Kind of Blue

The name Elvis Presley brings many other words to mind: musical innovator, a rock n’ roller, extremely well known celebrity, epic downfall, fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches, The King. However, to most of his fans, he was much more than a commonly-used name in 1950’s tabloids. He was their idol and served as a way to express them. Elvis Presley was a true American success story that changed the music industry, creating conflict throughout his entire career. He started with nothing,…

My interest in the musical genre of Jazz begins with an introduction to the song So What by Miles Davis from the Kind of Blue album []. At the time, my musical taste were more volume driven like bands such as Black Flag, Metallica, and Slayer where the only requirement was to increase the volume to match their intense sound. As I sat down and listen to the first minute of “So What”, my first immediate reaction was the realization of how soft and desolated the song felt with barely any…

Music is “an art of sound in time that expresses ideas and emotions in significant forms through the elements of rhythm, melody, harmony, and color” (Dictionary.com 2016). Not only does this statement consider, and include the audio aspects of music, it also values the sentimental factors of music which plays a major role in the success of a song or album. Artists from the 1920’s to artists in 2016 all get to experience the rush of emotion when creating and forming new music. “I Feel Fine”…

I recently read that Congress is adding a new national holiday and were looking for citizen input. Billie Joe Armstrong should have his own holiday, named Green Day, for having his band be very influential, helped renew interest in punk rock in the U.S., and has sung a variety of different music types that appealed to a large audience. Billie Joe Armstrong’s band was very influential to the music industry. A Times UK article states about the American band, “their influence has been all over…

“I don't know of a guitar player that has only one guitar. They're never happy with one. I'm never happy with just one of them. I woke up and ended up with six, even if you can only play one at a time!” (Les Paul). Finding the right guitar a very important thing that every guitar player has to go through. There are two guitars that can nearly give a guitar player the guitar that they have been dreaming about. The Fender Stratocaster, and The Gibson Les Paul are similar in ways but also very…

However, in San Francisco Haight-Ashbury district started to revive an utopian: here, on the foundation of religious eclecticism grew a kind of rock-commune. "The Beatles" proclaimed again about the idea of the world love after almost a year of silence. They only identified in pure form the quintessence of all, to what others have sought, and as a result - again expressed unmistakably,…

authentically, the starting point of the essay is best embodied with a quote from the late critic of Jazz Ralph J. Gleason, who said, “[T]he blues is black man's music, and whites diminish it at best or steal it at worst. In any case they have no moral right to use it.”5 This quote from Gleason expresses the moral problems of authenticity in music. By performing the blues, it could be claimed that white people are stealing the cultural heritage of black people and monetizing it. In…

Elvis In 1935, a man was born who unknowingly was about to change history. Elvis Presley a man of great dedication, was later on to be known as “The King of Rock and Roll”. He had such an effect on society that he is still very well known today, 41 years after his death. Elvis Presley’s significant effects on Rock and Roll helped to ease racial segregation and created a new youth generation. Elvis Presley first started off his career with pop music, until he moved on to expand Rock and Roll…

Rock and Roll. Chuck Berry was born on October 18, 1926 with a large family in St. Louis, MO. Chuck Berry’s birth name is Charles Edward Anderson. Chuck was an american guitarist, songwriter, and singer. Chuck developed a love for poetry and hard blues as a kid. Chuck Berry had an early exposure to music from school and church. Chuck is known for songs like “Johnny B. Goode” and “Maybellene”. One reason why…

brings out the blue note melody that we are more accustomed to. As the two performers gets to know each other playing style better, the interconnection between their improvisations has improved to a greater degree in this new jam. The form of the music tends to be tonal atonal and tonal again. The music starts in a very tonal way. Kuhn now plays Bb clarinet, and plays a typical blues melody. There were lots of blue notes and sliding into one note to each other, similar to how the blues singer…