Week 4

Frank Sinatra really is a truly amazing vocalist. His voice is so warm and always seems to never end. It was interesting to read about how Sinatra developed “his sound.” Star and Waterman (2013) discussed how Sinatra study how Tommy Dorsey played the trombone and Jascha Heifetz played the violin and worked on making his voice work like the trombone and violin. Listening to “Nancy” performed by Sinatra, I can hear how ends phrases very much like an instrumentalist. This would be a great way to incorporate listening into a choral setting.

“Choo Choo Ch’Boogie” performed by Louis Jordan’s Tympany Five has always been a song that I enjoy listening too. I love how the sound of the train is created by the snare drum and piano.  I had no idea from listening to this song that it was being performed by a smaller, “jump band” consisting of only a handful of musicians, this sounds like a big band to me. This would make a great listening activity, where students are asked to identify what instruments they hear and compare it to a big band.

I found a video of “Maybellene” performed by Chuck Berry (seen below) that made me think of the jump band and rhythm & blue style heard in “Choo Choo Ch’Boogie.” It was interesting watching Berry walk out to the “swing” sound with his guitar. I could hear the rhythm and blues style, but it was much faster and the guitar solo was nothing like what was heard previously in music we have heard. You could also clearly hear the twelve-bar blues in this song.

It was interesting listening to “Long Tall Sally,” Don’t Be Cruel,” and “Charlie Brown” and how the twelve-bar blues can be used and sound so different. It was fun listening to the changes that took place between all of the songs this week. All the music I have listened to many times but had no idea what really happened in the 1950’s to the twelve-bar blues. I always thought of the twelve-bar blues as jazz, I never considered how much of pop music is based on the twelve bar blues. I loved hearing Little Richard “scream” over the twelve bar blue and then Elvis hear with his country style still singing to the twelve-bar blues.

I have to say as I listen to the music, I never once considered what color the person was. Reading about the history of music, it is amazing how color really did play a part in the music industry. I new that R&B was mostly black music but I had no idea how the record companies really did promote “black” and “white” music differently. That has been vary interesting as I have been reading each week.

Starr, L. & Waterman, C. (2013). American popular music: From

minstrelsy to MP3 (4th ed.). New York: Oxford University Press

(ISBN:978-0-19-985911-5).