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Module Title:

Post War Jazz

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(e.g. 5AABC123 )
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(may be abbreviated)

1
Comparing four albums released in 1960

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3097

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Choose three or four albums released/recorded in the same year since 1945 (NOT 1959).
Consider, with reference to the readings and music weve studied, how they relate to broader
trends in the history of jazz. What do you learn?

This essay will explore the ways in which four jazz albums released in 1960 by different jazz
artists challenged the concept of a jazz improvisation, and what it meant to be original yet still
loyal to jazz tradition. This, when placed in the then-current socio-political tensions of the Civil
Rights Movement, adds a further dimension of complexity. John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Max
Roach and Ornette Coleman were all a part of the umbrella term avant-garde jazz in their 1960
albums, in that they revolutionised it and stretched it in different ways, but the ways they created
new dimensions to existing traditions were completely different.
During the 1950s, evidence of polls conducted by Downbeat and Metronome magazines1 (the
leading jazz magazines) suggested that although there were many highly talented black musicians
in the jazz scene, the most regular occupiers of the top spots were white musicians, such as Stan
Getz. It was only until the late 50s that the majority of the iconic figures for jazz saxophone that
are the most listened to and recognised today, even made it into the viewing polls most notably
with John Coltranes entry in 1959. As jazzs history has long been rooted in the black tradition, it
therefore appeared insulting to African-Americans that their music was once again being hijacked
and exploited by white Americans. But most importantly, it gave them a reason to expand and
develop jazz past the comfortable listening zones of the culinary tastes of the magazines readers.
Perhaps the most prominent example of an album, which sat at the boundary between hard-
bop jazz and the entrance to the later, more aurally challenging avant-garde jazz movement, was
Coltranes 1960 album Giant Steps. The hard-bop era is described by Andrew Hill as a time
before the music got separated2 from its audience, in referral to Coltranes mid-50s collaboration
as a member of Thelonius Monks quartet at the Carnegie Hall.3 Monk, in many ways represented
the older bebop jazz style, and his quartets choices and approaches to their musical content in the

1 Monson, I. Freedom Sounds.(2007),p.7
2 Solis,G. Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall.(2014),p.6
3 Ibid,p.5

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Carnegie Hall concert was described by Gabriel Solis as a [more common program] [with the first
half of the concert] being more easily digestible with repertoire that would likely have been well
known toa portion of the audiencethat evening. It seemed at that moment that jazzs place in
American culture was becoming more widely accepted and recognised as a totally independent
style, but also one that heralded familiarity. The turn of a new decade brought a new dimension to
jazz as the readers and critics of Downbeat and Metronome once knew it as, which subsequently
created opposing views.
The line up for the album and title track Giant Steps consisted of Coltrane on tenor saxophone,
Tommy Flanagan on keys, Paul Chambers on bass, and Art Taylor on drums. The album contained
all-original tracks written by Coltrane, and it is the title track Giant Steps that I am going to
discuss in greater detail with relation to the hard-bop jazz style. I will additionally suggest the
ways in which it succeeded in upholding the jazz tradition whilst adding innovative new harmonic
and melodic dimensions.
It is first worth discussing the significance of the title of the album and track Giant Steps. In
todays terms, the concept of Giant Steps mainly its chord progression has become as
historically etched into the jazz tradition as the blues or Charlie Parkers rhythm changes, and so
its name speaks for itself as a giant step into a new space for jazz to develop. The most obvious
way in which it achieved innovation was in its articulation of symmetry, rather than the previous
tendencies in favouring tonality.4
Similar to many popular jazz tunes, Giant Steps consisted of various ii-7|V7|Imaj7
progressions. Coltrane incorporated a new concept of symmetry by taking a standard jazz ii-V-I
exercise descending in whole-tones that thereby covered six keys, but instead used tritone
substitutions over the entire progression of the second ii-V-I of the cycle. The effect of this was
that instead of a set of six ii|V|Is in a cycle, it instead became a symmetrical cycle of three, with
each ii|V|I a major third apart, forming a never-ending cycle in the form of an augmented triad.

4 Polishhookstudio. The Improvised Line: Jazz Piano Online: Giant Steps And
Symmetry.(2015), Online: www.polishookstudio.com/2013/12/giant-steps.html.
Accessed 7/4/16

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Starting key:

F-7

| Bb7 |Ebmaj7

| % |

*Down a whole tone:

Eb-7 |Ab7

|Dbmaj7

| % |

Down a whole tone:

C#-7

|F#7

|Bmaj7

| % |

A-7

|D7

|Gmaj7

| % |

Etc.

*Tritone sub of 2nd ii|V|I:

Bars 8-15 are therefore:
1: F-7

| Bb7

|Ebmaj7

| % |

2: A-7

|D7

|Gmaj7

| % |

3: C#-7

|F#7

|Bmaj7

| % |

1: F-7

| Bb7

|Ebmaj7

| % | - here, full cycle repeats.

Closer analysis of the first seven bars and last bar of Giant Steps, which can be classed as two
2-sections, reveals two sets of cut-down versions of the chord changes in 1, 2, and 3. The first set
plays fragments of the chords, but in semi-symmetrical reverse (3, 2, 1) and the second fragment
is in the order of 2, 1, 3.

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Although Coltrane was a strong supporter of the Civil Rights Movement, I am not able to
pinpoint any clear indications that Coltranes opinions on politics and current affairs were
explicitly woven into the the meaning of his music. He was certainly not one of the most politically
active jazz musicians of the day, so for these spots, the 1960s albums Charles Mingus: presents
Charles Mingus and We Insist by Max Roach definitely share centre stage.
Rather, I find it is Coltranes unique melodic improvisational treatment of arpeggiac cascades
achieved through hours of diligent practice 5 and which was dubbed sheets of sound 6 by
Downbeats jazz critic Ira Gitler that appears to suggest a parallel with the fierce African-American
desire to be recognised through their creative arts as equally intelligent and hardworking as their
white counterparts. This, by extension additionally suggested a desire for the jazz genre to be
viewed on the same intellectual level as classical music. To a further extent, it is arguable that his
improvisational attitude on the way he approached the ii|V|I progressions further implied a move
away from not just classical harmonies but also traditional bebop; in particular the style of Charlie
Parker. He chooses to favour a melodic line based mainly around chord tones 1, 2, 3 and 5, which
contrasted the manner in which Charlie Parker emphasised chord extensions (9, 11, 13) in his
solos.
Charles Mingus too, created (in his 1960 album) a hot topic for debate; which can be viewed as
a marker in the evolution of the jazz style. His album sought to mobilise jazz as a far more explicit
statement of African-American pride and defiance. It was a creative backlash to the atrocities
committed against African-Americans during the Civil Rights Movement. Since jazz began with the
blues, jazz had always been an expression of black American identity, and Mingus track Fables of
Faubus represents a then-culmination of jazzs association with American politics and history.
The band set-up for the 1960 album consisted of Mingus on bass, Ted Curson on the trumpet,
Eric Dolphy on alto saxophone and bass clarinet, and Dannie Richmond on drums. The original

5 Brown, L. John Coltrane and Black America's Quest for Freedom: Spirituality and the
Music.(2010),p.100
6 Anderson, T.J. Notes to Make the Sound Come Right: Four Innovators of Jazz
Poetry.(2004),p.3

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version of Fables of Faubus that was released in 1959 was an instrumental version, because
Columbia Records refused to publish the politically explicit music that contained lyrics mocking
Orval Faubus, the Arkansas governor over the well-known Civil Rights events over the
desegregation of schools in Little Rock. 7 In 1960, Mingus succeeded in releasing his track,
complete with lyrics, under the independent record label Candid, titled Original Faubus Fables.8
One particular stance that the evolution of jazz can be viewed from is the use of voice and
instrumentation in innovatively new creative ways in order to express the dark humours
concerning the struggles and frustrations of African-Americans. The track Original Faubus
Fables uses avant-garde-tinted music styles in both the instrumentation and vocalisation in order
to mock and satirise Orval Faubus, other racist politicians, whilst still to some extent preserving
bebop melodic language.

The lyrics for the music are as follows:9

Oh, Lord, don't let 'em shoot us!
Oh, Lord, don't let 'em stab us!
Oh, Lord, don't let 'em tar and feather us!
Oh, Lord, no more swastikas!
Oh, Lord, no more Ku Klux Klan!

Name me someone who's ridiculous, Dannie.
Governor Faubus!
Why is he so sick and ridiculous?
He won't permit integrated schools.

7 Marcoux, J.P. Jazz Griots: Music as History in the 1960s African American Poem(2012),p.3
8 Mingus, C. Original Faubus Fables.(1960). Online:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXuZBywW4gA accessed 7/4/16
9 Fables Of Faubus Lyrics - Charles Mingus. Online:
http://www.bluesforpeace.com/lyrics/fables-of-faubus.htm accessed 7/4/16

7

Then he's a fool! Boo! Nazi Fascist supremists!
Boo! Ku Klux Klan (with your Jim Crow plan)

Name me a handful that's ridiculous, Dannie Richmond.
Faubus, Rockefeller, Eisenhower
Why are they so sick and ridiculous?

Two, four, six, eight:
They brainwash and teach you hate.
H-E-L-L-O, Hello.

I believe the instruments use the idea of a crazed caricature of Faubus in order to push into the
boundaries of more avant-garde and less bebop-oriented styles, where the avant-garde aspect is
accepted as an intentional asset to further ridicule the politicians. This can be especially heard
through melodic and rhythmic techniques employed in the melody players.
To start with, Mingus and Drummond sing the Oh Lord lines, accompanied by Dolphy on alto
saxophone, and a static bass and drums in the first 8-bar A section. The A section then repeats as
an instrumental with a contrasting texture of a quasi-Weimar-cabaret atmosphere.10 Here, the
instruments play in oom-pa style but with exaggerated dynamics, which gives the music a satirical
tone and is a reference back to the failed Nazi regime of World War Two. The trumpet plays
repeated notes with emphasis on the second beat giving the oom-pa feel. The Nazi reference is
later heard in the lyrics, to parallel with the actions of the racist politicians: Governor
Faubus/[is] a fool! Boo! Nazi Fascist supremists! The exaggerated dynamics at the end of each
verse in the following B section played by the horns gives the feeling of stumbling a feeling of
Faubus being wrong-footed.

10 Ake, D.A. Jazz Matters: Sound, Place, and Time Since Bebop.(2010),p.66

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At 1:47 the A section returns with the bass and drums keeping time, but the melody
instruments loosely playing solos with huge exaggerations of note bending and swelling
dynamics, whilst the vocalists shout Boo! Nazi Fascist supremists! I believe that Mingus is here
challenging the jazz tradition by using the instruments not as voices for African-Americans (as
previous jazz styles such as blues often did), but to represent the crazed and warped voices of the
outrageous politicians, especially as the voices of Mingus and Richmond can be heard above the
instruments. Furthermore, the unexpected, short-lived launch into a double time feel at 2:02
where the trumpet and saxophone swap roles (with the trumpet soloing in crazed scales over a
static line held by the saxophone) gives the feeling of unnerve whilst using the surprise element to
convey a dark sense of humour of the unanticipated tempo changes.
My second example of a politically active jazz musician who used his music to contribute to the
Civil Rights Movement that I will discuss in this essay is Max Roach, who released an album in
1960 called We Insist! Max Roachs Freedom Now Suite. It is an openly political statement in
support of the Civil Rights Movement and progresses through the suite in a historically linear
order, detailing the journey that African-Americans took from slavery, to freedom from slavery,
and finally the struggle for African equality and independence. This is further visually implied
through the use of an image taken from the Greensboro sit-in as the album artwork. It additionally
used the conga player Michael Olantunji,11 which I believe represents jazzs perseverance to
remain loyal to its ancestral roots.
The line-up for the first track Driva Man12 consisted of Coleman Hawkins on tenor saxophone,
backed up by Walter Benton also on tenor, Booker Little and Julian Preston on trumpets, and
James Schenk on bass. Roachs then-wife Abbey Lincoln sung the lyrics, whilst playing on
tambourine, which she used on the first beat of every bar in 5/4. I believe this unrelenting beat
that is heard throughout is symbolic of resistance, but could also be suggestive of a being forced to
carry out labour giving it the sound quality of someone being beaten. Further suggestive of

11 Yemisi, J.A. Spiritual, Blues, and Jazz People in African American Fiction.(2002),p.157
12 Roach, M. Driva Man.(1960) Online:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpTKLan7Mm4 Accessed 7/4/16

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slavery is the use of blues form; harking back to the most common style that jazz first emerged as,
with its purpose being a form of escape from white oppression. Particularly interesting to me is
the way in which Hawkins interacted with Lincolns acapella poem that was depicting the
brutality of African enslavement.
After Lincolns first verse, the band comes in with Hawkins at the front line playing the melody,
before at 1:40 launching into his solo. It feels human in quality and akin to an outcry at the
injustice of slavery especially as a squeak is heard at 2:12. His raw and stirring saxophone solo
was meant to convey a male black voice conveying the anger and emotion of the poems words,
just as in Lincolns verse. The extent to which Hawkins goes to make his saxophone sound sound
human is distinctly bordering avant-garde. The rousing of African tradition and pride seen in the
album is a marker in jazz history that is demanding that African-Americans deserve civil rights,
and that any exploitation or white washing of their culture is unacceptable.
But the jazz musician that pushed the boundaries the most of what jazz could be defined as,
was tenor saxophone player Ornette Coleman. Coleman was an avant-garde pioneer who is most
often attributed to the innovation of free jazz, in part due to his 1960 album Free Jazz.13 His
music from this album differed drastically from that of Coltranes Giant Steps, falling under the
opposite wing of the umbrella term avant-garde. Free Jazz Part 1 and 2 from the album was
created with the coming-together of two separate quartets, which, when listened to on the
recording, can be heard separately on either side of a stereo speaker. The musicians on the left
channel consisted of Coleman on alto, Don Cherry on pocket trumpet, Scott LaFaro on bass, and
Billy Higgins on drums. The right channel consisted of Eric Dolphy on bass clarinet, Freddie
Hubbard on trumpet, Charlie Haden on bass, and Ed Blackwell on drums.
I believe that Colemans album was not intended to be a form of entertainment, but was meant
to be a serious and intellectual challenging work of art that followed in the footsteps of other
avant-garde art forms that were created specifically to breach its origins creative boundaries.
Whilst Coltrane in Giant Steps used harmonic form to dilute the pull towards a particular

13 Coleman, O. Free Jazz.(1960). Online:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbZIiom9rDA Accessed 7/4/16

10
tonality, Coleman in Free Jazz sought to liberate the creative improvisational lines from their
chordal chains.
Upon listening to the track, it appears there are very few scored and repeated melodic lines;
with the exception of dissonant fan-fare calls heard between solos of which the entire 37:04
duration lasts. Perhaps Free Jazzs most obvious avant-garde element is simply in the album-
length collective improvisation that had never been attempted before on a recording. In order to
shape their melodic lines in as much of an abstract way possible but still maintain order, Coleman
instructed his players to play together, all at the same time, without getting in each others way14
and the tempo hardly changed as a result of keeping true chaos at bay. It was almost as if he
wanted to completely supress not only the original harmony and instead chose to focus on the
melody and rhythm, but also any type of reference towards a traditional blues or song-type
structure. The listener is thus forced to digest the music in a completely different way from the
previous jazz tradition. The fact that it is a collective improvisation with not just musicians
interacting with one another, but also interacting with their partner quartet, means that there are
melodic lines and fragments of melody; even bebop-influenced melodic lines to follow. For
example, at around 3:44 the alto sax mimics the essence of a fragment of a phrase played by the
bass clarinet, but the fragments of melody are so fleeting and seemingly disjointed that the music
is simply overwhelming. It uses predominantly angular melodies in contrast to the earlier bebop
style of strung-out flowing sentences in quavers. The listening method in order to absorb the
overarching feel and drive towards a new horizon for the listener had to change it had to be an
avant-garde listening approach where treating melodic inventiveness was not limited to a linear
perspective but the ability to hear multiple levels of creativity coming from multiple directions.
This is further implied in the ability to switch off one stereo channel and just listen to the other
an innovative concept that had never before been used in jazz.
Overall, I believe it is Colemans absence of a clear chord progression and tonal centre that
allowed his music to be dictated to a far greater level than his other avant-garde jazz counterparts

14 Harrison, M., Fox, C., Nicholson, S., Thacker, E. The Essential Jazz Records: Modernism to
postmodernism.(2000),p.574

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by motivic organisation. I would say that once the ear got used to Ornettes sound, it actually
opens the audiences eyes to a highly expressive art form that, in some respects, can be seen on
the same complexity level as speech. It is a marker of the originality of Ornettes album that
forced other musicians to broaden their perspectives of the imagination and innovation needed to
reinvent and further develop jazz.15 Coltrane even took free jazz on his own route six years later
through his album Ascension in 1966. But arguably the key reason that jazz evolved into many
varying styles was the restlessness of African-Americans, who, explicitly or not, were discontent
with Americas treatment of their race and culture, and who sought to reinforce their unique
cultural identities.

15 The Guardian. Ornette Coleman.(2015). Online:
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jun/11/ornette-coleman accessed 7/4/16

12

References
"Fables Of Faubus Lyrics - Charles Mingus". 2014. Bluesforpeace.Com.
http://www.bluesforpeace.com/lyrics/fables-of-faubus.htm.
"The Improvised Line: Jazz Piano Online: Giant Steps And Symmetry". 2015. Polishookstudio.Com.
http://www.polishookstudio.com/2013/12/giant-steps.html.
Ake, David. 2010. Jazz Matters: Sound, Place, And Time Since Bebop. University of California Press.
Anderson, T. J. 2004. Notes To Make The Sound Come Right. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas
Press.
Brown, Leonard. 2010. John Coltrane And Black America's Quest For Freedom: Spirituality And The
Music. Oxford University Press.
Coleman, Ornette. 1960. Free Jazz. Online. Atlantic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbZIiom9rDA.
Fordham, John. 2015. "Ornette Coleman Obituary". The Guardian.
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jun/11/ornette-coleman.
Harrison, Max, Charles Fox, Stuart Nicholson, and Eric Thacker. 2000. Modernism To
Postmodernism. London [u.a.]: Mansell.
Jimoh, A. Yemisi. 2002. Spiritual, Blues, And Jazz People In African American Fiction. Knoxville:
University of Tennessee Press.
Marcoux, Jean-Philippe. 2012. Jazz Griots. Lexington Books.
Mingus, Charles. 1960. Original Faubus Fables. Online. Candid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXuZBywW4gA.
Monson, Ingrid T. 2007. Freedom Sounds. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Roach, Max. 1960. Driva Man. Online. Candid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpTKLan7Mm4.
Solis, Gabriel. 2014. Thelonious Monk Quartet Featuring John Coltrane At Carnegie Hall. Oxford
University Press.