My students and I tend to think of all pre-rock American popular songs as being “jazz”, because that’s the context in which we tend to encounter them. However, jazz was an artistic outgrowth of popular song, and it’s worth seeing how those tunes existed before jazz musicians began interpreting them. The jazz pianist, composer and …
Tag Archives: Ethan Iverson
Whisper Not
When I was in college, I picked up a cassette of Legacy by Jon Faddis from the dollar bin at the record store. It’s a kind of greatest hits of jazz trumpet, and it was one of the best dollars I ever spent. The last three tunes were especially wonderful: “A Child Is Born” by …
Led Zeppelin and the folkloric integrity of the blues
There is a fascinating moment in “When The Levee Breaks” by Led Zeppelin where Robert Plant plays a very flat ninth on the harmonica. I love this note, because there is so much music theory and history encoded within it. Listen at 0:41. Before we can get into the details of this note and what …
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