# Jazz in the Classical music eras



## LordBlackudder (Nov 13, 2010)

Was the idea of jazz incomprehensible at the time?

Did no one think to create that sound and sequence of notes until later?

Is there any example of something jazzy before jazz existed?


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

Jazz was as much a cultural element of society as it was musical. It couldn't have existed before its time.


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## PianoMan (Mar 13, 2005)

Heh, well, while Beethoven certainly wasn't thinking of jazz since it didn't exist, a part of his 32nd Piano Sonata is often noted for how jazzy it is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_Sonata_No._32_(Beethoven)#Structure


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## Jeremy Marchant (Mar 11, 2010)

Define jazz.

Improvisation was not only common, it was expected in the baroque and, to a lesser extent, classical eras (using the term classical in its proper sense). Plenty of syncopation to be found, too.

On a more serious note, plenty of small jazz groups will have one, or two, soloists (eg piano alone, piano and voice and so on) and drumkit and bass. For all that the pianist might claim that the drum and bass are equal members of the group, in truth they are the rhythm section - subordinates. You cannot perform anything like as interesting a solo on drums or bass as you can on piano (_pace _Chalie Haden _et al_). This is precisely the situation in the baroque period. If you go to concert of a Bach violin sonata, expect to find a piano on stage when you arrive. Bach's sonatas for solo violin have to be called just that to differentiate them firom the "violin sonatas" which are actually for violin and keyboard.

In the baroque period, an accompanying keyboard, and often other instruments, would be called a continuo. The job of the continuo was to fill in the bass line and the harmony. In jazz, the continuo (drums and bass) fill in the bass line and the rhythm because the harmony has been elevated to to the soloists. But essentially the model is exactly the same.


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

Jeremy Marchant said:


> Define jazz.


"Man, if you have to ask what Jazz is, you'll never know." -Louis Armstrong


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## LordBlackudder (Nov 13, 2010)

PianoMan said:


> Heh, well, while Beethoven certainly wasn't thinking of jazz since it didn't exist, a part of his 32nd Piano Sonata is often noted for how jazzy it is.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_Sonata_No._32_(Beethoven)#Structure


lol its a rag.


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## Lunasong (Mar 15, 2011)

Are you ever tempted to clap after a particularly fine cadenza?


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Debussy - disassociation of chords with harmonic function, unprecedented in the entire common era, unleashed a new sensibility, and part, I believe, of what made Jazz possible.

As much as Jazz is born from black Americans, that many generations closer to their African culture from now, it is also a product of the interface of those African sensibilities and aesthetics with the European classical music to which they were also exposed. Ragtime is not so far from some Chopin, and one would more than hesitate to claim that untrained black musicians spontaneously invented a form which includes, for example, a trio section, LOL.

From that juncture, and world communications and travel, what fueled both Jazz and some early modern classical came from one to the other in both directions.

The time was right, and the climate good for cross-fertilization and things growing, and ripening.


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## Moira (Apr 1, 2012)

Lunasong said:


> Are you ever tempted to clap after a particularly fine cadenza?


Absolutely! I often feel like clapping after the first movement.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Certain late romantics, early modernists, and impressionists had the idea of Jazz before it was a thing.

Names that most prominently come to mind are Medtner, Scriabin, Debussy, and Satie. 

Gottschalk, even earlier, had something of it in him as well.


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

PetrB said:


> As much as Jazz is born from black Americans, that many generations closer to their African culture from now, it is also a product of the interface of those African sensibilities and aesthetics with the European classical music to which they were also exposed.


...Primarily military band music, like Sousa and Tin Pan Alley. Any classical influences would have come through those. I don't think that classical music had much of a direct influence, aside from perhaps church music.

Once jazz became popular, some artists like Fats Waller went back and studied lassical music, but the origins of Jazz were the Blues, Tin Pan Alley, Ragtime and military bands.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

clavichorder said:


> Certain late romantics, early modernists, and impressionists had the idea of Jazz before it was a thing.
> 
> Names that most prominently come to mind are Medtner, Scriabin, Debussy, and Satie.
> 
> Gottschalk, even earlier, had something of it in him as well.


jazz has many different aspects, improvisation, swing (and not only syncopation), blues derived harmonies, different instruments (and different use of them) and drums, different kind of singing... if certain pieces of those composers have aspects that remind of jazz, surely it's not jazz.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Was the swing rhythm used in any classical music before the jazz influence reached it?


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

science said:


> Was the swing rhythm used in any classical music before the jazz influence reached it?


i doubt about it, even because swing is more than just a rhythm. It means syncopation but it's not just that. Gottschak and even Beethoven (in the piano sonata op.111) used syncopated rhyhtms but that is not swing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swing_%28jazz_performance_style%29


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## KRoad (Jun 1, 2012)

I recently was listening to Schoenberg's Concerto for Violin and Orchestra and Webern's Symphony Op.21 among other atonal delights and was struck by an aural kind of kinship between these compositions and those produced by Miles Davis and his second "great" quintet in the mid-sixties. Yes, and as a previous poster has mentioned, improvisation (the modus operandi of jazz) was a skill expected of musicians in the Baroque era. Telemann wrote to accommodate this expectation (cf. Bach - but 2nd movement of Brandenburg Concerto No. 3!)


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## Moira (Apr 1, 2012)

Lunasong said:


> Are you ever tempted to clap after a particularly fine cadenza?


All the time.  And to boo bad playing.

I do neither.


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## Romantic Geek (Dec 25, 2009)

I have always thought that parts of K. 332 (the descending circle of fifths progression with sevenths, around 1:10 in this recording) sound kinda jazzy.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

KRoad said:


> I recently was listening to Schoenberg's Concerto for Violin and Orchestra and Webern's Symphony Op.21 among other atonal delights and was struck by an aural kind of kinship between these compositions and those produced by Miles Davis and his second "great" quintet in the mid-sixties. Yes, and as a previous poster has mentioned, improvisation (the modus operandi of jazz) was a skill expected of musicians in the Baroque era. Telemann wrote to accommodate this expectation (cf. Bach - but 2nd movement of Brandenburg Concerto No. 3!)


I'll be surprised if, a hundred or so years from now, jazz hasn't been absorbed by classical music, so that it is common to consider Ellington and Davis among the great composers of the 20th century.

I think we can see this developing in the increasingly common term "art music."


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

clavichorder said:


> Certain late romantics, early modernists, and impressionists had the idea of Jazz before it was a thing.
> 
> Names that most prominently come to mind are Medtner, Scriabin, Debussy, and Satie.
> 
> Gottschalk, even earlier, had something of it in him as well.


When you mentioned Medtner, I came to think of his 2nd Concerto, the 1st movement - the cadenza for instance, somehow a bit jazzy. It´s from 1920-27, though


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I think classical absorbed and was influenced by jazz, not the other way round. Eg. Debussy's _Golliwog's Cake-Walk _and some of his preludes are obviously connected to ragtime. Charles Ives was doing similar things at the same time (eg. either side of 1900, the turn of the 20th century). The best known ragtime composer, Scott Joplin, was pretty big in his day, but after his death around WW1 his music went out of fashion, but was revived after 1945.

I agree that improvisation was important in classical music for a long time, eg. the likes of Beethoven and Bruckner were considered just as great improvisers (on piano and organ respectively) as they where composers. It appears that this tradition is now relegated to things like cadenzas and the ornamentation in Baroque and Classical era musics (both instrumental and vocal). Scores in those periods where often very flexible, eg. depending on what musicians where available, the piece could be played in various ways, eg. by string orchestra only, or with winds added to the strings. J.S. Bach wrote his _Art of Fugue _for no specific instruments, it can be played on virtually anything.

I can also hear things going on similar to jazz in Beethoven and so on, however I think its a totally different ball game. In any case, jazz is now also like a museum piece, almost as much as Baroque and Classical era music. Certain types of jazz certainly are, eg. Dixieland and Swing, they are no longer living artforms. I believe Ellington's and Basie's orchestras are still going, touring the USA and the world, and of course they died decades ago. It's a kind of nostalgia that keeps them going, I think. Ellington never had a score in front of him when he performed. His whole outlook was built on spontaneity and every performance being different. Some classical musicians who favoured live to studio recordings had similar attitude, eg. Furtwangler, Michelangeli, Celibidache. So there are similarities in philosophy at least.

There is chance-based music also (eg. John Cage). But I think that is different, not even based on a chord like Ellington. Notation was also different for Cage.

But whenever the cello is plucked in classical, I think jazz. Eg. Shostakovich's second cello concerto has quite a bit of that.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Sid James said:


> In any case, jazz is now also like a museum piece, almost as much as Baroque and Classical era music. Certain types of jazz certainly are, eg. Dixieland and Swing, they are no longer living artforms.


Seems right to me. Jazz and classical music both emphasize innovation so much that contemporary musicians almost aren't allowed to produce music that would've been done in past eras. This always upsets conservatives, and I understand that we want to conserve our heritage, but I personally enjoy the innovation in both traditions. Let's see where we go from here!


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

science said:


> Seems right to me. Jazz and classical music both emphasize innovation so much that contemporary musicians almost aren't allowed to produce music that would've been done in past eras. This always upsets conservatives, and I understand that we want to conserve our heritage, but I personally enjoy the innovation in both traditions. Let's see where we go from here!


Well, a musician today who kind of fuses the past with today is Keith Jarrett. He is a phenomenal jazz improviser, and he's done classical things like J.S. Bach. So it can be done, he is maybe the closest we have to the great composer-improvisers of the past like J.S. Bach, Beethoven, Bruckner. It's also funny how even though Bruckner was one of the great organists of his day, he didn't leave much organ works. Same with Saint-Saens. It seems to me that hearing them improvise at a recital was an amazing experience, but it cannot be replicated (similar as with Liszt or Paganini). After an organ recital by Bruckner, Gounod embraced him and said he was the greatest organist of Europe (or words close to that). Now, with recordings, Keith Jarrett's improvisations can be kept for posterity.


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