Chase chorus
A chase chorus (pronunciation [ 'tʃes'kɔːrəs ]; literal translation from the English hunting chorus ) is a type of competitive, alternating improvisation practiced in jazz, especially in bebop : several musicians take turns with their solos within a chorus , which is divided into several equally long periods (with a duration of four, eight or 16, rarely two bars ). The soloists take turns in the same order.
This practice was cultivated particularly in the context of concerts by Jazz at the Philharmonic (1944–1967), but it already appeared in Chicago jazz at the end of the 1920s (e.g. “Borneo” with Bix Beiderbecke and Frank Trumbauer ). In a kind of competition, the soloists who alternate and “chase” one another try to outdo each other through musical ingenuity and technical brilliance. The best-known examples of this type of improvisation documented on phonograms include “The Chase” by Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray (1947) and “Blues Up and Down” by Sonny Stitt and Gene Ammons (1950). The chase chorus was still cultivated in hard bop ; there one usually spoke of four / fours (four-bar changes).
literature
- Ekkehard Jost : Sachlexikon. In: Wolf Kampmann (Ed.), With the assistance of Ekkehard Jost: Reclams Jazzlexikon . Reclam, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-15-010528-5 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Joshua Berrett Louis Armstrong and Paul Whiteman: Two Kings of Jazz Yale University Press: New Haven 2004, p. 86