Module 3

This week's listening has officially caught me up with where I am with my students taking my history of rock and roll class. Starting out with the blues, I listened to "St. Louis Blues" first. I was surprised because I was assuming the song would follow the standard AAB format, but after the first verse it changed. Bessie Smith's voice is so powerful and belty! It still surprises me that she's able to sing over a band. I noticed that in this song, the voice and trumpet are using call-and-response (where Smith sings a phrase and the trumpet responds). Sticking with the blues, I decided to listen to "Black Snake Moan" because I wasn't familiar with that song. This was definitely the delta style blues that I was anticipating - acoustic guitar, solo voice, AAB text. Like many blues songs, this also had a call-and-response feel, with the guitar responding after every verse. Blind Lemon was obviously an untrained singer; his voice was very rough sounding.

Check out this video of Bessie Smith in her only movie appearance. The film was titled St. Louis Blues and here she is singing the song:

I consider gospel to be religious counterpart of the blues. I listened to "The Sun Didn't Shine" and really enjoyed what I heard. There was a solo voice that sang the verse while the other singers hummed in the background. All the voices came together and sang during the verse in a chordal style. I was surprised that I didn't hear a lot of melismas in the solo singing because that is something that I associate with gospel music.

"Wrappin it Up" and "Taking a Chance on Love" were my ideas of early jazz music. In "Wrappin it Up" I heard a lot of instruments playing different parts. It seemed like they were playing in a very chordal style. I did notice that one instrument soloing was characteristic of jazz, however I don't think it was improvising. In "Taking a Chance on Love" there was a lot of call-and-response in the instruments. When the voice came it, the singer had a very pleasant tone. The song seemed very "singable," meaning it wasn't to challenging.

The swing era isn't my favorite. I find all of the music to sound relatively the same (same tempo, instruments, etc.). However, when I think of swing music, I think of "In the Mood." In this piece, there's a lot of back and forth between the brass and saxophone. Is there vocal swing music? I suppose if there were, "Paper Doll" would fall into that category. "Paper Doll" had a solo male voice singing while other male voices sang "oo" in the background. There was also a guitar playing softly with the background singers. During the middle, perhaps the refrain, the tempo picked up. I also noticed that around 1:40, all the singers were together and singing chords.

My last three elective pieces were very different. I first listened to "Caravan." Although this was a jazz piece, it had some characteristics of Latin American rhythms in the melody. I particularly enjoyed the drum introduction. While listening, I wondered if the other instruments were performing some sound effects. There were times when the piano or a horn would make a random sound that didn't seem to fit in with the rest of the music. I did a little research and saw that "Caravan" was actually featured in the movie Whiplash. I've only seen the movie once so I didn't remember hearing it.

I thought that "Nague" was very exciting. I'm not very familiar with the Latin American influence on American music so I wanted to listen to one of those selections. I was pretty startled by the loud trumpets in the beginning. There was also a lot of syncopation. The voice repeated every phrase and I wondered if that was intentional. If so, what was the point? Finally, I listened to "New San Antonio Rose." I'll be honest, when I first started listening to the song, I wasn't sure what the genre was. The beginning instruments sounded like Latin American instruments, specifically in the trumpets. Once the voice came in, I thought it was more typical of country and twang.

Prea Saunders Timeline