Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Introduction

Welcome!

Here I will be studying piece(s) of both Calypso Music and New Orleans Jazz to make a comparison(s) between the two distinct music cultures.
Songs being compared:  Lord Melody – Wau Wau (Calypso)
J. Rosamond Johnson and Bob Cole- Oh, Didn’t He Ramble (New Orleans Jazz) (performed by Louis Armstrong and his band)
This link takes you to a page with more than one song listed; this song is under #4 New Orleans Function

About New Orleans Jazz Music

New Orleans Jazz was known as traditional jazz and early jazz. It consisted of blues and the famous ragtime which led to the development of early jazz that started in the late 19th century. New Orleans Jazz was made up small-band ensembles which later developed into including a cornet (later replaced by trumpet), reed instruments such as clarinet and saxophone, and trombone in the frontline which collectively improvised and created the polyphonic sound. The rhythm section included the drums, banjo, bass, and piano. The music became more and more popular and was more seen as dance music as time passed. Once the popularity and need for musicians grew, many musicians left to Chicago and New York. From there, recordings were done; first by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band where soon Jazz music became a national craze and variations were made of the music creating sub-genres of bebop, cool jazz, and so on. After awhile, the traditional New Orleans Jazz seemed almost forgotten but later revivals kept it alive and the music can still be heard now but musicians of the traditional jazz stopped performing and most New Orleans traditional Jazz can only be heard on CDs, cassette tapes, and other music devices.

About Calypso Music

Calypso music came from the Caribbean in Trinidad and was very popular from the early 20th century to 1970s where there was a decline in the music once reggae music became popular and Soca music was derived from Calypso music but was seen more of a dance music than humorous. Calypso music is heavily rooted from West African traditional music and actually dates back to the 1600s during the slave age lasting till the mid 1800s where it still maintained its popularity. The instrumentation of the bands that played Calypso music included a keyboardist, percussionists, saxophone, trombone, trumpet, bass guitarist and rhythm guitarist, and several vocal singers. Calypso music was lively and meant to be humorous. Calypso music also had been influenced by many American genres of the time like jazz and were songs of story-telling. The lyrics were also known to be relating to social and political issues.

Structure

The calypso piece is in common time, 4/4, while the jazz piece is in 6/8 time. The tempo of the jazz piece is at about moderato and the tempo of the Calypso piece is about allegro. Their tempos are quite close considering that moderato and allegro are close in tempo of one another. Both pieces have syncopation and include improvised solos in areas of the piece. Both pieces' distinct pattern is between playing the main melody followed an improvised solo and sometimes more than one. The calypso piece has a verse-chorus form throughout the piece since there is a continuance pattern of chorus then verse and in certain points includes improvisation saxophone solos. One of main elements of the structure of both pieces is improvisation. Because the form is most closely to verse-chorus, the form is seen as ‘A-B-A-B’ throughout the piece. Both pieces use improvisation throughout the piece which is where musicians spontaneously and musically composed and performed on the spot, communicating emotions and showing musicality and technique. The added emotion and spontaneous solos add to the song's overall individuality. In the jazz piece, there are solos by the clarinet, trombone, and trumpet. In the calypso piece, there are saxophone solos.  The use of improvisation in both pieces adds individuality to the piece and still even though it has improvised spots, there is still structure present especially in the Calypso piece with its pattern of solo to melody to vocal verse and so on.  Some of the Calypso piece improvised solos areas can be seen as much shorter than the improvised solos of the jazz piece and could be considered to be cadenzas since there is about a measure or two of improvised performance by the musicians specifically at 2:20 to 2:35 then the saxophone is joined but by another saxophonist and begins playing the repeated main melody.

Instrumentation

Both pieces use the instrumentation of trumpet, trombone, and saxophone. The calypso piece has 2 saxophones though. Both pieces also use vocals yet the piece uses vocals very little while the calypso piece mainly uses vocals. Calypso piece in contrast to Jazz piece includes a keyboard while the jazz piece use drums. Both pieces are small ensembles but later in both genres the smaller ensembles did expand and there weren’t just small ensembles.

Melody/Rhythm/Harmony

Both pieces distinguish their main melodies at the beginning of the pieces and the jazz piece includes a counter melody. The main melody is repeated multiple times throughout both pieces to put an emphasis on the main melody. In the Jazz piece, there includes variations of the main melody for example at the point after the trombone solo when the trumpet comes in and changes the melody somewhat from the original melody. Both pieces were meant to be happy and entertaining and brighten up people’s moods. Oh, Didn’t He Ramble was played at funerals to brighten up the people’s moods after the burial and Wau Wau was meant to be humorous like most Calypso songs. My point from the previous sentence is that this gives a reasoning behind the both pieces’ chord structures being major.

Texture

Both pieces are polyphonic for both pieces have more than one melody occurring but there is still one distinct main melody in the piece which in the Oh, Didn’t He Ramble is played mostly by the trumpet and is established at the beginning of the piece by the trumpet.  In Wau Wau, the distinct melody is played by the full band and strongly played by the saxophones instrumentally and very obviously the vocalists also establish the main melody and the melody is repeated multiple times both instrumentally and vocally. The Calypso piece comes off sounding much simpler than the jazz piece since the jazz piece has more overlapping melodies compared to the Calypso piece. An overlap of melodies and harmony in the Jazz piece adds to the polyphonic sound whereas the Calypso piece is much less polyphonic and has its distinct melody with harmonization and at points, counter melodies.

Conclusion

Overall both pieces have their own individuality and differences but still show many similarities/links. One of the strongest links made through this comparison is improvisation and rhythmic style since those two main features they have most in common and strongly make up both of the pieces.
Also deriving from the comparison, overall in this Musical Investigation I learned a lot from being able to compare these two different music genres and discovering the similarities and differences between both genres. I hoped you enjoyed my blog and leave any comments! Thank you!

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Bibliography