Traditional Jazz
Carnegie Hall Jazz Band: Eastwood After Hours - A Night of Jazz
Photo by Steve J. Sherman
Key Attributes of Traditional Jazz
Select to filter timelineThemes
- Entertainment
- Black Power/Pride
Musical Features
- Rhythms
- Riffs
- Instrumentals
- Vocals
Instruments
- Bass
- Drums
- Electric Guitar
- Guitar
- Horn
- Other Percussion
- Piano
- Saxophone
- Strings
- Trumpet
- Woodwinds
In the early 1980s, hard bop inspired the artistic directions of a new group of young musicians who opposed the new developments—fusion and avant-garde—of the 1960s and 1970s. Wynton and Branford Marsalis, Billy Pierce, Charles Fambrough, and Mulgrew Miller advocated a return to hard bop and joined forces with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers in “Falling in Love With Love.”
Context and History
“We [Jazz at Lincoln Center] attempt to embrace both the legacy and the future of jazz so the history of jazz is present in what is currently being played.”Wynton MarsalisJazz Trumpeter and Artistic Director, Jazz at Lincoln Center
Another group of young musicians known as “Young Lions” or “New Traditionalists” continued to draw inspiration from former traditions, merging concepts from bebop, cool, and hard bop with their own innovations. Roy Hargrove in “Proclamation” (1989), along with Terence Blanchard, Marcus Roberts, Jeff Watts, and Christian McBride, are a part of this group. With yet other aspirations, Wynton Marsalis continued his mission to preserve the nation’s jazz heritage through his work with Jazz at Lincoln Center, which he co-founded in 1987. In 1991, he became the artistic director of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, organized in 1988. His focus on the classic repertoire from the pre-1960s eras and the exclusion of avant-garde, free jazz styles, and more contemporary expressions has generated some criticism.
Musical Features/Performance Style
This music returns to the style and features associated with the pre-1960s tradition.
Bibliography
- Gourse, Leslie. Wynton Marsalis: Skain’s Domain: A Biography. New York: Schirmer Books, 1999.