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Book Reviews
The Story Of Jazz
Victor L. Schermer
Former trombonist who now works as a psychologist.Stearns also discusses the origin and development of blue notes, the flattened third and seventh notes of the diatonic scale. He shows that these notes are actually ranges of tones that can be altered to express emotions. There is no precedent for this in the tempered scale of European music. It is one of the things that makes jazz unique. Stearns also points out that jazz, with roots in West African drumming and Afro-Cuban music, allows for a much greater variation of rhythmic complexities than European music. However, the latter is what has given jazz its complex harmonies, which rose to new dimensions with bebop and post-bop. From the beginning, jazz was in its own way world music, the music of many nations.
The book explains how West Africa influenced jazz through gospel music and African American work songs, as were sung in the cotton fields and on prison chain gangs. These gave jazz its various inflections and shifts in voice as well as the riff, which derives from the call and response pattern of gospel and work singing. The author then traces the impact of these forms on boogie woogie and ragtime, and tells us how these differ from the true jazz idiom, which was only later fully developed by Louis Armstrong.
Stearns goes on to discuss in detail the early big bands, such as that of Fletcher Henderson, the development of swing, and the emergence of bebop and cool jazz. His discussion of the hipster persona of the cool jazz period is quite humorous. Stearns is fair to the newer music of that time, but he seems to prefer hot to cool jazz, so his portrayal of the music of Chet Baker, Gerry Mulligan and others of the West Coast cool school seems negatively biased.
For me, the most important contribution of this profound work is how clearly it shows that jazz was not an out of nowhere American invention, but developed from a rich tapestry of music of diverse sources, each of which has a complexity and beauty of its own making. One can see then how even the far out experiments of free jazz, and music like Coltrane's "Meditations, which may sound strange to some listeners, actually derive from the early roots that led to jazz as a distinct form. The entire panoply of jazz music begins to fit together and make sense in light of Stearn's insight into the early sources.
I am sure there are jazz authorities who would question the accuracy of some of Stearns' research and analysis. The book could also be sharply criticized for its repeated use of the word negro and its lack of clear opposition to the oppression of African Americans.
On the other hand, the book was written before the civil rights movement, when the word negro was still acceptable to many people of color, and Stearns is certainly critical of social oppression. His stance is consistent with that of Martin Luther King in that he is not blaming or pointing fingers, but simply describing the reality and advocating change. Much to his credit, he is kind, compassionate and balanced even when he adopts the role of critic.
Though it may reveal my lack of knowledge of the literature on jazz music, I am grateful to my friend for turning me on to Stearns' work. This book definitely bears re-reading and re-consideration by jazz scholars, critics, and historians on the occasion of its fiftieth anniversary - and all serious jazz fans will find it highly readable, fascinating and illuminating.
