The topic of the present paper touches upon the mutual relationship of two relatively coherent genres which took place in the history of music during the twentieth century. Classical music, as a creative initiative of a majority, developed in the age-old European tradition of composed music. In the state of searching for new, mainly anti-romantically oriented compositional practices in the first two decades of the last century, an interest arose in jazz as something fresh, attractive, novel and unusual, as something which could refresh the continuity of the greatly “exhausted” tradition. Various features of jazz as a specific, minority genre, were utilized on different levels, structural (melody, rhythm, harmony, tonality, sonority) as well as genric, interpretational and social. It has to be stated in advance, valid mainly for the developmental profiling of Slovak music, that during the twentieth century, this interest capitalized upon unsystematic and occassionally obtained inspirations, as well as upon diverse means of their utilization.

In the 1920s, when the first jazz inspired compositions appeared in European classical music, e.g. by Igor Stravinsky, Paul Hindemith, Darius Milhaud, Maurice Ravel, Erik Satie (not to mention the American George Gershwin), Prague became one of the cities where musical life became enriched by the performances of jazz orchestras. For us, the capital of the then Czechoslovak Republic is significant since, in the interwar period, several young Slovak composers studied there at the Conservatory. The oldest among them was Alexander Moyzes (born in 1906), who studied there between the years of 1925 and 1930. It was natural that in the city, disposed towards receiving artistic impulses from Paris, in accordance with the Francophone cultural policy of Czechoslovakia in that era, jazz began to spread not only in the cafés but, as a fresh inspirational impulse, also among the students of composition at the Conservatory. From the Czech students, let us mention at least Ervín Schulhoff and Jaroslav Ježek, Moyzes’ classmates in the class of Vítězslav Novák. The young Moyes arrived in Prague from the town of Prešov in Eastern Slovakia, where he grew up under the supervision of his father, regenschori and teacher, bound to the provincial taste of the nineteenth century. The touch with Prague of the 1920s, with its rich and vibrant musical life, must have been something so novel and interesting for the young Alexander that among his compositions which fulfilled the requirements of his teachers (e.g. piano suite, graduation symphony, orchestral prelude), he included the Vest Pocket Suite for violin and piano, op. 7, as well. It is a composition dexterous in technique and lively in rhythm, with grotesque elements, echoing some of the unsentimentalistic features of Les Six of Paris as well as reactions to the metropolitan atmosphere of Prague – the titles of the second and of the last, i.e. fifth movement of the suite, “Andante di blues” and “Vivace di Fox” point to Moyzes’ inclination to jazz music. Unfortunately, the score of the piece got lost, so it is impossible to perform its qualities by sound. After his arrival in Bratislava, Moyzes did not fully renounce his experiences gained in Prague. However, in the Slovak metropolis, initially he met with opposition from the critics. When the Vest Pocket Suite was performed in a chamber concert in November 1928, the author was accused in the press of luxurious experimentation which Slovak music in the state of its development could not afford since it would have brought it to a dead end. For a short time, Moyzes still cultivated his interest in jazz elements, as seen in his Divertimento for piano, op. 11, instrumented for orchestra, as well. It is a series of six shorter, asentimentally conceived pieces showing the influence of jazz not only in the indicative titles of some of its movements like “Tango – blues” or “Waltz”, but in their music, as well.

Moyzes, who in the early 1930s introduced himself in Bratislava as a composer inclined to the Moderne and to novelties, demonstrated the above orientation in several further piano compositions – “Fox etude” [Fox Étude], “Jazzová sonáta pre dva klavíry“ [Jazz Sonata for Two Pianos, “Impromptu” (op. 14, nos. 1-3), as well as in the incidental music to the drama titled “ja+ja+ja = Ja” [me+me+me = Me] (which contains movements of “Tango” and “Fox”, as well). As a consequence of this orientation, musicologists of the 1930s classified Moyzes under the “avant-garde” Czech composers. The next example demonstrates Moyzes’ music from the first movement of his “Jazz Sonata” with the title “Slow” – we can hear reminiscences of the jazz composition “Bugatti Step” by his above mentioned classmate, the Czech composer Jaroslav Ježek. Contrary to Ježek, who remained inspired by jazz (as a member of the avant-garde Liberated Theatre) till his emigration to the USA and his untimely death, the twenty-six-year-old Moyzes made his farewell to jazz with the above works and never returned to these inspirations. For this reason, these works should be regarded as only temporary in both Moyzes’ formation and in the Slovak music of the era. Let us be reminded that the wave of an initial enthusiasm for jazz inspirations and their utilization in the classical music of the 1930s weakened in other European countries, as well.

The temporary character of Moyzes’ interest in jazz reflects the fact that during the 1930s, Slovak composers were striving to fill the gaps in the spectrum of contemporaneous genres – besides symphonic pieces, chamber, choir and cantata works they turned to the opera, as well. Primarily, these works meant a new adoption of Slovak folklore elements (folk songs and dance) on the basis of a synthesis with certain impulses of musical impressionism and expressionism (analogically to the development of Béla Bartók, for example). Later, during the wartime Slovak State, the cultural policy, inclined to the nationalistic ideas of the Nazi Germany, eliminated jazz from the spectrum of inspirations as racially and ethnically unacceptable music. This rejection was newly modified under the circumstances of the development of Slovak music after 1948, when Slovakia and its culture became part of the ideologic sphere of the Soviet Union. From the standpoint of politics and social class as the basis of socialist realism, “jazz” was defined in the Slovak press of the 1950s as a product of the “American culture”, a “hysteric manifestation of a dying capitalism”, as a foreign product, which cannot have its place in new Slovak music. In spite of these statements, in the milieu of Slovak musical life, the first jazz formations came to life, drawing not only upon traditional jazz, but also upon popular domestic dance music. A modest interest in jazz appeared also among the composers of classical music. This interest, which emerged among the young generation of composers who entered the music scene in the 1960s, and which corresponded to their avant-garde orientation, confronted the age-old traditionalism of Slovak classical music and its composition techniques. The search for new methods from the field of post-war Western European “New Music” included a collage of diverse musics, realized in an electroacoustic studio. These works include, for example, the electroacoustic compositions of Jozef Malovec, “Tmel” [Binder] and “Tabu” [Taboo], where one of the citations include a short passage played by a jazz combo. Malovec’s colleague, Ladislav Kupkovič, in his “Preparovaný text č. 3” [Prepared Text No. 3] combined the solemnity of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the banality of a contemporaneous pop music hit.

A major contribution to the confrontation of jazz and classical music can be found in “Transformations”, a series of orchestral works by Roman Berger. The composer approaches composition in a philosophical sense, as solving the problems which a professional composer faces. He seeks connections between tradition and the present on the level of form, structure, sound and meaning. In the final piece of the “Transformations” series, he presents the relation between the strictness of composed and notated music, and music based on improvisation, latitude and a specific sonority, which are the inherent qualities of jazz, as well. The tenor saxophone solo in the introduction, accompanied by delicate percussions, gradually develops into a section characteristic for the contributions of the classical “New Music” of the 1960s. As the example demonstrates, Berger’s confrontation is remarkable and unique in the context of Slovak music.

Tadeáš Salva, another representative of the 1960s generation, is inclined towards an instinctive, rather than rational, conjunction of various ideas. The composer elevated the sound of percussion sets to an eminent place within his instrumental and vocal-instrumental pieces. The scope of his inspirations is wide: it reaches from folk tune stylizations, through church music and European music of the past, to the serious expressions of the 1960s Polish school of composers. He did not avoid jazz, either. We will present three examples from his jazz inspired pieces. In “Žalospevy” [Laments] for reciter, soprano, mixed choir and chamber orchestra, dedicated to the memory of the Slovak National Uprising, at a culmination point of the composition, a clarinet melody accompanied by percussions appears as a basis for the rendition of the reciter and the entries of the choir. This instance is marked in the score as “à la jazz” by the composer. A frequent genre present in Salva’s oeuvre is the ballad, which is present in the tradition of Slovak folk poetry as well as folk song, and which combines lyric, epic and dramatic elements. The composer wrote several ballads for various vocal, vocal-instrumental, and instrumental formations. One of his ballads starts with an improvisational dialogue of Slovak folk instruments, the fujara (a shepherd’s fipple flute) and the Jew’s harp, to which he attaches a jazz combo layer (percussions, electric guitar and wind instruments). In the third example of Salva’s work, in the “Variations in memoriam Jaroslav Ježek”, fragments from the piano piece “Bugatti Step” of the Czech composer Jaroslav Ježek, mentioned in the beginning of the present paper, appear during an improvisation in the manner of a jazz combo.

Another group of composers entered the Slovak music scene in the mid-1980s, whose members, in accordance with the aesthetics of the so-called post-Moderne, break the traditional differences between musical genres as well as historical periods quite naturally. One of the members of this generation is Peter Martinček, who has integrated jazz elements to the scope of his inspirations. He does not regard them as a refreshment but as a full-fledged part of the composition as a whole. His style is based mainly on the appeal of melodic ideas in their repetitions and variations. From his work revealing the above mentioned inspirations, we have chosen two examples: “Passi di Jazz” for flute and harp, and a passage from his interesting “Missa Danubia”. In the beginning of the Sanctus from this mass, we can hear a rhythmically appealing vocal rendition of the Latin text accompanied by percussions and electric guitar.

One of Martinček’s classmates, Norbert Bodnár, applied melodic as well as rhythmic patterns from traditional jazz in several of his orchestral and chamber pieces, including his opera. As an example of Bodnár’s work, we will hear the beginning of his divertimento “In Blue” for wind quintet. Based on the title, everybody present here will surely note Bodnár’s reference to the famous composition of George Gershwin.

And, finally, a small refreshment: two examples from the “Beatles Concerto Grosso” series by Peter Breiner, a Slovak composer, conductor and publicist, presently living in the USA. The combination of a historical genre from the Baroque period with paraphrases of the melodies of the legendary band from Liverpool underlines the fact that jazz appeared in classical Slovak music not only as an occasional refreshment, but also as part of an interesting confrontation of the serious with the unserious, the concentrated with the lax, the strictly composed with the improvisational, and a saturated sound with a lucid one. In this confrontation, Slovak composers, fortunately, did not avoid even the position of musical pranks which are, after all, necessary not only in the field of composition, but also in the field of reception by the audience.

Some forty years ago Frank Zappa said: “Jazz is not dead, it just smells funny…!“ This statement can be considered as controversially witty, but Zappa, in fact, identified something stagnant, rigid and academic in jazz music. In the last decades of the 20^th century there was an effort by different puritans to keep jazz “clear” and to preserve it as a kind of “mummy in the museum”. It is no wonder that many musical artists began to create various pieces by the methods of parody or persiflage of this jazz purism, or to transform vivid jazz style elements and appropriate them in the manner of trans-genre re-contextualization.

Originally, jazz was a unique musical phenomenon with special and typical mutually correlated idioms, which include, for example:

– different types of and approaches to solo or collective improvisations;

– specific vocabularies and expressions associated with original and unique ways of interpretation;

– collective “comprovised”¹ creations of music based on cooperative dialogical musicianship;

– specific correlations between melodic-harmonic, modal, (poly)rhythmic and sonoristic musical thinking;

– the creation of music in a “studio as a musical instrument“ (this term was introduced by B. Eno), which offers special, different and various possibilities;

– revivable qualities to fuse and bind with different kinds of music and genres (ethnojazz, fusion, jazz-rock, nu jazz, etc.);

– an inherent ability to transgress its boundaries (at least till the turn of 1980s/1990s);

– last but not least: a deep connection between artists’ approach to creating jazz music and their ways of life; regarding this point we can mention Peter Niklas Wilson´s thought on “the aspect of the existential state of complete knowing of the Self and the identity”(Wilson 2002: 35).

All of these principles have been very inspiring for other kinds of music including rock (progressive or alternative), improvised music, or avant-garde (post-)modern composed music.

If we speak about a trans-genre re-contextualization of other musical genres and semiotic readings of music style „quotations“ in the context of so called speech of genres, we cannot neglect several works of art. Their composers invented peculiar ways of musical mutations, re-interpretations, and re-contextualisations – sometimes also as an expression of parody, persiflage, irony, or sarcasm – but they demonstrated the methods of musical transformations of quoted styles as well.

Igor Stravinskij in his famous music for the ballet Pulcinella (1920) used and quoted some motifs and even the harmonies from Giovanni Battista Pergolesi´s music, which he shifted slightly into the context of modern harmonies; for those who considered Stravinskij as a prominent avant-garde composer of the time, this approach was shocking. Sergej Ďagilev originally refused this piece (which he had ordered for his Russian ballet company in Paris), because he saw it as an ironic outrage against classicism. But Stravinskij only wanted to portray early 18^th century music in the style of modern neoclassicism, and create with it a special dialogue from the position of modernist composer.

Paul Hindemith created a fascinating trans-genre palette in his grand oratory Jeanne d’Arc au bucher (Joan of Arc, 1935), where he put in – even a controversial – confrontation between various scenes and the contrasting “commenting” musical styles from different historical eras, which transformed the scenes’ meaning. We can mention pars pro toto the well-known court scene with a stylisation of baroque counterpoint in contrast with the animal tribunal judging and condemning St. Joan of Arc.

More than thirty years later Frank Zappa and his group Mothers of Invention created their first album (actually the very first conceptual 2-LP), Freak Out! (1966). In the first half of this project Zappa parodied and travestied typical pop songs of the 1960s by quoting typical simple chords and by tectonic structure, with a vocal parallelism in the style of the Bee Gees and the Beach Boys, with funny, absurd and sarcastic lyrics. He explained that he had employed the same method of trans-genre appropriation as Igor Stravinskij.

In the 1980s John Zorn devoted his attention to musical works which used the “patchwork” principle consisting of a juxtaposition of extremely distinct style-genre elements (in horizontal and vertical temporal cross-sections) following one another in fast and surprising sequences. Zorn admits that he was, at that time, inspired by the logic of the comics and cartoons he had often watched as a child. The result of this approach can be heard, for example, in his works Spillane (1987), in some of bizarre Film Works, or in selected parts of the live performances of his group Naked City (at the turn of 1980s and 1990s).

The post-modern situation in (not only) musical art has changed many aspects in understanding and perception of music. As the Slovak aesthetician, curator and conceptual artist Jozef Cseres writes, contemporary artists attack even the ontological substance of the media, their spatial-temporal coordination, and their limitations. Musical works are not restricted anymore by even temporal frames of repeated live performances, or mechanical-electronic reproductions (Cseres, 2004, p. 46). Cseres is aware of the very important role which music also plays in the (post-)structuralistic discourses of C. Lévi-Strauss, J. Attali, R. Barthes, G. Deleuze and F. Guattari, and in their concepts of music, silence, noise, rhythm, refrain, language, code, and meaning.² We can ask if contemporary jazz music trends reflect and express these significant changes. I think that many recent jazzmen still look to the admirable history of the past and do not reflect the contemporary post-modern, “Babylonian” plurality of the world. The more they walk in the museum of foretime, the more they become non-topical, sterile and ridiculous.

It is no wonder that in Slovakia there are also many groups and exponents of alternative music who revitalise, transform (or travesty) jazz music through various ways of re-interpretation or re-contextualization. The decade around the turn of 1980s and 1990s was a very interesting period in Slovakian alternative rock music, when – among many others – unique groups appeared, e.g. Maťkovia of Martin Burlas, Bez Ladu a Skladu, Ali Ibn Rachid, Teória Odrazu, and Jesus Underground Band (JUB). The last three groups appropriated some jazz elements in a more explicit way.

Ali Ibn Rachid, in their very first album (1991) created bizarre songs by combining progressive rock, composed “fusion”, jazz, a sort of cabaret, and a kind of intentionally naive vocal expression. (The singer and leader Ľubomír Burgr sometimes also sang in the eastern Slovakian dialect.) Ali Ibn Rachid belonged to the most sophisticated groups of their generation but, on the other hand, they were also characterised by absurd humour. For an example we can point to the song “Letný sneh práve napadol” (Summer snow has just fallen) whose introduction is based on the hard, “lazy” rhythm of drums and bass, and on a “crying” glissando solo of the tenor saxophone above it, which evoke the jazz cabaret atmosphere of the 1950s European jazz clubs. The absurd lyrics are in a perfect tension and contrast with the intelligent arrangement of the brass section; it is composed and played in the spirit of a “trans-jazz” feeling.

The cover of Ali Ibn Rachid’s first LP (1991)

Teória Odrazu (Theory of Reflection – the name of the group was identical with the official socialist theory of arts) was a special rock-alternative band focused on collage of various styles – hard rock, fusion, ethno inspirations, jazz, all together with Zappa´s mixture of trans-genre unexpected changes of rhythm, harmonies, dynamics, etc. The singer Peter “Šteko” Štekláč also played the bugle, an old rather misshapen military horn, which disturbed any definiteness about the musical styles played by the band. Štekláč on this instrument performed some crazy free jazz “extracts”, Slovakian folk melodies, and he also imitated Miles Davis´s sound. Besides funny parodies of swing and fusion, as well as a heavy metal and martial march, the band dedicated his slow funeral silent song Tu (Blow) in memoriam M. Davis (1992).

Teória Odrazu (1991)

The Jesus Underground Band (JUB) was able to combine hard core, free jazz, noise and even a simple baroque counterpoint. They also enlarged the instrumental cast of “classical” alternative rock groups with a clarinet and a bugle, but the main difference between the Jesus Underground Band and the other groups lay in JUB’s staging of “cruel rituals”, e. g. scenes with the beating and kicking a man on the stage while playing all his painful “screams” on the brass instruments (1995). The band’s way of using the “free jazz” principle can be characterised, in this context, as an example of extreme “site specific” re-contextualization.

The cover of Jesus Underground Band’s MC record (1995)

A parody of certain jazz aesthetics has appeared in Space Boys, the CD album of the Andrej Šeban & Tono Kubasák duo (2005). In the piece “Jazz Klab” they simply quoted in a very ironical way different void virtuoso solo parts, inappropriate scat, simulated jazz singing, conventional fusion chords played on a synthesiser, etc. Behind these layers there are samples of clapping and of animated jazz club audiences.

Another Slovakian alternative rock-funky band, 100 Múch (100 Flies, originally Too Much) has started to create interesting songs and compositions since the first decade of the 21^st century. (The musical producer of their first album was A. Šeban.) We cannot say that they use the methods of parody or persiflage of jazz, however, they have developed poly-rhythmical and bi-tonal mutations of funk, (post-)modern jazz and the Slavonic modality. I think that the song “Trolejbus” (Trolleybus) from the band’s second CD Fšehochuť (2008) suggestively expresses all these mutations.

100 Múch (2008)

In my musical works I also apply certain transformation, semantically shifted re-interpretation of jazz idioms with a deep respect to modern (especially avant-garde) styles including progressive fusion music of the 1970s and the 1980s. Here are two examples: in 1998, I composed for students of the VŠMU (the Academy of Performing Arts) in Bratislava the music for their staging of Woody Allen’s comedy Play It Again, Sam, so a jazz stylisation was welcomed and requested for such a theatrical play. Along with a mix of fragments from modern jazz vinyl records, I also prepared more than ten jazz themes, which the young saxophonist Martin Koróny improvised in typical “soft mood” variations with me on the piano, synthesizer and sampler. For example, in the track “Joystick Jazz II” I transformed some “classical” jazz harmonies which were, in the second half of the piece, interrupted and disturbed by a glissando of noisy electrical low sound. (At that time, I took inspiration from the computer music by Martin Burlas who had appropriated unexpected breakdowns of his digital equipment as a sonic source of his music.)

Jazz elements as well as a collective way of impro-/comprovisation were implemented in my “intermedia wrestling” transPOPsitions! (2003/rev.2005). The piece was based on a confrontation between contemporary non-conventional music (involving jazz stylisations) and pop video-clips (of Robbie Williams, Michael Jackson and Eminem); the interludes contained phrases which were taken from the well-known Roland Barthes´ text Wrestling, and were projected on a big screen. The composition was performed in a revised and extended version in 2005 by the prominent chamber ensemble the California EAR Unit with me as a guest on stage at the Red Cat Theatre in Los Angeles (not very far from the pop cultural centre, Hollywood, USA). TransPOPsitions! was a special (inter)semiotic game, a kind of bizarre “fighting” dialogue in the form of intermedia wrestling between the pop (visual) culture and mutations of contemporary improvised and composed music with jazz motifs. I tried to create music that would maintain the spirit of jazz and early pop music of the era hundred years ago; I only wanted – especially in the interludes – to bring a certain ironic context into it when the audience was reading the sentences from Barthes´ study.

The EAR Unit with Julius Fujak (in the middle) after the transPOPsition performance in Los Angeles in 2005

These examples from Slovak alternative music scene demonstrate the abilities of trans-genre games with re-contextualised jazz music – either in the sense of parody, persiflage and ironic sarcasm, or in transversal style mutation – which can result in a special, sometimes bizarre, new and taxonomically indefinable musical quality.

Yes, Zappa was right, maybe jazz did smell funny then. But if some of its styles did not endure and started to be “bedraggled” by other kinds of music, binding and melting with them into a symbiosis in various contexts, jazz has thus shown us how vivid it can be even in recent times.

Notes

1. My understadning of the „comprovisation“ notion is explained in „Comprovisation: Notes pour une discussion sur la validité de la notion“, In: Improjazz.  ISSN 1269-6501, vol. 14, no. 182 (2012), pp. 31-35. More on the subject of „comprovisation“ in the English language is also available on the website: http://sme.amuz.krakow.pl/cageconf/notes/.
2. In particular, more can be found in his paper Cseres, Jozef: “Hudba, Etnológ, Ekonóm, Semiológ a Pojmotvorci” (z cyklu metaxu) (Music, Ethnologist, Economist, Semiologist, and Conceptmakers (from the series metaxu (metaxu)). In: Fujak, Július (ed.): Otáz(ni)ky hudobnej semiotiky a estetiky (Questions on Musical Semiotics and Aesthetics). Nitra : UKF, 2010, pp. 107 – 118. ISBN 978-80-8094-693-7.

Bibliography

CSERES, Jozef: “Site & Room”. In: Era21, ERA, Brno, no. 3, 2004, pp. 46-47, ISSN 1213-6212

CSERES, Jozef: “Hudba, Etnológ, Ekonóm, Semiológ a Pojmotvorci” (z cyklu metaxu) (Music, Ethnologist, Economist, Semiologist, and Conceptmakers (from the series metaxu (metaxu)), In: Fujak, Július (ed.): Otáz(ni)ky hudobnej semiotiky a estetiky (Questions on Musical Semiotics and Aesthetics). UKF, Nitra 2010, pp. 107 – 118. ISBN 978-80-8094-693-7

FUJAK, Július: “Comprovisation: Notes pour une discussion sur la validité de

la notion”, In: Improjazz, vol. 14, no. 182, 2012, pp. 31-35, ISSN 1269-6501. The

English version: “Comprovisation – Notes to a Discussion on the Validity of the

Notion”. In: Filozofické koncepcie v hudbe a umení, Hudobná a

umelecká akadémia Jána Albrechta, Banská Štiavnica, pp. 25-30, ISBN 978-80-970754-4-6

WILSON, Peter Niklas: Hear And Now. Úvahy o improvizovanej hudbe. (Hear and Now. Considerations on Improvised Music),Trans. by Slavomír Krekovič, Hudobné centrum, Bratislava 2002, ISBN 80-88884-35-7

Jazz pianist, composer and arranger Gabriel Jonáš represents the acme of the Slovak jazz. He graduated from the Bratislava Conservatory (1969) where he had studied the accordion and guitar playing. However he also played the saxophone, bass guitar and other instruments on a professional level. Later he cast aside all other instruments except the keyboards. Originally he was inspired by jazz records by pianists Oscar Peterson and David Brubeck, which motivated him to the comprehension of jazz performance and creation of his own jazz pieces. As early as in 1969 he was admitted to a jazz school in Austrian Graz and in 1973 to Berklee School of Music in Boston, but for various reasons he did not start his studies. In 1972 he got to New York jazz clubs where he acquired unique experience. He performed there with world-wide famous American jazzmen as Joe Newman and Atilla Zoller. Returning to Slovakia he started to cooperate with several musicians. For a short time he collaborated with significant Polish singer Czeslaw Nieman and with Slovak jazz-rock band GATTCH, where he played the bass guitar.

For the first time Gabriel Jonáš presented himself publicly in Czechoslovakia in 1975 at the Kroměříž Non-Professional Jazz Festival. He performed there in a duet with drummer Jozef Döme and won the best Czechoslovak jazz soloist award. A jury member of the festival, the flutist and saxophonist Jiří Stivín asked Gabriel Jonáš for a collaboration. It was at the time when Stivín’s Tandem with guitarist Rudolf Dašek broke up. Thus Gabriel Jonáš got the open way to Prague jazz scene and started to gain fame also among the Slovak audience. Next two years Jonáš and Stivín performed together and recorded the LP Zvěrokruh (The Zodiac) in 1977.

LP Klávesová Konkláva [Keyboard Conclave]

In 1976 a special concert was recorded in Prague where Gabriel Jonáš and two other pianists, Emil Viklický and Karel Růžička, performed with jazz-rock rhythm section. Two years later the record from the concert was released on the LP Keyboard Conclave. It was rated with the highest marks by the critics and it is outstanding from several aspects. The record uses the stereo panorama principle, thus when reproduced the instruments are separated into particular sides of the record. The electronic keyboards of Emil Viklický and Karel Růžička can be heard in the left and right channels respectively, while the acoustic piano by Gabriel Jonáš stands in the middle. The audio spectrum of the album is very rich despite the fact that it was recorded live. All three pianists attained the stylistically common language based on contemporary recordings of the piano players Les Mc Cann, Herbie Hancock and Joe Zawinul. Original compositions of the pianists form the core of the album.

The first, more than 11-minute composition Tretie oko [The Third Eye] by Gabriel Jonáš uses the G Phrygian mode as its main key. The piece begins with an electric piano repetitive pattern on D, C, A Flat, G. This layer is joined gradually by the rhythm section and then immediately by the theme played on the piano. In it the long sustained tones alternate with quick and rhythmic phrases. At the end of the theme the section of a common tutti phrase emerges, where two kinds of chords appear: Maj or major seventh chord, and suspended fourth, the chord in which the third is replaced by the perfect fourth. Thus except the common tutti passage the harmonic outline of the piece consists of the alternation of two basic modes, Phrygian on the first grade and Lydian on the second diminished grade (on A Flat). Over these alternating modes the improvisation of all three pianists continues, supported mainly by the rhythm section of bass guitar and percussion instruments. While the soli continue, harmony is rarely emphasized in chords. The pianists use only a game of phrases and their audio nuances to fill the musical space. Compared to the piece Spain by Chick Corea the Third Eye is more focused on rhythmics and phrasing of particular soli than on harmony. Only samba groove, the characteristic rhythmic pattern in the bass guitar and in the drummer’s rhythms, resembles Chick Corea’s Spain. At the end of all improvisations the tutti passage comes without the original theme. Compositional devices like the usage of Maj and Sus chords or modal improvisations were typical especially for Chick Corea at that time who inspired Gabriel Jonáš to a certain extent. Let us mention here that jazz recordings, as well as note material or other information regarding the jazz trends in the world were achievable only with great difficulties at the time. The recording studios and music publishing houses were almost inaccessible, as they were focusing on the recording of classical and traditional music. Thanks to his travels abroad Gabriel Jonáš brought several precious jazz LPs, his source of inspiration.

Throughout the album the pianists inspire and complement each other. They do not strive to surpass each other, they alternate in taking the main role. A valuable rhythm section – Peter Kořínek (bass guitar) and Jozef Vejvoda (percussion instruments) – supported the soloists to a great extent. The following pieces of the album prove the variegated thinking of particular authors. Karel Růžička presents his more soul-like inclination, while Emil Viklický joins the traditional elements with jazz, namely the melodics and tonality of Moravian folk music, which enter his play. This diversity of performers resulted in interesting stylistic enlacement of three personalites at the album and added a hallmark of uniqueness to it.

Example: Keyboard Conclave – The Third Eye

The album Keyboard Conclave is a rare recording of the grouping of musicians at the Prague Jazz Days and it is unique from the historical point of view regarding jazz pianists in Central Europe, as it presents piano duets in the time when solo piano and piano duets in the U.S.A. jazz world only started to blossom. One of the first solo piano jazz album was Staircase by Keith Jarrett in 1976, and the first piano duet of Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock was released only in 1978 on an LP, and similarly to Keyboard Conclave it was a recording of their joint concerts.

LP Impresie [Impressions]

The most self-contained document of Gabriel Jonáš’s composing, arranging and performing endeavours is his LP Impressions released by Opus in 1978. At that time he had no permanent line-up, therefore he invited the acme of Czech jazz for the recording, the saxophonist Petr Král, the double-bassist Petr Kořínek, drummer Jozef Vejvoda and percussionist Jiří Tomek. Gabriel Jonáš himself labelled them as the best coordinated rhythm section in the whole of Czechoslovakia.

The musicians had only a short time span of two days for the recording, being offered a free term in the Prague studio Mozarteum at the last moment. Seven pieces form the album Impressions, six by Gabriel Jonáš and one by Petr Kořínek. The title of the record refers to Jonáš’s jazz self-realization which uses new audio possibilities of the piano music of the then jazz mainstream.

An important piece of the album is Greeting to Ch. Corea, dedicated by Jonáš to one of his music paragons. Jonáš got his hands on Corea’s studio recordings for the first time in 1969. In the run of nine years he developed a close relation to Corea’s music and inspired himself by his accomplished jazz piano artistry. This inspiration resulted in his own composition amalgamating the elements of music by Chick Corea and his own motifs.

The piece Greeting to Ch. Corea uses a South American samba rhythm, preferred also by Chick Corea himself in his compositions. Characteristic sound ambience is joined by percussion instruments: claves and triangle. The introduction is opened by a percussion rhythmic pattern, later supplemented by two minor chords Gm7 with the bass F and Am7 with the bass D Flat, repeated once. They are followed by a theme on the piano, interesting especially by the variations of the two measure phrase. The first measure is special by its agile melodic line and the second one consists of variously rhythmized alterations of the chords. The piece is in Bb major and tectonically the first section (A) consists of four two-bar phrases. Harmony of the first bar of the phrase is created by a tonic triad, its first inversion, subdominant triad and non-tonal seventh grade to the dominant. The second measure of the phrase is harmonically varied with the base in a widened cadence. The section (B) has a modulating character, while each measure is in a different key. The section (A’) is half the extent of the section (A) and Gabriel Jonáš recalls the main motif of the composition with the following piano solo.

The melodic outline of the solo is distinctive and supported by a special harmony. The opening part of the piano solo is created namely by the tones of the Bb blues pentatonic key. In the 10^th bar of the solo (26^th bar of the score) Jonáš leaves this diatonic basis of the composition and together with the bass line he goes through various chromatic sequences and permits the piano to sound in a wide scale of colours. The most interesting is Jonáš’s sense for rhythm and a creation of new rhythmic patterns. By using breaks frequently he creates a strange rhythmical elasticity and his unique rendering shifts him into the class of American jazz musicians.

Example: Greeting to Ch. Corea

 

Together with his co-players Gabriel Jonáš contributed to the origin of a representative sample of jazz of the 1970s. Following Ladislav Gerhardt he thus became another significant representative of the Slovak jazz piano generation of the second half of the 20^th century. The turn of the 1980s brought the climax of his music career. Two years after the album was released, in 1980 Jonáš performed at the Bratislava Music Festival both as a soloist and in a duet with Emil Viklický. From 1983 he used to perform with the jazzrock band Esprit and occupied himself predominantly by a solo play. In 1985 he again performed at the Bratislava Music Festival in a duet with Cuban percussionist L. A. Barrer-Perao. During 1990 – 1993 he played in a duet with double-bass player Robert Balzar, guitarist Matúš Jakabčic, trumpet player Juraj Bartoš and continued his collaboration with Jiří Stivín.

LP Gentle Rain

The second studio album by Gabriel Jonáš got an English title Gentle Rain after the homonymous piece by Brazilian guitarist and composer Luiz Bonfá. It was recorded 12 years after the first album Impressions in the after-revolutional time of 1990. Despite the fact that Gabriel Jonáš used to perform publicly with some music ensemble, he decided to record this album by himself, without any other player. He compensated for it by the recording technology called “overdubbing”. The particular simultaneously sounding components of the music work were recorded successively on separated sound tracks. By this way step by step Jonáš recorded all three piano parts into one composition. The album consists of 10 pieces, 8 of them being American jazz standards and 2 are original pieces by Jonáš’s.

The song Some Day My Prince Will Come was subject to a very non-traditional elaboration. Originally a movie soundtrack to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs from the Disney studios turned into a jazz standard several years later. It was performed by a huge number of jazzmen like Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, Oscar Peterson and others and thanks to them the piece has acquired many different forms. Gabriel Jonáš also arranged the piece very originally. As the majority of the arrangements of the piece are in a mild tempo and 3/4 metre, G. Jonáš focused especially on the re-arrangement of its rhythmical accompaniment. After a short calm introduction a quick new pattern enters, tinting the theme and a major part of the piano solo. Similar patterns occur on the album in the other, less famous jazz standard I Hear the Rhapsody, however, much more polyrhythmic elements are used here. This is related also to Jonáš’s close relationship to African traditional music, where polyrhythm is highly developed.

Example: Some Day My Prince Will Come

Apart from jazz standards Gabriel Jonáš composed also two original compositions for the album Gentle Rain. The first one, Song for Sandra, fits well to the dramaturgical concept of the album and in its quality it equals American standards. The other original piece of Jonáš entitled Tail is, contrary to the Song for Sandra, structurally closer to classical music and exceeds traditional jazz standards. The bass line tinges the whole piece, its fifth-octave jumps are diversely rhythmically varied. The harmonic layer is typical by harmonies in seconds, thirds and in clustres and together with the bass line it results in interesting rhythmic-harmonic patterns. The melodic layer is the most pithy encompassing also the opening theme, as well as the main part of the improvisational passage. In his improvisation Jonáš often uses rhythm variations together with short melodic phrases. The overall sound of the composition Tail is of an ethereal and melancholic character evoking a certain amount of restlessness.

The album Gentle Rain is in itself a testimony to Gabriel Jonáš’s interpretation. Besides two original compositions he had elaborated here significant jazz standards of such giants as Herbie Hancock, Charlie Parker, Luzi Bonfa and others. Jonáš presents here his performing ripeness and professional progress. However, this album did not become exceedingly popular, apart from other reasons also due to the social-political atmosphere and after-revolutional changes typical for the early 1990s. In spite of this Jonáš was awarded the best jazz musician of the year prize at the festival in Karlovy Vary in 1991.

In the same year he recorded the album Far and Yet Near with Matúš Jakabčic and Robert Balzar, which met with large response. The primary idea was not the concept of a diminished traditional quartet, but the presentation of three equal instruments. For instance the piece Touches reveals the easiness of the composer’s brilliant piano technique and thematic lushness. Balzar’s double-bass is not only the second aide, but due to its vividness it is an independent melodic companion. It is especially this mutual conversation which is the most exciting ligament of the whole album. In 1992 Jonáš was awarded the Ladislav Martoník Prize as the jazzman of the year. His collaboration with the spiritual singer Jana Kocianová in 1994 was also interesting, they recorded the album Spiritual from the Heart. By this way Jonáš confirmed his inclination towards the jazz sources.

CD Gabo Jonáš Quartet – Live

The third album by Gabriel Jonáš is a live concert recording. The concert was made possible thanks to the international programme Euroradio Jazz Season 2001 – 2002, organized by the European Broadcasting Union and aired into 16 European countries, for the first time with Slovak participation. Gabriel Jonáš invited the cream of the Slovak jazz scene for the event: Juraj Griglák (double-bass, bass guitar), Martin Valihora (percussion instruments) and Radovan Tariška (alto saxophone). The concert crowned their concert tour in Slovakia. Besides classical piano Jonáš plays the synthesizer and creates interesting sound spaces and effects. All seven compositions of the album were composed and arranged by Gabriel Jonáš. The preceding albums were mostly in modal and mainstream jazz style, but this album oscillates among the ranges of jazzrock, fusion and funk style. The only exception is the mainstream opening piece of the album I Don’t Know. Liberal time possibilities of the live album enabled the performers to elaborate their improvisational passages to perfection, what is exemplified by the more than three-minute piano solo of the opening piece. In it tonal digressions, sequences and harmonic-melodic variations are frequently used by Jonáš. Its music is very interesting and confirms Jonáš’s rich invention and virtuosity. The saxophone solo is extremely concise and its phrases correspond with the distinctively pulsing rhythm section.

Example: I Don’t Know

The second piece of the album Song for Sandra comes originally from the album Gentle Rain. However, in this new arrangement the theme was taken by the bass guitar which added to it a more tuneful character. Each following piece of the album has its typical groove, over which the themes of the keyboards and saxophone excel. The top Slovak rhythmics considerably struck a blow for first-rate grooves and accentuated the high-quality of Jonáš’s compositions. He chose the music to meet the stylistic tastes of his co-players and to illustrate their skills absolutely. Quoting Gabo Jonáš “this recording demonstrates spontaneous musicality – what every one was able to ‘unpack’ in the given moment”; craft, emotionality, expression. Musicians, he said, had “no time for a longer co-ordination. But with such a line-up it was not possible to record it badly. It is at the same time variegated and vivid.”¹

Gabriel Jonáš has collaborated with other significant jazzmen, such as Peter Cardarelli, Juraj Bartoš, Peter Lipa and others. Recently in 2012 he participated in the recording of the albums Personal Suite and New Winter Stories of the saxophonist Nikolaj Nikitin, where also famous American trumpet player Michael Patches Stewart took part. A well-known Czech jazz theorist Antonín Matzner characterized Jonáš’s playing: “Everything is like woven from optimal harmony of his introvert temperament with extremely refined rendering, which often results in richly segmented structures and expressive strain even while using minimal devices.”² (Praha, 1978).

Notes

1. Jaslovský, Marián: Jonáš: Život v rytme džezu, www.sme.sk, 2003.
2. Matzner, Antonín: Sleeve notes on LP Impresie (9115 0729), Opus, 1978.

Bibliography

Dorůžka, Lubomír – Poledňák, Ivan: Československý jazz-Minulost a přítomnost, Editio Supraphon, Praha, Bratislava 1967.

Gridley, Mark: Jazz Styles. History and Analysis, Sixth ed., Prentice Hall, New Jersey 1997.

Kajanová, Yvetta: Communism and emergence of the Central European Jazz School, In: Journal of literature and art studies, vol. 2, 2012, No.6, pp. 622-640.

Kajanová, Yvetta: K dejinám jazzu, Coolart, Bratislava 2010.

Kajanová, Yvetta: K periodizácii slovenskej populárnej hudby a jazzu. In: Slovenská hudobná kultúra – kontinuita, či diskontinuita? Fakulta prírodných vied Žilinskej univerzity, Katedra hudby, Bratislava 2007, BEN&M – KH FPVŽU, Žilina 2007.

Kajanová, Yvetta: Sprievodné a významové komponenty jazzu v období 1948-1989 na príkladoch slovenského jazzu. In: Príspevky k vývoju hudobnej kultúry na Slovensku. Stimul, Bratislava 2009, s. 183-214.

Kajanová, Yvetta: Jazzoví klaviristi v strednej Európe v období 1948-1989. In: Slovenská hudba 20. storočia v pohľadoch a kontextoch. Bratislava : UK, 2011, s. 123-163.

Lyons, Len: The Great Jazz Pianists, Da Capo Press, New York 1983.

Müller, Richard: Koncert Gabriela Jonáša, in: Populár, vol. XI, 1979, No. 9, p. 12.

Snopko, Ladislav: Gabriel Jonáš – šedá eminencia nášho jazzu, in: Populár, vol. XI, 1979, No. 6, pp. 10-11.

Snopko, Ladislav: Gabriel Jonáš – Impresie, in: Populár, vol. XI, 1979, No. 6, p. 27.

Španko, Patrick: Gabo Jonáš : Slovenskí inštrumentalisti, in: Rytmus, vol. 41, 1990, No. 10.

Wasserberger, Igor: Slovenský džez, in: Populár, vol. XIII, 1981, No. 3-8.

At the time of its origin the new style, jazz-rock, enjoyed relatively suitable conditions for its development. Popular genres were welcoming infiltration and mix of new elements. This phenomenon was quite frequent in the music of the 20^th century, as in the time span of one century an uncountable amount of musical styles originated. The synthesis, being an important constituent of post-modern thinking, is presented in jazz-rock by joining these already existing styles. In the process of synthesis musicians mainly derive from post-1966 jazz and rock music, pop music, simplifying its music devices, they also make use of the modality of traditional music and borrow sound from electronic and dance music.

Musical styles at disposal of jazz-rock demand a much wider musical palette. Stylistical components of rock music appear to be one of the basic elements of the jazz-rock development. For instance, the rhythmic archetypes in funk music are essentially of rock character, accentuating the second and fourth beats and using ostinatos and repetitiveness. Hard beat definitely did not come from jazz, but from rock. Besides, they draw from swing, syncope or offbeat rhythm of jazz. Groove music is also the hallmark of jazz-rock. Rock and jazz music were changing in the history, too, they absorbed modern impulses like electronic music, here we mean electrojazz or nu jazz. We could also notice the influence of the styles which contributed to the creativity in jazz-rock, albeit were not part of it. For example world music, based on traditional music, as well as free jazz utilizing free form, harmonic and melodic improvisation etc.

The issue of jazz-rock in historical development has not been elaborated by and large in Slovakia for several reasons. First of all, the research of jazz and rock in Slovakia is still of a recent date. Therefore domestic writers refer usually to the methods of foreign authors and their bibliography, or they are forced to use the methods of classical music, adapted according to the objectives of their research. The other reason dwells in the fact, that jazz-rock and fusion music is in itself a very wide genre combining a plenty of musical styles. Thus it is difficult to define the borders behind which the research of jazz ends and the research of rock begins.

While searching for appropriate methods we will respect these typical traits and try to apply them on music-theoretical analyses of the selected compositions, preceded by a transcription of the musical material. Using the method of music-theoretical analysis we would like to point to the specifics of the bands active in Slovakia at the beginning of the jazz-rock era. We will pay attention to melodic, rhythmic and harmonic layers. The absence of note material forces us to rely on our own experience. Particular layers in compositions yield to the principles valid in classical music, especially when we think of tectonics and melodics, to a certain extent also harmony, but this is often based on jazz, especially in the later periods of fusion music in Slovakia.

The following examples demonstrate the original elements of the early Slovak jazz-rock and creative originality of Slovak musicians. The selected compositions will be analysed and then compared – the music of the Slovak bands will be compared to the music of the Czech jazz-rock groups.

Our subject is considerably wide, therefore we have chosen such pieces from the early period of jazz-rock in Slovakia, which use similar compositional devices based on groove, ostinato melodic patterns and jazz-based improvisation. As no jazz-rock recordings were realized prior to 1969 in Slovakia, it is not easy to confirm whether jazz-rock groups had existed or not, or they had no access to the recording studio. The postmodern elements entered the Slovak jazz in 1977, when the pianist Gabriel Jonáš appeared on the scene, as well as in the time of the existence of the band Esprit after 1983. We can prove that after 1969 jazz ensembles playing jazz-rock were already active, however, they were usually giving concerts; no LP album was released at that time. Therefore jazz-rock records appeared considerably later compared to the concert performances. We are thinking particularly of the VV System Orchestra established in 1974 by its conductor Vladimír Valovič. Its first recordings came into existence only in 1979 (LP Quasar, Opus) and 1982 (LP Syntax, Opus). Slightly sooner, in 1977 the first recording of jazz-rock music originated in the form of an SP record Gabriel Jonáš (Panton, Mini Jazz Club). First rock musicians revealed their interest in jazz-rock, only later jazzmen took interest in it.

In the 1960s big-beat bands were in the foreground in Slovakia, oriented mostly on the music of the famous groups as The Beatles, Rolling Stones and suchlike. Jazz-rock elements appeared only little by little, when rock musicians started to involve more complicated rhythmic-melodic arrangements and more intricate harmonies into their music. In Slovakia Fermáta and Gattch were such bands, partly also the guitarist, singer and music composer Dežo Ursíny ranks among them (album Provisorium [Makeshift]), because the tendencies to polystylism¹ and smoothing of the borders between the styles may be noticed in his music.

The band GATTCH was formed in 1969 and as one of the first groups it consistently focused on its members’ own original compositions during its whole existence. They tried for the fusion of jazz, rock and classical music. The band was founded by four musicians from Nové Zámky and Sereď: Juraj „George“ Štefula – drums and percussion instruments; Ľudovít „Ali“ Beladič – keyboard; Tomáš „Tomy“ Rédey – guitar and violin; Anton „Tony“ Lančarič – bass guitar. Karol ,,Charlie“ Slanina (rhythm guitar) joined them at the beginning, but shortly after he left the group and the line-up was stabilized as a quartet. In 1972 Anton Lančarič left and the post of bass guitar was occupied first by Valentín Čekovský and in 1974 by Gabriel Jonáš, a famous Slovak pianist (he had been studying accordion and guitar at the conservatory). The name of the band GATTCH hints at some English origin, however, it stemmed from the initials of the group members’ nicknames.

Example 1 Audio example and transcription of the piece Kvapka medu (GATTCH: A Drop of Honey)

From the beginning of the piece the listener is indubitably captivated by an 18-second introduction. It is obvious that the composer aims to cope with the issue of the mingling of genres, as the introduction is based on a concept of classical music, it is not metrically determined and it reveals the influences of the 20^th century music. The following section A in 35 bars is a core of the composition, the piano pattern may be perceived as the main theme modulating and appearing several times in the course of the piece. This rhythmically imaginative and bright groove (together with bass guitar) confirms the presence of jazz-rock elements.

Example 7a., 7b.

The important part of the presented composition is formed by B-section in jazz-swing style. The band plays with the idea of the usage of jazz elements, what is proven by a walking bass and swing phrasing of percussion instruments. The band GATTCH obviously consists of young musicians, conservatory graduates, who still lack the easy phrasing although the level of their craftsmanship is high. Comparing their approach with e.g. Slovak jazz-rock band Fermáta (we will mention it later) we may say that Fermáta presents a higher level of synthesis and instrumental maturity than the GATTCH.

Example 2

Let us try to confront the Slovak jazz-rock scene with the Czech scene approximately of the same period.

For instance, take the composition Čaroděj [The Wizard] from the second album Symbiosis (released 1975, recorded some time sooner) of the Czech jazz-rock band Jazz Q of Martin Kratochvíl. We present here in a transcription an instrumental theme from the electric guitar and bass guitar parts. The theme is ostinato-like and forms a basic groove. With its duration (more than 16 minutes) the piece fits into the compositions from the early jazz-rock period following the music of the Miles Davis generation.

Example 3 Audio example and transcription of the piece The Wizard

The extent of the piece allows its division into several shorter sections. The keyboard introduction of Martin Kratochvíl may be perceived as an independent section, the music of which is not related to the following process of composition. Also in subsequent sections we can notice the variety of musical, mutually incompatible elements. Particular sections are simply “glued” to each other, similarly to larger sections of a sonata cycle, or of other classical musical forms, according to the attacca principle. Rhythmic-melodic patterns are the most important moments in the composition, namely the bass guitar ostinato groove and guitar riff. Repeated patterns were a typical jazz-rock element in the 1970s. Bass guitar harmony-based lines have become the basic support for other instruments. In the piece The Wizard the bass line is led in D mixolydian key – or we may say the major key with a minor seventh. Similarly, the rhythmic-melodic pattern of the electric guitar is built on two chords D⁷ and C major. In the case of the D⁷ it is not the dominant seventh chord on the fifth grade of the scale, it is the major seventh chord on the first grade with a minor seventh, coming from the blues major pentatonic scale. In jazz the usage of blues pentatonic is common and we can see it in jazz-rock too. Therefore typical jazz-rock elements of the 1970s can be seen also in the work of the band Jazz Q of Martin Kratochvíl.

Steering our attention to rhythmic pulsation, the metre 8/8 in The Wizard may appear incorrect at first sight and could be changed for 4/4 metre. However, in our trancription we take into account also the overall rhythmic pulsation, stressing two last eighth notes (the seventh and eighth one), contrasting to the sixteenth notes in rhythmic-melodic patterns of the guitar and keyboards. However, the controversy over the metrical record is not necessary, as in the case of the even metre the rhythm is divisible into two, four or eight shorter phrases etc. The similarity of elements can be seen on our domestic scene, too, exemplified by the bass guitar pattern from the Pieseň z hôľ (The Song from the Uplands) by Fermáta (LP Pieseň z hôľ /The Song from the Uplands, Opus 1976).

Example 4 Audio example and transcription of the piece The Song from the Uplands (Fermáta)

The mentioned metre 8/8 is significant from both the practical and graphical viewpoint. Due to a number of ties the record makes easier the division into smaller rhythmical (eighth-note) units. Bass guitar line is again clearly and logically built, again ostinato during the whole piece (excluding the section B). The usage of ostinato patterns is typical for the Slovak and Czech jazz-rock scene, what may be observed also in its relation to the tendency of the world jazz-rock of the 1970s. For instance Weather Report band uses groove as its basic building element. Its main exponent the bass guitar player Jaco Pastorius promoted groove onto the highest technical and artistic pedestal.

Example 5 Audio example and transcription of the piece Come On Come Over (Jaco Pastorius)

 

Groove in Jaco Pastorius’ rendition is of a unique and original presentation. He enriched the music world with virtuoso elements in bass guitar play and thus elevated the position of the band sideman into the leader. In our country this phenomenon is presented for instance by the drummer Pavol Kozma, bass guitarists Juraj Griglák, Róbert Vizvári, drummer Martin Valihora and other musicians. New sound presented by electrically amplified instrument is one of the main stylistic elements in the early jazz-rock. New sound possibilities of the instrument utilization are joined with it, e.g. bass guitar pinch harmonics, or the slap bass technique. Therefore we may say that the beginnings of jazz-rock in Bohemia and Slovakia were influenced mainly by the music of the band Weather Report and jazz-rock music by Miles Davis.

Notes

1. Kajanová, Yvetta: K dejinám jazzu [On the History of Jazz Music], p. 79. Bratislava : CoolArt 2010.

Bibliography

BALÁŽ, Michal: Jazzrock, funky a popjazz v slovenskej hudbe. In: Musicologica č.1, 2010, https://www.musicologica.eu/?p=411

DORŮŽKA, Lubomír: Český jazz mezi tanky a klíči 1968 – 89. Praha : Torst, 2002.

GRIDLEY, Mark C.: Jazz styles history and analysis. New Jersey : 2006.

JURÍK, Ľuboš – ŠUHAJDA, Dodo: Slovenský bigbít. Bratislava  : Slovart, 2008.

KAJANOVÁ, Yvetta: Postmoderna: pèle – mèle po moderne? In: Melos. Texty o súčasnej hudobnej kultúre. Postmoderna.  27.05.2007, roč. I., č. 1, s. 1 – 12, http://www.melos.hrckova.sk/index.php?id=5

KAJANOVÁ, Yvetta: Postmoderna v hudbe. Minimal, rock, pop, jazz. Bratislava : VUK, 2010.

MATZNER, Antonín – POLEDŇÁK, Ivan – WASSERBERGER, Igor: Encyklopedie jazzu a moderní populární hudby I.  Praha : Supraphon, 1980.

ZÁBORSKÁ, Ľubica: Slovenská scéna world music.  Bratislava  : CoolArt, 2009.

   Introduction     

Who is a jazz singer? Someone, who can swing, scat, improvise or who can use “dirty” notes? And is the singer even an instrumentalist? These two essential questions had been answered many times, yet there is still confusion between their explanations.

Although singer’s function has been increased before bebop in big bands, developing new styles as hard bop, modal jazz, free jazz and jazz-rock decreased their performance and popularity among jazz musicians, scholars and listeners. Historical events, political aspirations, social and cultural differences have diminished position of contemporary jazz singers.

David Ake examines in Jazz Cultures (2002) the jazz pianists Nat “King” Cole and Sarah Vaughan who often served a dual function both as pianists and singers. “This practice essentially allowed nightclub owners to hire two musicians for the price of one, while patrons enjoyed the chance to hear their favorite lyrics as well as their favorite melodies.”¹ Diminishing and leaving this dual function of pianists and singers in one musician since bebop to free jazz period and with emergence of rock music, which was the big competitive counterpart in music, the end of the 20^th and the beginning of the 21^st century seems to be perfect for the comeback. Diana Krall plays a dominant role in a history of jazz; she pioneered this comeback of the dual function in a new and innovative jazz style; she is an original musician who combined both aspects of music: the entertaining quality as well as the artistic and creative side.

Jazz critic Will Layman calls Diana Krall “female Nat Cole” and recently, another scholar, Yvetta Kajanová explored Diana Krall, the “Frank Sinatra in a skirt”, and her versatility in Postmodernism in Music: Minimalistic music, Rock, Pop, Jazz (2010)². “Diana Krall is a personality who proved to popularize small swing combo and showed, that swing can constantly develop” (p. 127). She implements both aspects of music: artistic and entertaining through old jazz and popular standards in very original approach which is typical for Krall. Her popularity could be based also on the fact that she has a contralto voice which oscillates majorly around A4 and that might be a key for listeners because A4 is 440 Hz and that has the smoothest oscillations of the sound among all the sounds. Therefore music starts with A. She is known for her low vocal range starting on contralto D (D3), keeping her voice control safe up to G4, and her smooth tone quality reminding Bach’s low dynamic choices, but still intriguing and captivating rhythmic selections often moving off beats slightly behind the expected off beat (behind-the-beat phrasing). She could use her voice up to B4 and with a head voice also higher notes, however, most of the songs she keeps only up to G4.  She demonstrates not only a white female multi-instrumentalist’s control, but also represents a new artistic direction for developing conservative, traditional jazz styles in an elegant manner.

Diana Krall (1964) has been inspired by singers who have played piano. Dinah Washington (1924 – 1963) known for singing torch songs (sentimental love songs), Sarah Vaughan (1924 – 1990), Roberta Flack (1937) and Shirley Horn (1934 – 2005) who similarly as Diana used her contralto in ballad work with maximum independence and ability on the piano while singing, the next influences come from Andy Bey (1939), known for four octave baritone voice, Aretha Franklin (1942) known as one of the most important popularizers of the soul music and especially Carmen McRae (1920 – 1994) who has been one of her biggest influences, presumably influencing Diana with her behind-the-beat phrasing. According to Diana Krall, Nat Cole was the ultimate. “Nat was the only ‘hyphenate’ I know who was extraordinarily influential as both a singer and pianist”. Comparing Diana Krall to post-bop singer Betty Carter (1929 – 1998), known for complex scatting abilities and imaginative interpretation of lyrics and melodies excellently presented in Giant Steps during Hamburg Festival in 1993. Diana is more accurate in diction and reduces scatting. Sarah Vaughan and Carmen McRae considered Betty Carter as the only true jazz singer.

Vaughan had her voice in lower register reaching to a contralto D and was able to stretch it up high (soprano) C = C6, which is two octaves above Middle C. She and Diana accentuate lyrical meaning in frequently used jazz standards, but Vaughan used more glissandi, frequent ornamentation, scatting and melodic variations. Despite a high acclaim of both artists, they were shy on stage; Vaughan even suffered from stage fright which was sometimes unbearable. While Diana Krall seems to be limited by her vocal range (according to Diana in the Interview with Jô on ‘Programa do Jô, November 28, 2007, Diana Krall has less than one octave range in alto register; however her complete range is from contralto D up to G4 – the first G above middle C) it is important to mention that Billie Holiday’s range was only one octave and that did not limited her artistry in jazz.

Diana Krall’s style resembles to new generation of male singers as well. Kevin Mahagony (1958) is an American jazz vocalist known for his singing sentimental style but differs from Diana through his scatting (Yardbird Suite, Route 66) and more dramatic approach (Yesterday I Had My Heart, Please Send Me Someone To Love) in singing. On the other hand, Kurt Elling (1967) is like “modern Sinatra” but with more sophisticated approach which could be influenced by earlier Elling’s studies of counterpoint in Johann Sebastian Bach’s motets (Samurai Cowboy is a great example of Bach’s influence). Contrasting Diana, he fluctuates from middle range to high descants and uses frequently scatting in fast tempos (Tight, Nature Boy).

 

   Comparative Analysis of Fly Me to the Moon

The popular standard song Fly Me to the Moon, originally titled In Other Words, is part of The Great American Songbook Volume V.  It had been written by Bart Howard in 1954, which is an important year dividing “old” style from “new”; particularly ‘old’ jazz and old popular standard songs from new rock ‘n’ roll. It was in April 1954 when Bill Haley recorded the first rock ‘n’ roll song Rock Around the Clock although earlier recordings preceded this song with rock ‘n’ roll elements.

One month later, in May 1954, a brief review in Billboard magazine said about Howard’s song and Kaye Ballard’s voice that it was “A love song sung with feeling…” which had been recorded and performed by many artists.

Musical choices of Diana Krall, Nat ‘King’ Cole and Frank Sinatra in Fly Me to the Moon clearly respond to their heritage: Diana Krall’s Slovakian family tree bonded with emigration from Central Europe, Nat King Cole’s African – American heritage tied to segregation and Sinatra’s Sicilian roots fused to political involvement.

Recordings from 2000 to 2013 seem to have a perfect place for the comeback. Diana Krall pioneered this comeback with entertaining and artistic aspect of music.

(1915-12-12) Diana Krall recorded Fly Me to the Moon on her album Live in Paris (2002) and played it for several different occasions (for TV shows, NASA, Neil Armstrong’s memorial service and during her concerts). In each performance Diana proves to be an innovative and creative jazz musician. She performed this song live with quartet in Paris (Anthony Wilson – guitar, John Clayton – bass, Jeff Hamilton – drums), as well as with her trio (Jeff Hamilton and John Clayton) and even as a duet with only bassist John Clayton and as a soloist. Each time Diana Krall uses different tempos, from moderate to up-beat tempo and also she changes from swinging style to almost unrecognizable impressionistic and romantic style. When she played as a soloist for the first astronaut landing on the moon – Neil Armstrong’s memorial service (September 13, 2012 at Washington National Cathedral in Washington D.C.), her interpretation was purely pianistic based on long and quiet arpeggios, very slow tempo, sensitive tone color, reminding Debussy’s compositions, which truly reflected the occasion. However, when she ribed and and used more swinging rhythms in upbeat tempo.

 Example 1. Fly Me to the Moon by Diana Krall, 2002.

Transcribed and rewritten into Finale software by Zuzana Ben Lassoued.

Diana Krall played Fly Me To The Moon in many settings: as soloist, duet, trio or with orchestra, but the best version is as duet with John Clayton who not only blended with Diana’s piano and vocals but also substituted her bass line. Many Diana’s mentors are bass players: Stovell, Thompson, Brown and Clayton. Diana says, “I have many pianistic influences, but I perform with bass players in duo and trio settings. They are my left hand. My bass mentors are truly my teachers. They have been the voice of leadership and experience, and I have learned so much music from them.” (CD Only Trust Your Heart, 1995). Diana Krall presents her distinctive zesty voice with a fine tone control, clear diction without histrionics, a little scatting and no over-embellishment. This particular recording has been watched by over 6 and half million listeners which proves her popularity and talent.

Nat ‘King’ Cole plays Fly Me to the Moon with George Shearing (piano and arranger) and Ralph Carmichael (arranger and conductor). Recorded in 1962 in studio album Nat King Cole Sings/George Shearing Plays and released on Capitol Records.

Example 2. Fly Me to the Moon sung by Nat ‘King’ Cole,1961.

Transcribed and rewritten into Finale softwear by Zuzana BenLassoued.

 

Frank Sinatra’s version of Fly Me to the Moon has been the best known version until Diana Krall recorded her version. Recorded in 1964 in It Might As Well Be Swing, accompanied by Count Basie (piano) and The Count Basie Orchestra. Arranged and conducted by Quincy Jones who changed the waltz time signature from ¾ to swinging4/4 time signature. In 1966, Sinatra performed this song with Basie on Sinatra at the Sands and in 1994 with Antonio Carlos Jobim on Duets II in bossa nova style.

Frank Sinatra keeps it swinging and often he changes lyrics in order to socially or politically connect with the audience. When Sinatra sung it for NASA, he changed the lyrics to connect more with the great event in a history: first walk on the moon by Neil Armstrong. Diana Krall also performed this song for NASA at the mission’s 40^th anniversary but she connected with this song more on the personal level; commenting on her childhood how fascinated she was by science and her first book bought by her mom called Carrying the fire, building her first rocket ship from the paper towel tubing when she had her confirmation day at the age of 13, always being interested in space program and wanting to be an aeronautical engineer. She also remarked on her at that time two and half year of twin sons how Frank corrected his swimming instructor saying that the Buzz lightener does not float on the water but he flies. In 2012, Diana Krall performed Fly Me To The Moon for the national memorial service of the commander Neil Armstrong in much more slower tempo, more arppegiated chord progression and romantic style.

Frank Sinatra interacts with orchestra during his breaks and orchestral solos and is very independent from orchestra in his vocal solos. He leads the orchestra and has very strong personality.

Comparing his lyric’s connection to NASA and an approach to the song to the version he sings for nonspecific event and audience, he connects this song on social or political level toward to the audience, specifically to women by changing lyrics accordingly.

Frank Sinatra and Count Basie complement each other. Sinatra extended swing through slurs, uses less control and more expressive vocal lines. Count Basie keeps it swinging through attention-grabbing accentuated steady beat and crescendo build ups in wind section.

Example 3. Fly Me to the Moon sung by Frank Sinatra, 1964

 

Transcribed and rewritten into Finale softwear by Zuzana BenLassoued.

Differences and similarities

Sound

Diana Krall’s example is based on the version as a duet with bassist John Clayton. The sound of piano, bass and singing corresponds to a tendency in the end of the seventies and beginning of the eighties, when small set ups as duets were modern. For example duets like Hancock and Corea, Mc Rae and Shearing: Two for the Road (1980), or trio Laughlin, de Lucia and DiMeola. This kind of chamber sound has been still modern and popular in 2002. The sound of piano and singing voice of the bass is a modern innovation under influence of the bass guitarists development in the 80s and the 90s. Nat King Cole’s example is based on version with George Shearing (piano and arranger) and Ralph Carmichael (arranger and conductor) which highlights more romantic sound in light swing and Sinatra’s example is based on  the version with Count Basie and The Count Basie Orchestra which brings more jazzy swinging sound but rather commercially oriented than artistically in temrs of the minimum use of improvisation.

Style and Rhythmic phrasing

Cole swings in small combo, Sinatra swings in big orchestra and Krall swings in the neoclassical style/retrostyle which brings out old style in a new context. Diana Krall uses of beat rhythm with many appoggiaturas, Nat King Cole uses ¾ time signature to create dancelike waltz by singing dotted quarter note followed by 3 eight notes and Frank Sinatra bases his rhythmic feel on swinging syncopation. When we look at the example No. 1, we can see in the interpretation of Diana Krall how the original swinging notes (dotted eight note in m. 1, example No. 3 of Frank Sinatra) are shorter and changed to melodic ornaments – an appoggiatura (m. 1, example No. 1). Although the notation of the m. 1 in example No. 2 of Nat “King” Cole is in ¾ time signature, it stays in syncopated rhythm and moves the beat and offbeat to weak beats in naturally felt subconscious 4 beat pulsation which creates polyrythmical respectively polymetrical tension.

Measure 3 and 4 demonstrate different approach of an each artist. While Diana continues in the style of neoclassicism and uses ornamentation, Nat continues in polyrhythmic feel in which he creates from the original 4 measures in ¾ time signature 5 measures by forming almost a new measure in the background of the second measure through tied notes. The first phrase in Diana’s interpretation is 4 measures long, but Sinatra almost fit the same phrase into one measure since the phrase “let me play up with those stars” fits into one measure through sixteen notes, therefore his phrase is in 3 measures. From this point of view, Diana swings the most and her ornamentation means that she is gallant in terms of “gallant” embellished improvisation.

 

Three different keys   

In order to compare all three examples, I have transposed all three examples into one key of C Major. However, only Nat ‘King’ Cole’s version represent the whole composition which is in ABA form/verse-chorus-verse, therefore only his version starts with a Major key. Since B section/the chorus of the original form is in relative minor key, Diana Krall and Frank Sinatra sing it in a minor key since they use only B section/the chorus. All three examples shown in this chapter are representing only the B section, therefore all three are in the minor key. Considering the original version in ABA form, Nat ‘King’ Cole’s version is  in a key of Db Major, Diana Krall’s key would be interpreted in a key of F major, and Frank Sinatra’s key would be in C Major. Otherwise, if we focus only on their B section, Nat ‘King’ Cole’s original version is in Bb minor, Diana Krall’s original version is in D minor and Frank Sinatra’s original version is in A minor.

Ochestrations and arrangements

Diana Krall performs the song as a duet with John Clayton (bass). Her arrangement starts introductory measures with piano and bass, followed by her vocals. Verse is repeated twice and between the verses Diana plays her solo accompanied by John Clayton. While playing the verse for the first time, Diana smoothly transitions from vocal part to piano part, respectively she finishes phrases with a piano, improvising on chords with short melodic lines and ornaments (grace notes). She implements them after: “ In other words hold my hand” (she finishes phrase with piano after ‘hand’), “in other words darling kiss me” (piano after ‘me’), “You are all I long for all I worship and adore” (piano after ‘adore’), “in other words”(followed by piano), “please be true”(followed by piano), “in other words I love you” (followed by piano and adding extensive piano solo after that). Any finishes are based on detached chords, mostly played in staccatowhich is differentfrom Nat ‘King’ Cole, who sings and plays it mostly in legato. Especially the chords at the end of phrases, Cole uses usually only two or three tied chords under pedal and very quietly. After solo comes repetition, in which Diana Krall focuses on vocals rather than piano, which is a great change. She changes pitches of her vocals by either repeating them in higher pitch than the first time, or sliding on them, changing intervals for higher note and embellishing them with many grace notes. It is very stimulating to see constant change in her improvisation and instantly different expression. Coda ends in the same manner; using lyrics which are completed through Diana’s piano improvisation. John Clayton supports to the very end, finishing together on staccato chords.

Nat King Cole introduces Fly Me to the Moon with piano only. He is the only one among them three who uses A section, in which the verse starts with vocals and string section. It sounds romantic in slow tempo and string section and Cole supports this romantic feel with his vocal approach, concentrating on the lyrics and their meaning rather than notes. It sounds as if he was retelling the story rather than singing it. The bridge between A and B section is filled by piano and vibraphone through an ascending scale and tempo is slightly faster in order to prepare swinging B section/the chorus which starts with Cole’s vocals and piano accompanied extremely quietly by drums. The string section comes in after the “In other words: darling kiss me!”. This is exactly the measure in which Diana Krall starts completing her phrases with a piano versus Nat ‘King’ Cole completes the same phrases with strings playing three legato chords. Cole ends verse with piano and drums only, continuing into piano solo divided into three parts: first part played by solo piano accompanied by quiet drums and vibraphone, second part adding the strings as a response to piano solo and third part finishing again as the first except it bridges with ascending line of the strings flawlessly entering recapitulation of the chorus but only a fragment of it starting with: “Fill my heart with song…”. Comparing to Diana, she repeated chorus in two different versions, first focusing on piano, and second time on vocals. Comparing her arrangement to Cole’s one, he sung the full version in ABA form, therefore he has chosen shorter recapitulation of the chorus. His balladic approach throughout the whole song he ends the last three words with  only strings followed by short string ending and very light ascending and diminishing sound of the vibraphone which disappears smoothly.

Frank Sinatra with The Count Basie Orchestra opens his song with a gesture which is typical for Sinatra: he kisses his hand and sends the kiss toward to the audience. In an entertaining fashion, he starts immediately moving/dancing in a swinging moderate tempo, snapping his fingers, smiling at the audience and responding with his moves to the first introductory measures played by accented swinging piano arrangement accompanied by drums. The difference between Diana Krall, Nat ‘King’ Cole and Frank Sinatra I, that Sinatra approaches immediately his audience and then his orchestra and communicates with them through his body movements, gestures, facial expression, dancing and directly looking at them. Sinatra focuses on social aspect of his performance while Krall focuses on musical aspect and Cole on the meaning of the lyrics. After introduction, piano stops and the lyrics are accompanied only by drums and short entrances of flute responding to the lyrics which creates a very nice effect and emphasis on vocal part and lyrics. The next phrase “let me play up there with those stars” is supported by a few chords played quietly on piano which smoothly add to the accompanying sound and the words “in other words” are completed by either flute or saxophone. The bridge before repetition consists of the full orchestra. When orchestra builds up the bridge in crescendo ending the notes in forte, Sinatra responses to that by raising his shoulders when orchestra did crescendo walking on the stage in swinging motion and looking at the audience, supporting wind section with hand gesture and stomping with his foot on stage while hearing the last notes in forte. Frank Sinatra communicates with the audience through his movements and gestures and responses to the orchestra by yelling at them “yeah, yeah” with swinging feel and accompanying them with his quasi vocal improvisation singing along “shoobe doobe doobah” and literally dancing on stage. When Sinatra feels the swing, he actually involves all possible gestures versus Diana Krall, when she feels the swing, she just hums along “taaaa ta dee dup, ba bee bop, yeeeeeeeee ee…” but not necessarily adds to the sound. The difference between them is that Sinatra is consciously adding his voice to the orchestra while Krall uses her vocals in her piano improvisation as a response to her creation rather than adding to the sound. As much as Diana and Nat were filling the lyrics “in other words” with a piano, Sinatra supports his vocals with full orchestra, building up the sound at the end of the song, using only the piano chords and three times snapping his fingers before singing the last word “you” and pointing with a finger at someone in the audience. In other words, as he started communicating with the audience at the beginning of the song, he also does the same at the end.

 

Time signature and form

Diana Krall sings in 4/4 time signature sometimes slightly postponing the beat. Nat King Cole sings it in ¾ time signature but it sounds as if it was fluctuating between ¾ and   4/4 time signature, only piano accompanying and orchestra clarifies ¾ time signature and Frank Sinatra sings in flawless swinging and dancing 4/4 time signature and also compresses 16 mm into 15 mm.

Overall, there have been many dissimilarities in interpretations of Fly Me to the Moon. Alterations appeared in the key change, time signature changing from ¾ to 4/4 and the orchestration varies from duet through quintet to a big orchestra.      

Diana Krall sings shorter version (only chorus) and adds piano solo improvisation. Her interpretation includes Introduction (4mm) – B (32mm) – B (32mm) – B (32mm) – B (32mm) and Coda (14mm). Her version is more similar to Nat “King” Cole’s than Sinatra’s in the aspect of musical form and harmony. Nat “King” Cole is the longest among all three artists. He sings full version (verse and chorus) with Introduction (4mm) – A (32mm) – B (32mm) – B (32mm) and Coda (2mm). Frank Sinatra sings the shortest version (only chorus), no A (Verse). Sinatra often changes lyrics and also a form in some other versions.

Chord progressions

Diana Krall uses following chord progression: vi7 – ii7- V7 – I 6/9 – IV Maj7 – III7,  Nat “King” Cole uses in  B section: vi7 – ii7 – V7 – Imaj7 – I7 – IV – ii6 – III7, vi – VI7 – ii – ii7 –                       V7 – ii7 – V7 – I – ii – V7 – iv6  – I VII7 – III7, vi7 – ii7 – V7 – Imaj7 – I7 – IV – ii6 – III7 – vi – VI7 – ii – ii7- V – ii – V7 – IMaj7 – I7 – IV6 – V7 – V7-9 – I – vi – ii7 – I and Frank Sinatra uses standard vi – ii – V7 – I – IV – III chord progression.

Modifications are obvious also in the use of the form and chord progression. All three musicians swing but the richness of the harmonies are very different from each other. Sinatra is using the simpliest and clearest version of vi – ii – V7 – I – IV – III chord progression, Nat King Cole is expanding harmony in a style of cool jazz through the sevenths except the subdominant degree (vi7 – ii7 – V7 – Imaj7 – I7 – IV – ii6 – III7) and Diana Krall fully expands even the subdominant degree to IVMaj7. The following chord progression vi7 – ii7- V7 – I 6/9 – IV Maj7 – III7 repeats in Diana’s version 26 times in style of be bop.

In all three examples harmonies are changing in all three interpretations although the all three swing.

In  meassures 1 – 4 is different harmony: Diana Krall changes the most not only a melody but also she has the richest harmony. In mm. 3-4 she ornaments harmony on the piano with extra : C#6/9 at the end of the third beat in m.3 going to C6/9 to C7#9(b13) in m.4. Cole and Sinatra use only 7th chords while Krall uses also 9th and 11th chords (m. 11 : F9+11).

In meassures 1 – 2 are different phrasings but the melody remains the same in all three versions except Diana Krall slides many times from melody through appogiaturas and slured melodic notes (C) with extra added ‘E’ note in m.1 on the third beat.

Diana changes harmony of the song; it is possible to compare last 3 measures, in which Cole and Sinatra use the same harmony but Diana completely changes the harmony:

Measure 14	Measure 15	Measure 16
Krall        Dmi7/G       G7	Cb/C	E7
Cole         G7	Fm6                C	Bm7      E7
Sinatra      G7	Fm6                 C	Bm7       E7

 

Lyrics

Fly Me To The Moon originally consists of verse and chorus, however since 1956, the verse has been omitted.

Original version:

Verse:                                                                                        Chorus:

Poets often use many words to say a simple thing                       Fly me to the moon

It takes thought and time and rhyme to make a poem sing          Let me play among the stars

With music and words I’ve been playing                                    Let me see what spring is like
For you I have written a song                                                     On Jupiter and Mars

To be sure that you’ll know what I “m saying                             In other words, hold my hand

I’ll translate as I go along                                                      In other words, darling, kiss me omits

Changed version – Lyrics after 1956

Fly me to the moon
Let me play among (up there with those) the stars

Let me see what spring (life) is like
On Jupiter and Mars
In other words, hold my hand
In other words, darling (baby), kiss me

Fill my life (heart) with song

And let me sing for ever more

You are all I long for
All I worship and adore
In other words, please be true
In other words, I love you

(Why don’t you) Fill my life (heart) with song Let me sing for ever more
(Because) You are all I long for
All I worship and (I) adore
In other words, please be true
In other words, in other words
(In other words, in other words
In other words)
I love … you

 

 

Adjustments had happened in lyrics as well. After 1956, the first verse had been completely omitted and Frank Sinatra skips also repetitions of the chorus. Moreover, he compresses 16 mm into 15 and alteres lyrics which clearly correspond with his character. His changes in lyrics: “Let me play among the stars” for “Let me play UP THERE WITH THOSE stars” evokes his personal and political relationships with stars and politicians, but this assumption can be clarified and changed to more specific theory while examining other changes in lyrics which evidently describe his personal rather than political position in society: “In other words, BABY kiss me” – instead of “darling kiss me” or “Fill my HEART with song” – instead of “fill my life with song”. These changes reflects Sinatra’s personality and his personal life style which was surrounded by many women. His reactions to the lyrics in his performances are showing his personal rather than musical choices such as: “WHY DON’T YOU fill my heart” he uses almost personally comparing to original lyrics: “Fill my heart” which do not include words: “Why don’t you” at all, respectively it never existed before. Frank Sinatra is like a swinging French Trouver or German Minnesinger who sings about love and the love is the main subject of his music. Furthermore,  in words “Let me sing for ever more BECAUSE you are all I long for all I worship and I adore” – Sinatra adds “I adore” emphasizing his self-perception and self-esteem rather than music.

Nat King Cole sings it in slower tempo, improvises less than Diana Krall and orchestration is more romantic. He also extends vowels of many words to keep it loving and dreamy while Diana keeps the lyrics short and quite accented.

Vocal technique

Sinatra used bel canto technique which is his natural approach due to his Italian roots and also traditional approach in such interpretation from which he is evolving. Nat King Cole and Diana Krall have been singing with a speech level singing technique³, ^[1]] which allows their naturalism and expression to stand out. Diana uses for singing her chest register, Nat used speech level singing while going from chest register to mix (voix mix). All three singers’ voices have darker color; particularly in the case of male singers is important to emphasize that Sinatra and Cole were singing in the 60s, when the esthetical idol of the velvet baritone singer was dominating on the scene. Krall’s contra alto voice is for jazz and also for popular music unique because most of the female singers dispose with mezzosoprano register.

 

Evaluation

Such musical aspects as rhythmic phrasing, harmony and vocal stylization, multilateral aspects as evolution of race and social construct, and marketing practice are based on different roots and heritage. These are examples of three different social and cultural forms resolved in three different musical sets.

Are Diana Krall, Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole crooners? All three artists are comparable to “crooners”; the singers who sing mostly from the Great American Songbook and are accompanied by a full orchestra, a big band, small combo or a piano. Nonetheless, they are artists of their own time and in their own distinctive way. Diana Krall emphasizes jazz lyricism, Frank Sinatra accentuates dance like story lines and Nat ‘King’ Cole highlights swinging rhythms. Evidently, Sinatra never been a jazz musician, but Cole started with jazz. Did he move from jazz to popular singing or we consider his vocal style as a form of jazz? Diana Krall fluctuates between what we call jazz and popular music however she never loses her jazz approach. Frank Sinatra is noticeably a crooner as well as his contemporaries Tony Bennett, Harry Connick Jr. or Michael Bublé, but Diana Krall and Nat ‘King’ Cole remain true jazz musicians with dual function as vocalists and pianists.

These are three clear examples of musicians whose different social and cultural origins have resolved into different musical arrangements. I argue that Diana Krall is not just “a commercial entertainer – crooner in skirt”, in the music industry, as it seems for many critics, but she is an eminent jazz artist with a significant feminine role in jazz history.

There have been many significant recordings since 1954 until 1970. However after 1970 there has been 30 years gap of not making any significant recording due to social and political changes in the world. Over the centuries, musicians have tried to create new forms, new structures, follow new ideas, yet one principle never had changed: and that is a need to communicate. In this sense, Diana Krall is creating with her style response to previous music, reacts, interacts and moves towards “romantic” jazz, poetic singing style with the preference of slow songs.

Notes

1. David Ake: Jazz Cultures (2002), p. 88.
2. Yvetta Kajanová: Postmoderna v hudbe. Minimal, rock, pop, jazz. [Postmodernism in Music: Minimalistic music, Rock, Pop, Jazz] (2010), p. 148.
3. Samuel Tomeček: Vokál v rockovej hudbe. In: Musicologica.eu, č. 1, 2012,  https://www.musicologica.eu/?p=601

Bibliography

Ake, David: Jazz Matters: Sound, Place, and Time Since Bebop, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 2010.

Ake, David: Jazz Cultures, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 2002.

Bates, Karen G., ‘Nat King Cole Show’ Challenged TV’s Race Line,

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5411446, 2006.

Epstein, Daniel M.: Nat King Cole, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, New York, 1999

Freedland, Michael, All the Way: A Biography of Frank Sinatra, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1997.

Gavin, James, Homophobia in jazz, In: JazzTimes. http://jazztimes.com/articles/20073-homophobia-in-jazz, December 2001.

Kajanová, Yvetta: Denotative Components of Jazz during the Period of Communism as Exemplified in Czech and Slovak Jazz. In: Jazz behind the Iron Curtain. (Jazz under State Socialism, vol. 1), Pickhan Gertrud/Ritter Rüdiger, Berlin : Peter Lang 2010, pp. 65-82, ISBN 978-3-631-59172-7 , citation from p.65.

Kajanová, Yvetta: Communism and the Emergence of the Central European

Jazz School, In: Journal of Literature and Art Studies, EL Monte, David Publishing Company, vol.2, No. 6, 2012.

Kajanová, Yvetta: Postmoderna v hudbe. Minimal, rock, pop, jazz. [Postmodernism in Music: Minimalistic music, Rock, Pop, Jazz] (2010),

Reid, Jamie: Diana Krall, the language of love, Markham, Quarry Music Books, 2002, p.38.

An Evening with Diana Krall. http://www.worldclasshealthcare.ca/Events/krall_mp.html

Tomeček, Samuel: Vokál v rockovej hudbe. In: Musicologica.eu, č. 1, 2012,  https://www.musicologica.eu/?p=601

Uličianska, Zuzana: Diana Krall si v uliciach Bratislavy hľadala bratrancov, In: Sme, 13.11.2009, http://kultura.sme.sk/c/5107807/diana-krall-si-v-uliciach-bratislavy-hladala-bratrancov.html

Introduction

Presenting the American radio broadcaster Willis Conover as a European jazz personality sounds strange at the first glimpse, of course. On the contrary it seems evident to present Conover as an American jazz personality – and even as a very important one. With his radio show “Music USA – Jazz Hour” Conover, engaged as a contractor at the Voice of America, the government-controlled radio station of the USA, had the intention to spread American jazz all over the world.¹ In fact, this radio show emerged at a time when the U.S. government started to use  jazz as a means of cultural struggle in the Cold War. When the U.S. ambassador Charles E. Bohlen found out in Moscow in 1952 how eager Soviet youth was to listen to the U.S. jazz,² he understood that jazz can work as a kind of musical Cold War weapon. Shortly later, “Music USA” started, and it had an overwhelming success not only in the Soviet Union, but also in the former Eastern Bloc and in all continents where the broadcast was sent. So, in the eyes of Cold War propaganda officers of the U.S., the strategy seemed to achieve its effect. American jazz was spread all over the world, and it was intended to start a kind of “mental rollback” of Soviet influence.

Conover and his radio station received huge masses of audience mail in which listeners expressed their warm gratitude for the possibility to get to know “real” American jazz. Vividly they described how they learnt jazz basics with the help of the Conover transmissions. In Europe, Conover’s influence was strong especially in the Eastern part of the continent. According to George Wein, one of the organizers of the Newport jazz festival, “Eastern Europe’s entire concept of jazz comes from Willis Conover“.³ This sounds curious. Even if we accept the important influence of Conover’s broadcast activities, aren’t these words of George Wein at least exaggerated? Was Conover really “the father of European jazz”, as Michael Zverin put it?⁴ Aren’t there other influences on the development of jazz in Eastern Europe besides of Conover, also? What about the numerous American jazzmen travelling into the eastern part of the continent from the 1950s onwards? No one denies the American character of jazz, but in most European countries, jazz history begin already in the first decades of the 20th century, being followed of an acculturation process, of a kind of Europeanization of jazz. In the last decade of the century, Stuart Nicholson even asked in a provocative manner the question of the end of jazz in America and its continuation in Europe.⁵

The idea of this contribution is to discuss the question of the “American” nature of jazz by a revision of Conover’s role in Eastern Europe. In several aspects, Conover was an integral part of European, and especially Eastern European jazz life. For several countries he stood at the beginning of the formation of strong national jazz scenes – but they started not simply as forms of American jazz abroad, but they were the result of a mixture of American, European, and national musical cultural elements. In this process, Conover proves to be a part of the formation of these jazz scenes and as such he proves to be a European jazz personality.

This “European nature” of Conover took place in a two-folded manner: first, Conover took an active part in the formation of European jazz scenes by broadcasting not only American, but also European musicians, by travelling into the countries, by organizing a musician’s network, i.e. by practice. Secondly, and this is perhaps even more important, Conover developed a jazz aesthetic which founded the idea of European jazz scenes as a part of worldwide American jazz also theoretically. Only this jazz aesthetic made Conover’s dealing with European jazz possible. If we today can speak about jazz as the “classical music of globalization”⁶, this notion only became possible with the victory of this perception of jazz not only as an American art.

Conover as active promoter of European jazz scenes

At the very beginning of Conover’s radio show, the intention was to provide US jazz to the Eastern Europe audience. So Conover did, broadcasting music that he considered to be a canon of jazz classics. At these very early times of US radio broadcasting, in the West there was no idea of the very existence of jazz in the Socialist world. Stalinist destructions of the emerging jazz movements in Central Europe in the years after World War 2 had created the idea among Western observes that under Stalin and neither in the Soviet Union nor in her satellite states jazz existed no more. Western observers did not know what we know today: Jazz had not disappeared in the Socialist world at all, it only had disappeared from the surface of the public sphere. After Stalin’s death, at once composers, jazzmen and other promoters of art started demanding to give jazz a place in socialist societies. In the USA, the public learned that in the end of the 1950s. The 1956 revolt in Hungary was an event commentated worldwide. In the jazz program of VOA, Conover presented the Hungarian guitarist Gábor Szabó in a special edition of his “Music USA-Jazz hour” show on November 23, 1956.⁷ Szabó had good contacts to Hungarian ambassador’s member Ernest Nagy, who put Szabó into contact with Americans, and finally also with Willis Conover. This was not only the beginning of the international acceptance for Szabó, but it was also a demonstration for the US public that in the Eastern Bloc countries good jazz musicians exist who were longing for options of musical activity. In this sense, promoting Szabó by Conover was a political anticommunist Cold war activity as well as the first step to include European jazz music behind the Iron Curtain into the program of the VOA jazz show.

Two years later, Dave Brubeck made a tour through Poland, where he met not only jazz fans, but also a lot of musicians who told him about their desire for public jazz performances”. Brubeck not only communicated this in his homeland, but he also expressed his warm thanks to Willis Conover, because his broadcasts had made possible the overwhelming success Brubeck received especially in Poland.⁸

Conover himself in this very year 1958 found out that in the Eastern Bloc a jazz life waited to be detected. Being emcee of the Newport jazz festivals at that time, Conover met Jan Ptaszyn Wróblewski at the 1958 Newport festival, who told him about the jazz development in socialist Poland.⁹

So it was almost natural that Conover chose as one of the countries of this trip to Europe not only France, Western Germany, Switzerland and the Scandinavian countries, but also Poland. Especially here he realized the vivid interest of local jazz fans and he couldn’t help appreciate the unexpectedly high artificial standard of Polish jazz musicians. The concerts of Polish jazz musicians where Conover was present were taped by Polish radio. As a radio worker and announcer, Conover at once asked to get permission to broadcast this material from his own broadcaster, the VOA. So shortly later Polish jazz fans could listen to their own music at that program, where hitherto only music from the USA was included.

This meant a definitive change in the idea and the practice of the US jazz radio shows for abroad. Up to this point, jazz had been a kind of present of the father USA to his children.¹⁰ Already the precursor of Conover at VOA, Leonard Feather, had offered such presents which were warmly accepted, as Feather himself described.¹¹ Now, with Conover’s rebroadcasting European jazz to its countries of origin, the one-way situation of exclusively American donations and European reception had changed. It became reality that an American broadcaster accepted and even appreciated jazz from outside America. Both Conover and his listeners found out the overwhelming effect of identification which offered this procedure. East European jazz musicians had a very positive image of America as homeland of jazz, and listening their own jazz in the radio of this very homeland meant something like a coronation ceremony of their jazz by the highest possible authority.

Thus, these rebroadcasts of European jazz in the VOA Music USA – Jazz hour led Conover to a new understanding of jazz: For him, jazz was now an universal art with roots in America, but with a decentralized developing structure. Conover had opened his broadcast first to Polish jazz and then to jazz from other countries, he basically had accepted this idea.

In the following years after 1959, Conover did everything to promote European jazz scenes. Festivals in Poland, in the ČSSR, in Hungary, and in the Soviet Union started, most of them with his personal presence. Musicians declared their deep loyalty to Conover and to his understanding of jazz, and Conover encouraged them to express themselves musically. Exactly with this he encouraged them to found new forms of jazz different from the American canon. In this way, Conover connected the idea of new forms of jazz which became more and more popular in Europe, deeply with his own personality and with America. Conover became part of a contact network which led to a stylistic and cultural exchange not only between him and the Eastern Bloc musicians, but also between themselves.

Conover did not only speak about these connections, he also acted practically and personally.

Conover invited the most talented musicians from the countries he visited to come the USA in order to finance them musical education or giving them the possibility for a concert trip. For a huge amount of musicians, he did not only write letters of recommendation but he paid them also money from his private income or even hosted the musicians at his private home. In 1979, Conover founded a kind of private agency named EETA (Eastern European Travellers Assistance) and from the account of this agency Conover made financial aid to incoming jazz musicians.¹² Having been in America augmented the reputation of every jazz musician in his homeland dramatically.

From 1964 onwards, Conover installed the FOMUSA system, a kind of virtual listener’s network. At any place in the world a group of at least 12 listeners could ask Conover to be registered as a Friends of the USA music (=FOMUSA) group and they would receive some jazz souvenirs and the bimonthly newspaper. This initiative proved to be such an overwhelming success that Conover had to stop it after several years – the broadcaster simply couldn’t stand the costs for the program any more. Even if these two measures, the concrete musicians´ aid and the FOMUSA group system, did not focus especially at Eastern Europe, they led to a more and more intensive discussion of the European, American, and global  nature of jazz.

From the 1970s onwards, Conover could present his broadcasts not only in the VOA program, but also in the program of the state socialist radio stations of Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary. This was the consequence of Conover’s network activity. Often, like e.g. in Czechoslovakia Stanislav Titzl or in Hungary Imre Kiss, the organizers of the jazz festivals were employees at the state radio stations, and so it was easy for Conover to ask them to broadcast special radio shows. Conover produced special programs for each country, taped them, shipped the tapes to Europe where they were received by his contact persons at the radio stations and integrated in the program.

All this happened regularly, periodically. Every year the great jazz festivals organized their next edition, and especially the Warsaw Jazz Jamboree Conover attended regularly. In this way, Conover became an integral part of the native jazz life in these countries. Nevertheless, the image of Willis Conover as a father remained integral part of the Conover myth until his death, if not remained after.

Why he did all that: Conover’s jazz aesthetics

Conover was not only a radio broadcaster presenting the music he liked. First of all, he was hired by a government-controlled radio station. So, even if he did not stop stressing his independence, many internal papers about VOA’s redaction conferences, about meetings with government commissions dealing with the purpose of “cultural diplomacy” (as it was called officially) clearly demonstrate that Conover was ordered to full fill concrete tasks. But in doing so, he was very reflected. Conover had been a jazz radio moderator also before his engagement at the VOA, and he had developed ideas on the nature of jazz which formed the base for his work also later. He was not only a radio employeemaker, but also a man with excellent writing skills, and was brilliant in expressing his views on aesthetic problems. So he presented his ideas constantly in internal meetings, especially when he had to defend his ideas.

This was necessary for various reasons: In regular terms, the VOA work was evaluated in order to justify the sums of money spent for it. Conover had to argue convincingly in order to maintain his activity. Being employed without a fixed contract, Conover periodically had to demonstrate the usefulness of his programs in order to get the next contract. In the beginning of his show, i. e. in the 1950s, it was relatively easy, because his ideas and the goals of the government circles on the need for jazz mainly went parallel. Later on, this changed: Conover’s intensive occupation with the international jazz world alienated him from the propaganda-oriented ideas of his sponsors. When he continued to promote more and more jazz from other countries than America, his sponsors started asking him which would be the interest of the USA for this.

Another problem for Conover was the emerging of rock music: When it became more and more visible, that the youth worldwide, and also in the VOA target area of the Socialist world, switched away from jazz to rock, Conover at once saw himself confronted by his sponsors with a serious legitimation problem. The answers he gave defending himself and his broadcast at the same time form the essence of his aesthetical thinking of jazz. As demonstrated, this was not only theory, but also practice.

The beginnings: Conover and official US jazz propaganda

Looking at the beginning of Conover’s activity at VOA, the parallels between Conover’s position and the basic ideas of official cultural diplomacy are evident. Conover even gave place for the propagation of these ideas in his radio show.¹³ On June 26, 1956, in Conover’s jazz show he broadcast an interview he had held a month before with congressman Frank Thompson, who himself was a jazz fan, also. In this interview, Thompson among other statements made clear that for him „jazz is the strongest weapon we have against communism“. American jazz was presented as a weapon for democracy. According to Thompson, jazz was so deeply intertwined with American culture that he suggested to speak simply of “American music” rather than “jazz”. „When musicians in other countries play jazz (as they do), they are playing American Music. And when listeners in other countries enjoy and discuss jazz (as they do), they are becoming America-oriented.”¹⁴ These statements formed the official view of the US government. It was not only congressman Thompson who presented them in the radio, but they were published also in official sources of the VOA Foreign Affairs Division.¹⁵

Conover himself expressed a similar opinion in the American press. After his first travel to the Socialist part of Europe, he published a text with the title “Reflections on an image” with ideas on jazz and music reception in the USA and other parts of the world, especially Europe. Here, he identifies the attractiveness of jazz with its allusion to America:
“It is no accident that jazz was born in America. Its structure, if not always its business deals, parallels America’s social-political scheme: individual freedom within group cooperation. […] For many people, our music is the only window open to America: they can’t jet jump oceans as easily as we. They tap America’s optimistic climate through our music […] Some so absorbed it that they become American in spirit without recognizing – and isn’t that even better?”¹⁶

This quotation presents a description of jazz stressing its American nature. Often repeated by Conover in these words or with slight modifications, these words totally go conform with a propagandist perspective on the topic. So, especially in official texts, press releases and the US administration material ideas of that kind dominate. The fact that Conover himself also repeats these words shows that he was part of this propaganda system, also.

US battle against European cultural supremacy

It is important to understand that these ideas of American cultural supremacy are not only the result of the American-Soviet cold war contrast. In a certain sense, they are also directed against the “good old Europe”, offering a solution for an American cultural minority complex.    Since its consolidation as an independent state, America had made efforts to install a national culture in all its forms, so in music. Not different from the newly emerging national movements in East Central Europe in the second half of the 19th century, also in America a national movement emerged with the aim to create an own American music. Composers like Edward McDowell and others today are mostly forgotten, but play an important role in this development.

In the beginning of the Cold war, Americans were very highly impressed by the huge amount of money the Soviets seemed to spend for activities of promotion of musical high culture, sending such high-quality ensembles in the world as the Bolshoi Theatre ensemble. So, American cold war propaganda officers decided to give an answer of the same range, promoting themselves American first-class musical groups like the Boston Symphony Orchestra.¹⁷ The struggle for cultural supremacy was regarded as a crucial battlefield of the cold war by both superpowers. The more they realized that an open confrontation with weapons was impossible, the more importance they saw in the cultural struggle, understanding it as the field where the decision of the orientation of the masses either to the West or to the East would be solved finally. Neither Soviets nor Americans could be sure that the final victory was theirs, and so they put much energy into this struggle.

This situation changed when it became more and more obvious that it was no more first of all the field of classical music which had a convincing force over European listeners, but that it was jazz. This was found out by accident. The staff of the radio stations of the American Forces Network (AFN) which were located in all areas where U. S. troops were in charge got more and more letters not only from U.S. soldiers, but from civil nationals with the request to maintain the broadcast of actual American music, esp. of American jazz. These letters did not only come from the Western zones of occupation of Germany, but also from the territory of the future GDR, the future ČSSR and even from Poland. Obviously, it was jazz what interested most ordinary people, and not so much high-cultural events like concerts of first-class classical music ensembles.

This was a lecture rather unexpected for US cultural diplomats. During the long time of existence of jazz in this country, this music was depicted by the leading white cultural and political elite of the country as cultureless noise of underdeveloped negroes, as a spot of shame of America, and in no way as a part of the official culture of that country. Only recently, jazz slowly had made its way towards a more accepted place in the US public sphere.¹⁸ Norman Granz succeeded with Jazz at the Philharmonic concerts, Duke Ellington was able to present his Harlem Suite in the Metropolitan Opera in the beginning of 1951. Print media started writing about jazz as a part of American culture. In the beginning of the 1950s, some authors became representative for this establishing process of jazz in the US public sphere. In 1952, John S. Wilson started to write about jazz for The New York Times, so did Whitney Balliett for Saturday Review. Leonard Feather who had written for Metronome now changed to Down Beat. Feather also remembered the beginning of the interest of the government-controlled radio station of VOA of a jazz program:

“A branch of the US government was becoming interested in a source of international goodwill it had never before noticed. Not long after I had gone to work for Duke, a call from Washington invited me to meet Harold Boxer of the State Department’s ‘Voice of America’. I was invited to assemble a series of programmes which I called ’Jazz Club USA’, to be beamed around the world.”¹⁹

With Willis Conover finally, jazz became a part of the official culture to be presented abroad by the United States. The famous State Department tours of leading jazz musicians (and of Conover, also) got their sense within this arrangement.

Conover as ambassador of the US high culture in Europe

Now, America had some cultural heritage she could be proud of – and additionally, what could be extremely useful as Cold war weapon. It was this thinking Conover was installed to propagate, and in the beginning of his career at VOA, this thinking mostly went conform with his own ideas. Similar as the US administration, also Conover tried to present the message of the existence of an American high-culture not only into the Socialist part of the European continent. In 1969, Conover had the idea to organize a jazz festival in Dublin with the aim of promoting US-American culture in Europe. In the presenting paper, he wrote:

„One of America’s traditional strengths is its ability to do what Europeans do, only better.  […] Even when performing in European idioms, Americans can be unsurpassable. Our ballet dancers study and rehearse and train with a cold frenzy. The brass teams in our symphony orchestras have virility equal to America’s driving spirit which is supreme. Et cetera. Another of our strengths is our willingness to adopt extra-American cultural idioms; in this sense, we aren’t chauvinists.

One of our weaknesses, however, is our sense of cultural inferiority, our continuing search for cultural values almost exclusively in European idioms, our inability or unwillingness to recognize the validity of our own. When this was a frontier country, a belief in Europe’s cultural superiority could be justified. Not today.”²⁰

Dealing with this American inferiority complex took much place in Conover’s thinking:

“There is, I fear, a sort of cultural condescension: Americans make wonderful alarm-clocks. But write a novel? A symphony?”²¹ The European arrogance to high arts music of the US origin is reflected in the US public in the 1950s vividly. With self-irony a journalist described high arts music as a “Don’t buy American” Art.²²

For Conover, American jazz had a quality which definitely stopped US inferiority: „There are countries like Czechoslovakia for example known as the conservatory of Europe for generations who may give more continuous, more widespread, more conscious attention to the production of music but they look up to us for what we do best in music.”²³ This idea of jazz as the US contribution to world culture got the status of an official ideology and was repeated in countless articles.²⁴

Changes by reapproachement

Already only some years later, Conover stopped propagating the American nature of jazz in this direct, open way. He explained the reason for this in an interview he gave to Henry Loomis in 1965:

“In any case, the Soviets have a love-hate relationship with the United States. They want to prove […] to us that we have reason to accept them as equals. […] I think […] that they feel a tremendous inferiority complex and they need to have us convince them that we do not think they are as inferior as they feel perhaps they are. Acceptance by the West is a great thing to them […] So that now I have been very careful in my broadcast statements and in statements for their press, in statements in interviews by their people, their reporters, […] to describe jazz as an international music, as an international art form. I don’t say it’s an American music and you play it pretty good fellows. That would kill it for them. […] It’s important that they feel that they are making a jazz of their own. However ridiculous this may sound, it’s important that they believe this”.²⁵

What may sound even cynical at the first reading, becomes then understandable. In fact, many other details show that the “inferiority complex” Conover observed on the Soviet side was constantly present in the 1960s in the post-Stalinist thaw period. As Marsha Siefert has put it, Soviet cultural diplomates obeyed a strict step-by-step opening policy towards the USA: Every step had to be answered equally, before the next step could be made: The US exhibition in Moscow from 1959 had to be paralleled with an exhibition in the USA, the publishing of the journal America in Russian had to be paralleled by an equivalent called Soviet life, and so on.²⁶ What Conover did not reflect is that this “inferiority complex” was not unsimilar to the inferiority complex the USA had felt against Europe and the Soviet Union before detecting the integrative force of jazz.

Even if Conover seemed to start speaking of jazz as international art form only because of strategic reasons, without inner conviction, slowly also his understanding changed. The more Conover got to know music and musicians from other parts of the world and especially from Europe, the more he understood that the idea of jazz only as an American art simply was too narrow for a correct description of reality. For consequence, by learning more about jazz developments in Europe, Conover slowly, but constantly went away from the exclusively American-oriented official propaganda understanding of jazz.

In the same interview, Conover explained that jazz had not only American roots. He even admitted that some of the elements which commonly were regarded most originally American have other sources. He claimed that many „Negro songs” were “old marching songs from Europe” and in general he made the statement that “Jazz has a European harmony”.²⁷ In another interview done by Bill Starks, Conover heavily pointed out the role of Europeans in jazz life:

“Critics who believe that jazz only appeals to Americans because it was born here are out of touch with reality. The first book about jazz was written by a Belgian, the second by a Frenchman. The English Melody Maker has been including jazz in its coverage since before the American magazine Down Beat was begun!”²⁸

These words prove that Conover himself did not believe in what the myth of his person tells about him: Conover was well aware of the fact that in many European countries there were strong traditions of jazz going back on the beginnings of the 20th century. Conover knew the European prewar-swing orchestras, he knew the theoretical writings of European authors like André Hodeir, and he was far away from denying this knowledge. Statements like this show that, unlike some of his chiefs in the US administration, Conover had realized that „we can’t discuss foreign reactions to jazz unless we examine our own”.²⁹

The result was a description of jazz combining its multi-cultural nature with the American immigration ideology. Conover gave the following explanation on the roots of jazz:

“Every element of Jazz comes from some other country: from Scottish and Welsh and English hymns, from French dances, from German marches, from African and Caribbenan rhythms, and from the Spanish-Arab-Jewish-Italien culture of the Mediterranean countries. These elements came to America because people came to America.”³⁰

Thus, Conover had come to a synthesis of an „American“ and an „European“ description of jazz history. This offered him both: he could continue to fulfil the mission of his employers to  propagate American jazz throughout the world as cold war weapon, and at the same time he could deal with jazz musicians from other countries. By doing the latter, he changed his „Music USA“ radio show into a show with a broader context, dramatically widening the initial conception of this show.

 

Jazz as Fine Arts

In Europe, Conover met jazz musicians who had absolved a solid musical education first, before switching at a certain point suddenly, but definitely to jazz – and this point was in numerous cases the first listening to his own radio show. In Europe, the most jazz musicians had such a musical education, whereas in the USA this was an exception. For Conover, this did not only explain the great enthusiasm European musicians showed when they had their first encounter with the moderator they hitherto only had known by his voice. Conover could discuss with European jazz musicians not only about their own performances, but also about elaborated topics of jazz aesthetics, about the relationship of jazz to modern music and about many other topics. Conover, who liked these conversations very much because of his great knowledge not only in jazz but also in modern music, was highly attracted by these conversations. So the notion of jazz as a form of high arts widespread among European intellectuals pretty well went together with Conover’s own ideas on jazz.

In many situations, Conover expressed his sympathy to all forms of jazz practice connected with this idea of jazz as fine arts. First, he noted, that, generally spoken, the standard of jazz performance in Europe was higher “than in the true Eastern countries”. He highlighted Europe in comparison to the Far East (with the exception of Japan), with the Arab countries and even with Black Africa, despite of the “black” origin of jazz.³¹ Despite the fact that Conover had many listeners in the black African countries, he did not pay to them similar attention than he did to listeners and musicians from Europe and especially from its Eastern part.

Conover heavily rejected the idea of jazz as a music of minor importance, of music of lower value or simple entertainment.

“As Andre Previn said to me once, ‚I hate to hear the expression, „serious music,“ because that implies that jazz is funny music and it isn’t. It’s just as serious and has just as many disciples as the other musics.’ It’s another way of communicating one’s life and one’s feelings about life in a way that’s more effective than perhaps words could be”.³²

Conover met here with positions of the well-educated European middle class which had an interest to separate itself from the lower spheres of society. At this point is visible that Conover propagated a jazz understanding which was different from the lower-strata origin of this art form in the very beginning. He was supported in this idea by leading European jazz intellectuals like e. g. Joachim E. Berendt, who also made the point in Europe, that the idea of jazz as fine arts music was much more deeply rooted than in the USA.³³

Conover’s strong orientation on the idea of jazz as fine arts music explains his heavy opposition against rock and pop music forms. From the very beginning of rock’n’roll music, Conover heavily opposed against all forms of this music. In 1965, he condemned “Beatle-type music“ as „mass production music” as  “monotonous”  and “not sexy”.³⁴ His harsh, rigid and even sometimes primitive opinions on rock and pop music forms contrast dramatically with his differentiated judgements on all forms of jazz music. It was Conover who cared considerably for the consolidation of the jazz-rock contrast with his constant verbal attacks against the rock music milieu. It is important to note that Conover simply did not want to realize reality in some European countries, where rock music either was higher appreciated (like e. g. in Great Britain) or even was included by the jazz milieu with the aim to modernize jazz as a whole (like e. g. in Czechoslovakia). It seems that Conover did not pay so much attention on the reasons for the social needs of music,³⁵ but first of all he dealt with stylistic categories.

Towards a specific European jazz: The example of Poland

 

Conover did not only realize that there is a specific European jazz, but he also felt the obligation to make contributions to its further development. Already after his first encounter with Polish jazz musicians, Conover gave them the advice to create a special, national Polish form of jazz by using inspirations of Polish folk music. Indeed, Conover’s Polish partners followed this advice, and so Jan Ptaszyn Wróblewski wrote his Bandoska in Blue.³⁶ Twelve years later, Ptaszyn himself made critical remarks to this way of creating national idioms in jazz,³⁷ whereas Adam Sławiński praised Bandoska as successful. Earlier, already Roman Waschko and Andrzej Trzaskowski had expressed positive opinions.³⁸  Conover had started a discussion among Polish jazz musicians which proved to be extremely fruitful.

Conover had initiated an important discussion in Polish jazz, but he was not the only source for the idea of creation a specific Polish jazz. There is a second, even more important tradition line in Polish jazz, which is combined with Krzysztof Komeda. Komeda created a music filled with Polish spirit but not built on Polish folk songs openly, and with this conception he was so successful, that his compositions, especially Astigmatic and Svantetic, were regarded as masterworks of Polish jazz. Later on, leading Polish jazzmen like Tomasz Stańko declared to have their roots in the Komeda tradition.³⁹

Conover, however, reacted to Komedas’s music friendly, but he did not appreciate the potential of this music to be the base for a future Polish jazz – even if he played Komeda in his Music USA show. Komeda had got its international contacts on a way not so directly related with Conover. At the beginning of his musical career, Komeda had listened to Conover’s radio show also, but then his artistic conception grew by his cooperation with musicians from Scandinavia like Bernt Rosengren and others, which were not so narrow oriented on Conover.

This is only one example for the fact that, in contrast to the statement of George Wein, the whole European concept of jazz did not come alone from Conover at all. Wein’s statement was part of a mythical description of Conover’s role, which was widespread, but did not catch reality as a whole.

Nevertheless, Conover appreciated especially the Polish jazz scene very much. Regarding his musical aesthetics, it is telling how he expressed this admiration. For Conover, Polish jazz was so good because of the structural parallels of the country and its musicians to America. In 1981, after a long time of contact with Poland and its jazzmen, Conover wrote:

“The history of Poland includes centuries of invasion and occupation, from all points of the compass. The survivors and the descendants have a combination of personal characteristics not too different from that of American survivors – I speak now of course of the generations of American blacks who worked towards and at least realized equality of opportunity throughout our country.”⁴⁰

Conclusion

Willis Conover was a European personality, in the sense presented here. By broadcasting jazz from VOA and by meeting with jazzmen and jazz personalities in Europe, he also changed his ideas on the role and the character of jazz. So, the examples of this paper demonstrate that in a project of writing the history of jazz in Europe,⁴¹ Willis Conover has to be included. He was not only a promoter and “father”, as the Conover myth puts it, but the constant exchange he held with overseas jazz scenes led to important changes of his own jazz understanding. In this way, Conover is a good example for the fact that jazz exchange during the Cold war period was a mutual cultural transfer in both directions even if often the direction “back”, i.e. to the West, is neglected. Further research is needed in order to understand better how these communication processes worked.

Notes

1. Terence Ripmaster: Broadcasting Jazz to the World. A Biography (New York: iUniverse, 2007).
2. Willis Conover, in a manuscript for a VOA radio show, July 22/23 1993, [Conover papers, University of North Texas Denton (further: UNT), Box 38]
3. So in John S. Wilson: “Who Is Conover? Only We Ask”, in: The New York Times Magazine, 13. September 1969.
4. Michael Zverin: “The American father of E. European Jazz”, in: International Herald Tribune, 20. Dezember 1977.
5. Stuart Nicholson: Is Jazz dead? (Or Hs It Moved to a New Address? New York and London: Routledge, 2005.
6. Reinhold Wagnleitner: “Jazz – the Classical Music of Globalization”, in: Sebastian M. Herrmann et al. (ed.): Ambivalent Americanzations. Popular and Consumer Culture in Central and Eastern Europe, Heidelberg: Winter, 2008, p. 25- 50.
7. Károly Libisch: „Szabó Gábor. Interview with Pauline Rivelli”, in: Jazz, August 1966, S. 8 – 10, see also Anna-gondolatok.blogspot.com/2010/08/szabo-gabor-magyar-dzessgitaros-ki-is.html
8. Stephen A. Christ: “Jazz as Democracy? Brubeck and Cold War Politics”, in: The Journal of Musicology, 2009, vol. 26, p. 133-174.
9. „Decades later, Conover mentioned this meeting as the beginning of his interest in Polish jazz, in: Ojciec chrzestny. Z Willisem Conoverem, najpopularniejszym prezenterem jazzu na świecie rozmawiają Witołd Jahołkowski i Feliks Szczyglewski”, in: Tu i Teraz, Nr. 44, november 2, 1983, p. 9.
10. „This is the language the Conover myth tellers use up to the present day“, see e.g. Gene Lees: The Children of Willis Conover, in: Jazzletter, Vol. II No. 4, April 1992.
11. Leonard Feather: The Jazz Years. Earwitness to an Era, London / New York: Quartet Books, 1986.
12. Conover to John F. Kordek, August 8, 1994, [UNT Box 27].
13. This clearly deconstructs a myth which was reproduced constantly by Conover’s listeners later. They claimed that Conover never had given political statements in his show, which, at least for the very beginning of it, is not true.
14. American Jazz as a Weapon of Democracy, by The Honorable Frank Thompson, JR. (This article was written using material from an interview with Congressman Thompson conducted by Willis Conover for the Voice of America, undated [UNT Box 70].
15. Margaret E. Urist, Foreign Affairs Division, 4. Mai 1956: American Jazz as a weapon of Democracy (A draft speech prepared according to the instructions of the Honorable Frank Thompson), [UNT Box 85].
16. Willis Conover: Reflections on an Image, in HiFi / Stereo, July 1960, p. 27-32, here p. 32.
17. See Francis Stonor Saunders: Who paid the piper?  The CIA and the Cultural Cold War, London: Granta, 1999.
18. John Gennari, Blowin’ Hot And Cool: Jazz And Its Critics, University of Chicago Press, 2006,
19. Feather, op. Cit., p. 198.
20. Conover to Leonard Garment, Frank Shakespeare, Charles McWhorter: „A way to help people overseas to know America better, to our advantage and theirs“, manuscript october 7, 1969 [UNT Box 31].
21. Conover in a working sheet, without date and place [UNT Box 42].
22. Paul Henry Lang: “Music and Musicians. A ‘Don’t Buy American’ Art”, in: New York Herald Tribune. 25. September 1955.
23. Henry Loomis: Interview with Willis Conover, undated [1965], p. 26 [UNT Box 92].
24. E.g. Henry Pleasants: “America’s Impact on the Arts”: Music, in: The Saturday Review, 13. December 1975
25. Henry Loomis: Interview with Willis Conover, undated [1965],  p. 32/33, [UNT Box 92].
26. Marsha Siefert: “From Cold War to Wary Peace: American Culture in the USSR and Russia”, in: Alexander Stephan (ed.): The Americanization of Europe. Culture, Diplomacy, and Anti-Americanism after 1945, New York / Oxford: Berghahn, 2006, S. 185 – 217, here p. 191.
27. Henry Loomis: Interview with Willis Conover, undated [1965], p. 15, [UNT Box 92].
28. Willis Conover: answers to questions by Bill Starks, 15. April 1977, [UNT Box 13].
29. Willis Conover: undated notice [UNT Box 42].
30. Willis Conover: Manuscript “Prague”, without pagination, undated [1965], [UNT Box 98].
31. Henry Loomis: Interview with Willis Conover, undated [1965], p. 36/37, [UNT Box 92].
32. William Stokes, Interview with Conover, p. 19.
33. Joachim Ernst Berendt: „Americans in Europe. A Dissident View“. In: Down Beat, 10. September 1964, p. 19
34. Henry Loomis: Interview with Willis Conover, undated [1965], p. 8 f. [UNT Box 92].
35. Berndt Ostendorf: “From Liberating Modernism to Subversive Reeducation: The Impact of Jazz on European Culture”, in: Americanization, Globalization – Education, ed. Gerhard Bach, Sabine Broeck, Ulf Schulenberg, Heidelberg 2003, p. 35-57
36. Krystian Brodacki: Historia jazzu w Polsce, Kraków, p. 217.
37. „Jazz i polska muzyka ludowa”, in: Jazz, 1971, Nr. 9, p. 6, 7, 12
38. Roman Waschko to Conover, 17. October 1959, [UNT Box 33 Folder Letters RE Music USA].
39. Rüdiger Ritter: „Jazz-Musiker als “Gründungsväter” für nationale Jazzszenen? Krzysztof Komeda und der polnische Jazz“, in: Albert Mangelsdorff. Tension. Spannung, ed. Wolfram Knauer, Darmstadt: Wolke, 2010 (= Darmstädter Beiträge zur Jazzforschung, Bd. 11), p. 29-50.
40. Bill Benett: Interview with Conover, April 23, 1981, S. 2 [UNT Denton Box 93].
41. Wolfram Knauer: “History or Histories? Why it is so difficult to draft a European jazz history”, in: Jakobsen, Thomas A. (ed.): 8th Nordic Jazz Conference 25th – 27th August 2009. Aalborg Universitet. Conference Report, Aalborg 2009, p. 1-28.

 

European Jazz, Research, Methods and Results

 In the last four years, two important publications on European jazz were published: Eurojazzland. Jazz and European Sources, Dynamics, and Contexts by Luca Cerchiari, Laurent Cugny and Franz Kerschbaumer (2012); and Jazz behind the Iron Curtain by Gertrud Pickhan and Rüdiger Ritter (2009).  While the authors of Eurojazzland adopted an inductive-comparative approach, Jazz behind the Iron Curtain provides more of an empirical and sociological insight into the cultural, social and, above all, the political contexts of European jazz.

However, both publications show the division of European jazz scenes between East and West, and they also deal with the methodological inconsistencies in jazz research and analysis which have precluded an integrated chronological approach to jazz events, personalities and styles.

American theorists have presented different methodological approaches to jazz research. They range from Gunther Schuller’s historical and analytical approach, Mark Gridley’s stylistically-critical approach, through to Carl Emil Seashore’s, Milton Metfessel’s and Gridley’s exact measurements of African-American singers’ and instrumentalists’ specific tones. However, as jazz research in Europe is an incomplete endeavour, the two publications cannot be regarded as fully comprehensive monographs on European jazz.

One of the problems in the research on European jazz is the evaluation of musicians’ contributions to jazz history. American publications emphasize the concept of progress upon which jazz history is evaluated. From the current perspective however, progress – although regarded as the foremost factor – does not appear to be the only one involved in jazz development. Especially since the death of Miles Davis, the concept of progress has become very uncertain and changeable. However, for the further development of jazz, a respect for the genre‘s traditions is essential as it encourages musicians to preserve the older jazz styles and maintain an authenticity.

Besides progressiveness, the innovative development of the previous styles’ elements is equally important to the future of jazz. Some innovative possibilities have already appeared in the groundbreaking projects of such outstanding personalities as Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane and Miles Davis even so their contribution to jazz history has groundbreaking importance. For the success of jazz amongst audiences, creative musicianship, musicality, jazz enlightenment, advocacy and popularization are also vital. Only with such musical elements and activities is it possible to achieve further characteristics and original jazz expressions.

At this point, we speak of historiography where progress is regarded as the highest ideal, whilst innovations, creative searches, inventions in new combinations or standard productions are treated as lesser ones. Progressive, new or groundbreaking jazz productions seem not to be following the patterns of previous development. The appreciation of progressive, new or groundbreaking jazz albums also depends on artists’ and audiences’ abilities to grasp the critical moment, and recognize the music’s continuity and topicality. However, progressiveness also depends largely on the artists’ abilities not only to compose progressive pieces but to promote them successfully to the audience as well. These qualities are demonstrated by such personalities as the Slovak jazz singer Peter Lipa (b.1943) and the Czech-Slovak-Australian jazz pianist Viktor Zappner (b.1936).

Similarities and Diferencies – Peter Lipa and Viktor Zappner

Both artists have a number of characteristics in common, especially the flair for innovative jazz and finding new combination possibilities, even though both were constrained by the conditions of their time. Viktor Zappner (b. October 11, 1936 in Trutnov) is an Australian jazz pianist of Czech-Slovak origin. He was already using a modal approach in 1962 by transforming the Lydian and Mixolydian intonations of central European folk music into his compositions. However, in Czechoslovakia in the 1960s when there was little interest in jazz, Zappner was an unknown pianist. His music did not become appreciated until after his emigration to Tasmania (Australia) in 1978. He discovered the essence of modal jazz and has popularized it amongst the local Tasmanian public. For his endeavours, Zappner was honoured as the Tasmanian Local Hero at the Australian of the Year Award 2012.¹

Peter Lipa has transformed the specifics of the Slovak language into Slovak jazz songs and has developed a blend of soul jazz with a blues and funky style. Since the 1980s, Lipa has popularized jazz amongst the general public and arranged events that have made his name synonymous with jazz.  He has organized Slovakia’s major jazz festival, the Bratislava Jazz Days, since its beginnings in 1975 until the present. He has also been the President of the Slovak Jazz Society since 1989.

Zappner founded the Jazz Action Society North-West Tasmania in 1983 and was its President for 28years. Since 2002 he has been the organizer of the annual Devonport Jazz Festival which helped to promote Devonport as an important jazz town in Australia.

Viktor Zappner

In 1962, Zappner wrote the song Good Morning, Mr. Sallinger, but renamed it Huon Pine a few years after having arrived in Australia in order to express his admiration for the beauty of the Tasmanian landscape.² Good Morning, Mr. Sallinger was performed at Súťaž tvorivosti mládeže (the Youth Creativity Competition Czechoslovakia) in 1963 by the trio of Viktor Zappner (piano), Tibor Platzner (bass) and Jozef “Dodo” Šošoka (drums). The piece was received with such acclamation that Zappner has been offered an opportunity to study composition at the Academy of Music in Prague, but he did not take it. In 1992, Huon Pine was recorded on the CD Tasmanian Jazz Composers – Volume One³ with Zappner on piano, Nick Haywood on bass, Adrian Cunningham on flute and saxophone, and Allan Browne on drums.  In 2006 the composition was performed live in Burnie, where the composer wittily remarked: “The composition has no beginning and no end, as in love”, implying that it has no tonal center.

Example: Huon Pine

Huon Pine is based on a two-bar melodic motive composed of the fifth, the fourth, the second and the unison omitting the third (the Dorian mode in E♭ in the first bar, and B♭ minor 11 chord in the second bar). In the third measure the motive is transposed down by the minor sixth. This obscured anchoring in the tonal center, confirms the shifting from E♭ the Dorian mode in the first bar to D Dorian in the third bar, then to B♭ Dorian in the fifth and A Dorian in the sixth measure to G Dorian in the seventh and the eighth bars. Skipping the third in the principal melody allows shifting of the tonal centre to continue.  Although the minor third is eventually heard in the F Dorian mode in bar 9 and in the C Dorian mode in bar 11, the motive in the twelfth bar contains several sequences of the interval fourth (D♭ to G) confirming B♭Dorian mode.

In the first eight bars Zappner used the relationship between the authentic E♭ Dorian mode and its plagal variant B♭ Aeolian mode (natural minor); another relationship occurred from bars 9 to 12 the B♭ Dorian mode and its plagal variant f (Aeolian or minor scale) were used. The use of the melodic structure built of the moves of fourths and seconds is close to Thelonious Monk’s musical thinking.

Zappner followed George Russell’s 1953 modal system which had been adopted in American jazz by Miles Davis’ album Kind of Blue as late as 1959. However, the relationships between the chords in Huon Pine are built on a sequential move by the seconds (Dmi9, Cmi7, B♭mi13, Ami9, Gmi11 in bars 3 to 7) which shows Zappner’s original approach.

Huon Pine’s subtle melodic structure is close to Flamenco Sketches by Miles Davis in his album Kind of Blue. However, Zappner’s composition reminds Slovak folk melodies, which are typically based on Lydian or Mixolydian modes. Mixolydian upper tetrachord is identical with Dorian mode. Since the piece was written in 1962, this means that Zappner was using jazz modality in the former Czechoslovakia before or at least at the same time like Jan Johansson did in Sweeden. However, Zappner’s projects were not appreciated at the time, although this musical sound was later regarded as a Manfred Eichner ECM sound.

Peter Lipa

Peter Lipa (b. May 30, 1943 in Prešov) emerged on the musical scene in 1967 as a member of the blues band Blues Five. For political reasons he did not record his first profile LP Moanin’ (Neúprosné ráno) until 1983. From this LP, I have chosen for analysis the piece Kamarátka samota⁴ composed by Peter Breiner with lyrics written by Tomáš Janovic and Peter Petiška. The English version is known as Me and My Friend Miss Lonelyhearts.

The song’s lyrics appeal to the audience through the connections with the Miss Lonelyhearts column for lonely young people in a prominent American magazine. A similar column also existed in the Czechoslovak popular youth magazine Mladý svět (The Young World). Me and My Friend Miss Lonelyhearts was inspired by lonely people’s letters to Mladý svět (The Young World).⁵

Example: Me and My Friend Miss Lonelyhearts

The composition is characterized by the blues key and its alternations with the major and minor keys. This is evident in the first six bars of the introduction, where alternations between F7 chord and Fmi7 chord occur. Alternations also occur at the beginning of section A emphasing the F major key base in the melody (bar 9) and the melody’s sudden transition into the minor third of B♭7 chord in bar 10. The whole piece is written in F key, with part A being in F major key (bars 9 and 11) and, in section B, initially d minor (from bars 19 to 22) changes into f minor (from bars 23 to 30). The eight-bar introduction advances in F blues key with F major dominant in C 7 chord in bar 8 as a preparation for the melody’s F major key in part A. The symmetrical musical form itself (the eight-bar introduction, 8+8 bars in part A, 4+4 bars in the first section of part B and 8+8 bars in the second section), together with the blues tonality correspond with a soul style. The rich phrases dotted rhythm with syncopations and triplets correspond with a soul jazz style too. The transitions between the keys indicate Peter Breiner’s clever use of the functional harmony and classical principle of modulation. The modulation together with the inputs of the bass guitar, using call and response, is an excellent base for the funky style. From here, there is only a small step to the use of groove bass guitar and slapping. In this respect, Peter Breiner’s Me and My Friend Miss Lonelyhearts represents an innovation in blues, soul and funk styles.

Lipa, in his scattting improvizes only on themes of section A, but, according to funk style, chooses only vamp from the harmonic scheme with repeated F and B7 chord followed by C7 and F chords.

Example:  Improvisation

The Czech bass guitarist, Vladimír “Guma” Kulhánek, had already used a fretless bassguitar in 1980.

Considering that Me and My Friend Miss Lonelyhearts was recorded in 1983, it had already shown a connection with world jazz development not only in its bass guitar interpretation, but also in its  fusion of soul, funk and blues in the singing and in the composition. The approach to the harmony – the duet between Vladimir Kulhánek’s bass guitar and Peter Lipa’s vocal part without any harmonic instrument – was typical of the time, with the bass guitar being the dominant solo instrument and adding  rhythmic innovations such as glissandos, melodies and slaps. Jaco Pastorius began to use the fretless bass guitar in Weather Report in 1976, so Peter Lipa and Vladimir Kulhánek’s approach was quite timely.

Breiner’s composition was released in both Slovak and English versions; the lyrics for the English version were translated by Ondřej Hejma. The specifics and different rhythm of the Slovak language compared with rhythmically more flexible English jazz phrases require the jazz singer to have a well-developed feel for rhythm. Ondřej Hejma, when translating the Slovak lyrics into English, had these specifics in mind and he used appropriately the number of sylabusses while translating them to the English. 

The match of the music with the rhythm of Peter Petiška and Tomáš Janovic’s lyrics, the classical beauty of blues and soul combined with Peter Breiner’s funky style, and Peter Lipa’s expressive rhythmic phrasing was an interpretation that found wide acceptance with the general public. The predominance of Peter Lipa’s rhythmic feeling over his melodic feeling substantially contributed to his public appeal.

 

Me and My Friends Miss Lonelyhearts

1. Me and my friend Miss Lonelyhearts

    We make one simply perfect pair

    And every time she comes my way

    I feel sadness she can share

2. Me and my friend Miss Lonelyhearts

    I’ve known around the neighbourhood

    But still when she is in my arms

    Something inside don’t feel so good.

Chorus: Maybe. And I will never know

if she is real or not

Maybe, another stranger would and will what I’ve got

Maybe, she’ll never understand why every day is the same

Maybe, she’ll take me by the hand and we can start again her

game. (“we can start again and again”)

3. Me and my friend Miss Lonelyhearts

        We make a very happy pair

        We’re watching TV when she is low

Sitting beside me in her chair.

4.  She tells me stories of her life

When there is nothing else to do

But still when our day is done

I can’t help waiting for someone new.

 

Conclusion

Peter Lipa and Viktor Zappner are not highly-awarded jazzmen with portfolios of ground-breaking contributions to world jazz. But they had the flair for innovative jazz and for finding new combinations, new possibilities, even though both were constrained by the circumstances of their time.

Zappner promoted Tasmania on the Australian jazz scene and brought modality to that part of Australia. Through his fusion of modality with postbop elements and free jazz, Australian audiences discovered European modal musical expressions. Zappner also introduced his audiences to Swedish musician Jan Johansson, who was previously unknown in Australia.

Jazz in Slovakia without Peter Lipa’s vocal art would definitely be poorer. Lipa’s ability to intelligently interpret all the characteristics of jazz phrasing into Slovak language, and his synthesis of Slovak and English intonations with typical blues melodic structures were publicly  recognized. Additionally, Peter Lipa’s and Viktor Zappner’s contributions to jazz included a numorous activities, which had been popularised. Without them the general public would not accept jazz as a new artistic form.

Notes

1. “On 21st November 2011, I went with my wife to Hobart to attend the Australian of the Year Award Recipients’ ceremony. In any case, we did not expect to win anything. When the Prime Minister announced my name as the winner in the ‘Local Hero’ category, I was absolutely shocked… Finally, only 32 candidates were left. The four finalists were announced in Canberra on 25th January 2012 in Parliament House in the presence of the Governor General and the Prime Minister. The presence of a jazz musician among such nominated personalities in the final round was rather eccentric, but that’s Australia.” [From personal correspondence with Victor Zappner, March 2012.]
2. Huon pine trees grow in Tasmania and some may be up to 3000 years old.
3. North Hobart, Tasmania: Little Arthur Productions, LACD 01, 1992
4. (My Girlfriend Loneliness), 9115 1460, Opus 1983.
5. From personal correspondence with Peter Lipa, January 2013.

Bibliography

Carl Dahlhaus: Analyse und Werturteil, Musikpädagogik, (Analysis and Evaluation), Forschung und Lehre 8. Schott’s Söhne, Mainz 1970.

Luca Cerchiari, Laurent Cugny, Franz Kerschbaumer: Eurojazzland. Jazz and European Sources, Dynamics, and Contexts, Northeastern University Press, Boston 2012.

Mark Gridley: Jazz Styles. History and Analysis, Sixth ed., Prentice Hall, New Jersey 1997.

Gertrud Pickhan, Rüdiger Ritter: Jazz behind the Iron Curtain (2009), Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2010.

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

York – London 1968.

Joe Zawinul’s life work as a musician encompasses three main periods:

– his time with Cannonball Adderley (1961–1970),

– the ensemble “Weather Report” (1970–1986), and

– the band “The Zawinul Syndicate” (1988–2007).

Zawinul realized his greatest success with Weather Report; together with Wayne Shorter, he was mainly responsible for the band’s repertoire and incisive style. The development leading to this style took place years before the band’s inception, finally resulting in Zawinul ending his – up to that point fruitful – collaboration with Cannonball Adderley:

“At the beginning, in the first years – and that took a very long time­­ – I didn’t have my own style. I got my own style around 1965, 1966, not before – after years in America. Before that I was playing well, but playing bebop the whole time. I began to try, every time I was about to play a phrase that I had played before . . . [Interviewer:]  . . . to play it differently? [Zawinul:] No, not just to play it differently. More radical: to play something different. But as soon as I noticed myself starting to develop something like my own style, it suddenly got difficult in Adderley’s band. At first I tried to write a lot more original pieces, where I could express myself better. But that was the beginning of the end. I felt more and more that I had reached my own limits. The first time I was really able to express myself was with my own band, with Weather Report.”¹

Weather Report required several years of musical experimentation before finally, beginning with the 1973 album Sweetnighter, hitting upon the formula that – particularly from 1976 on – would resonate internationally with a broad audience.

After the disbanding of Weather Report in 1986, Zawinul began performing publicly in 1988 with the ensemble known as the Zawinul Syndicate. This band existed until his death in 2007; its music was often characterized in the media as “world music” – a designation that, in its dissociation from the mainstream jazz canon, was welcomed by Zawinul.² Though primarily a musical/stylistic label, the term was also an apt characterization of the Zawinul Syndicate’s personnel and reflected on the band’s first album, The Immigrants (1988). According to Zawinul:

“It’s called The Immigrants because I realized that everybody [in the band], except for Scott and Cornell, is an immigrant. I’m an Austrian citizen. Acuna is a Peruvian Indian. Abraham Laboriel is from Mexico City. Rudy Regalado is from Venezuela.”³

Personnel selection in the Zawinul Syndicate was ultimately musically based – but over time, musical considerations also led to Zawinul’s divided opinion on the contemporary jazz scene. His chief criticism involved the scene’s strong retrospective tendencies; as he states in a 2003 interview with the noteworthy title “Die Amerikaner sind stehen geblieben” (The Americans Have Stopped Moving Forward):

[Interviewer:] “The bands with which you yourself wrote jazz history were all made up of American musicians. Odd – now you come to Zurich with musicians from Calcutta, Puerto Rico, Belgium, Mauritius. [Zawinul:] Well, these people play my music best. The Americans have stopped moving forward. Many have gone back to bebop, and I can’t do anything with that anymore. It’s largely the fault of record labels in the USA: they had no orientation, so they forced young jazz musicians to play bebop. That’s how it came to be this retrospective music. But everything in music, in art generally, has to come from people. It can’t just be an imitation.”⁴

Zawinul’s abandonment of contemporary jazz began well before the Zawinul Syndicate; it had its roots at least as far back as 1979, as bassist Percy Heath attests:

“I met Joe Zawinul in Austria. He is an Austrian musician. He went through a period of playing jazz music. Then he was sort of funky jazz, country jazz with Cannonball, which was at that time very popular. Now he has made this change to the big synthesizer. You know, he doesn’t claim it to be jazz, but they put it the jazz category. He doesn’t claim that anymore. He said, “Man, I ain’t playing no jazz.” He told me this down in Cuba. He said, “I want people to come see us like it’s a movie, and the music is the background for the spectacle.” I said, “Oh, I’m glad you told me that, Joe, because I failed to connect your music with jazz.”⁵

 

Thus, the starting point for this study of the Zawinul Syndicate’s musical style is framed by a few basic factors: Zawinul is concerned with his own, very personal, music; this music can be considered “world music” – and specifically does not belong to the category of jazz, at least in its current, “modern” form. This study will attempt to add to these few puzzle pieces in order to form a clearer picture of the almost twenty-year period of Joe Zawinul’s work with the Zawinul Syndicate – a period which, in spite of the singular quality of the music it produced, has to this point inspired only a handful of relevant papers.

The following summary outlines the most prominent characteristics of the Zawinul Syndicate’s music: repertoire, groove, musical density, harmony and sound. In addition, cross-references to Zawinul’s pre-1988 works are provided, showing the Zawinul Syndicate as a logical development within Joe Zawinul’s complete body of work.

(1) Repertoire

Between 1988 and 2007, six albums were released under the name “The Zawinul Syndicate”: The Immigrants (1988), Black Water (1989), Lost Tribes (1992), World Tour (1998), Vienna Nights (2005) and 75th (2007). In addition, 1989 saw the release of a DVD featuring a live concert from Philharmonic Hall in Munich. Zawinul’s other releases during this time period were either under his own name or as a sideman on other musicians’ albums.

On the six albums released by the Zawinul Syndicate, 65 discrete pieces appear. A number of these were recorded multiple times, bringing the total of released pieces to 74.

Joe Zawinul is listed as the author or co-author of 53 of these 65 titles. Only five of the 65 are by neither Zawinul nor his band members, of which three are jazz standards. The following table shows the exact figures:

Criterion	Number (percentage)
Total number of individual pieces	65  (= 100%)
Zawinul as author or co-author	53  (= 81,54%)
Zawinul as only author	44  (= 67,69%)
Other band member as author	7  (= 10,77%)
Other band member as co-author with Zawinul	9  (= 13,85%)
Non-band member as author	5  (= 7,69%)

Clearly, Zawinul’s role as primary composer for the Zawinul Syndicate is unchallenged. None of his collaborators appears as author or co-author more than twice on a single record – and the continual change of personnel in the band precluded any other members from expanding their role. This is a marked departure from Weather Report’s repertoire: membership remained largely constant over the life span of that band and in addition to Zawinul both Wayne Shorter and Jaco Pastorius contributed a large number of compositions.

A comparison of the repertoires of Weather Report and the Zawinul Syndicate reveals 12 pieces recorded by both bands:⁶

Title	Year(s) recorded by Weather Report	Year(s) recorded by The Zawinul Syndicate
Badia	1975, 1975, 1976, 1978, 1979, 1984	2004, 2007
Birdland	1976, 1976, 1978, 1979, 1979, 1982, 1984	1989
Boogie Woogie Waltz	1973, 1973, 1973, 1975, 1979	2004, 2007
Carnavalito	1985	1989, 1997
Country Preacher	1969, 1970	1992
Fast City	1980, 1980, 20027	2007
In A Silent Way	1969, 1969, 1970, 1973, 1978, 1979, 2002	1991, 2007
It’s About That Time	1969, 1973	1991
Madagascar	1980	2007
Mercy, Mercy, Mercy	1966, 1966, 1969	1988
Scarlet Woman	1974, 1975, 1976, 1978, 1979	2007
Two Lines	1976, 1983, 2002	1997, 2004, 2007

These 12 pieces were recorded a total of 18 times; roughly a quarter of those recorded by the Zawinul Syndicate had been recorded previously by Weather Report. However, the particular significance of the album 75th must be taken into account in this interpretation of the data: Technically a Zawinul Syndicate album, it is a live concert played on the occasion of Joe Zawinul’s 75th birthday and as such retrospectivity likely played a major role in the selection of material for the concert; seven Weather Report numbers were performed during the concert, three of which had never been previously recorded by the Zawinul Syndicate.

These overlappings in repertoire raise the question of how the stylistic approaches of the two groups differ in their performances the same piece. A representative comparison of the recordings of “Badia” in 1978 and 2004 show an astounding similarity. The drum performance from the 2004 recording is denser and more concise and Zawinul uses the Vocoder, typical for the Zawinul Syndicate – but the 1978 recording also features a synthesizer sound similar to a human voice. However, the earlier recording includes quasi-experimental passages, reminiscent of the early 1970s, which are eschewed by the Zawinul Syndicate.

(2) Groove

Groove, in the sense of a “persistently repeated pattern”⁸, represents both the basis and a significant part of the Zawinul Syndicate’s music. Joe Zawinul’s statement that “The groove comes first for me. Without it I don’t play.”⁹ is supported by the fact that nearly all of the awinul Syndicate’s faster pieces – three-quarters of its entire repertoire – are groove-based.

The groove pieces can be divided into two basic categories: up-tempo (80 bpm) and without clear repetition of a pattern. The following diagram shows the frequency of these three tempo areas on the Zawinul Syndicate’s six albums.

Between 1988 and 1992, as the graph shows, a relative parity of the three tempo classes was the rule. The later recordings tend toward faster tempi and beginning in 1997 such tempi clearly took precedence.

(3) Musical density

In the music of the Zawinul Syndicate, musical density – defined as the number of musical events per unit of time – rose to a level never reached by Weather Report, largely due to a high pitch of virtuosic activity by drummers and percussionists.¹⁰ An additional increase in density is provided by atmospheric elements, including (a) the ostinatic period of guitar and bass riffs, (b) the contrasting sweep of synthesizer pads and (c) the particular catchiness of  main themes of the respective pieces, determined by concise, leitmotif-like patterns carefully arranged by Zawinul himself.¹¹

In sum, this mixture of elements gives an impression of simplicity that was always of particular importance to Zawinul:¹²

“My parents never liked my music, but I love them and value them a great deal and I said to myself: “If I can’t play for my parents, I’m not a musician.” I wanted to make music that I could play for my parents, but that might also play in Harlem.”¹³

Zawinul emphasizes that complex construction and simple receivability need not be mutually exclusive:

“My music is complicated to play, but simple to listen to. That’s the secret. Cannonball Adderley once told me: “You write such difficult music, but when you play it – it’s clear.”¹⁴

This simplicity for the listener is due in no small part to the extraordinary musical density emanating from the rhythm section, which can impart a feeling of timelessness.¹⁵ In contrast to conventional, “unchanging” sounds, the Zawinul Syndicate’s music contains layers of sound that, due to their internal movement, carry enormous amounts of musical energy. The effect of this energy, in turn, is further intensified and takes on added density through Joe Zawinul’s highly specific instructions to his musicians regarding the microrhythmic performance of his grooves.¹⁶

(4) Harmony

The most immediately obvious aspect of the Zawinul Syndicate’s harmony is its particular transparency for the listener. Joe Zawinul achieved this effect (a) through the use of only a few simple harmonies,¹⁷ often in major keys,¹⁸ and (b) by ending more complex harmonic movements in simple harmonies or chord progressions.¹⁹ More intricate harmonic material, as in Weather Report recordings from 1971/72 – for instance pieces such as “Unknown Soldier” and “Crystal” – vanished almost completely by 1973.²⁰

(5) Sound

The marked recognizability of the Zawinul Syndicate’s music owes much to Zawinul’s use of warm synthesizer sounds, in both his solos and accompaniment. In place of the soprano saxophone familiar from Weather Report recordings, he tends to substitute a similar sound generated on the Korg Pepe, a synthesizer designed specifically for him; the Vocoder and various sample sequences are also of great significance in this context. The basis for these tendencies is Zawinul’s particular affinity for everything having to do with sound. In response to the question of what inspires him, Zawinul states:

“The sound of my musicians. I have to hear how someone plays, what kind of tone he has, then pieces occur to me based on that. Even as a boy of eight or nine I was already interested in sound. I’d often go to a billiard hall with a friend of my father’s. Once there was an old piece of felt from one of the tables lying on a chair; I glued it into my accordion and got a sound that I later used on “Black Market” with Weather Report. That’s a genuine, original Zawinul sound.”²¹

Zawinul makes it clear that, for him, sound has a much higher value than many other skills possessed by well-educated, modern musicians:

[Interviewer:] “Why are there no jazz bands like that anymore? [Zawinul:] Jazz isn’t entertainment anymore. The young guys can play really well, but they’ve forgotten that music is also supposed to be entertainment. That’s why jazz is in decline. [Interviewer:] When you say ‘guys’ do you mean the ‘Young Lions’ – like the trumpeter Roy Hargrove or the saxophonist Joshua Redman? [Zawinul:] Yes. They play damned well. They play with Wynton Marsalis. He’s a fantastic musician and a great character, a really nice guy. I like him. He’s also a great musician. He can play Haydn, Gluck, he can play everything. But somehow for me nothing sticks. That was different with us – you always knew when Zawinul, or Wayne, or Jaco was playing. With Miles and Armstrong you knew who was playing after two notes. That doesn’t exist anymore – but that’s what the audience wants.”²²

In the creation of sounds, Zawinul relies completely on his intuition; he emphasizes the essential connection to the human voice and language in his musical expression:

“[…] pure instinct. There’s nothing to say about that. When I hear a sound that I like to play with, the way the key feels, the way the sounds feel, then I modulate that sound to the point where it really rings like it is my voice, like it is my language. If I can do that, I know I can make some music. I couldn’t play with sounds that are not my sound.”²³

This pursuit of individualism began to drive Zawinul’s work by the mid-1960s but reached its zenith in the Zawinul Syndicate, a premise borne out not only by the Zawinul Syndicate’s recordings but also on studio albums such as Faces and Places (2002), recorded under Zawinul’s own name, and the Zawinul-produced Salif Keita album Amen (Mango 261694, 1991).

Conclusion

The groundwork for the Zawinul Syndicate’s music was laid by Joe Zawinul’s development over the three and a half decades preceding the band’s founding. The 1974 recording “Nubian Sundance”, featuring a wealth of stylistic elements anticipating the work of the Zawinul Syndicate, offers a striking demonstration of this development;²⁴ equally impressive is the quality of Zawinul’s ballad playing, documented as early as 1957. Thus, the later phases of Zawinul’s 55-year musical career are clearly built on that which came earlier. However, from the mid-1960s on, in keeping with Zawinul’s character, his focus shifted increasingly towards efforts to realize his own musical concept rather than – as previously – the preservation and continuation of the jazz tradition. Zawinul’s perpetual dissatisfaction with his musical past and his desire to continue growing²⁵ make the special value of the Zawinul Syndicate’s music even clearer: Rather than a simple continuation of a musical journey beginning with Fats Waller, Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith and Duke Ellington, leading later to bebop and eventually the music of Weather Report, the Zawinul Syndicate represents a crystallization and broadening of Joe Zawinul’s musical concept – and as such, a new high point of his life’s work.

Referenced Zawinul Recordings

1954–57   Joe Zawinul and the Austrian All Stars: His Majesty’s Swinging Nephews 1954–1957. RST-915492.

1961–71   Cannonball Adderley: Cannonball Plays Zawinul. Capitol Jazz 724359707020.

1963          Ben Webster / Joe Zawinul: Soulmates. Riverside OJCCD-109-2.

1966          Cannonball Adderley Quintet: Cannonball in Japan. Capitol Jazz CDP 7935602.

1971f.       Weather Report: I Sing The Body Electric. Columbia 88697145472.

1972          Weather Report: Live in Tokyo. Leopard LCD 106-2.

1973          Weather Report: Sweetnighter. Columbia 88697145472.

1974          Weather Report: Mysterious Traveller. CBS CDCBS 80027.

1974          Weather Report: Night Passage. Columbia 88697145472.

1975          Weather Report: Live in Berlin 1975. MIG 80020 CD + DVD.

1976          Weather Report: Black Market. Columbia 4682102.

1978          Weather Report: Live in Offenbach 1978. MIG 80092 2CD.

1982          Weather Report: Weather Report. Columbia 4767522.

1983          Weather Report: Live in Cologne 1983. AOG 80052 CD.

1989          The Zawinul Syndicate: Black Water. Columbia 4653442.

1992          The Zawinul Syndicate: Lost Tribes. Columbia 4689002.

1997          The Zawinul Syndicate: World Tour. ESC Records ESC/EFA 03656-2.

2002          Weather Report: Live and Unreleased. Columbia/Legacy 5080582.

2004          The Zawinul Syndicate: Vienna Nights. BHM 4001-2.

2007          The Zawinul Syndicate: 75th. BHM 4002-2.

Notes:

1. Max Dax: “Joe Zawinul”. Alert Nr. 8 (Oktober 2002–Februar 2003). German version available online at http://www.alertmagazin.de/alert.php?issue=8&content=zawinul (accessed on April 9, 2013).
2. Cf. Andrián Pertout: “Joe Zawinul: Jazz Icon”. Mixdown Monthly Nr. 78 (Oktober 4, 2000). Available online at http://www.pertout.com/Zawinul.htm (accessed on April 9, 2013).
3. Josef Woodard: “Joe Zawinul: The Dialects of Jazz”. Down Beat 55/4 (April 1988), p. 17. Cf. Georg Lenger: “Der Jazzmusiker, Komponist und Arrangeur Joe Zawinul: Biographie, Diskographie und Analyse seines späteren Schallplattenwerkes”. Diploma thesis, Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Graz, 1995, p. 157.
4. Christoph Merki: “Die Amerikaner sind stehen geblieben”. tagesanzeiger.ch (October 28, 2003). German version available online at http://web.archive.org/web/20070920210501/http://www.tages-anzeiger.ch/dyn/news/popjazz/319401.html (accessed on April 9, 2013).
5. Batt Johnson: What is this Thing Called Jazz? Insights and Opinions from the Players. San José (et al.): Writer´s Showcase, 2001, p. 41.
6. Tom Lord: The Jazz Discography Online. West Vancouver 2001.
7. The 2002 Weather Report album Live and Unreleased contains material recorded between 1975 and 1983.
8. Barry Kernfeld: “Groove (i)”. The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, 2nd ed.. Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/J582400 (accessed April 9, 2013).