International Jazz Day
For the past fifteen years, the 30th of April has marked International Jazz Day, a day dedicated to promoting jazz music worldwide and the role jazz music has had in shaping culture and bringing together communities.
Officially started by UNESCO (The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation) after being proposed by legendary jazz pianist Herbie Hancock, whose non-profit educational institute leads the programming and coordination of International Jazz Day celebrations. Over two hundred countries participate in International Jazz Day every year, with musicians and fans around the world coming together to put on events celebrating their nation’s history with jazz music. These celebrations can take the form of concerts, conferences, educational workshops and jam sessions, all of which serve to promote local and national jazz acts and raise awareness of the local jazz scene.
History of Jazz
Jazz is an interesting musical genre as it is very community-oriented, drawing on elements of local culture and adapting to the taste of the community. Jazz itself has its roots in the music culture of late 19th and early 20th century New Orleans, drawing influence from blues and ragtime music that was popular at the time and infusing it with the musical stylings and instruments of local marching bands.
From there, jazz would spread out from New Orleans in the 1910s, and different cities would become cultural hubs for emerging styles of jazz. First in Chicago, where the arriving jazz musicians from New Orleans began to develop a faster and more improvisational style, emphasising musical solos and swapping out their banjos and standing basses for guitars and tubas. This style of Chicago Jazz would eventually come to embody jazz in much of the popular consciousness, but it wouldn’t stop there.
By the 1940s in New York, a new generation of jazz musicians began to develop a style known as Bebop, a faster and more complex style of jazz that emphasised the rhythm section and was typically performed with a smaller number of musicians than earlier jazz ensembles. Bebop musicians wanted to push the boundaries of jazz away from its dance-oriented roots and towards a more “musician’s music” that required the audience to listen closely to appreciate what was happening.
Outside of the United States, one of the most popular jazz styles is Latin Jazz, beginning in the 1940s with Afro-Cuban musicians performing using more traditional instruments such as bongos or claves for percussion over the drum kit used in more traditional jazz. Additionally, in Brazil, the fusion of samba music with jazz stylings would help give rise to the genre of Bossa Nova.
Scottish Jazz
Now, with all this in mind, you might not know that here in Scotland we have our own history with jazz. In his essay “Swinging Scots: An Outline of Jazz in Scotland” Roger Craik recounts that Scotland actually encountered jazz quite early into the genre’s existence, with 1919 seeing American jazz bands start to travel the Atlantic to perform in Glasgow and Edinburgh. By the 1930s, Scotland was producing its own jazz artists, although many of these were required to travel south for work, and many of the most popular pre-war British jazz acts had Scottish performers.
Craik theorises that many of these may be due to the popularity of Scottish pipe bands and country bands during this period, as well as the brass bands that were common in Scottish mining towns. These bands would serve as a sort of training ground for Scottish musicians, who would become accustomed to playing percussion and brass before moving on to performing in jazz bands. This generation of Scottish musicians was also of an age to be called up to military service in the Second World War, where they would perform in military bands, performing at marches or entertaining the troops. In fact, a key figure in the history of Scottish jazz was Tommy Sampson, whose post-war orchestra would bring together many Scottish jazz musicians. Tommy himself spent much of the Second World War in a prisoner of war camp, where he led a band consisting of other captured soldiers.
The decades following the war would see the emergence of many other Scottish jazz bands, such as the Clyde Valley Stompers, who once played alongside legendary jazz musician Louie Armstrong at Kelvin Hall in 1956.
You can read Roger Craik’s history of Scottish jazz, along with several other in-depth essays at the Scottish Jazz Archives.
The Edinburgh Jazz Festival
This tradition of Scottish jazz will continue this summer with the 45th annual Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival being held in July. This will see performances of local and international jazz acts being held throughout the city, ranging from classical jazz acts to more experimental performances. These include paid and free performances, so you can pop along to something even if you just want a taste of the genre. I can promise you’ll hear something memorable.
By Matthew Ferrie
Read more about the Edinburgh Festival here
