Composer Profile - Activefolio

Beyond Classical Music 139
This academic approach to jazz led to a sub-style of bebop called cool school. Initiated
by trumpeter Miles Davis, cool school jazz (or simply cool jazz) made slightly less use of
technical wizardry in favor of melodic inventiveness. Many of the finest jazz artists of
the ‘50s and ‘60s worked with Miles Davis including saxophonists Julian “Cannonball”
Adderly and John Coltrane, and pianist Bill Evans. Davis’ performance style, while engaging
on records, distanced himself from his audiences. He often turned his back to
the audience while playing, thus giving new meaning to the “cool” label. Several of the
musicians who worked with Davis established important solo careers for themselves.
John Coltrane, one of the most influential of all tenor saxophonists, pushed the boundaries
of tonal jazz in his later recordings. He epitomized the “progressive jazz” culture,
which emphasized tonal and technical experimentation. Some of his late works were
indeed in the realm of atonal or even aleatoric music. Bill Evans continued in the “cool”
vein, while Cannonball Adderly and others attempted to court the audience of rock and
roll.
The Blending of Styles in Jazz
By the mid 1960s the influence of rock made itself felt in jazz music. Cannonball Adderly
and other jazz greats composed and performed music with elements of rock rhythms
imbedded in them. Others such as virtuoso drummer Buddy Rich used rock rhythms
freely in many big band arrangements in the 1960s. The marriage of jazz and rock bore
fruit not only with jazz groups that used rock elements, but also with rock groups that
employed virtuoso jazz artists. The rock band Blood, Sweat and Tears featured a horn
section of accomplished jazz artists who were often given the opportunity to improvise
in a jazz style. The group Chicago used a similar horn section, and specialized in highly
technical, written horn section solos. The lines between rock and jazz blurred quite
often, and the term fusion was used to characterize this emerging trend.
Fusion bands flourished in the 1970s and ‘80s. Other characteristics crept into
much of this new music including blues and Latin influences. The group Tower of
Power is an example of a fusion band with a heavy blues influence. The guitarist Carlos
Santana and many groups including Spyro Gyra and Earth, Wind, and Fire mix jazz and
Latin influences in various proportions.
Mention should be made of an effort throughout the ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s to bind
elements of jazz and classical music together. This effort, called third-stream (a term
coined by Gunther Schuller), was characterized by arrangements designed for large jazz
ensembles, often with strings. These compositions sought to bring jazz more fully in
line with other, more serious concert genres. Though third-stream never achieved great
popularity, it did influence musicians from both the classical and jazz camps. John
Coltrane’s explorations of less-structured jazz improvisation gave rise to the term “free
jazz,” which allowed jazz soloists the opportunity to improvise without the constraints
of a harmonic progression. Saxophonist Ornette Coleman was perhaps the leading proponent
of this avant-garde style. Coleman pioneered alternative jazz techniques including
playing multiple instruments simultaneously, and collaborated with John Cage.
Rock Music and Other Popular Styles
Since its inception as a stylistic trend in the 1950s, rock music has remained consistently
popular, whereas jazz and other serious genres waned in terms of a popular following.
This fact is true for two overriding reasons: first, rock music, though at times quite
complex, never lost sight of its initial mission as an art form for the masses. Secondly,
rock has remained primarily a vocal genre, employing populist lyrics that were simple
and direct in their meaning. “Rock and roll,” probably a humorous euphemism for