Professor Messenger has spent his life in music as student, teacher,and professional musician. He has studied and lectured at the famedPeabody Institute and written an acclaimed book on music activitiesaimed at older adults.

And as a pianist, he has:
Played in ragtime ensembles, swing bands, Dixieland bands, and modern jazz groups
Been a successful studio musician in the early days of rock n roll
Accompanied performers as renowned as Lou Rawls and Mama Cass Elliot
Opened for Bill Haley and the Comets.

So it is no wonder that the course he has created is so thorough and enjoyable.

Lectures, Piano, and Guest Performers
Its a rich mix of jazz, its elements, era, and practitioners.Professor Messenger frequently turns to his piano to illustrate hismusical points, often with the help of guest performance artists andlots of original music.

The lectures follow the story of jazz in its many shapes, including:
Ragtime
The blues
The swing music of the big band era
Boogie woogie
Big band blues
The rise of modern jazz forms: bebop, cool, modal, free, and fusion.

Cakewalks, Vaudeville, and Swing

Beginning with the music and dance of the antebellum plantation,Professor Messenger reveals how the cakewalks of slave culture gavebirth to a dance craze at the 19th centurys end that was ignorant ofits own humble roots.

He considers how minstrel shows, derivingfrom Southern beliefs that held black culture to be decidedly inferior,eventually created a musical industry that African American musicianswould dominate for decades to come. You will learn how and why jazz, adifficult genre to define, was central to the music they created.

Roots in Ragtime

Professor Messenger explains how jazz was bornor conceivedin theragtime piano tunes of turn of the century America. Together with theDixieland funeral music of New Orleans, this new, syncopated musicpopularized a sound that took Americas vaudeville establishments bystorm.

Professor Messenger notes that ragtimes most popularcomposer, Scott Joplin, at first resisted the new craze. But afterbecoming intrigued by that ragged sound at the Chicago Worlds Fair of1893, he became the writer of the most memorable rags ever, includingMaple Leaf Rag and The Entertainer.

Drawing on the blues, anemotional but harmonically simple music, jazz was ensconced as apopular genre in the American psyche by the 1920s.

The Surprising Origin of the St. Louis Blues

One interesting story about the blues covered in the course concerns W.C. Handy, a man often referred to as the father of the blues. AsProfessor Messenger reveals that, in truth, Handy didnt like the bluesvery much and wasnt convinced the public would buy it.

It wasonly after he saw a band of blues players literally showered with moneyafter a performance that he began writing the music in earnest. Handywas at the same Worlds Fair Joplin attended, and he heard a song helater arranged into what became the famous St. Louis Blues.

Professor Messenger points out, nothing about the song was original; itwas a melting pot of many influences. The blues is, in his words, theemotional germ of jazz. It is the place jazz always returns to when itveers too far into the abstract or academic.

An Innovation that Changed Jazz Forever

One of the most important events in the history of jazz, and allperformance, was the invention of the microphone in 1924. Before themicrophone, singers needed big voices to project their voices acrosslarge music halls, and the booming styles of performers such as BessieSmith and Al Jolson met those requirements admirably.

After themicrophone, though, things were very different. The new invention didmore than simply allow for the use of quieter instruments like theguitar and string bass. It also brought smaller voiced singersBingCrosby, Mel Torme, Frank Sinatra, for instanceinto the limelight.

Into the 1930s and 40s, popular music became heavily arranged forbigger and bigger bands. By the time the swing era of Americas bigbands took hold around World War II, jazz had reached new popularheights.

You will learn why swing became so popularthesyncopation and improvisation of early jazz, in the context of carefularrangements, combined planning and spontaneity in a unique way.

Though not to be confused with the sound of competing society bands,swing music gave talents like Benny Goodman a chance to improvise withinthe framework of Top 40 hits.

More than Swing

The development of jazz into swing electrified popular music. You learn:
How boogie woogie, a precursor of rock n roll that was primed with aheavy handed, highly rhythmic style, found widespread success in the1940s until its ubiquity forced it out of fashion
How big bandblues, where the simplicity of the blues standard was overlaid on thepop song, fused the worlds of folk art and high art
How bebopanaustere, anxious music whose success was blazed by the genius of DizzyGillespie and Charlie Parkerworked against the commercial spread ofswing
How modern jazz spans everythingfrom the cool jazz of the1950s to the fusion jazz of the 1990s, with several stops in between.

Music for Today

In recent decades many forms of modern jazzincluding cool, modal,free, and fusionhave had their devoted following. All serve to provethat jazz is a generic music that comprises many varieties.

Trueto its name, jazz has defied definition, category, and stagnation. Andthis coursein toe tapping, finger snapping wayswill feed yourintellectual curiosity and appreciation.



01. Plantation Beginnings
02. The Rise and Fall of Ragtime
03. The Jazz Age (info)
04. Blues
05. The Swing Era
06. Boogie, Big Band Blues, and Bop
07. Modern Jazz
08. The ABCs of Jazz Improvisation

Professor: Bill Messenger
Country: USA

HomePage: http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/Course_Detail.aspxcid=728