lil and mebil brought something to my attention. What I'm trying to do by posting all of these jazz videos is to instill an appreciation for jazz among fellow Hubskieers. The best way to do this as I've noticed, is to essentially provide a jazz history lesson. Because this is a daily thing and I always post these over my morning bowl of cereal, the entire lesson might take a while. So I'm changing the title prefix and the tag. Hopefully you're with me, because here we go.
The very early beginnings of jazz can be attributed to Africa in general, with emphasis on the Western African slave trade. Music was a large part of the way of African life, especially for the slaves. When slaves were working their fields, songs were a great way to pass the time. A key component to recognize about West African music is the implementation of polyrhythms (simply put: a rhythm that makes use of two or more different rhythms at once). The most basic form of a polyrhythm is to think of four beats, and put three beats within that same time. Polyrhythm was birthed primarily from drum circles, as one drummer would play another rhythm (subdivide) inside of the former's rhythm.
The video I posted is from the documentary I mentioned yesterday, Throw Down Your Heart by Bela Fleck. Notice how many different rhythms are going on at once. Around 1:04 and 3:20, listen to an individual note on the huge marimba and compare that rhythm to another note being played and notice how different yet similar they are; they seem unnatural being played against one another yet in they end they begin their next round on the same beat.
This polyrhythmic feature of music was essentially exclusive to African music (the Europeans were dealing with their set of new things). Keep polyrhythm in mind because it is a trait that is married to the jazz genre.
I wouldn't hesitate to call this jazz, just through-composed and no soloing. Syncopation of that manner isn't inherent to classical music.
The child at 0:50 to 1:03 looks no older than three, but is concentrating on making music, not just banging. The banjo if amazingly versatile. It fits right in, as opposed to, say, a cello. I'd love to walk through villages where everyone throws down their hearts like that!
I'd love to live in a society where music is so vital to everyday life. I really want to be placed in this village in the Peace Corps (but I'll be happy wherever, obviously).
Hopefully I'll keep it going until I go through all of my notes from my Jazz History classes.