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74 jazz
—planned, arranged and written down. It exploited the contrast of orchestral groups (e.g. reeds against brass). It might best be described as light musical entertainment flavoured with the jazz idiom.
As soon as you had the 12-18 piece orchestras of Henderson, Duke Ellington, Jimmie Lunceford and others, you could not continue improvising without arriving at sheer chaos. Gone was the texture of New Orleans jazz, with each instrument weaving its own individual thread into the musical pattern. Instead there were orchestral groups: three trumpets and two trombones as a brass group contrasting with a reed group of five saxophones or clarinets. There were even experiments in the introduction of violins, cellos, flutes, harpsichords, and all manner of instruments whose pedigree had nothing whatever of the jazz tradition.
The Swing Era
So, from the early 1930s on, the "swing" tradition starts. It would be difficult accurately to define the word 'swing'. Its enemies would say that it is a debased, watered-down, commercialised form of jazz. Its supporters would say that it was bigger, better and brighter jazz, developed in a logical fashion by increasing the expressive range of the composition and by vastly extending the palette of tone-colours available.
It would be unwise to condemn the whole swing movement in one sweep: much came out of it that is exciting and musically interesting. But many |
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