" has often been credited, in part, for the increase in the sales of radios and phonographs, both rather new to the buying public.

Soon the attention of Tin Pan Alley shifted from Ragtime to other popular topics such as dances (The Charleston, the Fox Trot) and other music forms (Blues, jazz).

Towards the end of World War I, Tin Pan Alley’s publishing companies moved closer to the Broadway and vaudeville districts. Once the American Society of Composers,Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) was formed, Tin Pan Alley became a mega force in popular music, producing over 90% of the commercial songs and inspiring the sales of millions of copies of both sheet music and 78 recordings.

Within just a few short years a shift occurred in the make-up of composers and performers of American Popular Music. Inspite of the terrific interest in African American music, ASCAP’s membership remained predominantly white, there were only a half dozen African Americans in the organization by 1925. Dr. Billy Taylor once referred to this era as, "the first concert example of musical segregation in American Popular Music." As the boon of jazz and blues crept into the consciousness of America, a number of African American composers gained their long awaited recognition. Among these composers some of the best known were, Eubie Blake, W. C. Handy, Clarence Williams, James P. Johnson, Cecil Mack, Perry Bradford and Henry Creamer.

These and other African American song writers respected their musical heritage and referred to black oral traditions of themes, melodies and song structures. In doing so, their white counterparts gained their techniques and generated a mix of pop-culture and the traditions of jazz and blues. A number of white members of ASCAP emerged as the first to combined these mixes, songwriters such as George Gershwin, Hoagy Carmichael and Harold Arlen.

Tin Pan Alley became a melting pot for culture and musical tastes, despite racial lines, and although limitations still existed, the art of the music was still able to emerge!Oleh:meltingpot.fortunecity

Dixieland

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Dixieland is an umbrella to indicate musical styles of the earliest New Orleans and Chicago jazz musicians, recorded from 1917 to 1923, as well as its developments and revivals, beginning during the late 1930s. It refers to collectively improvised small band music. Its materials are rags, blues, one-steps, two-steps, marches, and pop tunes. Simultaneous counterlines are supplied by trumpet, clarinet, and trombone, accompanied by combinations of piano, guitar, banjo, tuba, bass, and drums. Major exponents include; Joe King Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, Kid Ory, Johnny Dodds, Paul Mares, Nick LaRocca, Bix Beiderbecke, and Jimmy McPartland.

Major developers and revivalists include Bob Crosby's Bobcats, Lu Watters Yerba Buena Jazz Band, Bob Scobey, Bob Wilber, Yank Lawson and Bob Haggart (World's Greatest Jazz Band), The Dukes of Dixieland, Turk Murphy, and James Dapogny's Chicago Jazz Band. Aficionados make distinctions between various streams of traditional New Orleans jazz, the earliest Chicago jazz, and the assorted variations that are performed by revivalist bands. Some historians reserve Dixieland for white groups playing traditional jazz. Some restrict it mostly to disciples of the earliest white Chicagoans.

Early New Orleans Dixieland (1900-1917)

As rural music moved to the city and adopted new instruments, the polyphony typical of the African- American singing tradition found an expression in the style now identified as Early New Orleans Dixieland. It differed from the later Chicago Dixieland and the even later revival Dixieland in its instrumentation and rhythmic feeling. These first groups used a front line of a cornet, clarinet, and a trombone. The rhythm section was made up of banjo, tuba, and drums. The origin of these instruments was in the marching bands reflected the need to move while playing.

The rhythm section accompanied the front line on a flat-four fashion, a rhythmic feeling that placed equal emphasis on all four beats of the measure. This equal or flat metric feel was later replaced by Chicago groups with a measure that emphasized the second and fourth beats and was referred to as 2/4 time (accents on 2 and 4).

Chicago Style Dixieland (The 1920s)

The merger of New Orleans Style Dixieland with ragtime style led to what is now referred to as Chicago Style Dixieland. This style exemplified the Roaring Twenties, or to quote F. Scott Fitzgerald, "the jazz age." Chicago was exciting at this time and so was its music. In 1917 with the closing of Storyville in New Orleans, Chicago became the center of jazz activity. Many workers from the south migrated to Chicago and brought with them a continued interest in the type of entertainment they had left behind.

The New Orleans instrumentation was augmented to include a saxophone and piano and the influence of ragtime added 2/4 backbeat to the rhythmic feeling. The banjo moved to guitar and the tuba moved to string bass. The tempos were generally less relaxed than New Orleans Dixieland, and the music seemed more aggressively performed.

There was jazz activity in other cities as well, mainly New York and Kansas City. These centers would later claim center stage as they moved toward a definition of swing, but during the 1920’s Chicago remained the hub of jazz.

During this time in Chicago, Louis Armstrong’s influence as a soloist was influencing the fabric of otherwise democratic ensemble. His individual style started the trend toward the soloist being the primary spokesperson for jazz.Oleh:meltingpot.fortunecity

Ragtime

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Piano ragtime began to be published in the late 1890s. It was immediately successful and subjected to various kinds of popularization, almost all of which have continued. It was (and is) sometimes played fast and shallow, with deliberately still rhythms, on a jangling prepared piano -- so much so that it is difficult to convince some listeners that the early ragtime composers were highly gifted melodists and serious craftsmen who produced an admirable body of musical art.

Ragtime was basically a piano keyboard music that Gilbert Thomas said was an "Afro- American version of the Polka." Somewhere in the background of the music is the Sousa style march, thus the first great ragtime composition, Maple Leaf Rag, by the first great ragtime composer, Scott Joplin, was built on four melodies, or themes. If we assign a letter to each theme, the structure of Maple Leaf Rag comes out to ABACD. In ragtime, these themes were sixteen measures like their European counterparts.

There is every reason to believe that a rich body of Afro-American inspired music preceded ragtime, although there are no recordings from those years. Certainly the cakewalk, an Afro-American dance initially based on an elegant, stylized parody of Southern white courtly manners, preceded it, and there was published cakewalk music, although publishers in those days were not quite sure how to indicate its rhythms properly. But ragtime introduced, in the accents of its right-hand melodies, delightful syncopation onto the heavy 2/4 oompah rhythm of its cakewalk-derived bass line and almost immediately became a kind of national, even worldwide craze.

The first true ragtime composition was published by William Krell called "The Mississippi Rag" in 1897. Tom Turpin, the first published African American composer wrote "The Harlem Rag" the same year. Over the cores of Ragtime’s initial popularity, a number of composers merged as the voice of this musical form, namely James Scott, Louis Chauvin, Joseph Lamb and Scott Joplin.

Little is known of the early development of Ragtime, however it is clear that it surfaced after years of evolution in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Ragtime has been traced to minstrel shows and cakewalks as early as 1895. The cakewalk, originated in the Caribbean’s, arrived in the United States as a syncopated music form based on a march, the polka and a two-step. Once Ragtime emerged as a unquiet musical form, it became a strong base for the music that lay ahead of it, jazz.

By the early 1900s, Ragtime was no longer being performed by a solo pianist. Small orchestras, military bands and piano-banjo combos were among the earliest recordings of Ragtime, which added elements that alluded to popular dance bands of the Dixieland, New Orleans and Swing styles yet to be developed. An individual musical voice was being established in America, it was an exciting era of development and change.Oleh:meltingpot.fortunecity

Pre-Jazz (1850 - 1900)

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This time before the conscious recognition of jazz as an individual music is perhaps its most important. It was then that the musical and cultural influences merged to create the uniqueness and diversity of jazz. However, because records were not kept and recordings were not available, much of the history of prejazz goes unknown. We can look back and try to recreate it by looking at the writings of the day and by projecting backwards from what we know now of jazz.

The influences seemed to come from all directions. The African musical practices that remained a part of the slave culture were superimposed on the dominant white musical culture of western Europe. The western tradition spanned music as diverse as the songs of Stephen Foster to the operas of Wagner. The popular music of the day had simple harmonies, simple rhythms, and the form often used was AABA. The black tradition depended more on oral transmission and was represented by spirituals, work songs, field hollers, and later the blues. At this same time, four million slaves became American citizens. The four million, mixing their African background with the popular and church music around them, were to be the nucleus of jazz.

Early Jazz (1910s-1920s)

Not all jazz performed in the beginning of the 20th century can be described as New Orleans or Dixieland Jazz. Beginning in the late teens, a rich jazz influence of dance bands and soloists helped in the development and growth of improvisational music. The stride pianist, the early jazz vocalists and the horn soloist of this period have been hard pressed to be categorized. Often these performed have been placed in categories called "Classic Jazz" or "Traditional Jazz" but no matter the term, the sound became a foundation for the Kansas City, Chicago and Swing styles to follow. Among the artists that had a major impact on Early Jazz were Clarance Williams, Bessie Smith and Bix Beiderbecke.

Early Jazz is as much a definition of the time (early teens to mid 1920s) as it is a definition of the sound and style of the music.Oleh:meltingpot.fortunecity

Jazz (Introduction)

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Jazz is the art of expression set to music! Jazz is said to be the fundamental rhythms of human life and man’s contemporary reassessment of his traditional values. Volumes have been written on the origins of jazz based on black American life-styles. The early influences of tribal drums and the development of gospel, blues and field hollers seems to point out that jazz has to do with human survival and the expression of life.

The origin of the word "jazz" is most often traced back to a vulgar term used for sexual acts. Some of the early sounds of jazz where associated with whore houses and "ladies of ill repute." However, the meaning of jazz soon became a musical art form, whether under composition guidelines or improvisation, jazz reflected spontaneous melodic phrasing.

Those who play jazz have often expressed the feelings that jazz should remain undefined, jazz should be felt. "If you gotta ask, you’ll never know" ---Louis Armstrong.

The standard legend about jazz is that it was conceived in New Orleans and moved up the Mississippi River to Memphis, St. Louis and finally Chicago. Of course that seems to be the history of what we now refer to as jazz, however, the influences of what led to those early New Orleans sounds goes back to tribal African drum beats and European musical structures.

"Jazz, like any artistic phenomenon, represents the sum of an addition. The factors of this addition are, to my mind, African music, French and American music and folklore." ---Robert Goffin, 1934.

In reviewing the background of jazz one can not overlook the evaluation over the decades and the fact that jazz spanned many musical forms such as spirituals, cakewalks, ragtime and the blues. Around 1891 a New Orleans barber named Buddy Bolden reputedly pitcked up his cornet and blew the first stammering notes of jazz, thereby unconsciously breaking with several centuries of musical tradition. A half-century later, jazz, America’s great contribution to music, crossed the threshold of the universities and became seriously, even religiously considered.

Jazz functions as popular art and has enjoyed periods of fairly widespread public response, in the "jazz age" of the 1920s, in the swing era of the late 1930s and in the peak popularity of modern jazz in the late 1950s. Beginning in the 20s and continuing well into the 30s, it was common to apply the word "jazz" rather indiscriminately, melodically or tonally. Thus George Gershwin was called a jazz composer. For Gershwin’s concert work he was acclaimed to have made a respectable art form out of jazz. Somewhat similarly, Paul Whiteman, playing jazz-influenced dance music, was billed as the King of Jazz. Perhaps the broader definition of jazz, such as the one that would include the blues influence as well as those who shared our understanding of the art form, even if they did not perform it, would be the most useful historical approach.

"It has always intrigued me, that people like Ma Rainey, Al Jolson and Guy Lombardo are considered a part of jazz history, but they are!" ---Les Paul, 1994.

The influence and development of the blues can not be over looked when discussing the early years of jazz.

"The blues as such are synonymous with low spirits. Blues music is not. With all its so called blue notes and overtones of sadness, blues music of its very nature and function is nothing if not a form of diversion." ---Albert Murray.

Those feelings as expression of blues music fits very comfortably with the strains and phrases of jazz. Today, Bessie Smith is considered primarily a blues singers, however in the 1920s, she was most often referred to as a jazz singer. An ability to play the blues has been a requisite of all jazz musicians, who on first meeting one another or when taking part in a jam session, will often use the blues framework for improving. Blues, stemming from rural areas of the deep South, has a history largely independent of jazz. Exponents of blues usually accompanied themselves on guitar, piano or harmonica or were supported by small groups who often played unconventional or homemade instruments.

A number of the early jazz performers relied on the blues for more than the chord exchanged. Many of these jazz musicians used the blues for the driving force of their musical emotions, such as the work of Don Redman, Stuff Smith, Ma Rainey and the early works of Louis Armstrong and Benny Carter.