“I’m gonna lose my strength, I’m gonna seize and die, And all that Jazz”! Neurological diseases in jazz legends

ABSTRACT Even though jazz is a musical style that excels in improvisation and virtuosity, it is not without its share of anecdotes, drama, and downright tragedy, and the biographies of jazz musicians and their demise are fraught with ominous and dire straits. Unsurprisingly, some would develop chronic and fatal diseases. The neurological diseases that afflicted the following six composers and musicians, all of whom are considered jazz legends, are briefly discussed: Charles Mingus, diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; Lester Young and Charlie Parker, both diagnosed with neurosyphilis; Thelonius Monk, who had possible frontotemporal dementia; George Gershwin, who died as a result of brain glioma; and Cole Porter, who developed phantom limb pain following an amputation. The association of lifestyles, with drug abuse, particularly alcohol and heroin, in addition to great sexual promiscuity factors contributed to the development of a series of diseases such as syphilis. In addition, we also described some fatalities such as neurodegenerative diseases and cerebral glioma.

The History of Jazz

The History of Jazz, 3rd edition, is a comprehensive survey of jazz music from its origins until the current day. The book is designed for general readers and students, as well as those with more specialized interest in jazz and music history. It provides detailed biographical information and an overview of the musical contributions of the key innovators in development of jazz, including Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Coleman Hawkins, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, and others. The book also traces the evolution of jazz styles and includes in-depth accounts of ragtime, blues, New Orleans jazz, Chicago jazz, swing and big band music, bebop, hard bop, cool jazz, avant-garde, jazz-rock fusion, and other subgenres and developments. The volume also provides a cultural and socioeconomic contextualization of the music, dealing with the broader political and social environment that gave birth to the music and shaped its development—both in the United States and within a global setting.

Modern Jazz

The rise of modern jazz—or “bebop” as it was called—dramatically changed the landscape of the music in the 1940s, transforming the genre into a truly progressive and experimental idiom. But this came at a cost, marking a shift from jazz’s predominance as a popular music, and turning it into an art music addressing a much smaller audience. This chapter looks at the innovations of the leading bebop musicians, especially Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Thelonious Monk. Other artists addressed include Bud Powell, Lennie Tristano, Sarah Vaughan, and Dave Brubeck. The chapter concludes with an assessment of big band jazz during the post–World War II era, including the work of Woody Herman and Stan Kenton.

O jazz em "El Perseguidor" de Julio Cortázar: balbucios e monólogos

O conto El Perseguidor, de Julio Cortázar, publicado em 1959, no livro Las armas secretas, pode ser compreendido como um divisor de águas na produção do autor argentino, como ele mesmo observou em uma de suas aulas de literatura ministrada em Berkeley (1980). O conto narra alguns episódios da vida de Johnny Carter, numa narrativa repleta de balbucios e monólogos, inspirada no saxofonista de jazz Charlie Parker. O conto não apenas tematiza a vida de um dos maiores representantes do jazz bebop como também apresenta questões essenciais sobre vida e arte, além de trazer uma nova forma ao conto cortazariano, que parece dialogar com a mesma busca por novas estruturas que se vê nas composições dos músicos do bebop. Neste trabalho, proponho demonstrar algo dessas relações entre a criação jazzística e literária enquanto forma e tema no referido conto de Julio Cortázar.

Charlie Parker, Composer

Charlie Parker, Composer is the first assessment of a major jazz composer’s oeuvre in its entirety. Providing analytical discussion of each of Parker’s works, this study combines music-theoretical, historical, and philosophical perspectives. A variety of analytical techniques are brought to bear on Parker’s compositions, including application of a revised Schenkerian approach to the music that was developed through the author’s prior publications. After a review of Parker’s life emphasizing his musical training and involvement in composition, the book proceeds by considering the types of Parker pieces as categorized by overall form and harmony and the amount of preplanned music they contain. The historical circumstances of each piece are reviewed, and, in some cases, sources of the ideas of the most important tunes are explored. The introduction includes a discussion of the ontology of a jazz composition. The view is advanced that the Western concept of a music composition needs to be expanded to embrace practices typical of jazz composition and forming a significant part of Parker’s work. While focusing on Parker’s more conventional tunes, the book also considers his large-scale melodic formulas. Two formulas in particular are arguably compositional, since they are extensive and sometimes appear in subsequent improvisations. As part of the research for this book, all of Parker’s copyright submissions to the Library of Congress were examined and photographed. The book reproduces the four of them that were copied by Parker himself.

Suffering Artists 1984–1989

The 1980s sees a mix of independent and studio jazz pictures, and a few nonjazz films with jazz characters. Warner Bros. releases two stylish, high-profile pictures: Director Bertrand Tavernier’s ’Round Midnight intertwines the lives and personalities of jazz greats Lester Young, Bud Powell, and the film’s star Dexter Gordon, in the story of an expatriate saxophonist in Paris; Clint Eastwood’s Charlie Parker biopic Bird tells the bebop founder’s story in jumbled chronological order, prefiguring later jazz biopics. Date movie The Fabulous Baker Boys draws a parallel between prostitution and playing insincere commercial music. In the UK’s Stormy Monday, a Polish free-jazz band bedevils an American capitalist. Two low-budget features chronicle unsuccessful bands: in one, amateur dixielanders get and lose a professional job; in another, a New Jersey wedding band fails to graduate to New York jazz clubs.

Independents in Black and White 1961–1967

In the 1960s, jazz is increasingly viewed as art music as opposed to popular music, and now it inspires art movies not pop entertainments: a wave of low-budget independent films in black and white. This chapter limns the influence of filmmaker John Cassavetes, via his low-budget film Shadows, and looks at how the director’s jazz story Too Late Blues is really a meditation on his film career. Two English films are discussed, one a horror anthology in which a jazz musician visiting the Caribbean engages in reckless cultural appropriation; the other is a jazz version of Othello featuring a Duke Ellington character. Ellington himself, as soundtrack composer, hijacks the ending of a studio jazz picture. Sammy Davis Jr. shoots a gritty jazz film after hours while starring on Broadway and comedian Dick Gregory plays a fictionalized Charlie Parker.