KPFA-FM Music Dept. ➔ The Phonograph in Jazz: A History
Analog Audio
Event Type
Lectures and Panel DiscussionsOrigin
KPFAIdentifier
AM.1977.12.XX.1Program Length
32 minDates
| broadcast| 402 | created
Description
A lecture by David Baker, recorded in December of 1977 at a Conference of the Institute for Studies in American Music (now the H. Wiley Hitchcock Institute for Studies in American Music), an affiliate of Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. The theme of the conference was “The Phonograph and Our Musical Life,” and David Baker discusses the role of the phonograph in jazz music. As Baker points out, unlike classical music, in which pieces were primarily composed first on paper, jazz music was improvised, and thus it was through phonographs that works were preserved and propagated. However, while phonographs were crucial for the preservation and popularization of jazz music it also had some arguably deleterious effects on the evolution of the genre. Limits in early recording technology meant that string basses and drums were not used in pioneering jazz recordings, and mistakes made during recording sessions were not fixed due to expense, and may have been inadvertently copied by later musicians who studied those recordings. Also the fact that these primitive recordings were often limited to about three minute also influenced the length of solos in early jazz records. However with the advent of LPs musician eventually became more inventive and even indulgent in their studio work. As timed passed phonographs became the primary way in which new musicians learned earlier compositions and studied the playing styles of the first, great, jazz musicians. Today phonographs are used for transcription, and teaching, including music minus one recordings in which students of jazz can play their own solo, accompanied by the rhythm section of some famous band.Genres
JazzSubjects
JazzSound -- Recording and reproducing
Music -- Methods -- Self-instruction