Why Classical Music Hasn't Embraced Jazz

[Music] [Music] at the dawn of the 20th century composer arnold schoenberg began displaying his dismay with what he considered to be the limits of tonal music even out and out stating that tonality is neither a natural law of music nor eternally valid schoenberg had reached a point in his career where the late romantic style of viennese composers such as gustav mahler and richard strauss had reached their innovative limit in his opinion for schoenberg there wasn't much new to say as a tonal composer in the contemporary viennese style of the period so he would end up spearheading a new atonal revolution in music where dissonant intervals were presented with equal importance to consonant ones to keep this new innovation in music from becoming too free and chaotic schoenberg developed his 12-tone system of composing which would eventually serve as the foundation for the theoretical ethos of a myriad of 20th century composers going forward while it might have made sense to schoenberg at the time and championed in the intellectual realm by others such as theodore adorno i feel the sentiment has had negative consequences for what we call classical music because during the time schoenberg made these statements and began developing and refining his musical theories something was going on in a young and upcoming country on the other side of the atlantic in the united states of america the limits of tonality were being challenged with a new musical style called jazz this was being achieved not through the denial of tonality but rather through the development of new ways of writing tonal music something schoenberg imagined to be no longer achievable jazz has very organic origins which materialized out of the melding of african-american harmonies and rhythms found for example in spirituals gospel and blues music with klezmer and marching band elements to form a new type of music initially this materialized as cakewalks or ragtimes but with a few rhythmic tweaks along with the lightning quick scales and modes of klezmer music jazz music was ultimately born this in my opinion accurately reflects how most true musical styles come into being as opposed to the somewhat instantaneous theoretical genesis presented by many atonal and serialist composers who often wrote laborious theoretical books and articles outlining the new theories they'd developed initially the innovations of jazz weren't necessarily written down at each stage of their genesis and uh look at me aren't i a clever theorist fashion but passed down from one generation of jazz musician and composer to the next where the next generation would adapt the style further these innovations in jazz came through performing and writing music as opposed to writing music that adhered to rigid theoretic intellectual treatises and articles that explained the validity of some new type of composing which was in most cases the situation with dissonant music one thing that has always bothered me about many atonal works is just how far removed they are from reality if we take the music of say bartok although the music is decidedly modern and at times quite dissonant it still takes cues from real-life manifestations of music such as folk music as unique and perhaps bizarre as bartok's pieces can sometimes sound they remain far more compelling to me because of their relationship with things that are familiar which for bartok often manifested through folk melodies and rhythms he would borrow this in a way makes his music more authentic to me than say pieces by schermberg or vayburn jazz in a similar way materialized from a more authentic place coming from folk music and eventually adapting those principles into a usable framework its genesis is authentic and connects to something deep in the cultural psyche of americans many atonal composers seem to focus on a purely theoretic foundation for the music where focus is placed on theoretical systems and mathematical patterns more than anything cultural it's music that seems to come purely from the head without any external influence or the internal input of emotion or the heart even rachmaninoff was disturbed by this over intellectual aspect of modern etonal composition one stating and i'm paraphrasing that modern composers think analyze and brood instead of exalting with and feeling the music that they wrote all this is leading me to say that i think jazz represents one of the greatest musical innovations to come out of the 20th century i'm sorry to offend atonal fanatics and those who hold the theoretical writings of schoenberg and adorno and high esteem but when it comes to music history jazz was a far more profound theoretical revolution to music than atonality was instead of denying tonality something that has been part of the ethos of music since the first mammoth bone pentatonic flutes from tens of thousands of years ago the framework of western tonalities such as harmony voicing modality and rhythm were expanded to such an extent in jazz as to enable a type of tonal music that was wholly new and inspired while i will not state that jazz should have replaced classical music i feel the two forms could learn a lot from each other and ultimately profit from adopting more principles from their respective theoretical toolkits so why am i even comparing a tonality to jazz these are two completely different genres and what difference does it make if i hold jazz and higher esteem than atonal and serialist music well there's a fundamental issue that appears with these two styles at the beginning of the 20th century and for me it represents the greatest missed opportunity in the history of classical music but in a way also for jazz but before i get to that it's important to discuss the pedestal on which etonality placed itself at the beginning of the 20th century as i think it's one of the most enduring reasons that classical and jazz music were so isolated from one another see a tonal composer such as schoenberg weiburn and later boulez and babbitt saw themselves in a way as the spiritual successors to the classical tradition of composition and this framing was supported in a way by the music philosopher adorno even if they turned their backs on tonality they saw themselves as the next evolutionary or heroic step in western classical art music although it was initially an incredibly difficult battle for these composers to establish themselves something which is commendable their sentiment was eventually accepted by conservatories and music institutions worldwide jazz on the other hand took over the popular music world by storm while the classical world would time and time again snub it even if the sentiment of denying jazz was widespread within the classical community in the first half of the 20th century it was clear that people on the outside weren't necessarily keen on this wedge existing between jazz and classical this divergent viewpoint is visible as early as the 1930s and is represented fairly well in the disney cartoon or silly symphony entitled music land in which a classical music island and jazz island each inhabited by anthropomorphic instruments battle each other over the forbidden love between a jazz saxophone and classical violin but nonetheless the whole moral of this cartoon is that at the end the two islands put aside their differences and build a bridge of harmony between the land of symphony and the isle of jazz besides being very entertaining to watch and i did so many times as a child it reflects a small moment where it seemed as if jazz and classical were moving closer together it was during the same era that pieces like rhapsody and blue were appearing a beautiful mix of jazz and classical aspects one ought not to forget that the orchestrator of rhapsody in blue was none other than freddie grafe a composer and a ranger of a firmly classical background and artistic palette later on gershwin would move on to orchestrating his pieces himself such as his concerto and f showing his ability to be just as competent an orchestrator himself another piece from roughly the same period was the early jazz composer james b johnson's harlem symphony another incredibly pleasing blend of classical and jazz these fleeting moments of jazz and classical fusion produced some of the most uniquely american music of all time it blended the european western art music tradition with the unique rhythms and harmonic palette of african american music it seemed as if classical music had a whole new tonal toolkit to work with when it came to jazz but something happened this new direction and composition didn't really materialize it's as if after 1940 the jazz symphony or concerto simply disappeared an exception to this is the music of the american composer leroy anderson who embraced classical and jazz in a unique fashion besides his crowd pleaser favorites such as the typewriter or sleigh ride leroy anderson wrote a piano concerto in 1953 which contains some unbelievably beautiful passages and in a way it was the last gasp of the potential of classical jazz and american folk music aspects appearing coherently together in a serious concert piece unfortunately the piece was panned by critics and in turn the final nail was hammered into the coffin for classical music that was spiritually true to america by the end of the 1950s this unique moment in american music history had more or less come to an end no longer was the beauty of combining jazz with classical and concert works ever truly and thoroughly explored again this beauty is for me best conveyed in gershwin's lullaby for strings this piece in particular is very thoughtful in its approach and while it has many of the hallmarks of jazz they are presented in a caring and delicate way that makes it as valuable to me as the slow movement from any european classical quartet [Music] [Applause] it proves that tonality could very well achieve something new and that the late romantic period didn't have to be the historic end of tonality in western classical music while an innumerable amount of musicians and composers since the early 20th century have dabbled in both jazz and classical the two genres seem to have stayed apart this is ultimately in my opinion led to jazz also suffering as an art form one reason i have always had a hard time getting into jazz as a classical musician is at times what i feel is its randomness repetitiveness and over-reliance on purely its own theoretical rules many of the rules and guidelines found in classical music be it those of counterpoint voice leading structure forms and so on could be helpful in enhancing the effectiveness of jazz music while i understand jazz relies heavily on improvisation i feel at times it relies almost exclusively on the principles of improvisation i think a middle ground would help jazz to create more effective pieces of music which is something that composers like gershwin were beginning to take advantage of but alas that allegorical bridge of harmony presented in that disney cartoon between the land of symphony and the isle of jazz never fully materialized [Music] chances are if you were to attend any conservatory or music university now there is one department for classical and one department for jazz where their respective faculty are also hyper-specialized to teach either jazz or classical where jazz teachers remain mostly ignorant of classical and classical teachers ignorant of jazz the only choice a student who is interested in both has is to go through both programs or pick one program and either self-educate themselves or attend private lessons to learn about the other but what about atonal music well that's firmly part of the classical programs of most music institutions and not something you'd necessarily find being covered extensively in a university jazz department this separation probably arising from atonal composers such as schoenberg being offered faculty positions at important music institutions while jazz composers weren't all the while supported by the intellectual writings of adorno who developed philosophical reasons for why tonality was valuable the administrators of schools like usc that offered schoenberg position as professor probably figured that since 12-tone music came from a viennese composer and thus came from the city of mozart haydn and beethoven it must be the next step in classical music and along with it they had wordy and impressive philosophical texts by adorno to accompany the compositional theory jazz on the other hand did not have influential philosophers arguing its validity all this in turn led to a tonality becoming implanted in our classical institutions as an integral part of classical music history and composition while jazz was viewed as something lesser and only meant for the realm of popular music or worse commercialized american kitsch i feel this choice of separating the education of jazz and classical has ultimately led to an absolutist division of the two genres and robbed the world of a renaissance of orchestral music that fused the best of jazz and classical into holy inspired pieces instead classical has gotten a century of audience alienating highly intellectual modernist concert compositions while jazz has produced incredible music but mostly stayed in its own lane leading to both genres stylistically stagnating in recent times we have to concede that the snubbing of jazz in the classical world and its institutions as compared to the acceptance of etonal music is due to a form of elitism and incorrect assumptions about music in my opinion perhaps there was an aversion against adopting musical styles which had firmly non-european origins the other common argument of classical curmudgeons of the early 20th century was directed at how jazz appealed to lower human emotions such as eroticism and whatnot so perhaps they assumed it better to accept 12-tone music and serialism as part of the curriculum as those are systems developed and championed by european intellectuals and philosophers as silly as this is this kind of snobbery has always been part of classical music but ultimately something subsequent generations got over one can't forget the sometimes non-european and overtly erotic origins of some baroque dances such as the sarapand perhaps the larger issue was the pervasive racism that infected the intellectual and institutional classical community's view of jazz and ragtime music at the turn of the last century it is the ever-praised adorno who once stated that jazz has nothing to do with art considering adorno is covered so extensively in most music institutions at least in europe i suppose it isn't a surprise that classical is still so isolated from jazz influences especially when their most cherished thinkers were saying things like this about jazz while perhaps the intellectuals and philosophers of the new quote classical music intelligentsia of the early 20th century largely ignored or even demeaned jazz many others did not [Music] when the czech composer dvorak briefly lived and worked in the us in the 1890s he was profoundly influenced by african-american music which strongly comes through in his new world symphony and american quartet which he wrote while living in the u.s it seems dvorak realized something truly profound and inspiring about american music that could be adopted into european chamber and symphonic music 130 years ago while dvorak might have been one of the first heavyweights of the classical world to realize the importance of african american music he wouldn't be the last stravinsky and debussy would themselves write ragtimes and cakewalks which as forms represent the earliest expressions of what would evolve into jazz later revell rachmaninoff and shostakovich would also be profoundly affected by jazz besides shostakovich's famous jazz suites i've always found this section from his first piano concerto to be of note as it's literally a jazz stride [Music] but perhaps the most profound example of this potential of how a european composer could artfully and effectively mix jazz into a serious concert piece is found in rachmaninoff's rhapsody on a theme of paganini its jazzy rhythms jazz orchestra-like wind arrangements and expanded percussion section being all too apparent indications of how american music was influencing rachmaninoff during his time in the u.s rachmaninoff was also a huge fan of paul whiteman's jazz orchestra and this piece makes it all too obvious just listen to a few of these passages i have selected [Music] while i would define gershwin as perhaps the best example of a composer who displayed and as purest fashion as possible how jazz could create effective orchestral music rachmaninoff showed how one could adopt those jazz principles into their compositional toolkit and develop something tonal but new by melding aspects of both genres into his music but at the same time remain true to the classical genre it's hard to deny that there was an amicable relationship between many of the composers who represented the last great generation of more or less tonal classical composers and jazz musicians in the 20s and 30s but it doesn't seem to have carried over into an actual fusion between the styles rare moments such as those found in the music of rachmaninoff or revel seem to be just that rare but this ultimately calls into question if western art music was inevitably moving towards complete and total atonality was impressionism and late romanticism really the precursor to atonality and serialism or was it ultimately more in its musical language complementary to jazz i don't find it a provocative statement to make that the harmonic structures of impressionism are easier to meld with jazz than say 12-tone music is i'm not saying we should discount a tonal music either it represents its own set of tools that a composer can use but merely just adopting those as a jazz composer only adopts jazz leads to a composer who has less to work with and that is ultimately the problem here i'm getting at i do know that this point of view might disturb some of you how could i propose that jazz and classical be placed at a similar level or even taught together the genres are so different but are they really if we get down to their core components old classical music theories such as the improvisational aspects of figured bass and the chord and voice leading roles of jazz share many similarities merely the fact that classical music used to cherish improvisation as does jazz makes the genres more spiritual relatives than say classical and a tonality perhaps a larger problem is how classical musicians and composers are educated nowadays gone is the practice of classical improvisation and figured based proficiency and also creativity or interpretational freedom are almost frowned upon leading to a very dry and analytical view of classical music and not a vibrant and dynamic one is it any wonder that many of the best film composers whose music is comparable in quality to those of late romantic composers have strong jazz backgrounds such as howard shore or john williams sometimes i wonder if classical composers would profit more in their studies by focusing on jazz than on classical theory although it's a topic for another video a lot of the methods that were once used to teach classical composition are more or less lost to history while i am by no means an authoritative expert on these things i've often found older music theory books from the 18th and 19th centuries especially those on figured bass to have spiritually and in practice more in common with jazz theory than they do with modern common practice theory books this once again is too deep a topic to get into but it relies a lot on voice leading patterns and tried and true bass lines over which one can improvise or write music before we move on i wish to mention that i am aware jazz has come to influence american broadway theater and film music in a very forceful way and has been somewhat effective at melding classical elements with jazz but as enjoyable and even as profound as this music can sometimes be it ultimately lacks the absolute power of concert music as the listener isn't purely focused on the music itself but rather on the related narrative because honestly if you were to listen to say john williams masterful score to catch me if you can which is decidedly jazzy but also contains many of the disciplines of classical orchestration and harmony your mind is always forced to experience the music it's merely an accompaniment to the film perhaps if you were to listen to the cues blind without having ever seen the movie your mind ear and body could experience the music absolutely but alas this is hardly how any film music is consumed rhapsody in blue or rhapsody on a theme of paganini are ultimately more powerful because you the listener can interpret it in your own personal way [Music] i for one as a classical musician and composer hope classical and jazz can someday embrace each other more freely again and produce beautiful compositions but in a strange way i think this boat has ultimately sailed at least until the modern ideology surrounding atonality in classical music and the general poor education the classical composers receive changes it could have been a wonderful addition to classical music to adopt jazz but it never really materialized and the profound beauty that was achieved in gershwin's lullaby or rachmaninoff's rhapsody on a theme of paganini never explored any further so how can we change this how can america find its true individual classical voice again and in turn inspire the rest of the classical composition community worldwide to readily adopt at least some jazz arrangement and theory principles into their toolkit one solution would be for institutions that educate classical composers to require jazz education when they reach 20th century theory in the course of their studies another would be that we finally accept composers like james b johnson art tatum gershwin and even jelly roll morton as composers just as valuable as list or chopin this would help acquaint classical musicians with jazz rhythms and harmonies there's nothing to hold one's nose over when it comes to the piano music of jelly roll morton or artatum just look at any one of their scores and you will realize the complexity of their music there's so much more to discuss on this topic but i just want to share what i consider to be a profound missed opportunity in the history of classical music and as briefly as i could some of the reasons why i feel this ultimately happened i think there's a great deal still to be written that could take advantage of fusing jazz and classical into a concert setting the trouble is much of it still hasn't been written yet i think the few of us classical composers who still deeply care for tonality could greatly benefit from learning a bit of jazz theory ignoring it only denies us a new tonal world to explore and the same goes for jazz composers who have often become elitist in their own way these two art forms have a lot of growing up to do when it comes to how they view each other and i think the more these two genres come together the better the output of both jazz and classical composers will ultimately be [Music] you

Channel: Musica Universalis

Views: 13,834

Keywords: Classical, Music, Music Theory, Video Essay, Jazz, Gershwin, Rhapsody in Blue, Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Art Tatum, Rachmaninov, Rachmaninoff, James P. Johnson, why didn't classical music embrace jazz?, What is the difference between jazz and classical, Lullaby for Strings, Jelly Roll Morton, Golliwogs Cakewalk, Harlem Symphony, Classical vs. Jazz, Why classical is better than jazz, why jazz is better than classical, Jazz musicians vs. Classical musicians

Id: Fi5fdoTnoEM

Length: 24min 51sec (1491 seconds)

Published: Fri May 20 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/Liberal_Lemonade]

Did you only listen to classical music that was composed before 1930?