HASTINGS JAZZ CLUB

Venue M - George St Old Town Hastings

An independent volunteer non-profit group
that has been putting on gigs since Autumn 2005

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History

Jazz was the only new art form to be developed in the 20th century and it is the music of afro-Americans. Every type of jazz that exists today has its roots in afro-American culture and of course the saxophone. The saxophone was invented by Adolph Sax (1814 -1894) he was a Belgian working in Paris in the early 1840's. Sax was from a well established family of instrument makers and an excellent flautist. By the age of 20 he had invented the bass clarinet. Sax went on to develop the saxophone and he obtained the patent for his new instrument on June 28, 1846. Sax wanted a reed instrument that had as much power as a trumpet, the clarinet was far too quiet for marching bands so in he invented the saxophone. The blacks of America quickly adopted the sax as their instrument and this in turn helped create this new genre jazz.

For many decades it was always said that whites could not play jazz as well as a black person. This of course is not true. There are now many white musicians who play jazz with great integrity and virtuosity. Stan Tracey who is now named the Grandfather of British jazz is a fantastic jazz pianist and a good example of a white man playing jazz with a great authentic feel.

Jazz is still in its infancy compared with the history of western classical music but it has developed very quickly over the past 100 years. Mainstream jazz superimposed itself on well known tunes and today all decent jazz players at some time in their life play from the song book. Some never leave it finding enough inspiration from the melodies and harmonies of a bygone era to keep themselves and their audience interested. Others have moved on and have felt the need to write their own material to find their own voice and so push the boundaries of what is jazz.

The word jazz is now an umbrella term because within that there are many styles e.g. trad or Dixie the earliest form of jazz from New Orleans, mainstream using will known tunes, Porter, Gershwin etc. Bossa-nova developed by Stan Getz interpreting the music of Tom Jobim from Brazil, bebop - developed by Charlie Parker. Salsa - rhythms from Cuba mixed with jazz i.e. Dizzy Gillespie, Paquito D'Rivera, Arturo Sandoval. Modern and modal jazz John Coltrane and Miles Davis - Avant-Garde and Free Jazz. British jazz, from the 50's was mainly played by white musicians, now includes many black British players with Caribbean backgrounds, they like to include references to reggae and rap in their music e.g. Courtney Pine, Soweto Kinch, Byron Wallen, Dennis Rollins, Tony Kofi, Jazz Jamaica etc.

As with the fragmenting of styles in classical music during early part of the 20th century, jazz is now doing this. In contemporary jazz the line between classical music and jazz is becoming very blurred they even collide quite happily together i.e. Joanna MacGregor with Jason Yarde and the Britten Sinfonia.

Many jazz musicians call on world music to help define what it is they want to say John Mclaughlin, Andy Sheppard. Christine Tobin, David Murray etc. and of course there is jazz funk and jazz rock "but hey - I am not writing a book so I will stop here".