PBS TV "Jazz" series

Just thought I'd take note that right now in America we're in
the midst of a monumental television series featuring tons of
microtonal music: the 10-part 19-hour "Jazz" documentary film
being aired on PBS TV.

There are a lot of good things to be said about this series,
and this past Sunday's New York Times had a long review which
pointed out many criticisms. But there's no denying that
microtonal melodic subtleties played a huge role in the
development of jazz at least until 1950 or so, and that's
something that still has never been documented in any kind
of technical way.

-monz
http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/homepage.html
'All roads lead to n^0'

Monz wrote:

>
> Just thought I'd take note that right now in America we're in
> the midst of a monumental television series featuring tons of
> microtonal music: the 10-part 19-hour "Jazz" documentary film
> being aired on PBS TV.
>
> There are a lot of good things to be said about this series,
> and this past Sunday's New York Times had a long review which
> pointed out many criticisms.

The NYT articles just touched the surface. Look at last Wed.
Village Voice. They really rip into the film with some very good
points.

> But there's no denying that
> microtonal melodic subtleties played a huge role in the
> development of jazz at least until 1950 or so, and that's
> something that still has never been documented in any kind
> of technical way.

1950? Stopping at the 50 mark? The film blows off the last 30 or 40
years of jazz history and you stop at 50? You've got to be kidding!!!
Jazz lives - today!!! Look forward...but not through Winton's eyes.

db
--
* D a v i d B e a r d s l e y
* 49/32 R a d i o "all microtonal, all the time"
* http://www.virtulink.com/immp/lookhere.htm

Monz wrote:

> But there's no denying that
> microtonal melodic subtleties played a huge role in the
> development of jazz at least until 1950 or so, and that's
> something that still has never been documented in any kind
> of technical way.

Why not analyze an Ornette Coleman solo?

--
* D a v i d B e a r d s l e y
* 49/32 R a d i o "all microtonal, all the time"
* http://www.virtulink.com/immp/lookhere.htm

One of my favorite local bands is the Miracle Orchestra
(http://www.MiracleOrchestra.com) -- and they've been incorporating
microtonality into their unique flavor of jazz, especially on their new
album, as I discovered when turning on the radio the other day. With
instrumentation of fretless bass, sax, electric guitar (bendable strings),
and drums, these guys can get as far out as they want, and always do so in a
highly musical way.

--- In tuning@egroups.com, David Beardsley <xouoxno@v...> wrote:

http://www.egroups.com/message/tuning/17621

> Monz wrote:
>
> ...
>
> > But there's no denying that
> > microtonal melodic subtleties played a huge role in the
> > development of jazz at least until 1950 or so, and that's
> > something that still has never been documented in any kind
> > of technical way.
>
> 1950? Stopping at the 50 mark? The film blows off the last
> 30 or 40 years of jazz history and you stop at 50? You've got
> to be kidding!!!
> Jazz lives - today!!! Look forward...but not through Winton's
> eyes.

Hi Dave,

I think you may have misunderstood my actual point. I didn't
mean to imply in any way that jazz stopped evolving at any
point. I was referring specifically to the extent of use of
microtonality.

I know that the biggest criticisms in the reviews of the
"Jazz" PBS series are: 1) the fact that the movie is presented
more-or-less as factual when in reality it is seen mostly thru
Wynton Marsalis's own perspective, and 2) the way the last
several decades are presented in much more perfunctory fashion
than the earlier periods.

But what I was saying here is that after the advent of bebop
in the late 1940s, the increasingly sophisticated harmonic
and melodic gestures simultaneously became increasingly
grounded in 12-tET tuning (with glaring exceptions, of course),
whereas from the beginning (c. 1915 or so) until that time,
microtonality played a much larger role.

One thing I've noticed in particular is how Louis Armstrong
(the greatest jazz musician ever? possibly...) made very
extensive use of microtonality in both his playing and singing
in the early days, but as time went on, he conformed more
and more to 12-tET. Check it out.

-monz
http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/homepage.html
'All roads lead to n^0'