Jelly Roll and Phrase Articulation

Jelly Roll Morton, whose birthday was recently celebrated, said, 

"Without breaks and without clean breaks, without beautiful ideas in breaks, you don’t need to even think about doin’ anything else. If you can’t have a decent break, you haven’t got a jazz band, or you can’t even play jazz."

One of the interesting, albeit obvious, changes to occur in the history of jazz has been the evolution of the approach to phrase articulation: namely, from the clear articulation of discrete phrases typical of popular dance music to an esoteric ambiguity and intricately homogeneous opacity of phrase, even down to the level of measure and beat. 

Roger Scruton on Music

In a recent discussion with Terry Eagleton, Roger Scruton said,

"I think of culture as a form of practical knowledge: something which gives you a sense of what to do, what to feel, how to be towards other people in a community in ways which will enhance your own social and emotional competence. I think this is what you learn from literature, and I think in particular you learn it from music...The greatest achievement of our civilization, if you leave religion and science to one side, has been music: a continuous tradition of reflection through the articulate sound on what it is to be human, and a constant attempt to take that reflection further, to build abstract structures in which nevertheless we see mirrored our own emotional nature as rational and social beings. This great achievement is something which I think can be imparted to the young, and it changes their lives. It changes their way not only of thinking about the world, but of seeing each other." 

All of Scruton's writing on music is worth reading, particularly his books on musical aesthetics, his monograph on Wagner's Tristan, and his forthcoming review of Dmitri Tymoczko's new book, a draft of which is available at Scruton's website. 

Iverson on Bud

In celebration of Bud Powell's birthday, please check out Ethan Iverson's wonderful essays on Bud's music: 

http://dothemath.typepad.com/dtm/burning-down-the-house-.html