FEW qualities rank higher in terms of cocktail party credibility than being able to speak knowledgeably of bebop, swing and all that jazz. But what of those who don't know the difference between Kenny G and Dizzy G? Ric Halstead, music director at The Jazz Club, takes the Sunday Morning Post Magazine through the essentials of jazz.
There are many types of jazz. Which is the most important? ''That's impossible to say. The thing about jazz is that it's always changing and developing itself. Each stage has been important.'' So where and when did it originate? ''In New Orleans at the turn of the century. It moved up the Mississippi river on the ferry boats. By the 1920s, people like King Oliver, Louis Armstrong and Jellyroll Morton were playing what is now known as traditional [trad] jazz.'' Which was? A development of the blues, a more complex, improvisational form.'' So what happened then? ''In the 1930s you had the big bands of people like Duke Ellington and then swing wit h Benny Goodman. The '40s saw perhaps the most important development with bebop.'' Ah, now that is very fashionable isn't it? ''Well, it did represent a real musical challenge and it's still one of the most difficult forms of jazz to play. Thelonius Monk, Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker all started to use new harmonies and were putting together some very complex phrasing, rhythms and harmonic structures. The '50s' Cool School built on these developments, and greats like Miles Davis and Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker began to use modal scales to express themselves.'' So it was all getting a touch musically demanding? ''Absolutely. Jazz is musically demanding, you are having to interpret and invent as you play.'' And moving quickly on to the '60s? ''Free jazz appeared. There was no structure here, musicians like Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler simply dropped any idea that they had to follow patterns and played what they felt. In the following decade, fusion came along and mixed jazz with funk androck, and popularised jazz again.'' And the '80s? ''It was a decade of consolidation and diversification. Today jazz is still looking for new ways to express itself. That's what it's all about really, exploration and re-invention.'' Essential recordings? ''Any of the Louis Armstrong Hot 5 records, Miles Davis' Kind of Blue, John Coltrane's A Love Supreme, anything by Charlie Parker or Dizzy Gillespie and anything by Duke Ellington.''
