There are many forms of music in the world which are quite popular with its numerous fans. Of these you will find that Jazz music has a wide following of fans ranging from the ordinary folk to that of celebrities. The beginnings of Jazz music can be found in the African American communities in the Southern US in the early 20th century. From its inception you will find that this style of music has incorporated into its genre a number of elements from 19th and 20th century popular American music.
The African roots can be heard from the elements of polyrhythms, swung notes, blue notes, improvisation and syncopation. You will find from historical references that Jazz used to be a West Coast slang term and around about 1915 it was used to refer to music which was sung and heard in Chicago. During these early days this form of music was spelled as “jass” instead of the more familiar spelling of Jazz.
While the main form of this music is known as Jazz music you can today find a number of variations and sub genres which are quite popular in the world as well. For instance you have the derivatives of this style in the form of krautrock, Rock’n'roll, drum and bass, ska, reggae and Rhythm and blues. Some of the subgenres that you will find in the Jazz style of music include Asian American jazz, mini-jazz, swing, vocal jazz, Avant-garde jazz, Big band, Bebop, Afro-jazz and many others.
From this form of Jazz you can find there are a number of Fusion jazz genres. These fusion forms of Jazz will include No Wave, Progressive Rock, Bluegrass, Humppa, Jazz Fusion, Acid Jazz, Calypso Jazz and many others. Regardless of these numerous styles you will also be able to hear the strains of the original Jazz music playing in the background. In the Jazz form of music there are a number of instruments which can be heard providing intriguing sounds and rhythms to the words of the songs.
The instruments you will hear in the numerous songs of Jazz are Bass guitar, banjo, saxophone, trumpet, clarinet, guitar, tuba, vibraphone, double bass, drums, piano, trombone and the flute. With the aid of these instruments you will be able to hear many well known singers bringing Jazz music to life in a number of different ways. You will have heard songs which have been performed by great singers like Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Dave Brubeck, Jessica Williams and Wynton Marsalis to name but a few well known Jazz performers.
In addition to these musical personages you can also find celebrities like Norah Jones, Jamie Cullum, Diana Krall, Kurt Elling, and Cassandra Wilson who have shown how traditional jazz can be combined with pop music and rock music to from a musical style which is highly popular with fans from across the world.
By: Dilani M.
HP- Tell us something about yourself.
CD- I’m a Mumbai goan looking forward to being a Goa goan very soon. I’ve reached two important milestones in my career. One is, after decades of playing everyone elses music i’ve development a style of my own and the biggest compliment I get these days is when someone recognizes my bassplaying on some tune they heard somewhere, they call up to confirm and..voila! The other milestone is probably every musicians dream, to produce music out of my own studio. A dream that will come true for me within this year when I setup my own state of the art studio in Sangolda. I’ve also setup an organisation called Jazz Goa with the help of fellow musicians and jazz enthusiasts in Goa.
HP- What drew you towards jazz?
CD- Jazz is a huge word, it should be spelt jjjaaaazzzzz! Seriously though, I think jazz is the most open, alive and evolving form of music that allows a musician to be him/herself. Most other forms of music demands a musician to follow trends and tradition or create stuff that’s currently hip. Whereas a jazz musician goes about his business listening, assimilating and finally innovating with yet another genre of jazz! We now have dixiland-jazz, swing-jazz, bebop-jazz, funk-jazz, rock-jazz, pop-jazz, fusion-jazz, latin-jazz, indo-jazz, mando-jazz… to cut a long story short, there’s a -jazz attached to every genre of music. And there will be a -jazz attached to every genre that comes along. I’m a musician who’s atracted to anything that looks, feels, smells, tastes and even sounds like music, so naturally I choose jazz as I get to play it ALL.
HP- What sets apart jazz music from other genres?
CD- Jazz is the only form of music that embraces all other forms and it is no longer American music. Today jazz can safely be called world music.
HP- What led you to become a jazz artiste?
CD- From amoung all the different genre’s of music I grew up listening to, for some reason it was always jazz that struck those extended chords within me. I could always hear the human and very often super human element in a jazz rendition.
HP- Your favourite jazz aristes/tracks.
CD- You’ll need to extend this interview by a few thousand pages to answer that. My all time favourite however was a bassplayer called Jaco Pastorius who revolutionised bassplaying taking bass right upfront, over, under and right through a song.
HP- To whom would you attribute your credentials as a jazz musician?
CD- To everyone i’ve worked with and everyone I would like to work with someday.
HP- Where and how did you train to be a jazz artiste?
CD- I have no formal training in music, I learnt music listening to other musicians, assimilating what I liked and using it consiously or subconsiously in performance until i developed a style of my own. Once I decided to play professionally though, I did study the technicalities through some great music books that are easily available these days.
HP- How do you prepare for a gig?
CD- I make sure there’s enough soda to go with the whisky…just kidding! It depends, if it is a concert where I would be performing my own compositions, I get the tunes composed, then get the band to rehearse and sound the way I heard it in my head. As it often turnsout, input from the rest of the band takes the tune to a dimension I would never have imagined. So you see, music is all about connecting and collaborating, don’t believe any of those fantastic one man bands. They’re faking it for monetary reasons, not that I have anything against it. All is fair in love, war and music.
HP- Talking about gigs, where and when did you first perform/how long have you been into jazz?
CD- Like most musicians I first got into music with school/college bands. I then graduated into fivestar hotel resident bands whose repertoire was made up mainly of jazz standards. I did that for ten years, playing music every night made me a musician.
HP- What is the jazz scene like in India, and Goa in particular?
CD- The jazz scene in India, Goa or anywhere in the world is the same. There’s a niche group of performers and listeners that grows all the time. Hopefully with jazz’s open armed evolution, it will grow into the global sound of music.
HP- What have been your highs and lows in your career thus far?
CD- The highs have always been the applause at the end of a track performed, the lows would be finding out that the applause was actually for the sixer Sachin hit on the big screen just besides the stage at Jazz by the Bay in Mumbai.
HP- How would you explain your role as a jazz musician in society?
CD- A jazz musician gives people a nicer high than some other interesting social highs.
HP- Define jazz.
CD- Jazz is improvised music. Sometimes structured, sometimes orchestrated, sometimes free of form and almost always, spontaneously created.
HP- Notable gigs/performances.
CD- The world reknowned Hennessey XO jazz tour has always been featuring jazz artistes signed by the American Blue Note label. Last year for the first time a jazz band outside the label, from far away India, was selected for this prestigious international tour. I was the bassplayer for that band. An unforgettable experience for sure. More recently my indo-jazz fusion band ‘The Brown Indian Band’ has been approached to open for Sting’s European tour this year. Fingers are crossed about that one.
HP- Collaborations with other musicians.
CD- I am contineously collaborating with musicians from all over the world thanks to the internet and my website http://www.hullocheck.com
HP- I understand you have been into different genres of music and worked with various ensembles. Tell us more.
CD- As I mentioned it before, when it comes to music I want it ALL. Name the genre and chances are, i’ve been there. You’ll find traces of just about every genre in my own music. There are very few musicians in the world today, who would match the number of bands and musicians I have worked with.
HP- Currently performing at…
CD- I currently perform on two resident contracts in Mumbai at the JW Marriott hotel in the afternoons and the Taj Lands End hotel in the nights. I also take timeoff from these two gigs to perform at concerts and corporate events in India and abroad. So that averages some sixty gigs a month!
HP- Your hobbies/interests…
CD- My main hobby and interest is my profession today. Everyone else works for a living, I play for mine. Someone once told me ‘All play and no work makes…makes me tick!’ Seriously though, I am very keen on improving the plight of most goan musicians in Goa. I was one sometime ago so I should know the raw deal most of them get. My plan is to set up Jazz Goa as an umbrella organisation for not just jazz but all the other immense artistic talent in Goa. To start with my studio in Sangolda will record and produce deserving artistes. Jazz Goa will then launch the best from there at a global level. Jazz Goa has already produced four audio CD’s and a DVD that is available in Goa exclusively at Vibes Music in Margao and online at http://www.jazzgoa.com
By: Jazz Goa
Jazz music is the American musical art form originated in earlier twentieth century. The African American communities of the Southern United States from the confluence of European and African music tradition were responsible for its beginning. The West African pedigree style is evident in the use of polyrythms, blues notes improvisation, swung notes and syncopation.
From the early development of jazz music until the present, it has also included music from the nineteenth and the twentieth century American popular melody. The word jazz music began in the form of a West Coast slang expression of tentative derivation. This term was initially used in order to refer to the music in Chicago in around 1915.
From its early twentieth century inception, jazz music spawned a huge variety of sub-genres from New OrleansDixieland including the early 1910’s, bebop from middle of 1940s, big band jazz music style swing from 1940’s as well as 1930’s, Brazilian jazz from 1960s and 1950s. Besides a fusion of the Latin jazz fusion like the Afro Cuban, jazz rock mixture from the late 1980’s and 1970s developments including the acid jazz that blended the jazz influences into hip hop and funk are several other melody types that constituted jazz music.
In jazz music, the trained performers interpret a tune in different individual ways and never play the same melody. Depending on the mood of the performer as well as personal experience and interactions with the fellow musicians or the totals number of audience, the jazz music performer might later the harmonies or melodies. The European classical music is said to be the composer’s medium.
Today as well, straight ahead jazz music continues to appeal a large amount of masses. The well popular jazz musicians whose career span decades like the Wynton Marsalis, Dave Brubeck, Wayne Shorter and Sonny Rollins continue to record and perform. In the beginning of 1990 and 2000 various young talented musicians emerged such as Brad Mehldau, Jason Moran, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Stefon Harris, Roy Horgrove, Vijay Iyer, Terence Blanchard and Joshua Redman. While Bugge Wesseltoft, Christian McBride, St. Germain are several other renowned names in the world of jazz music.
By: Akhila Choudhary