[o] other: Class Materials

- Practice Final Exam 1 -

History of "Jazz"

Dr. Karlton E. Hester

PLEASE NOTE: The sample practice midterm below for History of "Jazz" does not necessarily reflect the exact questions that will be asked on an exam for Music 80E or other courses using this website, nor does it necessarily reflect the format of the questions to be given on the actual exam.

This practice exam is also available in the back of Volume 3 of your course text book From Africa to Afrocentric Innovations Some Call "Jazz."

1. _____________vocalized in combination with the bass lines he played creating a stronger presence. It also made the bass player think in a melodic fashion rather than limiting its fuction to the outlining of basic chords.
2. Drums came to the U.S. as components from all over the world. ____________ made these individual percussion instruments into the drum set in America. Baby Dodds evolved the set to a higher level in early "jazz."
3. When Charlie Parker met ______________ in 1941, they became the catalyst for the bop revolution and brought this improvisational style to its peak.
4. Resistance to bop was so great during the 1940s that an attempt was made to revive _____________ as the "authentic" jazz music of America.
5. In bebop, _____________ was much faster and more complex than any other music in the Western tonal tradition. The use of clever dissonances is heightened by chord extensions and substitutions. New scales are applied to a harmonic framework that most ears had grown to consider traditional.
6. The impact of this pianist's music on modern jazz history was enormous. The incredibly fast improvised lines and added chords tones of ______________ inventive improvisations were absorbed by Charlie Parker and other early progenitors of be-bop.
7. _____________ had tutored Powell when the latter pianist was a teen. Powell's mentor's composition "In Walked Bud" is a tribute to his younger comrade. Powell premiered his tutor's composition "'Round Midnight" on a recording with Cootie Williams.
8. During the bebop era vocalist ____________ performed four-hand piano pieces with Earl "Fatha" Hines in 1943, and in 1945 pianist Vivian Glasby played at the Rhumboogie in Chicago with The Fletcher Henderson Band for an engagement.

 

1950 - 1960

9. This pioneering stylist would lead a series of innovative groups that included many illustrious innovators of the "jazz" world. Later collaborations with Gil Evans produced such albums as "Porgy and Bess" and "Sketches of Spain," expanding the "Birth of the Cool" idea into a full orchestral setting. ______________ 1959 Kind of Blue popularized modal improvisation in the 1960's, but in his later life he turned more to electronic music, mixing in elements of rock, funk, salsa, and modal jazz into his works which set the style for fusion and jazz rock.
10. _______________ led a string of Big Bands throughout the 1940's and '50's, and was heavily influenced by Claude Thornhill, sometimes referred to as the father of the cool style big band. This band leader became one of the best known jazz arrangers ever because of his work on college campuses accross America.
11. _____________ music from his last stylistic period often bore religious titles: "A Love Supreme," "Ascension," "Om," "Crescent," "The Father and the Son, and the Holy Ghost," "Ogunde," "Meditations," "Amen," "Ascent,"and others. His thinking, like Sun Ra's, also focused on outer space: "Infinity," "Interstellar Space," Sun Ship," "Cosmos," "Out of This World," etc.
12. Chic Webb featured Louis Jordan as both a vocalist and saxophone soloist between 1936 and 1938. The ______________ was a small swing band that developed in the late1930s and early 1950s and was later advanced by Jordan's group, the Timpani Five. It generally featured two or three soloist in front of a swinging rhythm section. In was appealing to the African American cabaret audiences because it retained the sexual and nuptial humor of the music from old "black" vaudeville shows.
13. _______________ made important recordings with Miles Davis in 1954. His composition "Oleo," recorded during this period, became a "jazz" standard. After this productive musical phase, and during the height of a battle between critics over wheter he or Coltrane was the "best" tenor player of the day, this innovator took the first of many long sabbaticals from public performance.
14. ______________ experimentation with collective improvisation involved a significant advancement in liberating the melody from preset chord changes. Many hard bop performers aligned their melodic improvisations closely to preset chord structures, while this innovator devised a conceptual methodology that allowed musicians more autonomy. This freedon applied whether in constructing solo improvisations or in playing accompaniment.
15. Although this iconoclastic pianist always drew an audience, it was often not the type or size a clientele clubowners desired. His unconventional style was conducive to neither selling drinks or for sexual advancements because people listened and didn't want to be disturbed. This was not background music. He did not come from the type of blues-based backgroud that Bird, Coltrane or Ornette Coleman came from. ______________ produced percussive music that fit a musical void that had not yet been filled.
16. ______________added to the musical controversity started by Taylor and Coleman, and soon influential musicians like Coltrane and Dolphy evolved in the direction of free experimentation. The atmosphere was often hostile and the musicians were ostracized from many mainstream musical venues. John Gilmore was among this leader's most loyal bandmembers. Gilmore had been offered a position in Miles Davis's and other prestigious bands, but remained with this innovator's Arkestra through the years despite his towering status on tenor saxophone.

1960 -1970

17. Trombonist/ arranger ____________ conducted her own arrangements on Randy Weston's Uhuru Africa session and the Swahili language was used to demonstrate the beauty of African languages. The album was recorded in early1960 and was also intended to show "how the African language is also part of the African rhythms."
18. In 1969, bassist _____________ and cellist Earl Madison brought suit against Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic for racial discrinination.
19. This alto saxophonist, bass clarinetist, and flutist, like Coltrane, continued to maintain ties between his hard bop roots and his more radical experimentation. While Coltrane's stylistic development evolved gradually from traditional hard bop to a freer musical approach in a highly methodical fashion, _____________ continued to oscillate between the two opposing stylistic poles. He participated as co-leader in the 1960 Free Jazz recording with Ornette Coleman, then recorded with Oliver Nelson and Booker Little a year later in sessions that were decisively hard bop oriented.
20. __________recorded his first album on his own Debut label as he celebrated his 39th birthday (1951). This bassist/composer was at the height of his musical development during the early part of the 1960s, then fell into obscurity. His 1959 recording of his bitterly comical composition Original Faubus Fables and his disagreement with Columbia over the sales figures for his recordings left them unable to renew their contract. The lyrics for his composition did not sit well with some listeners.
21. In May 1965 the _______________was formed by pianists Abrams and Jodie Christian, drummer Steve McCall, and trumpeter Phil Cohran. Its original member were from several groups that had been playing aroung Chicago. Their goals were to create a situation where they could produce the brand of music of their own choice and maintain self-reliance and control over their music.
22. The _____________ was one or the first groups to place a heavy degree of emphasis on silence in "jazz." This ensembles approach helped us to realize that silence can become animated it eventually becomes apparent that music contains more than length, width, and depth. Through their music it became increasingly more clear that music contains immeasurable elements that registers strongly upon our senses but are difficult to define emperically.
23. ______________ secured a job with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers by 1969 and remained with the band until 1972. She was the only woman to play with the Messengers for a significant period of time. The innovative pianist played with saxophonist Joe Henderson's group from 1972 to 1975 and then joined saxophonist Stan Getz until 1977.
24. ________________ felt that "When there is chaos, which is now [December 18, 1966], only a relatively few people can listen to the music that tells of what will be. You see, everyone is screaming 'Freedom' now, but mentally, most are under a great strain. But now the truth is marching in, as it once marched back in New Orleans."
25. ____________________ toured throughout the sixties. By the end of the decade, the harpist/composer became increasingly involved with writing and presenting musicals that dealt with African American concerns. She wrote scores, lyrics and performed with the shows, as her husband (the drummer) established an African American theater company in Detroit.
26. ____________ debuted as composer and leader at Town Hall in New York in a concert that included original solo, trio and big-band compositions in 1967. She then began to set the foundation for her own unique orchestra, which would enter maturity during the following decade. In 1969 she married saxophonist-flutist Lew Tabackin and formed a quartet with him.
27. By the 1960s ______________had made its way to New York City bringing with its rituals the music of the bata drums. Many of the "free" players were eager to incorporate these new rhythmic sounds into their universe bringing the evolution of African American music full circle, back (so to speak) to its point of origin - African music.

 

1970 - 1980

28. A small sampling of the diverse spectrum of musical styles presented during the 1970's was preserved on the limited issue of the five record set _______________. The record set was recorded live in 1977 and was produced by Alan Douglas and Michael Cuscuna in association with Sam Rivers. Over 60 musicians performed on the 22 performances that were released.
29. Virtuoso pianist and composer _______________ (b.1940), had absorbed the new experimental formulas he encountered with Miles and exposed this musical influence on his album Crossings in 1972. This direction continued, and began to display a heavy funk influence on subsequent albums such as Headhunters (1973), Sextant (1973), and Thrust (1974).
30. Pianist Ramsey Lewis, traditionally a hard bop style pianist, collaborated with the popular ensemble Earth, Wind & Fire in 1974 to produce a "cross-over" album entitled _______________.
31. ______________ was not the first to focus on the flute as a front-line jazz instrument (Wayman Carver, Herbie Mann, and others played flute exclusively earlier), but his contribution invoved taking flute technique to a new level of virtuosity that emphasize an expanded array of the inherent qualities of the instrument.
32. ________________ is a remarkable vocal recitalists who was living in London when the American "jazz" influence strongly affected singers abroad creating a fresh new vocal approach. Her unusually wide range found a new stylistic function within a musical approach that found popularity on her 1973 album I Am a Song .
33. Trumpeter ______________ came through the hard bop school to establish another type of fusion in the seventies with his highly successful group, the Blackbyrds.
34. Woodwind multi-instrumentalist and composer ______________ (b.1945) has been a major figure in contemporary instrumental music since the midseventies. He took part in the experimental music of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, went on to resists categorization and to explore non-conventional conceptions of tone color, solo construction, and other unique ideas. His techinal proficiency extends to such rarely seen horns as the sopranino and contrabass saxes. He is a composer whose works form a bridge between jazz and the classical avant-garde idioms, is becoming increasingly more widespread.
35. _____________ was formed by three saxophonists from the Black Artists Group (formed in St. Louis in 1968) who became prominent during the 1970s and a younger Bay Area born saxophonist. Oliver Lake (b. 1942), Julius Hemphill (1940-1995), and Hamiet Bluiett (b. 1940) were the members of BAG who founded the ensemble in 1976 with saxophonist David Murray (b. 1955).
36. _____________ performed with Mongo Santamaria, Willie Bobo, Herbie Mann, Blue Mitchell, and Stan Getz before recording his first solo album, Tones for Joan's Bones (later retitled Inner Space ). His Latin rhythms and melodies during the seventies on albums like Light as a Feather (Polydor PD 5525) and the jazz-rock oriented Musicmagic won him a popular following.
37. ________________is an Indian virtuoso whose father played over 200 musical instruments. He opened a School of North Indian Music in Marin County in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Back to Top

Living Encyclopedia of Global African Music
Received 11/27/2002
Posted 11/27/2002