MW 8:30-9:45 AM; Room N1B85
Instructor: Jay Keister
Office: N124  Office hours: Mon. 12:30-1:30; Wed. 10:00-11:00
Phone: 492-5496; Email: keister@colorado.edu

Objectives
The goal of this course is for students to develop a concise and comprehensive understanding of the history and development of jazz music and culture in the 20th century. A knowledge of jazz history and literature consists of an understanding of the following aspects: 1) the main historical periods of jazz and the musical characteristics of the major styles that characterize each period; 2) the social developments and cultural trends that have had a direct influence on jazz history; 3) the major performers and composers of jazz and their musical/cultural contributions; 4) the various approaches to jazz scholarship, including the major authors and themes of the literature. In addition to the ability to write about and discuss the above aspects of jazz, students will also be expected to develop an ability to identify significant musical features on recordings of jazz artists of historical importance.

Required Texts and Recordings
1) Textbook: Martin and Waters, Jazz: The First 100 Years. Stamford, CT: Schirmer-Thomson Learning. 2002. Available in CU bookstore.
2) CD set (2 discs) accompanying Jazz: The First 100 Years. Available in CU bookstore.
3) Selected readings on jazz history on reserve in Music Library. See list of readings on next page. Page assignments subject to change and will be announced in class.

Grading
Listening Exam (30%)
Essay exam given during class time based on listening examples on the required CDs. Students will be expected to identify the artist or style and explain the significance of the music.
Weekly reviews (30%)
12 written reviews (one for each section covered in this course) due each week at class time beginning in Week 2. These are brief summaries of the readings, presented in a neatly typed and grammatically correct form. The purpose of these reviews is to produce a guide to the literature that can serve as a reference tool for a future teacher of jazz history.
Guidelines for reviews: (about 1 page for each reading, depending on depth of work)
1) Summary: Summarize the work and explain the main points developed by the author.
2) Critical assessment: What do we learn about the subject that was perhaps not known before? What contribution does this work make to jazz literature? What insights do we gain about jazz? What is the author's point of view or particular bias? To what extent is the work musicological, sociological, or journalistic in content?
Final Paper and Presentation (30%)
An original research paper (at least ten pages) on a particular aspect of jazz. Your paper may focus on a particular performer, composer, or even a scholar (e.g., Coltrane, Strayhorn, Schuller etc.), or on a particular theme (e.g., women in jazz, jazz drumming techniques, Latin jazz, black consciousness in jazz, etc.). Plan on delivering a 20-minute presentation (with additional time for discussion) during the last week of class. Final exam period will also be used for presentations.
Participation in discussion (10%)
This class requires student participation in classroom discussions. Students are expected to lead classroom discussions on the readings on a regular basis.
Attendance and classroom demeanor (may lower your grade)
More than three unexcused absences will lower your grade. Students who are disruptive also risk receiving a lower grade.
 

Schedule: (may be subject to change)

Week 1: 1/14, 16
Course introduction; Textbook Chapter 1: African roots of jazz
Wilkinson, Christopher. “The Influence of West African Pedagogy Upon the Education of New Orleans Jazz Musicians, Black Music Research Journal Vol. 14 No. 1, pp. 25-42, 1994.

Week 2: 1/21 (MLK holiday), 1/23
Reading: Schuller Early Jazz Ch. 1 Origins; Peretti Creation of Jazz Ch. 1 Roots
Wilson, Olly. “The Heterogeneous Sound Ideal in African American Music,” In New Perspectives on Music, ed., Josephine Wright, Harmonie Park, Michigan: Harmonie Park Press, 1992, Chapter 16, pp. 326-337, 1992.

Week 3: 1/28, 30
Textbook Chapter 2: Early jazz and New Orleans jazz
Reading: Schuller Early Jazz Ch. 2 Beginnings; Peretti Ch. 2 New Orleans

Week 4: 2/4, 6
Textbook Chapter 3: Jazz in Chicago
Reading: Schuller Early Jazz Ch. 3 Armstrong; Kenney, Ch. 2 "The evolution of South Side Chicago Jazz"; Peretti Ch. 5 "White Jazz Musicians of the 20s"

Week 5: 2/11, 13
Textbook Chapter 4: New York in the 20s
Reading: Schuller Early Jazz Ch. 7 Ellington Style

Week 6: 2/18, 20
Textbook Chapter 5: The Swing Era
Reading: Schuller The Swing Era Ch. 1 Benny Goodman, Count Basie pp. 222-263

Week 7: 2/25, 27
Textbook Chapter 6: Swing Era Bands and Stylists
Reading: Stowe Swing Changes Intro and Ch. 1

Week 8: 3/4, 6
Textbook Chapter 7: The Bebop Era
Reading: DeVeaux Birth of Bebop, Intro pp. 1-31, Ch. 10 & Epilogue pp. 364-450.
"Goffin, Esquire and the Moldy Figs" by Leonard Feather (In Gottlieb's Reading Jazz, pp. 722-738)

Week 9: 3/11, 13
Textbook Chapter 8: The Fifties and New Jazz substyles
Reading: "Bop" by LeRoi Jones (In Gottlieb's Reading Jazz, pp. 870-884)
Berliner Thinking in Jazz, Chapters 3, 4 and 5, pp. 63-145.

Week 10: 3/18, 20
Textbook Chapter 9: The Sixties Avant-Garde
Reading: Wilmer As Serious As Your Life, Ch. 1 pp. 19-31, Ch. 16 pp. 241-258;
Kofsky Black Nationalism and the Revolution in Music; Radano New Musical Figurations.

Week 11: 3/25, 27 Spring Break

Week 12: 4/1, 3
Textbook Chapter 10: Mainstream in the 60s
Reading: Monson Saying Something Chapters 2, 3 and 4 pp. 26-132.
 

Week 13: 4/8, 10
Textbook Chapter 11: Jazz-rock fusion
Reading: "On the Corner: The Sellout of Miles Davis" by Stanley Crouch (In Gottlieb's Reading Jazz, pp. 898-914)
"Why did Ellington 'Remake' his Masterpiece?" by Andre Hodeir (In Gottlieb's Reading Jazz, pp. 893-897)

Week 14: 4/15, 17
Textbook Chapter 12: Jazz since the 1980s
Reading: Tucker Swing Shift (tba)
"The Untold Story of the International Sweethearts of Rhythm" by Marian McPartland (In Gottlieb's Reading Jazz, pp. 638-651)
LISTENING EXAM (in class on Wed. 4/17)

Week 15: 4/22, 24
Reading: Giddens Rhythm-a-ning "Afterword: An Orchestra is Born" pp. 279-286.
Piazza Blues Up and Down, Part Three, pp. 173-194.
Nisenson Blue: The Murder of Jazz, Chapters 1 and 2, pp. 11-46.

Week 16: 4/29, 5/1
Paper presentations

FINAL EXAM SESSION: Paper presentations
 
 

Jazz History and Literature - Selected Readings

Berlin, Edward A. Ragtime: A Musical and Cultural History. Berkeley: University of California, 1980.

Berliner, Paul F. Thinking in Jazz: the Infinite Art of Improvisation. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1994.

DeVeaux, Scott. The Birth of Bebop: A Social and Musical History. Berkeley: University of California, 1997.

Giddens, Gary. Rhythm-a-ning: Jazz Tradition and Innovation in the 80's. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.

Gitler, Ira. Swing to Bop: An Oral History of the Transition in Jazz in the 1940s. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.

Gioia, Ted. The History of Jazz. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

_________. West Coast Jazz. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.

Gottlieb, Robert, ed. Reading Jazz. New York: Vintage Books, 1996.

Gushee, Lawrence. “How the Creole Band Came to Be.” Black Music Research Journal 8, no. 1: 85-100, 1988.

Hasse, John Edward, ed. Ragtime: Its History, Composers, and Music. New York: Schirmer Books, 1985.

Hodeir, Andre. Jazz: Its Evolution and Essence. New York: Da Capo Press, 1976.

Jost, Ekkehard. Free Jazz. New York: Da Capo Press, 1981.

Kenney, William H. Chicago Jazz: A Cultural History, 1904-1930. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Kofsky, Frank. Black Nationalism and the Revolution in Music. New York: Pathfinder Press, 1970.

Litweiler, John. The Freedom Principle: Jazz After 1958. New York: William and Morrow and Company, 1984.

Monson, Ingrid. Saying Something: Jazz Improvisation and Interaction. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1996.

Nisenson, Eric. Blue: The Murder of Jazz. New York: Da Capo, 1997.

Owens, Thomas. 1995. Bebop: the Music and its Players. New York: Oxford University Press.

Peretti, Burton. The Creation of Jazz: Music, Race, and Culture in Urban America. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992.

Piazza, Tom. Blues Up and Down: Jazz in our Time. New York: St. Martin's, 1997.

Radano, Ronald M. New Musical Figurations: Anthony Braxton's Cultural Critique. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1993.

Schuller, Gunther. Early Jazz: Its Roots and Musical Development. New York: Oxford University Press, 1968.

______________. The Swing Era: The Development of Jazz, 1930-1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.

Shapiro, Nat, and Nat Hentoff, eds. Hear Me Talkin' to Ya: The Story of Jazz as Told by the Men Who Made It. New York: Dover, 1966.

Southern, Eileen. The Music of Black Americans, third edition. New York: W.W. Norton and company, 1997.

Stowe, David W. Swing Changes: Big Band Jazz in New Deal America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994.

Tallmadge, William. "Blue Notes and Blue Tonality." The Black Perspective in Music 12, no. 2 (Fall 1984): 155-164.

Tucker, Mark, ed. The Duke Ellington Reader. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.

______________. Ellington: The Early Years. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989.

Tucker, Sherrie. Swing Shift. Duke University Press, 2000.

Wilmer, Valerie. As Serious As Your Life: The Story of the New Jazz. Westport, CT: Lawrence Hill and Company, 1980.

Washburne, Christopher. "The Clave of Jazz: A Caribbean Contribution to the Rhythmic Foundation of an African-American Music." Black Music Research Journal 17, no. 1 (Spring 1997).

Wheaton, Jack. All That Jazz. New York: Ardsley House, 1994.

Wilkinson, Christopher. “The Influence of West African Pedagogy Upon the Education of New Orleans Jazz Musicians, Black Music Research Journal Vol. 14 No. 1, pp. 25-42, 1994.

Wilson, Olly. “The Heterogeneous Sound Ideal in African American Music,” In New Perspectives on Music, ed., Josephine Wright, Harmonie Park, Michigan: Harmonie Park Press, 1992, Chapter 16, pp. 326-337, 1992.

___________. "The Significance of the Relationship Between Afro-American Music and West African Music." Black Perspective in Music 2, no. 1 (Spring 1974): 3-22.