Jazz flute
Jazz flute describes the role of the flute and its most important instrumentalists in jazz . Although the flute family is very large, its use in jazz is essentially limited to the flute . Above all, the basic form of the European concert or Böhm flute (in the soprano range) has established itself in the last few decades, but the piccolo flute and the instruments in the alto, tenor and especially the bass range are also occasionally used.
Origins of the use of the flute in jazz
Jazz music is performed relatively loudly compared to classical chamber music. On the one hand, this is due to the drums almost always accompanying them, which have a certain basic volume, and on the other hand, because jazz music was initially rarely performed in a chamber music context, but in dance halls and similar performance venues, where music simply had to be played loudly around the whole To reach the hall. Since the European concert flute is an instrument with very limited dynamic possibilities and has a sound character that is less rich in overtones than, for example, the saxophone, it was only possible to use it effectively in jazz in the course of improving amplifier technology.
For this reason, flutes were rarely used in early jazz. A flute and piccolo specialist named Flutes Morton played regularly at the Sunset Cafe in Chicago in the mid-1920s. The first flutist recorded was the Cuban Alberto Socarras ("Shooting the Pistol" with the Clarence Williams Orchestra, 1927 and Lizzie Miles ' "You're Such a Cruel Papa to Me" 1928), from whom interesting phrasing the Charango . The tradition of the flute in jazz is anchored by Wayman Carver (1905-1967), who used the flute in a recording of Loveless Love with Dave Nelson (1931) and then in Benny Carter's octet for the recording of Devil's Holiday in October 1933. Chick Webb occasionally used the flute playing Carvers in his orchestra (1934-1940) as a timbre. Even Harry Klee already sat in the swing era from 1944 occasionally the flute one, so when Ray Linn (1944) and Boyd Raeburn (1946). In 1946, his successor Ethmer Roden also used the instrument in Boyd Raeburn's orchestra. In 1947 Esy Morales already used numerous techniques with his eclectic solo in his Jungle Fantasy , which were later rediscovered. Overall, however, the attempts at that time to use the concert flute in jazz seem strange from today's perspective; they didn't leave a lasting impression either.
Traditional lines of the jazz flute
Frank Wess (1922–2013) was probably one of the first notable flautists who, influenced by the tenor saxophonist Lester Young , made his first attempts to use the flute as a solo instrument as early as the 1940s , as in the basie band of the 1950s and in first recordings under his own name for Savoy Records with Milt Jackson , Hank Jones and Kenny Clarke ( Opus de Jazz ), which Berendt rates as his most interesting flute solos. He always refers clearly to the blues .
Around 1947 Charlie Parker received a transverse flute as a gift and also worked on it. There are no known recordings of him on the instrument. In 1949 Jerome Richardson (1920–2000) was the first modern jazz musician to play a solo on the flute ("Kingfish", 1949). With his “immediate, vital bop feeling”, he helped establish the instrument. His position as an instrumentalist also allowed the use of timbre in the orchestras of Oliver Nelson , Gil Evans / Miles Davis , Quincy Jones , Charles Mingus and later in the Thad Jones / Mel Lewis Orchestra .
In the early 1950s, it was not only with improved microphones, amplifiers and loudspeakers that the possibilities existed to make the flute sound more prominent. At the same time, other musicians appeared who helped to establish the jazz flute , which was previously more of a curiosity. On the west coast, Buddy Collette should be mentioned first, who also worked as a studio musician and had turned to the instrument since 1946 because he liked the sound of the concert flute. Duke Ellington asked him several times to perform as a flautist with his orchestra, but this failed due to deadlines. Collette later made recordings in the ensemble of Chico Hamilton and with the big band of Buddy Rich . He was the first to present the whole family of the concert flute in a jazz context. On the album Collette's Swinging Shepherds (1959) he also put together a quartet of flutists with Bud Shank (1926–2009), Harry Klee and Paul Horn (* 1930).
Bud Shank is considered by many to be the most important flutist in West Coast jazz ; he emerged from the Stan Kenton Orchestra and had already played a solo there in 1950 in the title “In Veradero”, although at that time it was hardly noticed. In addition to the concert flute, Yusef Lateef (* 1921) also used other flutes, such as the nay , which is unusual in jazz , the cork flute, the Slovak shepherd's flute Fujara as well as many bamboo flutes and processed Arabic and oriental influences early on. Sam Most and Sahib Shihab were the first jazz musicians to play the growling instrument. When growling, humming or singing the same or a z. B. a third higher tone polyphony . As a result, the jazz flute gains in intensity, which is one of the reasons it was able to keep up with the saxophones. The saxophonist James Moody (1925-2010) also took up this new technique in his flute playing and changed it by speaking individual syllables while playing.
In December 1956 the flute got its own section for the first time in the Reader's Poll of the American jazz magazine Down Beat . Before that, the flute was listed in the Miscellaneous Instruments chapter with all other woodwind instruments except the saxophone family and the clarinet .
Since around this time there have also been musicians who have concentrated on the flute. Here is first Herbie man to name (1930-2003), the 14 time-consecutively 1957-1970 readers polls the magazine downbeat led; musicians like James Moody and Yusef Lateef followed him in the next places. Mann, who blew with rich vibrato and avoided the overblow technique, also recorded duets with Buddy Collette ( Flute Fraternity ) and with the Belgian flautist and saxophonist Bobby Jaspar ( Flute Souffle ). In the 1960s he often recorded in Latin jazz , but also in the easy listening context, before connecting with the contemporary rock jazz movement in 1969 with his album Memphis Underground (with guitarists Larry Coryell and Sonny Sharrock ). Paul Horn in particular, who - like Eric Dolphy (1928–1964) and Charles Lloyd (* 1938) after him - became known in Chico Hamilton's quintet, concentrated on the flute, similar to Herbie Mann. Horn used the concert flute for the first time without the accompaniment of other instrumentalists at his sensational concerts, documented as an album, in the Indian Taj Mahal (1968) and in the Cheops Pyramid (1976).
Saxophonists of modal jazz and avant-garde jazz also use the concert flute: Eric Dolphy, Prince Lasha , Sam Rivers and James Spaulding (who played his first flute solo on an album by soul singer Jerry Butler ). Eric Dolphy (1928–1964), who died early, demonstrated the possibilities of the instrument for free jazz . He made tonal contributions based on the instrumental techniques developed for interpretations of new music (especially by Severino Gazzelloni ). Dolphy also implemented sequences from the birdsong in his flute playing, as can be seen from his trills. Prince Lasha followed him for a while on the instrument. Dolphy's flute was bequeathed to John Coltrane , who used it on his Expression album .
Roland Kirk (1936–1977) tried out very exotic instruments from the flute family, up to and including the nose flute . In particular, however, he placed the blown technique on the concert flute at the center of his playing; Kirk not only sang into his instrument - like his predecessors - but also spoke into it and screamed, initially on the track "You Did It, You Did It" (on We Free Kings , 1961). Sometimes he also used key noises and at the same time played the nasal flute blown through his nose . Berendt wrote: "Sometimes it seemed as if the different sounds that were created simultaneously exploded in different directions." Kirk popularized the overblowing technique in particular by including current African American hits in his repertoire (e.g. "Ain ' t No Sunshine "or" My Girl "on the album Blacknuss , 1971), and had a great influence on numerous flautists also in the rock field, e. B. Ian Anderson ( Jethro Tull ) or Thijs van Leer ( Focus ), who popularized the instrument due to its tone from jazz. No other wind instrument was used as frequently in early rock music as the flute. Another important flautist of the period was Robin Kenyatta ; In 1970 he recorded the album The Girl from Martinique for the ECM label , with Wolfgang Dauner , Arild Andersen and Fred Braceful . From the 1970s, the saxophonist Lew Tabackin made important contributions to the instrument in the Toshiko Akiyoshi - Lew Tabackin Big Band , but had already used the flute in a combo context.
Hubert Laws (* 1939), who has worked as a flautist in classical symphony orchestras since 1968, played several albums for him from 1971 with McCoy Tyner and Chick Corea , but also in jazz rock with Weather Report and his own groups (with George Benson ) attracted a lot of attention and led to his replacing Herbie Mann in the Down Beat Poll .
In addition to Hubert Laws and Herbie Mann, Jeremy Steig, Joe Farrell (1937–1986) in the first edition of Chick Corea's formation Return to Forever in 1972 as well as Ernie Watts and later Bobbi Humphrey , Alexander Zonjic and Dave Valentin were important flautists for rock jazz and fusion . Where Kirk scoured and expanded the entire jazz tradition in a vitalizing way, Jeremy Steig (* 1942) initially deliberately limited himself to blues lines. However, with the trio of Bill Evans he made some of the most beautiful flute recordings ever made in jazz ( What's New , 1969). Steig, who first used electronic aids such as wah-wah and echo and, like Kirk popularized the instrument with his 1960s band Jeremy and the Satyrs in the fusion movement, then concentrated on compositions of fusion jazz for several decades. Technically, he expanded the "range of modern means of expression: fluttering and triple tongue, eruptive overblowing, humming and singing through the instrument, inclusion of flap and breathing noises, sound alienations are in the service of emotionally bursting music." Some of these flutists are more likely influenced by Kirk, others like Zonjic or Valentin by Herbie Mann and Hubert Laws.
In contrast, modern creative musicians such as Marty Ehrlich (* 1955), Chico Freeman (* 1949), Roscoe Mitchell (* 1940), Julius Hemphill (1940–1995), Henry Threadgill (* 1944), Gary Thomas (* 1961), Oliver Lake (* 1944), John Purcell , James Newton (* 1953), Jane Bunnett (* 1956), Adele Sebastian and Nicole Mitchell were influenced by Dolphy as flautists; Like Dolphy and Lloyd, Newton studied with the cool jazz flutist Buddy Collette and was one of the few who made the flute their main instrument. "A lot of the things I play and use my voice on are related to the way the brass in the Ellington Orchestra growls ."
Outstanding European flautists of the 1960s and 1970s were Chris Hinze , Jiří Stivín , Emil Mangelsdorff , Simeon Shterev , Harold McNair , Ronald Snijders , Bob Downes , Barbara Thompson and Dieter Bihlmaier . Musicians like Peter Guidi , Michael Heupel , Charles Davis , who lives in Germany, and Tilmann Dehnhard followed later . Davis founded a flute quintet Four or More Flutes based on the model of the saxophone quartets .
In the field of ethnic jazz , Berendt leads the Japanese shakuhachi player Hōzan Yamamoto , who used the classic bamboo flute several times in a jazz context, for example in his collaboration with Tony Scott ( Music for Zen Meditation ) or with the singer Helen Merrill and the percussionist Masahiko Togashi . Don Cherry used flutes from different cultures. In addition to the Böhm flute in C, Jiří Stivín uses a whole arsenal of bamboo flutes, but also ballpoint pens with holes and recorders . The Brazilian multi-instrumentalist Hermeto Pascoal also used the flute "with an almost obsessive intensity". Chris Hinze has increasingly devoted himself to ethnically influenced jazz and also to encounters with flutists from other cultures such as the Indian bansuri flutist Raghunath Seth . Steve Gorn uses the bansuri fluently in a jazz context. Theodosii Spassov falls back on the Kaval of his Bulgarian homeland.
An important flautist in improvised music is Robert Dick , who has dealt intensively with the use of circular breathing on the instrument; He has also developed a special mouthpiece that allows extreme glissando and wahwah effects to be created. He played in the New Winds Trio , with the alto saxophonist Ned Rothenberg and the pianist Ursel Schlicht ; Dick also uses the F double bass flute.
In recent years, the playing technique has been expanded to include beatboxing , which is used in combination with overblowing, fluttering tongue or multiphonics, for example by Dirko Juchem , Greg Pattillo, Nathan “Flutebox” Lee and Ludivine Issambourg .
Tone and current position
The jazz flute is almost always blown with a lot of air. The classic tone ideal of a slim tone that is as free from background noise as possible is abandoned in favor of a personal sound , which in jazz is apparently better suited as a carrier of musical expression than a smooth, clean tone. Tonally completely different conceptions can be found; Eric Dolphy has a hard, almost shrill tone compared to James Moody's fluffy, warm and Jeremy Steig's sandy, noisy tone. With Kent Jordan , whose tone comes closest to the classical ideal, it can be assumed that for precisely these reasons his solo playing appears a bit more boring because it is less expressive. Rahsaan Kirk's way of playing, on the other hand, would be completely unthinkable without his "dirty" tone.
Only the flute are played by Jeremy Steig, Hubert Laws, James Newton, Chris Hinze, Kent Jordan, Roland Snijders, Dave Valentin, Bill McBirnie , Holly Hofmann , Michael Heupel, Steve Kujala , Nicole Mitchell, Néstor Torres , Ali Ryerson , Stephanie Wagner , Dieter Weberpals , Mark Alban Lotz , Daniel Manrique-Smith , Ludivine Issambourg and Anne Drumond . In addition to the previously mentioned saxophonists who play the flute as a secondary instrument, Don Burrows , Jim Pepper , George Adams , Bennie Maupin , David Liebman , Dudu Pukwana , Bruce Grant , Jerry Dodgion , Steve Slagle , John Stubblefield and Stan Strickland should be mentioned.
In a direct comparison, no relevant quality difference can be identified between the “full-time” flautists and those who also play other woodwind instruments. James Newton, Hubert Laws and Kent Jordan play a very clean tone, but from the point of view of virtuosity some musicians from both groups make music at the same high level. The main differences are in the use of certain special features of the instrument (e.g. in the conscious use of key noises or auxiliary handles for generating split sounds ).
In the big band sound, the concert flute still plays a role for color effects in the soprano, so that many saxophonists such as (in the WDR Big Band ) Heiner Wiberny or Karolina Strassmayer use this instrument. The alto or tenor flute are rarely used here. In the current jazz scene, however, the flute plays a rather subordinate role. While numerous saxophonists still played the flute as a secondary instrument in the 1960s and 1970s, today it has been replaced by the bass clarinet in the modern creative sector .
Important jazz flute albums
- Flute Force 4: Flutistry (Black Saint, 1978, with Henry Threadgill, James Newton, Pedro Eustache, Melecio Magdaluyo)
- Jane Bunnett (with Orlando "Maraca" & Celine Valle, Richard Egues): Havana Flute Summitt (Naxos Jazz, 1998)
- Benny Carter (with Wayman Carver): Benny Carter - The Complete Recordings 1930–1940 (Charly / Affinity)
- Chick Corea (with Steve Kujala): Again and Again. The Joburg Sessions (Elektra / Musician, 1982)
- Buddy Collette's Swinging Shepherds (EmArCy 1958, with Paul Horn, Harry Klee, Bud Shank)
- Buddy Collette feat. James Newton Flute Talk (Black Saint, 1988)
- Robert Dick / Ned Rothenberg: Worlds of If ( Leo Records , 1994)
- Marty Ehrlich: Pliant Plaint ( Enja , 1987)
- Flutology: First Date (with Holly Hofmann, Frank Wess, Ali Ryerson) (Capri, 2003)
- Flute Summit: Jamming at Donaueschingen Music Festival (with Jeremy Steig, James Moody, Sahib Shihab, Chris Hinze) (Atlantic, 1974)
- Dave Holland (with Sam Rivers): Conference of the Birds (ECM, 1972)
- Freddie Hubbard (with James Spaulding): Hub-Tones (Blue Note, 1962)
- Roland Kirk: I Talk with the Spirits (Limelight / Mercury 1964)
- Oliver Lake: Expandable Language ( Black Saint , 1984)
- Yusef Lateef: Other Sounds (Ne Jazz / OJC, 1957)
- Yusef Lateef: The African American Epic Suite - Music for Quintet and Orchestra (ACT, 1993)
- Herbie Mann: Herbie Mann Plays ( Bethlehem Records , 1954/56)
- Emil Mangelsdorff: Meditation (L&R, 1986–1994)
- James Newton: Axum (ECM, 1981) solo
- Ali Ryerson JazzFluteBigBand: Game Changer (Capri 2013, with Marc Adler, Jamie Baum, Fernando Brandao, Andrea Brachfield, Bob Chadwick, Holly Hofmann, Kris Keith, Hubert Laws, Paul Liebermann, Néstor Torres)
- Jeremy Steig & Eddie Gomez: Outlaws ( Enja , 1976)
- Billy Taylor : With Four Flutes (Riverside, 1959, with Phil Bodner, Herbie Mann, Seldon Powell, Jerome Richardson, Jerry Sanfino, Bill Slapin or Frank Wess)
- Barbara Thompson: Paraphernalia (MCA, 1977)
- Frank Wess: Trombones and Flute ( Savoy Records , 1956)
literature
- Joachim-Ernst Berendt: The Jazz Book. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1953.
- Joachim-Ernst Berendt, Günther Huesmann: The jazz book. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1994.
- Hubert Böhm: Aspects of the development of flute playing in jazz between 1950 and 1980. In: Jazz research. 20, 1988, pp. 9-54.
- Hubert Böhm: James Newton: Avant-garde traditionalist. In: Flöte aktuell. 2/1986, p. 18.
- Ian Carr , Digby Fairweather , Brian Priestley : Rough Guide Jazz. The ultimate guide to jazz. 1800 bands and artists from the beginning until today. 2nd, expanded and updated edition. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2004, ISBN 3-476-01892-X .
- Richard Cook , Brian Morton : The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD . 6th edition. Penguin, London 2002, ISBN 0-14-051521-6 .
- Tilmann Dehnhard: The flute in jazz. An overview based on twelve selected solo transcriptions. Thesis. Berlin 1994.
- Peter Guidi: The Jazz Flute: A Comprehensive Jazz Improvisation Method for the Flute . Molenaar Edition: London 1999.
- Martin Kunzler : Jazz Lexicon. Rowohlt, Reinbek 2002.
- Peter Westbrook The Flute in Jazz: Window on World Music Harmonia Books, Rockville 2009; ISBN 978-0-615-31087-9 (preface: James Newton)
Web links
- www.jazz-flute.com (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ see Digby Fairweather, p. 104.
- ↑ a b cf. Hubert Böhm, Aspects of the Development of Flute Playing in Jazz
- ↑ Aleisha Ward: Pioneers of Jazz Flute. In: Flute Journal. Retrieved July 29, 2019 .
- ↑ cf. Berendt, 1973, p. 228
- ^ A b Buddy Collette, Steven Louis Isoard Jazz Generations: A Life in American Music and Society London, New York 2000, p. 77
- ↑ Cary Ginnell The Evolution of Mann: Herbie Mann and the Flute in Jazz Milwaukee 2014, pp. 9ff.
- ↑ https://www.allmusic.com/artist/mn0000138635 allmusic
- ↑ Berendt Das Jazzbuch 1973, p. 228
- ↑ Collette / Isoard, Jazz Generations , p. 105
- ↑ cit. according to Berendt / Huesmann, 1994, p. 343.
- ↑ Collette / Isoard, Jazz Generations , p. 106
- ↑ Cf. Berendt, 1973, p. 228. Shank was the only saxophonist in the band who even owned a flute, which he said he did not master well at the time, cf. Interview with Bud Shank ( Memento from July 8, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Berendt Das Jazzbuch 1973, p. 230
- ↑ Leonard Feather pointed out that the pioneers of the instrument were forgotten: "If there is justice, the history books will name Sam Most as the first creative jazz flutist." Cf. pioneer of the jazz flute: Sam Most is dead ( memento from 3 May 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Frankfurter Neue Presse , June 15, 2013
- ↑ Interview with Spaulding ( Memento from January 2, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Whether Dolphy actually took lessons from Gazzelloni cannot be proven. See Peter Guidi: A Short History of the Jazz Flute . Retrieved July 29, 2019 .
- ^ Peter Guidi: A Short History of the Jazz Flute . Retrieved July 29, 2019 .
- ↑ cit. after Berendt / Huesmann, 1994, 346. Musical example: "Fly Town Nose Blues" on Bright Moments , 1973
- ↑ Joachim E. Berendt Das Jazzbuch 1973, p. 227
- ↑ See Dirko Juchem - jazz flute
- ↑ cit. after m. Kunzler, p. 1112.
- ↑ cit. after Berendt / Huesmann, p. 347. According to Berendt, he recorded his most beautiful record in the “Echo Canyon” in New Mexico , a natural amphitheater , playing with echoes that are thrown back from many different directions and the sounds of nature, coyotes, birds Including falling stones in his game.
- ↑ which actually comes from the Caribbean
- ↑ cit. after Berendt / Huesmann, p. 346
- ↑ jazz-flute.com: Technique .
- ↑ blasmusik.de: Dirko Juchem - Play, print, have fun ... ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ A Flute With a Beat, and You Might Dance to It dated May 22, 2007 by David K. Randall, published on The New York Times website
- ^ Southbank Center and Swaraj Music present ... ( Memento of the original from December 25, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , published on the PRS for Music Foundation website ( online ).
- ^ Tilmann Dehnhardt: The flute in jazz - an introduction to classics
- ↑ Torres not only interprets Caribbean music, but also cover versions of key tracks from the repertoire for jazz flute on his album Jazz Flute Traditions , such as Rahsaan Roland Kirk's Serenade to a Cuckoo , Herbie Mann's Memphis Underground or Eric Dolphys Gazzelloni . See Roger Farbey: Nestor Torres: Jazz Flute Traditions. In: All About Jazz . Retrieved July 29, 2019 .
- ↑ Bud Shank points out, however, that due to the different approaches of the instruments it is difficult to perfect the flute and saxophone on an equal footing. So in 1980 he put the flute aside. See interview with Bud Shank ( Memento of July 8, 2008 in the Internet Archive ).
- ↑ The albums were selected. a. according to The Penguin Guide to Jazz by Cook / Morton or the Jazz - Rough Guide by Ian Carr et al. a.
