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Soul jazz

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For the record label, see Soul Jazz Records.
Soul jazz
Stanley Turrentine performing live in Half Moon Bay, California
Stylistic origins
Cultural origins1950s
Typical instruments
[citation needed]
Fusion genres
Jazz-funk
Jimmy Smith on a Hammond organ

Soul jazz is a subgenre of jazz that incorporates strong influences from hard bop, blues, soul, gospel and rhythm and blues. Soul jazz is often characterized by organ trios featuring the Hammond organ and small combos including tenor saxophone, guitar, and organ.

Musical style

Soul jazz is often associated with hard bop.[1][2][3] Mark C. Gridley, writing for the All Music Guide to Jazz, explains that soul jazz more specifically refers to music with "an earthy, bluesy melodic concept" and "repetitive, dance-like rhythms.... Note that some listeners make no distinction between 'soul-jazz' and 'funky hard bop,' and many musicians don't consider 'soul-jazz' to be continuous with 'hard bop.'"[1]

According to Nick Morrison, the subgenre "usually begins with the bass player" who "take[s] a strong bass line, establish[es] a steady groove between the bass and drums," before the band can "embellish that groove with riffs and melody lines."[4]

History

Origins

Roy Carr has described soul jazz as an outgrowth of hard bop, with the terms "funk" and "soul" appearing in a jazz context as early as the mid-1950s to describe "gospel-informed, down-home, call-and-response blues."[3] Carr has also noted the influence of Ray Charles' small group recordings (which included saxophonists David "Fathead" Newman and Hank Crawford) on Horace Silver, Art Blakey, Cannonball Adderley.[3] In his view, David Sanborn and Maceo Parker are in a line of alto saxophonists that includes Earl Bostic, Tab Smith, Adderley, and Lou Donaldson as the strongest links in the chain of the genre's evolution.[3]

Soul jazz continued to develop in the late 1950s, reaching public awareness with the release of The Cannonball Adderley Quintet in San Francisco.[5][6] Cannonball Adderley noted: "We were pressured quite heavily by Riverside Records when they discovered there was a word called 'soul'. We became, from an image point of view, soul jazz artists. They kept promoting us that way and I kept deliberately fighting it, to the extent that it became a game."[7]

Mainstream

Jimmy Smith's shift into soul jazz demonstrated the organ's potential within the genre with his albums Home Cookin' (1961) and Back at the Chicken Shack (1963). Other organists who recorded in the soul jazz genre during this period include Jack McDuff, Shirley Scott, and Charles Earland.[8] With the addition of former bebop and hard bop musicians to the genre, the number of musicians within various facets of the style increased as soul jazz became a subgenre in its own right; and like its bop predecessor, the new genre of jazz reworked popular songs, such as "Got My Mojo Workin'," while saxophone and trumpet players recently converted to the genre composed hits including "Sidewinder," "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" and "Listen Here" during the mid-1960s.[4]

An accelerating factor in soul jazz's development was the Black Power movement, which led African-American musicians to return to the African roots of their music. Tunes recorded within the genre, including "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" and "Let My People Go" were direct references to the Civil Rights and Black Power movements.[9] For instance Adderley's music from the period has been described as containing an "irrepressible exuberance." Interest in the genre broadened when Adderley introduced Austrian-born keyboardist Joe Zawinul to soul jazz through his Quintet, with Zawinul contributing to its repertoire with his own compositions.[10]

Stanley Turrentine began recording with Jimmy Smith in 1960 and rapidly expanded his audience, though he lamented the lack of jazz on radio and TV, saying that more people, and particularly African-Americans, would have listened to soul jazz had it received as much exposure as rock music.[11]

For many hard bop musicians, the shift from bop to soul jazz was not clearly defined, with Horace Silver releasing hard bop album The Jody Grind in 1966,[12] and the more soul-influenced Serenade to a Soul Sister in 1968, the latter being described by Steve Huey as "one of the pianist's most infectiously cheerful, good-humored outings." Silver wrote in the album's liner notes that he believed his music should avoid "politics, hatred, or anger."[13]

Among the best-known soul jazz recordings are Lee Morgan's The Sidewinder (1963), Frank Foster's Samba Blues (1963), Nat Adderley's "Work Song",[14] Horace Silver's "Song for My Father" (1964), Ramsey Lewis's "The 'In' Crowd" (a top-five hit in 1965[3]), Cannonball Adderley's "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy"[3] (1966) (also popularized further when covered as a top 40 pop song by the Buckinghams the following year), and Young Holt Unlimited "Soulful Strut". Les McCann and Eddie Harris's album Swiss Movement (1969) was a hit record, as was the accompanying single "Compared to What", with both selling millions of units.[3]

Legacy

Although soul jazz was most popular during the mid-to-late 1960s, its musicians and musical influences remained popular past this time period.

In the late 1960s and 1970s, the genre saw increased crossover with fusion. The Jazz Crusaders, for example, evolved from soul jazz to soul music, becoming the Crusaders in the process.[3]

See also

Quotation

Funky means earthy and blues-based. It might not be blues itself, but it does have that 'down-home' feel to it. Soul is basically the same, but there's an added dimension of feeling and spirit.

— Horace Silver[15]

References

  1. ^ a b Gridley, Mark C. (1994), Ron Wynn (ed.), All Music Guide to Jazz, M. Erlewine, V. Bogdanov, San Francisco: Miller Freeman, pp. 11–12, 14, ISBN 0-87930-308-5
  2. ^ Tanner, Paul O. W.; Maurice Gerow; David W. Megill (1988) [1964]. "Hard Bop — Funky". Jazz (6th ed.). Dubuque, IA: William C. Brown, College Division. pp. 112–121. ISBN 0-697-03663-4.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Carr, Roy (2006) [1997], "Soul to Soul", A Century of Jazz: A Hundred Years of the Greatest Music Ever Made, London: Hamlyn, pp. 150–153, ISBN 0-681-03179-4, Soul [jazz] was just a natural outpouring of Hard Bop and, for the most part popularized by many of the genre's stellar soloists....
  4. ^ a b Morrison, Nick (2010-01-04). "Soul-Jazz: Where Jazz, Blues And Gospel Meet". NPR. Retrieved 2022-07-11.
  5. ^ Sidran, Ben. Jazz Profiles from NPR: Nat Adderley (1931–2000) NPR. Accessed June 16, 2021.
  6. ^ See also Herrmann, Zachary. (April 2, 2007) Concord releases Orrin Keepnews Collection JazzTimes Magazine. Accessed December 13, 2007.
  7. ^ Quoted in Carr, p. 150
  8. ^ "What is Soul Jazz?". New York Jazz Workshop. 2020-02-27. Retrieved 2022-07-11.
  9. ^ "History of Soul Jazz". Timeline of African American Music. Retrieved 2022-07-11.
  10. ^ Cannonball Adderley - Mercy, Mercy, Mercy!: Live at "The Club" Album Reviews, Songs & More | AllMusic, retrieved 2022-07-11
  11. ^ Hazzard, Katrina (1980). "King of jazz: Face to Face STANLEY TURRENTINE". Umoja Sasa: 11–11. ISSN 2472-0674.
  12. ^ Horace Silver - The Jody Grind Album Reviews, Songs & More | AllMusic, retrieved 2022-07-11
  13. ^ Horace Silver - Serenade to a Soul Sister Album Reviews, Songs & More | AllMusic, retrieved 2022-07-11
  14. ^ Work Song soul jazz Retrieved 25 January 2021
  15. ^ Du Noyer, Paul (2003). The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Music (1st ed.). Fulham, London: Flame Tree Publishing. p. 140. ISBN 1-904041-96-5.
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