Creating Jazz Counterpoint: New Orleans, Barbershop Harmony, and the Blues

by Vic Hobson

The book Jazzmen (1939) claimed New Orleans as the birthplace of jazz and introduced the legend of Buddy Bolden as the "First Man of Jazz." Much of the information that the book relied on came from a highly controversial Bunk Johnson. He claimed to have played with Bolden and that together they had pioneered jazz.

Johnson made many recordings talking about and playing the music of the Bolden era. These recordings have been treated with skepticism because of doubts about Johnson's credibility. Using oral histories, the Jazzmen interview notes, and unpublished archive material, this book confirms that Bunk Johnson did play with Bolden. This confirmation, in turn, has profound implications for Johnson's recorded legacy in describing the music of the early years of New Orleans jazz.

New Orleans jazz was different from ragtime in a number of ways. It was a music that was collectively improvised, and it carried a new tonality--the tonality of the blues. How early jazz musicians improvised together and how the blues became a part of jazz has until now been a mystery. Part of the reason New Orleans jazz developed as it did is that all the prominent jazz pioneers, including Buddy Bolden, Bunk Johnson, Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, Johnny Dodds, and Kid Ory, sang in barbershop (or barroom) quartets. This book describes in both historical and musical terms how the practices of quartet singing were converted to the instruments of a jazz band, and how this, in turn, produced collectively improvised, blues-inflected jazz, that unique sound of New Orleans.

Genres: Music

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Marvin · Rating 2 out of 5]

You would think the origins of jazz is a cut and dry case. After all it was just 100 years ago. Things were pretty modern relatively speaking. But the generation of Justin Beiber may be surprised to know that the recording era was barely in its infancy at the turn of the 19th and 20th century. The knowledge of the precise evolution of a music based more on improvisation than composition is rather difficult without the luxury of a recording device. Oral histories only goes so far and, as this book attests to, can be very unreliable. Much of the musical influences were regional, with urban and rural styles having melded together as musicians and listener spread the music. New Orleans is often called the birthplace of jazz. However, the modern music was probably being incubated in many areas. New Orleans' reputation in strengthened in usually infamous ways due to the advent of the vice and prostitution district of Storyville where many visitors, not least military personnel and sailors, would hear the music and spread the word. Add onto that the many musician who came there and added their own notes, so to speak.

Who originated jazz, if anyone can be called the one of two individual that invented it: the idea in itself being probably faulty,, will always be a source of interest to scholars. Creating Jazz Counterpoint: New Orleans, Barbershop, and the Blues by Vic Hobson appears to be a doctorate study on this topic and also pushed the notion that the black barbershop quartets were a decisive influence in the creation of jazz counterpoint and harmonies. Going trom scholarly study to book, even a textbook, can be fraught with problems. Not the least, is readability. Creating Jazz Counterpoint can be very dry even when your focus are on very colorful personalities like Bunk Johnson and Buddy Bolden. Buddy Bolden was a trumpeter often credited with being the first jazz player yet he made no recordings while trumpeter Bunk's recordings were made in the 30s way after his heydays. Add to that, Bunk's remembrances were notoriously contradictory. Hobson relies on documents which included interviews with Johnson and others plus city and historical records,then tries to decipher the 1890s and 1900s musical environment as well as he can. Ehich is quite impressive. Yet he doesn't really add that much we didn't already know. Some parts, like pages on the actual birth date for Bunk Johnson seems trivial to the utmost. As for Buddy Bolden, the best book on this enigmatic musician is still In Search Of Buddy Bolden: First Man Of Jazz by Donald M. Marquis. It is also one of the best books on New Orleans of the turn of the century.

Yet Hobson does open a little new ground here. He examines the influence of barbershop quartets on the beginning of jazz. This is a new idea to me. The barbershop quartets I am familiar with sound as far from jazz as possible. Yet Marquis makes a good case. Bolden and Johnson appears to have participated in these quartets and the black quartets were more apt to borrow from other sources including the ragtime and the blues. It's a interesting idea. I just wish his writing style made it a more intriguing hypothesis. But in the end, whatever influenced barbershop quartets had, it still must be said that jazz had many musical parents including ragtime, gospel, the marching bands like James Europe's, and the blues. As intriguing an idea, barbershop quartet music sounds more like a distant cousin.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love jazz. If you know me, you probably already knew that. I did not, however, know much about the origins of this music, in terms of the first musicians and early songs. “Creating Jazz Counterpoint” fills in some gaps in this knowledge through excellent research and effective communication. Although more of an academic book, Vic Hobson’s writing is clear and concise, and objectively reconstructs what may have happened, based on the sources available.

The two musicians given the most focus are Buddy Bolden and Bunk Johnson, cornet/trumpet players before Louis Armstrong. Jelly Roll Morton and W.C. Handy are other important figures, and events like the Robert Charles riot – a massacre – feature both as turning points and references for chronology. Contemporaries, Bolden was born in 1877 and Johnson was born at least two year later – the exact date is uncertain, and a central research question of the book. It is funny to read about them as youngsters wearing “short pants,” but that was indeed the custom until the age of 21, when they would change into long pants. This is not a biography, but rather a study of who played with whom, the instrumentation, and the repertoire. Songs like “I Thought I Heard Buddy Bolden Say” (one of its alternate titles being “Funky Butt”) and “Careless Love,” which may or may not be a blues, but was treated as one, are case studies.

Barbershop originated with African Americans, spontaneous quartets singing chords where the bass and lead hold the root note of the key, and the middle voices change pitch before the final resolution. Hobson cites a hierarchy of four (and more) fundamental cadences that define this kind of music. Well-placed examples of transcribed music make for convenient reading. If you don’t read music notation, there are words in some instances, but the author explains the theory, which, if you need to, can be worked through with logic and simple math. (Personal plug here: if you are interested in discussion of music theory, see my other blog: http://smalltheoriesproject.blogspot.... )

Some musicians from jazz’s formative years (and now, for that matter) only played by ear; others played only by reading. To do both was another new thing at the time. I suppose the “counterpoint” in the title mostly refers not to the responsibility of the musicians carrying the melody, but the secondary harmonized parts – an important stepping stone towards establishing jazz. Hobson’s definition of jazz is more vague, but considering the evolution of ragtime, blues, and barbershop, we gain a better idea of how jazz grew out of these and other styles, in and around New Orleans.

I thank NetGalley and the University Press of Mississippi for generously providing a review copy of this title. For more reviews, follow my blog at http://matt-stats.blogspot.com/

[patrick Lorelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book reminds me in a small way of a music appreciation class I took years ago in college where the instructor began the course with jazz and where the music came from the fields of the slaves. Through the fields to church and then onto New Orleans and into brothels. You would think there would not be a big calling for jazz music before records, but it was big. The author refers to a book written in 1939 about a jazz legend named Buddy Bolden, and was written by Buck Johnson. Johnson claimed in the book that he and Bolden were the “inventors” of jazz. The author uses newspaper articles, and other evidence as to prove or to try prove this. He also goes over different instruments from the time period, other type of music, barber shop quartet, and the difference of jazz and ragtime. He does mention King Oliver a little who for the longest time was one of the first and most popular Jazz person. He also mentions Louis Armstrong, but does not go into depth into either one of their histories. I enjoyed this book but I must say that while I may like the information I could see it really feel more like a something for college or school. Most people I feel will not be interested in the information, but I do know that the author must have spent years on accumulating all of the information in this book. Well researched and I found it to be interesting. I got this book from netgalley. I gave it 4 stars. Follow us at www.1rad-readerreviews.com

[GONZA · Rating 3 out of 5]

...this book show how barbershop quartet practices relate to the tonality of the blues and how this, in turn, relates to the polyphony of New orleans Jazz....(from the author´s introduction).
This is an essay about a specific jazz, the one played in New Orleans in the '50, so it is a book for expert who wants to explore a not so commonly known part of Jazz.

Saggio sul Jazz suonato a New orleans nei primi anni '50, decisamente per intenditori.

THANKS TO NETGALLEY AND UNIVERSITY PRESS OF MISSISSIPI FOR THE PREVIEW!

[Ben Robarge · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book but the more I kept reading the more it felt I was back in high school reading a friends book report. The book was very informative but it reads like a research paper. This being said no matter what just like the topic it self, Jazz, you can't go wrong reading this book. This is why I would give this book 3 stars just based on the subject matter