Modern Jazz

Author(s): Patrick Gowers

Source: The Musical Times, Vol. 103, No. 1432 (Jun., 1962), pp. 389-392
Published by: Musical Times Publications Ltd.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/949499
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Patrick Gowers

MODERN

JAZZ
To mark the ISCM Festival, Patrick Gowers
examines a flourishing branch of contemporary
music whose potential is far greater than its present
achievement.

Oscar Peterson
EMI photograph

'No serious musician . . . can any longer afford toas the basic texture of a piece, and thus giving the
writer great scope for economy and variety in his
ignore the phenomenon of jazz, except at the peril

of his own survival' wrote Leon Crickmore in his

use of instrumental and harmonic colours.

But, interesting though the individual chords

November 1961]; several musicians, as he showed, may be, the harmonic rhythm and chord-sequences
believe that jazz has now developed qualities which used in almost all jazz are rudimentary and dull,
make it impossible to disregard the prospect of and this is largely due to the influence of the popular
some sort of rapprochement between 'serious' and song. There is a great deal of improvising in jazz,
'popular' music. However, there is a danger that and, so that soloist and accompaniment shall keep
readers who have heard 'popular' music broadcast together, the practice is to play some popular song
may not have been entirely convinced, particularly if and then repeat its harmony over and over again,
they took at all literally the definitions given of improvising melodies in turn until everyone is
'popular' ('jazz and its derivatives') and 'serious' either satisfied or exasperated-that being the
music ('composed to appeal to our more complex signal to play the song again and then stop. Jazz
pieces are therefore almost always chaconnes:
sensibilities'). Modern jazz appeals to its lovers
for exactly the same sort of sophisticated reason as moreover, to take a favourite example, the 'I Got
other serious music; 'popular' music has tended to Rhythm' sequence has the tonic chord at the
influence its development rather than the other beginning of bars 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 13, 15, 16, 25,
27, 29, 31 and 32; since there are only 32 bars
way round, and to provide one of the strongest
there could hardly be a better device for ensuring
forces retarding it. Therefore one must leave
popular music aside and look at modern jazz itself that the music is dull!
Added to this, the soloist's job is made harder
as an idiom, to see if it has the potential for both the
since he is likely to be seduced into sterile repetition.
formal and the emotional extension necessary if it
The more enlightened arrangers (whose main work
is to become a really flexible and powerful artistic
is to write ensemble accompaniments, introducstyle.
article Third Stream or Third Programme [MT,

tions and so forth, for groups large enough to make

Consider first harmony: jazz has taken a large

part of its harmonic vocabulary from the French
Impressionists, but since it is for the most part

much more strongly tonal, the use is different. It is

often argued that the use of 9ths, llths, 13ths, etc,

and the whole gamut of altered chords, led to the

'breakdown of tonality'. But the tonal use of such
chords has nevertheless many possibilities, since it
tends to free the harmony from being dictated by
the tune, and opens up a vast range of colour.
Moreover, one of the most exciting things to have
come about in the last ten years is that modern jazz
has developed a variety of two-part counterpoint
with (usually) a pizzicato double-bass playing

this necessary) have tried to minimize this by

modulating at various points and transposing

sections of the chaconne; others have devised

complicated chord-sequences which explore the

remotest corners of the circle of fifths; but neither

does more than disguise the weakness of the harmonic

structure of jazz.
Next, rhythm: this is probably where the greatest
strength of the idiom lies, and is certainly where jazz
is at its most completely original, and, unfortunately,

elusive. 'Swing' is a very subtle musical quality:

easy to recognize, tantalizingly difficult to produce,

quite impossible to describe in words or analyse

technically, and independent of any other attribute

crotchets, a solo instrument or voice, and a drummer such as loudness or speed. It developed from the

binding the whole texture together, the three pro- steady 4/4 beat of the march, through the 'rickyducing a sound musically strong enough to serve tick' rhythm of traditional jazz, until now, altered
389

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though

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00

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it

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tonally unambig
jazz improvisatio
melodic in the la

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,

mixing

defined,

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almost beyond recognition, it has become an infinitely variable propulsive force, able to give a

forward (and very musical) drive which only music

of the Brandenburg Concerto type even begins to

solos,

lack

imply
down

of

inv

certainly
the

the

harmo

chords'

musical and borin

of bad jazz, since
groups which pro
extended improv
monotonous; so i
again is the form
must be prepared
aspect alone, and

sine

qua

non.

Example 2, a sho
achieve. With a skilful drummer there is also much
saxophone player
less chance of an orchestral texture falling apart, balanced jazz improvisations can become. The

since he will spread a web of sound over it, largely quaver movement is offset not only by the phrasing,
fulfilling the function of the long sustained notes but also by being easily divisible into essential and

normally used to bind figurations in other parts unessential notes, with the former strongly melodic;
together, and will, by playing 'fill-ins', prepare the the highest notes of the phrases mount gradually
ear for figures and make what would otherwise be to the F a few bars from the end. The technique of
rather stark, cohere. In Example 1 the previous decorating a slower, irregular melody, rather than
ten bars or so are for singer and double-bass alone, playing one where the notes have equal weight,
and the effect of the first triplet on the drums, creates the secondary rhythm which gives good jazz

which is quite soft, is to make one expect the

orchestral chord on the third beat-a sort of

much of its life and interest.

musical appetizer-even though one would not

notice the drums at all if one did not listen specifically

for them.

Various sophisticated devices ar

creep into the jazz technique. On
for which there is every opport
cause of the range of harmonic

Vocal melody in
the two-part
jazz is
treatment
another
mentioned
t
retarded by the
of chords
popular
with eight,
song;
nine, or
and
eve
widespread preference
low
qu
notes in them,for
and partly
becau
hand there has fit
been
together
developed,
rather easily in the
t
mental improvising
techniques
altered chords.
One finds this exp

arabesques and
characteristic
ph
in the
type of slow accompaniment of which
kind of melodic
This
f
Example 3, mode.
with its augmentation and
diminution, is
major or minor
is characteristic.
according
One can also begin to find
to
some the
and itself contains
the
m
fairly neat word-painting,
a goodtonic,
example being
third in major
pieces,
perfect
f
Marty
Paich's accompaniment
to a song, He
and perfect fifths
Reminds Me of You, in and
which a womanthe
sings to her m

F4st

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!,- .
, in
7 U
~ v
,
tJ
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''m
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qjT * f " -Aw

i- st4L I,o - 11

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Ex'za,pke 3
Slow

%e .m
ir ^ ir _
Iz(i) I
1 I ]

r'

since it is a characteristic of this procedure that one

can break into swing and throw the music forward,
and then drift insidiously back into Latin-American
and repeat the cycle later.

Such a technique, however, works well only for

short forms; but even if it does not get to the root
of the problem, and is incapable of sustaining large
ones, it does give some interesting clues. To begin
with, the contrasting texture need not be a dance

rhythm at all, and many styles, including a large

range of modern 'serious' ones, can be assimilated
by jazz in this way; further, contrast forms make one
next-best approximation to him: Paich's introthink of Baroque music, and the temptation to put
duction is a four-bar phrase repeated with different
harmony and orchestration, very musically jazz
andinto what might have been specially designed
for it, ritornello form, is irresistible. The tutti
subtly managed.
sections could, for instance, be in Latin-American
Moder jazz has, and with some justification,
become so much associated with drug addiction and rhythm, and improvised solo sections be based on
specially composed and phrased chord-sequences,
general depravity that its expressive potential is
and modulate between them-thus avoiding the
underestimated and misunderstood. People seem
to feel that it is good for creating moods of excite- stumbling-block of popular-song harmonic sequences.
ment, terror, sleaziness, seduction and so on, but
Popular music has cast its shadow over vocal
nothing that could be considered noble or dignified.
This is probably fair if one considers jazz not as folk melody, and even more over the words. Here the
most telling novelty is perhaps Annie Ross's work.
music but as a universal idiom; however it hides
perhaps the most exciting and stimulating facet of She takes previously recorded jazz improvisations
the style: that almost everything is still waiting to and fits words to them; and if this calls for alarming

ex-lover that she has now fallen in love with a

be done and all the means are there.

*

virtuosity and sounds possibly rather too much of a

stunt, the implications of vocal idiom composed

more after the style of some of Miles Davis's

dreamier solos are very considerable. One can

The most urgent need is to extend jazz formally

easily imagine almost any secular mood being
Attempts are being made in various directions, b
created, although a new approach to word-setting
not so persistently as they might, since on the wh
and a new type of text would be necessary. Melisthe musicians seem to consider that the next gre
matic settings might well have to be used, and it is
genius in jazz will be another improviser, on th
hard to make them sound convincing: certainly
rather slender ground that the last one, Charl
impossible in the 'moon' and 'June' tradition.
Parker, was. In fact, Parker's melodic language h
Drawing the Baroque parallel can be, of course,
now been refined and polished until one might s
misleading andin
dangerous;
but jazzreform
has so much in is no
that this was the one direction
which
common with Baroque music, even down to techninecessary. Most jazz that is not in chaconne fo
cal minutiae-its own type of figured bass notation,
is rhapsodic and impressionistic, and although
and the dotting in performance of evenly written
result depends very much upon the calibre of
quavers according to traditions which vary from
writer, this method seems scarcely to bring out
country to country, and in America even from
real genius of the idiom. Far more interesting an
area to area-that it is hard not to anticipate the
promising are the experiments with contrast for
singing of instrumental-type melodies.
and there are no better examples than some of
Marty Paich's song accompaniments, mostly for
*
Mel Torm6. (Paich, incidentally, is a 37-year-old
Californian with a Master's degree in music at
The Third Stream, for all this, seems remarkably
the Los Angeles Conservatory.)
sterile: one could hardly imagine a more telling

Paich's technique is often to contrast swing

passages, using the pizzicato double-bass playing
crotchets and the great forward drive mentioned

trap into which efforts to marry jazz with 'serious'

music seem to fall, is that of throwing out the baby

before, with passages in some other kind of rhythm,

with the bathwater by mixing lifeless jazz with equally

bear it no longer, it lets them go and rushes forward.

It means, too, that the arranger can consummate his

reason, if indeed for no other, sonata-form or fugue

particularly Latin-American dance rhythms. He

will, for instance, build up towards a dynamic
climax with a Latin-American ostinato on, say, a
tonic pedal, and then break joyously into swing in
two-part counterpoint, thus replacing the dynamic
climax with a rhythmic one and producing the
musical equivalent of an aeroplane at the start of
the runway reving its engines faster and faster
with the brakes on, until suddenly, when you can
crescendo and yet have almost the entire orchestra
in reserve again; and there is still another advantage

indictment than 'jazz with manners'! The great

lifeless and undistinguished 'serious' music. The

language of jazz does not need to be watered down
and debilitated, for that is to take away some of
the most precious qualities it has already developed;
but its form-one might almost say its grammar
and syntax rather than its vocabulary-needs to be
radically strengthened, and this is where classical
techniques ought to be applied. The improvising
tradition in jazz is most important, and for that
is scarcely called for; variation-form, which the
perpetual chaconnes amount to, has already proved
itself inadequate; free rhapsodic forms are one
391

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RECORD LIST
possibility,
possibility,but
butthey
theytend
tend
to to
be be
tootoo
vague;
vague;
ritornello
ritornello
or
or concerto
concertogrosso
grossoform
form
seems
seems
therefore
therefore
to be
to much
be much MEL TORME SWINGS SHUBERT ALLEY (Marty Paich
Orchestra)
the most promising approach. As an extension,
HMV CLP 1405
an aria, with an idiomatic jazz melody and with an side 1, track 5 (Just in time): use of 2-part counterpoint,
economy, and drums
improvised obbligato, can sound very well indeed.
side 2, track 4 (Whatever Lola wants): Latin-American ostinato

and climax
How, then, does modern jazz stand? Judged on
its achievements so far, and on the general level of MILES AHEAD (Miles Davis, Gil Evans Orchestra)
FONTANA TFL 5007
performances, no one could perhaps be blamed for
generally sophisticated, and quite a good starting-point
dismissing it almost out of hand; and yet, though
THE JAZZ SOUL OF OSCAR PETERSON: a good example
perhaps 'only by the painful process of hearing
of the highest proficiency of jazz improvising todayenough bad jazz', one can learn to recognize good.
especially side 1, track 3 (Close your eyes)
HMV CLP 1429
If one does then stumble across enough of that
Paich Orchestra)
unusual and un-English phenomenon, really fine SOUTHERN BREEZE (Jeri Southern, Marty
COLUMBIA 33SX 1110
modern jazz, it is hard not to fall in love with it- side 1, track 5 (Then I'll be tired of you): word-painting

and then, with the lover's insight, to see the seeds of

a great, powerful and malleable style.

('throbbing-heart' accompaniment)
side 2, track 1 (He reminds me of you): word-painting described
in article

MEL TORME SINGS FRED ASTAIRE

LONDON LTZ-N 15076

side 2, tracks 1 (The way you look tonight) and 2 (The Piccolino):
Latin-American ostinati

PATRICK GO WERS was born in 1936, and educated

at Clare College, Cambridge, where he took a First in
Music, and then a Mus B. He is also an ARCO, an

ex-President of the Cambridge Jazz Club, and a

professional jazz arranger.

track 4 for the Geller solo quoted

MEL TORME accompanied by the Marty Paich Orchestra

HMV CLP 1238

side 2, track 1 (Blues in the Night) contains Ex 1

track 2 (Don't want to cry any more): form, and a dynamic
climax replaced by a rhythmic one

see also Wilfrid Mellers's 'Collaboration?' on page 401

DELIUS & FORM: A Vindication-i

by Deryck Cooke
'In fact . . . the intellectual content of Delius's music is

journalistic
journalistic phrases,
phrases,but
butasasa areasoned
reasoned
aim
aim
at at
the
the
truth,
truth, which
which must
musteither
eitherbebeproven
proven
wrong
wrong
byby
hard
hard
'For Delius, admittedly, form was unimportant.'-Rollo
factual
factual reasoning,
reasoning,based
basedon
onfirm
firmtechnical
technical
grounds,
grounds,
Myers, letter to The Listener, 15 February 1962
or else accepted as conclusive. In short, it is
intended as a first attempt towards a scientific
'In fact' . . . 'admittedly'... these statements sound
musical criticism; and it concerns Delius because of
very authoritative; they seem to be offered as noall composers he stands most in need of rescuing
less than the simple truth. But if we really are from the confusion of fashionable dogma and loose
after the truth in musical criticism we can reach it
journalistic opinion.
only by establishing real facts, which do really have
to be admitted. In fact, the pretended facts quotedFact No 1. The classical method of analysis,
while able to demonstrate the existence of a definite
above are mere expressions of groundless opinion. I
form in professional works using classical methods
intend to prove this, and to establish the actual
of construction, is so imprecise that it cannot
facts of the matter, which are actually undeniable.
This may sound arrogant. But after all, we must establish incontrovertibly whether that form is
all be tired by now of the never-ending stream of adequate or inadequate. Proof: Musicians with
uninformed opinion, masquerading as authoritative professional analytical equipment disagree amongst
themselves about the formal adequacy of even
judgment, which constitutes so much musical
certain highly-regarded works, a notorious example
criticism (and even more musical journalism). If we
being Schubert's Ninth Symphony.
are ever to put musical criticism on a basis of
perilously thin.'-Peter Heyworth, The Observer, 4 February
1962

truth, we shall have to work from the startling but Fact No 2 The classical method of analysis has so
once-for-all definition of 'certainty' given by the far proved incapable of demonstrating even the
existence of a form in works which do not use
great American philosopher Charles Sanders
classical methods of construction, such as those of
Pierce: 'In sciences in which men come to agreement,
when a theory is broached, it is considered to be Debussy
on
and Delius, let alone of establishing
probation until agreement is reached; after it is
whether it is adequate or not. Proof: There are no
reached, the question of certainty becomes an idle
writings in which the classical method of analysis
one, since there is no one left who doubts it' (my
has succeeded in throwing any light on the forms of
italics).
works of this kind. Consequence of Facts 1 and 2:
So I want to stress, firmly, that I offer these two
In the existing state of analytical knowledge-ie,
that based on the classical method of analysis-the
articles, not as a personal point of view, to be
statement that 'the intellectual content of Delius's
commended, condemned or waved aside in vague
392

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