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Reactions to RockBy: Chelsea and Tevin

Rocking the Establishment

✤ As the 1960’s began, pop, Broadway, jazz, country and Latin music were not threatened by rock and roll.

✤ Broadway was still popular

✤ The soundtrack of West Side Story was at the top of the charts for over a year

✤ The soundtrack of The Sound of Music spent over three years at the top of the charts

✤ The musical Fiddler on the Roof ran for over 3,000 performances.

✤ Jazz musicians (John Coltrane and his circle) were too busy stretching jazz boundaries to be concerned with rock.

✤ Herbie Hancock was one of the first to explore jazz/rock fusions.

✤ Country music romanced pop, not rock.

✤ For those working in established genres, their response to the rock revolution was to incorporate elements of rock style into their music.

✤ From cosmetic overlays (like Sinatra’s late 1960’s hits) to true fusions which created a new form of an established genre or a hybrid style.

Frank Sinatra

Frank Sinatra

✤ “[Rock and roll is] the most brutal, ugly, desperate, vicious form of expression it has been my misfortune to hear.”

✤ Biggest pop star of the 1960’s

✤ Formed his own record company in 1961 that charted seven albums

✤ Record sales declined with the rise of rock

✤ Several of his hit songs (“Strangers in the Night” “Something Stupid” “My Way”) traded the trademark swing of the 1950’s and early 1960’s for a subdued rock rhythm

✤ Briefly retired from show business in 1971 and returned two years later

✤ Recorded two successful duet albums in the 1990’s with collaborators as diverse as Bono, Aretha Franklin, Julio Iglesias, and Chrissy Hynde

✤ Belonged to a group of pop singers that spanned three generations: his roots (swing), post-World War II singers, and the younger generation led by Johnny Mathis.

The Bossa Nova and Brazilian Music✤ Samba: The most popular Afro-Brazilian dance music of the 20th century in Brazil and elsewhere.

✤ Been popular in the US since the early 1930’s.

✤ The 16-beat rhythms of samba influenced the new jazz and African-American popular styles of the 1970’s and 1980’s.

✤ Particularly evident at Carnaval (Rio’s last big splurge before Lent-a huge street party that culminates in a massive parade

✤ Samba schools prepare for the parade for almost the entire year-features hundreds of musicians, many of them percussionists.

✤ Introduced to the US by the 1959 film, Black Orpheus

✤ For Americans, Brazilian music meant almost exclusively music from just southern Brazil.

✤ Bossa nova: a samba-based, jazz-influenced Brazilian popular-song style that became popular in the US in the early 1960’s

✤ It emerged in Rio de Janeiro in the late 1950’s as a sophisticated, more melodic, and rhythmically less complex kind of samba

✤ Only lasted a few years but bossa nova rhythms became a pop alternative to rock rhythm-it reintroduced American listeners to the 16-beat rhythms of the samba

“The Girl from Impanema”

✤ Collaboration of Joao Gilberto, Stan Getz, and Astrud Gilberto

✤ Landmark bossa nova recording in 1963

✤ Contains the two keys to the bossa nova style: complex, off-beat rhythms of the guitar chords, and Joao Gilberto’s cool, flat, low-pitched voice

✤ Jobim’s song has the AABA form

✤ First phrase of the melody is a simple riff that gently slides down over smoothly shifting chords

✤ Complex bridge-bold harmonies that support a sinuous melody

✤ Favored subtly shifting melodies and exotic, jazz-derived harmonies that complemented the subtle rhythm of the guitar and Gilberto’s low-key singing

✤ Getz playing is straightforward and lyrical; restrained quality and smooth edge

✤ Underscores the affinity between jazz and bossa nova

Pop Rock

✤ Pop rock: a rock-era substyle that grafted elements of rock style onto pre-rock popular song

✤ Integrated rock elements-typically, rock rhythms and forms-into songs with a pop sensibility

✤ Burt Bacharach

✤ Soft rock: a family of rock styles characterized mainly by sweeter singing styles; more melodious, even Tin Pan Alley-esque vocal lines; richer instrumentation; and a gentle dynamic level.

✤ Blended the emphasis on melody and clear forms of Tin Pan Alley songs with an understated rock rhythm.

✤ Flourished throughout much of the 1970’s

✤ The Carpenters and Barbra Streisand were the most successful

Burt Bacharach

Burt Bacharach

✤ Tin Pan Alley shrunk to just the Brill Building by 1960.

✤ Brill Building was home to several music publishers-most notably AlDon Music-who set out to bridge the gap between traditional pop and rock and roll.

✤ Lyricist Hal David and songwriter Burt Bacharach were the most inventive team

✤ Bacharach came to popular song with a rich background in jazz, classical music, and traditional pop

✤ They recruited Dionne Warwick to sing most of their songs.

✤ Shaped by the rock-era music (especially Motown)

✤ Profoundly influenced the next generation of pop-rock songwriters (Barry Manilow, Paul Williams, and Marvin Hamlisch)

✤ Soft rock was a product of their efforts

“The Look of Love”

✤ Written by Hal David and Burt Bacharach, for Casino Royale, not Dionne Warwick

✤ Sung by British pop singer, Dusty Springfield

✤ David’s lyrics are understated-which gives them power.

✤ Reveals many of the qualities that set Bacharach’s music apart from everyone else at that time:

✤ A carefully constructed arrangement

✤ Unusual harmonies

✤ Rhythmic surprises

✤ Innovative forms

The Rock Musical

✤ Rock Musical: a musical that uses rock rhythms and generally incorporates some of its ideas and attitudes. hair was a prototypical rock musical.

✤ Musical theater entered the rock era on April 29, 1968 when Hair opened on Broadway

✤ Promises, Promises: Bacharach and David, opened in late 1968, adapted by Neil Simon from Billy Wilder’s 1960 film, The Apartment

✤ Bacharach’s clever music complements the modern theme of the plot with up-to-date, but adult-sounding music

✤ Company: Stephen Sondheim, 1970, “first modern musical” adapts the “realness” of rock to the “over 30” generation, pop-rock style

✤ Jesus Christ, Superstar: Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber, recorded in 1970, staged in 1971, retold the passion of Christ in contemporary terms, used rock-influenced music and everyday speech to make the story more up-to-date

✤ Grease: 1972, indirect influence of rock, late 1950’s rock ‘n’ roll styles,

Hair

✤ Opened off Broadway in 1967 then ran for 1,750 performances on Broadway.

✤ Broke the tradition of Broadway rejecting rock music

✤ Hair was the brainchild of James Rado and Gerome Ragni

✤ Hair simply took a slice of countercultural life-race, sex, war, and drugs, instead of building the music around a story about another time or place

✤ The plot is ambiguous and relatively insignificant

✤ Sensational scenes such as burning the American flag, a nude scene (with the actors’ backs to the audience), songs with lyrics that list a series of sexual practices scorned by mainstream society, and novel features such as actors going out into the audience.

✤ Racially integrated cast with no real stars

✤ Short songs (less than one minute) with a prominent rhythm section-especially the electric bass

Country Music

✤ Roy Orbison: Arguably the first country rocker, and the the last of the rockabillies

✤ Blurred the line between country and rock with his single “Blue Bayou” and his remake of “Mean Woman Blues”

✤ Nashville reinforced its position as the spiritual and commercial center of country music and served as the publishing and recording center

✤ 1957: The Country Music Association formed in Nashville-served as the primary trade organization

✤ The “Nashville Sound” was a marriage of country and pop

✤ Late 1960’s and early 1970’s: country had influences on rock, and rock had influences on country

✤ Dylan’s Nashville sessions, Gram Parsons, the Byrds, the Glying Burrito Brothers, Lynryd Skynyrd, the Grateful Dead, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and the early Eagles

✤ Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson

✤ 1960’s country gently eased into rock style

Country’s New Take on Reality✤ Songs express every conceivable view: the faithful wife, the wandering wife, the faithful husband, the philandering

husband, etc.

✤ Tammy Wynette lived the stories in her songs so fully it was hard to draw the line between reality and art

✤ Grew up without a father, married at 17, divorced by the birth of her 3rd child, worked as a beautician, and was on her way to becoming a singer within one year, remarried to George Jones in 1969

✤ Jones was an alcoholic and if affected his personal and professional lives: ruined his marriage and nearly destroyed his career

✤ “D-I-V-O-R-C-E” heartbreak at the end of a relationship, the story is in present tense, describes a painful situation in plain language, the music is neutral and doesn’t tell about the pain,

✤ Steel guitar, electric guitar, discreet rhythm section playing a discreet rock rhythm at a slow tempo, and a choir in the background during the chorus

✤ Exemplifies Nashville at its most efficient: simple songs that are good vehicles for good singers, and professional musical settings appropriate to the mood of the song, lets the lyrics and Wynette take center stage

✤ Rock influence: slight-the discreet rock rhythm, but evidences the trickling down of rock style into music far removed culturally and expressively from rock music

Country Music in the 1970’s

✤ Country music audience expanded because:

✤ Rock-era listeners were more open to listening to a greater range of musical styles and the continuing interchange between rock, country and pop

✤ Despite the conservative backlash and the rise of the “silent majority” during Nixon’s time in the White House

✤ The election of Jimmy Carter-the first president from the Deep South since Andrew Johnson-gave way to the White House becoming a major venue for country performers during his presidency

✤ Pop-oriented country-Dolly Parton

✤ Themes of plainspokenness, distinctive vocal styles, and characteristic instruments-fiddle, steel guitar, and dobro

✤ All helped market country music to explode in the 1990’s

Latin Rock

✤ Latin rock: A fusion of Afro-Cuban music and rock

✤ In the 1950‘s and 1960‘s, it was only an occasional and subtle strand in the fabric of rock, rhythm and blues

✤ Carlos Santana made it popular around 1970

✤ Guitar and organ solos merge Latin and rock rhythms seamlessly

✤ However, finding a compromise between the beat and the clave pattern was difficult

✤ Santana created an effective compromise

Carlos Santana

✤ Born and raised in Mexico-moved to San Francisco in 1962

✤ First gained attention as a blues-inspired rock guitarist

✤ Connected Mexican music with Afro-Cuban, and mixed it with rock to create Latin rock

✤ Latin rock’s lone star-others attempted Latin rock, but none were as good as Santana

✤ Covered Tito Puente’s “Oye Como Va” in 1971

✤ Does not have the clave rhythm, but it is a similar asymmetrical rhythm over eight beats

✤ Percussion instruments and clave-like rhythm place Latin elements on the forefront, distinguishing Latin rock from other substyles

Jazz and Rock

✤ The new jazz tradition created by Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, John McLaughlin, and others include:

1. Instrumentation: Big rhythm section made of electronic instruments (keyboards, electric guitars and basses, and sometimes horns)

2. Rhythm: Eight or (most often) sixteen beat rhythmic foundation, dense texture, conflict, and no single instrument responsible for marking the beat

3. Texture: “No one solos, we all solo...” Dense, layered, composed primarily of riffs, bass liberated from timekeeping, preeminent soloist

4. Form: Long, sequential, multi-sectional, limited opportunity for improvisation

Miles Davis

✤ Lived 1926-1991

✤ In 1968, he went electric

✤ Collaborated with Gil Evans and stretched the boundaries of jazz

✤ Sketches of Spain was the inspiration for Grace Slick’s “White Rabbit”

✤ Arguably the most admired jazz musician of his generation

✤ Created the “best damn rock band in the world,” with musicians playing electric guitar and keyboards

✤ Created the most innovative and challenging synthesis of jazz and rock in 1969 with the two albums, In a Silent Way, and Bitches Brew

Miles Davis (cont.)

✤ For In a Silent Way, Davis added a guitarist, and two keyboardists to his working quintet of saxophonist, pianist, bassist, and drummer.

✤ Davis relied on good judgment and imagination to avoid extreme chord-instrument overkill

✤ Consists of two long tracks: eighteen and twenty minutes long-each assembled from two shorter segments

✤ 3 layers: 1) foundation: repeated an ostinato or riff for a long stretch of time, 2) background: multiple keyboard instruments playing in different registers and timbres, 3) foreground: solo instrument, the most prominent strand in this rich texture

✤ The result was NOT rock-it was dense, interactive textures, static harmonies, open forms, and active rhythms of rock and soul into a freer musical environment.

✤ It was not bop or post-bop jazz either-it had radically different rhythm, harmony and form

✤ Yet still contained the spontaneity of great jazz

Terms to Know

✤ Samba

✤ Bossa nova

✤ Pop rock

✤ Soft rock

✤ Rock musical

✤ Latin rock