James Lincoln Collier "The Making Of Jazz: A Comprehensive History" (Macmillan)
This book has been on my bookshelves for a long time. Most of my books are second hand and this one looks second-hand and so as usual I turned to the front piece to see if anybody had written anything in it. They had, but I was amazed to find it was a dedication to me and so the book would have been bought new, it had been bought by an ex-girlfriend at the time (so about the 1980s). I don't know what has happened to her, but I have finally got around to reading the book she bought me, and what an excellent book it is.
Originally published in 1981, Collier in his final chapter looks forward to the future of jazz music. He says that the future of jazz is in the past:
"Jazz needs, at the moment, a respite from experiments. It needs time to consolidate its gains, to go back and re-examine what is there. There is enough work undone to last many lifetimes."
How prophetic, because this is exactly what has happened. Back in 1981 the avant-garde or free jazz movement had run its course and critics and commentators were wondering where the music was heading next due to its history of seismic shifts. The answer has been an examination of the past with lines now becoming increasingly blurred between rock, classical, experimental, and jazz music. This blurring of lines however may upset Collier a little because, in his book he is clear to make a distinction between jazz and other music, he would find it more difficult today.
A comprehensive history of a musical form covering a period of some 80 years in 500 pages is a tall order, but Collier gets it all down with ease. His theme is the development of the music and the important musicians who have made this possible, but he goes further and relates this to the social context in America. Jazz is an American music phenomenon and essentially it was a black man's music and the struggles for civil rights since the second world war has been part of that music. I refrained from finding out about Mr. Collier until I had finished the book, but my conclusion that he is a white professional musician proved to be correct.
Collier has written a chronological history and he starts with the roots of jazz; African rhythms and blues field hollers and how this influenced the first period of classic jazz that originated in New Orleans. The legendary cornet player Buddy Bolden is represented by a photograph from 1895, but that is all we have because he was too early to be recorded. The first jazz recording was made in 1917 (by five white musicians from New Orleans) this was in no way representative of the music at the time, but it just happened by chance that the Original Dixieland Jass Band got to make the first record. The book from this moment gets into its stride with Collier providing pen pictures of the real movers and shakers amongst the musicians that made up this first explosion of the music. Sidney Bechet, Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong, and Bessie Smith along with many others who followed in their wake. There is a chapter on the white influx because bands were segregated in those days and so the music developed in a sort of parallel world: some space is therefore given to Jack Teagarden, Pee Wee Russell, Benny Goodman, and Bix Beiderbeck.
The first of those seismic shifts came with the evolution of swing music and the introduction of the big jazz bands, but Collier is also careful not to lose sight of other developments particularly in piano music and in the splinter groups that formed out of the big bands. The period before the second world war saw the gradual integration of black and white musicians, but it was a relatively slow process and presented difficulties for those involved. At the end of the war, the first Bebop groups started making records and the music-loving public had to learn almost a whole new language to appreciate what the new younger musicians were doing. Collier explains why this was so from a musical point of view and also puts it in a social context. A drug culture that had always been present in Jazz music seemed to become a veritable plague amongst the Beboppers with heroin the drug of choice. There are many stories of musicians succumbing to addiction and Collier mentions these without straying too far away from the music that was being made. In the early fifties, there was a reaction against the bebop from the traditional jazz revivalists and the cool jazz practitioners from the west coast. Collier charts the progress of these various musical strands highlighting those musicians that were comfortable moving across the musical boundaries. The late fifties and early sixties were the time for the free jazz practitioners to take the music in another direction again and the final chapter of the book features John Coltrane with Collier wondering if the musician was going to be considered the new jazz messiah, by future generations.
Throughout the book, the musicians that impress Collier most are those that have the ability to move away from what he terms as the ground beat; the true practitioners of jazz in his opinion and he goes into some detail explaining how this effect is achieved. Collier describes the music they played and points out in his opinion the best examples of their work. He also attempts a musical analysis of some of the main trends which might not be easily understood by non-musicians, but it is not in too much detail and would still give a flavour of what was happening with the music. He is of course impressed by musical expertise but is quite clear that a limited technical ability has not been a hindrance to many jazz musicians. I think he treads this difficult line with real insight. The limited space available makes it difficult to chart the progress of jazz music around the world and during the period of recorded music that Collier covers from 1917 to the late 1960s, most of the innovations happened in America. There is a perfunctory chapter on European jazz, which might concern some readers, and I feel should have been covered better.
Collier provides a discography of over 300 recordings covering the period that he critiques in his book and would serve as an excellent guide for those people wanting to hear just what he is talking about. I have been listening to jazz since the late 1960s and have a fairly good knowledge of the music since the second world war and so based on what I know I am happy to let Collier guide me through the gaps in my knowledge of the earlier period of jazz. He also provides a decent bibliography, but I have a feeling it may be a little white author centred, for example, there is only one book listed by Leroi Jones.
This really is a comprehensive book on the making of jazz and quite an achievement in itself. I have a couple of criticisms that did not get in the way of my enjoyment of the book. Collier spends some time in a search for the holy grail; that is the perfect improvised jazz solo and his analysis of some musicians' efforts can feel a little academic. My other criticism is that the book is obviously written by a white author and his subject is essentially black music (historically at least): now I am not saying that white people cannot write about black music which is almost as stupid as saying white musicians can't play jazz, but maybe Collier places undue emphasis on some white musicians role in the history of the music. He acknowledges that some black musicians also took the civil rights movement into the concert halls and jazz clubs and while there is no overt criticism of this stance I get the feeling that he would rather they just get on and play the music.
There is no doubting Collier's love and feeling for the music and this shines through his text. It is a considered and carefully thought-through love, that is not without criticism of some of the music. It is going to be a relatively expensive book for me as I have made a list of recordings that I want to hear: fortunately, these days, jazz reissues of earlier music can be had for little money. An excellent read that comes with an unqualified recommendation.
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