Jazz Concert Observation Essay

Observation The concert that I attended was a jazz concert. The concert started off with music. It was during the intermission, the musicians introduced themselves. The music is not written down on the program. Rather, it was stated orally. The group of male musicians was consisted of a pianist, drummer, bass, and saxaphone. Many times, the group would be playing a polyphonic texture. However, there were other times where they would suddenly change into a heterophonic texture. The heterophonic texture usually was used to show off a particular musician. He would play a lot more fancy with more notes and greater intensity. The other musicians would either drop out or play in the background. Because it was a jazz concert, there was a lot of syncopation. The musicians would follow the sheets but with a different touch. Mainly through different kinds of harmon. The musicians improvised the majority of the music, only using the sheets as a kind of outline. Also, the musicians would play slightly off the tonality of the song to create a kind of jazzy feel. Everytime the music is played, it is slightly …show more content…
These bebop performers changed the jazzy danceable music to “music for musicians”. Some of the great bebop performers of the time where Bud Powell and Charlie Parker. Bebop was able to play faster tempos and more creative syncopations due to it not being a danceable music. There were three points that Samuel Floyd stated which shows that blues is a fundamental part of bebop. First, new harmonic conception led to more variety. Secondly, more refined syncopation, linear rhythmic style and melodic plays was established. Finally, it brought back the blues as its foundation. Free jazz was also introduced in this era. Free jazz was free from basic music structure of: chords, scales, rhythmical meters and tonality. This literally gave many of these musicians a enormous amount of freedom in their