Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Jazz Music: The Beginning

The roaring 20's featured some of the most famous Jazz musicians like Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, Paul Whiteman and Duke Ellington. These artists were some of the most popular ones, the actual number of great 1920's Jazz musicians, is incredibly huge. Most of the Jazz musicians played in bands, like King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, instead of going solo. However, many artists later parted ways with bands like Louis Armstrong, who played cornet for the Creole Jazz Band and later decided to perform solo. Pianist Jelly Roll Morton, along with the Red Hot Peppers are other such examples. In the 1920's, Jazz bands were made up of three voices and a rhythm section. The voices consisted of the cornet, clarinet and trombone, which were the prominent Jazz instruments.

Jazz Sub-Genres

In the early 20th century, musicians conceived a variety of sub-genres of Jazz. New Orleans Dixieland dating from the early 1910's, big band-style swing from the 1930's and 1940's, bebop from the mid-1940's, a variety of Latin Jazz fusions such as Afro-Cuban and Brazilian Jazz, free Jazz from the 1950's and 1960's, Jazz fusion from the 1970's, acid Jazz from the 1980's (which added funk and hip-hop influences), and NuJazz in the 1990's are some of the sub-genres of Jazz that are still prevalent.

Jazz music in the 1920's, established Jazz as a music genre, in the true sense. Many changes, improvisations and experiments have taken place in Jazz since then. But even today, the genre cannot be defined in a few simple words. Paul Whiteman-The King of Jazz described Jazz as "the folk music of the machine age." Personally, I feel Jazz is the music that flows from the heart and appeals to the soul. 


credited to; http://www.buzzle.com/articles/jazz-music-in-the-1920s.html

Famous Musicals

Cause getting your dreams
It's strange, but it seems
A little - well - complicated
There's a kind of a sort of : cost
There's a couple of things get: lost
There are bridges you cross
You didn't know you crossed
Until you've crossed.

~ Gregory Maguire (for the Broadway musical Wicked)

When we're talking musical, we usually refer to either musical theater or musical films. While the former is an amalgamation of music pieces, songs, dialogues and dance with the elements of drama, the latter is a genre of motion pictures that incorporate musical sequences as interwoven parts of the thematic narrative. Famous musicals have garnered tremendous fan following among cinema as well as theater goers and the cynosure of their appeal lies in the way the story and the central idea is conveyed by resting the dominant part of the narrative and much of the histrionics upon musical effects, songs and artistic choreography.

Musical super hits like Moulin Rouge, The Sound of Music, Chicago and My Fair Lady have assumed a cult status among lovers of this genre of entertainment and, in a way, they give you a feel of the bygone era of theater and films when most of the old-world-entertainment churned out by this media used to be in the form of musicals and ballads. Check out the following list of famous musicals that illuminated the avenues for this entertainment genre, be it Broadway or the silver screen.
Famous Quotes from Musicals
We hear and use these quotes so many times in our mundane lives that sometimes we cease to realize that they are part of the scripts of some of the most famous musicals ever. Check out these famous musicals quotes to know what I mean!
  • To love another person is to see the face of God. - Les Miserables
  • Forget regret, or life is yours to miss. - Rent
  • Never take a stranger's advice, never let a friend fool you twice. Nobody's on nobody's side. - Chess
  • I wasn't looking, look what I found! - Thoroughly Modern Millie
  • I ain't got nothing, so I ain't got nothing to lose... there's gold in them there hills and I'm gonna get it or die trying! - Thoroughly Modern Millie
  • Don't be afraid that it won't be perfect. The only thing to be afraid of really is that it won't be. - Company


credited to; http://www.buzzle.com/articles/famous-musicals.html