Hwang - Elements of Jazz Style in Twentieth-Century American Organ

ELEMENTS OF JAZZ STYLE IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY AMERICAN ORGAN
WORKS: SELECTED WORKS OF CHARLES IVES, WILLIAM ALBRIGHT, AND

WILLIAM BOLCOM
by
Mi Kyung Hwang

_______________________________

A Document Submitted to the Faculty of the
SCHOOL OF MUSIC
In partial fulfillment of the requirements
For the Degree of

DOCTOR OF MUSICAL ARTS
In the Graduate College
THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

2009

2

THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
GRADUATE COLLEGE

As members of the Document Committee, we certify that we have read the document
prepared by Mi Kyung Hwang entitled Elements Of Jazz Style In Twentieth-Century
American Organ Works: Selected Works Of Charles Ives, William Albright, And
William Bolcom and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the document
requirement for the Degree Of Doctor of Musical Arts.

______________________________________________________Date: April 15, 2009
Pamela Decker

______________________________________________________ Date: April 15, 2009
Peter McAllister

_____________________________________________________ Date: April 15, 2009
Tannis Gibson

Final approval and acceptance of this document is contingent upon the candidates
submission of the final copies of the document to the Graduate College.

I hereby certify that I have read this document prepared under my direction and
recommended that it be accepted as fulfilling the document requirement.

______________________________________________________ Date: April 15, 2009
Document Director: Pamela Decker

3

STATEMENT BY AUTHOR

This document has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an
advanced degree at the University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library
to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library.

Brief quotations from this document are allowable without special permission,
provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for permission for
extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be
granted by the head of the major department or the Dean of the Graduate College when in
his or her judgment the proposed use of the material is in the interests of scholarship. In
all other instances, however, permission must be obtained from the author.

SIGNED: Mi Kyung Hwang

4

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to express my gratitude to my friend Hyun Brown and her beautiful family
(including Dewey, Willy, and Mikey) for their generosity, thoughtfulness, and loving
care during all my doctoral years.
Moreover, I am pleased to acknowledge the thoughtful and kind assistance of
Dr. Stanley Livengood, Nancy Vernon, and my friend Marie Dalumpines for polishing
my writing, Mike Jonson for sharing his knowledge in jazz, and Aeja Oh for finding a
source from the library and for assisting with my lecture recital.
Thanks to my doctoral committee to whom I am indebted for suggestions and
guidance on this study, including Dr. Pamela Decker, Professor Tannis Gibson, Dr. Rex
Woods, and Dr. Peter McAllister. Special gratitude to my wonderful teacher and mentor
Dr. Pamela Decker, who has always encouraged and complimented my efforts, respected
my thoughts, seen my merits, and fostered my potential during my years of doctoral study.
Most of all, I would like to share the joy of completing my document with my
loving family, without whom this document would not existfather Ikju Hwang, mother
Hyunhyo Yoon, sisters Heejung and Misook, and brothers Euitag and Euikyung.
Finally, glory be to God, who first awakened in me a love for both music and
scholarship.

5

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES 8
LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES ...10
ABSTRACT ..15
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ..17
CHAPTER TWO: INTRODUCTION TO JAZZ STYLE .. 19
I. Definition of Jazz ....19

II. Historical Background of Jazz ... 20

III. Musical Features of Jazz .21

CHAPTER THREE: IVES VARIATIONS ON AMERICA...26
I. Charles Ives (1874 -1954) ...26

A. Biography ......26

B. Musical Style and Compositions ..29

II. Musical Analysis of Variations on America.31

A. Form ..32

B. Timbre ...38

C. Melody ..38

D. Harmony ...44

E. Rhythm ..50

6

TABLE OF CONTENTS Continued

CHAPTER FOUR: ALBRIGHTS SWEET SIXTEENTHS...62
I. William Albright (1944-1998) .62

A. Biography ..62


II. Musical Analysis of Sweet Sixteenths 67

A. Form ..67

B. Harmony ...71

C. Rhythm ......72

D. Melody ..77

CHAPTER FIVE: BOLCOMS SOMETIMES I FEEL .86
I. William Bolcom (b.1938) ...86

A. Biography ..86


II. Musical Analysis of Sometimes I Feel ...89

A. Form ..91

B. Melody ..92

C. Harmony ...99

D. Rhythm ....111

E. Registration .116

7

TABLE OF CONTENTS Continued

CHAPTER SIX: BOLCOMS FREE FANTASIA ON O ZION, HASTE AND
HOW FIRM A FOUNDATION.....118
I. Musical Analysis of Free Fantasia on O Zion, Haste and How Firm a

Foundation ..118

A. Form 118

B. Improvisation Section .120

1. Three Musical Ideas, Melody, and Harmony 120

2. Rhythm ..127

C. Swing and Final Sections 129

1. Melody ..129

2. Rhythm and Tempo ...133

3. Harmony ...138

4. Registration ...146

CHAPTER SEVEN: CONCLUSION ...147
APPENDIX A: MUSICAL TERMS IN JAZZ STYLE ....150
APPENDIX B: PERMISSIONS ....155
REFERENCES ...162

8

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2-1. Examples of Pitches .23
Figure 3-1. Charles Ives Organ Works ..31
Figure 3-2. Ives, Variations on America: Form .33
Figure 3-3. Ives, Variations on America: Call and Response 35
Figure 3-4. Ives, Variations on America: Key Shifts in Introduction 44
Figure 3-5. Ives, Variations on America: Stylistic Comparisons ...60
Figure 4-1. William Albrights Organ Works ..66

Figure 4-2. Albright, Sweet Sixteenths: Form .68
Figure 4-3. Albright, Sweet Sixteenths: Symmetrical Relation of Sections 68
Figure 4-4. Albright, Sweet Sixteenths: Summary, Elements of Jazz Style 85
Figure 5-1. William Bolcoms Organ Works ..88
Figure 5-2. Bolcom, Sometimes I Feel: Form .92
Figure 5-3. Twelve-BarBlues Progression ...99
Figure 5-4. Bolcom, Sometimes I Feel: Varied Blues Form in the First Strain,

mm. 12-25....104

Figure 5-5. Bolcom, Sometimes I Feel: Varied Blues Form in the Reprise, mm. 26-40.

..106

Figure 5-6. Bolcom, Sometimes I Feel:

Variants of Rhythmic Ostinato, mm. 8-39 113

Summary, Elements of Jazz Styles ...117

9

LIST OF FIGURES Continued

Figure 6-1. Bolcom, Free Fantasia on O Zion, Haste and How Firm a Foundation:
Form 118
Figure 6-2. Bolcom, Free Fantasia: Structure of the Improvisation Section, mm. 1-21
..121
Figure 6-3. Bolcom, Free Fantasia: Offbeat and Ostinato ..137
Figure 6-4. Bolcom, Free Fantasia: Summary, Elements of Jazz Styles .146

10

LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES

Example 2-1. Swing Rhythm ...22
Example 3-1. Ives, Variations on America: Call and Response I, mm. 9-16 .....36
Example 3-2. Ives, Variations on America: Call and Response II, mm. 17-24 .37
Example 3-3. Ives, Variations on America: mm. 47-54 and 59-61 39
Example 3-4. Ives, Variations on America: mm. 62-75 .40
Example 3-5. Ives, Variations on America: mm. 191-192 41
Example 3-6. Ives, Variations on America: mm. 85-92 and 161-166 42
Example 3-10. Ives, Variations on America: mm. 183-184 ...47
Example 3-13. Ives, Variations on America: mm. 5-8 and 29-32 ..50
Example 3-14. Polonaise Rhythm 51
11

LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES Continued

Example 4-1. Albright, Sweet Sixteenths: Theme a in section A, mm. 5-12 .69
Example 4-2. Albright, Sweet Sixteenths: Theme b in section B, mm. 20-27 ...70
Example 4-3. Albright, Sweet Sixteenths: Theme c in section C, mm. 57-64 71
Example 4-4. Joplin, The Easy Winners: A Rag Time Two Step: mm. 1-4 ...72
Example 4-5. Joplin, The Entertainer: A Ragtime Two Step: mm. 1-4 .72
Example 4-6. Joplin, The Easy Winners: A Ragtime Two Step: mm. 1-8 .73
Example 4-7. Joplin, The Entertainer: A Ragtime Two Step: mm. 1- 8 74
Example 4-8. Albright, Sweet Sixteenths: mm. 1-3 74
Example 4-9. Albright, Sweet Sixteenths: mm. 4-11...75
Example 4-10. Albright, Sweet Sixteenths: mm. 57-64 ..76
Example 4-11. Pentatonic Scale and Blues Scale 77
Example 4-14. Joplin, Country Club: Ragtime Two Step: mm. 1-10 81
Example 4-15. Joplin, The Crush Collision March: mm. 82-89 ....82
Example 4-16. Joplin, A Breeze From Alabama: mm. 21-24 .........................................82
Example 5-1. Bolcom, Sometimes I Feel: mm. 7-9 93
12


Example 5-2. African-American Spiritual, Motherless Child: Original Tune on
F Blues Scale with a Flatted Seventh Blue Note (Eb) .94
Example 5-3. Bolcom, Sometimes I Feel: Melodic Structure 95
Example 5-4. Bolcom, Sometimes I Feel: Melody Based on E
b
Blues Scale and
Blue Notes, mm. 12-40..... 96
Example 5-5. Bolcom, Sometimes I Feel: Chromatic Bass Line Based on E
b
minor,
mm. 8-9, and 18-19 ...97
Example 5-8. Distribution of Lyrics and Strum in the Blues Progression .100
Example 5-9. Bolcom, Sometimes I Feel: mm. 12-15 ..101
Example 5-15. Bolcom, Sometimes I Feel: Minor-Second Clashes and Polychords,
mm. 34-36 .....108
Example 5-16. Bolcom, Sometimes I Feel: Chromatic Descending and Minor-Second
Clashes, mm. 37-39 ...110
13


Example 5-17. Bolcom, Sometimes I Feel:

Rhythmic Ostinato, mm. 7-9 ...112

Syncopations, mm. 34-38 114

Syncopations, mm. 12-40 115
Example 6-1. Bolcom, Free Fantasia: m. 1 .121
Example 6-2. Bolcom , Free Fantasia: m. 2 122
Example 6-3. James Walch, O Zion, Haste: Original Tune ..123
Example 6-4. Bolcom, Free Fantasia: mm. 6-20 .125
Example 6-5. Bolcom, Free Fantasia: Polyrhythm, a part of m. 6 ..128
Example 6-6. Bolcom, Free Fantasia: Polyrhythm, mm. 7-9 ..129
Example 6-7. American Folk Melody, How Firm a Foundation: Original Tune .130
Example 6-8. Bolcom, Free Fantasia: Treatment of the Tune, O Zion, Haste,
mm. 26-76 and mm. 87-93 .132
Example 6-9. Bolcom, Free Fantasia: mm. 88-93....133
Example 6-16. Bolcom, Free Fantasia: Pedal Melody, mm. 87-89 .142
14


Example 6-17. Bolcom, Free Fantasia: Clash of Minor 2
nd
, m. 87 .142
Example 6-18. Bolcom, Free Fantasia: Clash of Minor 2
nd
, mm. 83 and 91 ..143
Example 6-19. Bolcom, Free Fantasia: Polychords, m. 82 .143
Example 6-20. Bolcom, Free Fantasia: Polychords, m. 84..144
Example 6-22. Bolcom, Free Fantasia: Polychords, mm. 73 ..145

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ABSTRACT

Jazz is a distinctive stylistic influence in twentieth-century American organ music.
Organ music in the United States during this period may be classified into four diverse
categories: German-influenced; French-influenced; program music; and new styles that
include twentieth-century techniques, such as serialism, chance (aleatoric), atonality, and
jazz. The organ is an ideal instrument for jazz performance since the organ can provide
diverse timbres, such as reeds (clarinets, trumpets, and trombones), strings (violin, viola,
and cello), and overtone-rich sounds from mutations and mixtures.
1

This document presents an analysis of jazz elements in twentieth-century
American organ works, especially focused on the following selected organ works:
Charles Ives Variations on America (1891), William Albrights Sweet Sixteenths:
Concert Rag for Organ (1975), and William Bolcoms Sometimes I Feel, and Free
Fantasia on O Zion Haste and How Firm a Foundation from Gospel Preludes,
Book IV (1984). The first chapter introduces jazz, including its definition, historical
background, and styles. The next four chapters discuss brief biographical material,
musical styles, compositions of each composer, and comprehensive musical analysis of
their selected organ works, including form, melody, harmony, rhythm, timbre, and
registration.

1
Mutations are organ stops that sound pitches that belong to a fundamental pitchs overtone series
and that do not produce the pitch selected and played by the performer: e.g. the nazard stop, which is
labeled as 2(in foot length) and which sounds an octave plus a fifth above the selected key, as in G in
the case of C. Mixtures combine mutations, making a set of pipe ranks and pitches available from a single
drawknob.
16

Through analysis, it can be demonstrated that jazz styles have a significant
influence on these organ works. Variations on America links jazz, band, and cabaret
music, and contains entertaining elements derived from jazz. Sweet Sixteenths combines
ragtime, jazz, and blues. Sometimes I Feel integrates jazz, blues, and rhythm-and-blues
with the African-American spiritual. Free Fantasia on O Zion, Haste and How Firm
a Foundation embraces gospel, jazz, blues, and rhythm-and-blues. This document
provides performers with the scholarly knowledge to understand, interpret, and perform
these organ works.

17

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

Although jazz styles such as blues, ragtime, and swing are part of the cultural
heritage of modern American composers, relatively few composers have attempted to
incorporate these cultural elements in their works for pipe organ.
2
Among the composers
who have made this attempt are William Bolcom with Black Host (using syncopated jazz
rhythm in the middle of the work), William Albright with the Flues from the King of
Instruments (blues), William B. Cooper with Andante Cantabile Grave (influenced by
George Gershwin, blues, and jazz), Raymond Henry with Two Hymn Tune Preludes
(accompanied by jazz harmonies of seventh and ninth chords), William Grant Still with
his organ arrangements for Memphis Man by H. Bert Coleman (blues style and
syncopation), Robert Russell Bennett with Sonata (syncopated jazz rhythms), and Robert
Elmore with Rhumba (syncopated jazz rhythms).
3

Differences in common usage of specific instruments for defined purposes tend to
segregate the jazz styles from organ literature. For example, jazz is usually performed by
jazz bands or solo instruments, such as saxophones, trumpets, trombones, guitars, and
percussion. Jazz emerged as popular music, while the pipe organ is an instrument for
classical music that frequently displays complicated contrapuntal techniques, as in the

2
The focus of the study is on pipe organ works in the area of classical music. Pipe organ is
distinguished from other versions of organs commonly used in the United States: theatre organs installed
in movie theatres for silent films in early 1900s; pump organs or reed organs where the player maintains the
air pressure needed for creating the sound in the reeds by pumping pedals with their feet; and electronic
organs, i.e., Hammond organs, used in popular music.
3
Paula Denise Harrell, Organ Literature of Twentieth-Century Black Composers: An Annotated
Bibliography, (D.M.A. diss., The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 1992): 24, 50, and 68.

18

works of J. S. Bach, or in the Romantic works of the French organ school. As the organ
is inextricably bound to sacred music, so jazz bands and combos ally with secular music.
As the organ dwells in ecclesiastical settings, so jazz bands and combos inhabit
nightclubs and open-air stages.
Although jazz style appears infrequently in organ literature, a notable exception
crept on the American musical scene in 1891 with Charles Ives Variations on America.
The focus of the study is on Ives seminal Variations on America and three more
recent works: William Albrights Sweet Sixteenths: Concert Rag for Organ (1975),
William Bolcoms Sometimes I Feel and his Free Fantasia on O Zion, Haste and
How Firm A Foundation from Gospel Preludes Book IV (1984). Organ recitalists
program these works frequently enough to give them firm places in the modern concert
repertory. Moreover, these particular Ives, Albright, and Bolcom pieces present a
surprising melding of ordinarily unrelated genres. To be more specific, Ives Variations
on America links syncopated jazz rhythm, cabaret, and band music with organ music.
Albrights Sweet Sixteenths combines ragtime, jazz, blues, and swing. Bolcoms
Sometimes I Feel and Free Fantasia employ gospel, jazz, blues, and rhythm-and-blues.
In this study, an attempt is made to demonstrate that Charles Ives, William
Albright and William Bolcom drew from and combined diverse elements of jazz style in
their particular organ works. Elements of jazz style are defined and
illustrated. Demonstrations of how each composer infused these elements into the fabric
of his work are also included.

19

CHAPTER TWO: INTRODUCTION TO JAZZ STYLE

I. Definition of Jazz

Generally jazz can be defined as American music developed especially from
ragtime and blues, and characterized by syncopated rhythms, improvisation, and often
distortions of pitch and timbre.
4
Many scholars, however, suggest that jazz is difficult to
define. One of the reasons for the difficulty is that jazz blurs the boundaries among
different genres, expanding its own scope with each new generations styles, such as
blues, bebop, soul jazz, and fusion.
5

Its musical identity cannot be isolated or delimited. Although often used to
designate a single musical idiom, jazz (like the signifier classical) refers to an
extended family of genres, with all members sharing at least some traits in
common yet none capable of representing the whole.
6

The fact that jazz is usually played as a form of improvisation also makes it hard to
define. Jazz is often orally transmitted, being transcribed much later and making details
of specific pieces difficult to discuss.
7
Most jazz styles have notable elements in
common, some of which are improvisation, syncopation, and American origin.
8
The

4
Vladimir Bogdanov, Chris Woodstra, and Stephen Thomas Erlewine, eds., All Music Guide to
Jazz: the Definitive Guide to Jazz Music, 4th ed. (San Francisco: Backbeat Books Publishers Group West,
2002), 7.
5
Ibid.
6
Mark Tucker, Jazz, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2
nd
ed., ed. Stanley
Sadie and John Tyrrell (London; Washington, D.C.: Macmillan Publishers, 2001), 904.
7
Bogdanov, Woodstra, and Erlewine, 7.
8
Mark C. Gridley, Jazz Styles: History and Analysis, 5th ed. (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey:
Prentice Hall, 1994), 4.
20

nature of these elements will be explored in section III, after the presentation of a brief
historical background of jazz.

II. Historical Background of Jazz

African-Americans established the foundations of jazz before the music had a
name, while this music was still referred to as ragtime or ratty music.
9
Jazz began
developing during the 1890s in New Orleans and was fully formed when it was recorded
in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago in the early 1920s.
10
New Orleans came to be
seen as the birthplace of jazz because it was an intensely musical city with a history of
rich ethnic diversity. Also a center of commerce, New Orleans was a part of a flourishing
trade route for America, the Caribbean, and Europe. The city maintained a cosmopolitan
party atmosphere by providing numerous taverns, dance halls, and entertainment.
Because of this environment, the demand for live music in New Orleans was very high,
generating many jobs for musicians and eventually contributing to the birth of jazz.
11

The earliest jazz in New Orleans had roots in ragtime and blues created by
African-Americans. Jazz emerged when brass bands were at a zenith of popularity and
when ragtime was in such high demand that brass and string bands improvised
syncopations of ragtime into their pieces to please dancers.
12
An important trend of jazz

9
Tucker, 905.
10
Gridley, 32.
11
Ibid,, 37.
12
Gridley, 51.
21

was improvisation, often defined as the creation of music in the course of performance.
13

Ragtime made syncopated rhythms popular. Blues popularized the practice of
manipulating the pitch of the melody.
14

African-American musicians blended blues and ragtime with various European
musical forms, such as church hymns, folk songs, popular songs, and dances (i.e., two
steps, waltzes, polkas, and mazurkas). To this blend, the African-American musicians
added their own free interpretation and tastes, among which were improvisation,
syncopation, polyrhythm, and rough-edged timbral nuances, extensive repetition of brief
patterns, and call-and-response format.
15
Through the twentieth century, jazz developed
in various styles: some of them are ragtime, blues, rhythm-and-blues, swing, hard bop,
and soul jazz.
16

III. Musical Features of Jazz

The musical style of jazz can be illustrated in the elements of rhythm, melody,
scale, harmony, improvisation, form, and instrumentation. Each of these elements has
been impacted in signature ways by the evolution of American jazz style.
Rhythmic features of jazz include syncopation, a supple rhythmic approach to
phrasing known as swing, polyrhythm, and dance rhythms.
17
Syncopation involves the

13
Don Michael Randel, Improvisation in The New Harvard Dictionary of Music (Cambridge;
Massachusetts; London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press), 1986.
14
Gridley, 32.
15
Tucker, 905; Gridley, 32 and 51.
16
Bogdanov, Woodstra, and Erlewine, 5-7.
17
Ibid., 7; Tucker, 903; Gridley, 364-365.

accenting of notes that occur just
can lend music a laid back
classical musicians.
18
Swing in the jazz sense has
values in an unwavering tempo, and is performed with rhythmic lilt and spirit.
the notation to swing is present, even eighth
in a 6/8 meter with quarter

In jazz melodies, the s
scales, and blue notes. The sources of
hymn tunes, gospel songs,
ornament melodies with s
African vocal practices, including embellished melodies, tonal inflection, and pitch
manipulation, such as pitch drop, scoop, smear, doit (an upward sweep in pitch), and
various vibrato techniques (singing with no vibrato, slow vibrato, and fast vibrato).
illustrate variants of the pitch, a sustained tone represents as a straight line

18
Gridley, 6-7.
19
Ibid., 6.
20
Ibid., 53.
21
Ibid., 45-46.
notes that occur just before or after the beat. Playing slightly after the beat
back feeling. Jazz musicians exploit this tendency more than
Swing in the jazz sense has the adjustment of within
tempo, and is performed with rhythmic lilt and spirit.
on to swing is present, even eighth notes are performed almost as if they were
quarter-eighth pattern and with the emphasis on the eighth

Example 2-1. Swing Rhythm

, the scales include diatonic, modal, chromatic, pentatonic, blue
The sources of jazz melodies include folk songs, popular songs
gospel songs, and African-American spirituals. Jazz instrumentalist
ornament melodies with sliding notes, trills, and tremolo.
20
Jazz singers
variants of the pitch, a sustained tone represents as a straight line

22
before or after the beat. Playing slightly after the beat
this tendency more than
the adjustment of within-the-beat
tempo, and is performed with rhythmic lilt and spirit.
19
When
notes are performed almost as if they were
with the emphasis on the eighth note.
pentatonic, blues
include folk songs, popular songs,
instrumentalists often
frequently use
21
To
variants of the pitch, a sustained tone represents as a straight line. The pitch of

oscillation illustrates alternation of higher and lower tones. Vibrato can be present or
absent, fast or slow, and regular or irregular

Jazz harmony often
Figure 5-3). The chord construction of jazz is similar to traditional harmony,
the wider use of seventh chords, suc
sevenths, half-diminished sevenths
one chord to another uses smooth voice leading with largely stepwise motion. Jazz

22
Ibid., 46.
23
Ibid.
24
Barrie Nettles and Richard Graf,
Germany: Advanced Music, 1997),
absent, fast or slow, and regular or irregular (see Figure 2-1).
22

Figure 2-1. Examples of Pitches
23

Jazz harmony often features use of ninths, elevenths, and a blues progression
The chord construction of jazz is similar to traditional harmony,
chords, such as major sevenths, minor sevenths, dominant
diminished sevenths, and diminished sevenths.
24
Also, the movement from

Barrie Nettles and Richard Graf, The Chord Scale Theory and Jazz Harmony
Advanced Music, 1997), 20-23.
23

blues progression (see
The chord construction of jazz is similar to traditional harmony, but includes
h as major sevenths, minor sevenths, dominant
Also, the movement from
The Chord Scale Theory and Jazz Harmony (Rottenburg,
24

harmony includes diatonic and non-diatonic reharmonizations, major and minor
interchanges, deceptive resolution, dominant chord modulation, direct modulation, and
pivot chord modulation.
25

Improvisation implies extemporization of musical material that has not been
notated or composed. Jazz musicians often improvise on basic tunes and chord
patterns.
26
Every player in bands creates phrases that complement every other players
phrases.
27

Most jazz is guided by musicians agreeing beforehand to maintain a given tempo,
key, and progression of accompaniment chords. They then invent and play their
own melodies and accompaniments in a way that is compatible with those
chords.
28

a phrase like collective improvisation (used by writers to suggest a basic
approach to performing) exaggerates the degree to which the music was
spontaneous, invented in the moment. Players were guided by familiar formal
plans, ordered sequences of themes and keys, specific functions of individual
instruments within ensembles and common techniques of embellishment.
29

Common formal structures of jazz include song form, cyclic form, and call-and-
response. Jazz uses extensive repetition of brief patterns, short phrases, and repetitive
bass figures, such as ostinato, walking bass, and boogie-woogie.
30

Jazz is often performed by instrumental ensembles. Usually the melody is played
by trumpet or clarinet. Harmony is provided by piano, guitar, or double bass.
31

25
Ibid.,130-131, and 148-151.
26
27
Ibid.,55.
28
Gridley, 14.
29
Tucker, 905.
30
Gridley, 44.
31
Ibid., 55.
25

Rhythmic instruments include a drum set or auxiliary percussion, such as bongos and
congas.

26

CHAPTER THREE: IVES VARIATIONS ON AMERICA

I. Charles Ives (1874 -1954)
A. Biography
Charles Ives, one of the leading American composers in the twentieth century,
was born in Danbury, Connecticut. Ives father, George Ives (1845-94), was enthusiastic
about music. He took lessons in flute, violin, cornet, and piano. He studied harmony,
counterpoint, and orchestration with the German-born musician Carl Foeppl in New York.
During the Civil War, George served as the youngest bandmaster in the Union Army.
After the war, he returned to Danbury and pursued a variety of musical activities:
performing; teaching; and leading bands, orchestras, and choirs.
32

Under the guidance of his father, Charles began to study piano and organ.
33
Ives
was a skillful organist, giving recitals even in his early teens. He was known as a prodigy,
playing a difficult level of repertory: Bach's Toccata, Adagio, and Fugue in C Major,
BWV 564 and Dorian" Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 538; Mendelssohn's Organ
Sonata in F Minor, Op. 65, no. 1; Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens' Grand Fantasia in E Minor
The Storm; and Rossini's William Tell Overture, transcribed by Dudley Buck. Music
reviews of his playing in Danbury included "brilliancy and precision," "finely executed,"
skill almost phenomenal," superb," and "a brilliant future as an organist."
34
At the age

32
J. Peter Burkholder, Ives, Charles, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2
nd
ed.,
ed. Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London; Washington, D.C.: Macmillan Publishers, 2001), 694.
33
Ibid., 686.
34
J. Peter Burkholder, The organist in Ives, Journal of the American Musicological Society 55,
no. 2 (2002): 255-310. Available at
27

of fourteen, he became the youngest salaried church organist in the state.
35
From
February 1889 at the age of fourteen to June 1902 at age twenty-seven, he held a series of
six posts as organist or organist-choirmaster at Congregational, Baptist, Episcopal, and
Presbyterian churches in Danbury, New Haven, Bloomfield (New Jersey), and New
York.
36

He was also a very talented pianist and improviser. Carl Ruggles said of Ives, "I
never heard a better pianist in my life than he was."
37
Ives had a prodigious ability to
remember his own music, and played at the piano, from memory, music he had composed
one to five decades earlier, along with new improvisations. Lou Harrison worked with
Ives late in life, when Ives could hardly see; and reported that Ives had memory of every
page he had ever written."
38

Ives learned harmony and counterpoint from his father. His father guided Ives
first attempts in composition and was open-minded and encouraged his sons
experimental techniques, such as bitonal harmonization, and whole-tone and chromatic
melodic lines.
39
Ives musical education was enriched by his attendance at Yale
University. During his first two years, he audited music courses in harmony and music
history taught by Horatio Parker (1863-1919) and then studied counterpoint, strict

<http://find.galegroup.com.ezproxy1.library.arizona.edu/itx/start.do?prodId=ITOF>; Internet; accessed 12
March 2009.
35
Burkholder, Ives, Charles, 686.
36
Burkholder, The organist in Ives.
37
Ibid.
38
Ibid.
39
Ibid.
28

composition, and instrumentation. Although Ives studied music diligently, he took non-
music courses as well, with special interest in English and American literature courses.
40

The Yale education was seen as preparation for a successful business career.
Ives was able to develop a social life on the all-male campus by fostering deep
friendships and by broadening useful connections.
41
In fact, he was well regarded as
socially successful, and chosen as a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity and of
Wolfs Head, one of the most prestigious of Yales secret senior societies.
42
During these
school years, Ives met his future wife, Harmony Twichell (1876-1969).
43
As a
businessman, he opened Ives & Co. in 1907, and established a partnership with Julian
Myrick (1880-1969) in an agency with Mutual (an insurance company), launched in 1909.
Within a few years, they were selling more insurance than any agency in the country.
44

Although he had professional training as a musician, he worked in insurance for his entire
career, composing in his free time, in the evening, on weekends, and while on
vacations.
45
After 1930, illness forced Ives retirement from his life insurance firm. He
had stopped most compositions by 1927. Due to a tremor in his hands, he was unable to
write letters, so his wife and daughter assisted him with his correspondence.
46

40
Ibid., 687.
41
Ibid.
42
Ibid.
43
Ibid., 690.
44
Ibid.
45
Ibid., 685.
46
Tom C. Owens, ed., Selected Correspondence of Charles Ives (Berkeley and Los Angeles,
California: University of California Press, 2007), 2-3.
29

B. Musical Style and Compositions
Ives music encompasses a wide variety of styles from tonal Romanticism to
radical experimentation. According to Burkholders study, Ives music was influenced
by four musical traditions.
47
First of all, he grew up with American popular music,
learning from a young age the music of his fathers band, including ragtime, theater songs,
minstrel show music, Civil War songs, and sentimental parlor songs. The second
influential tradition was the music of the American Protestant church, which he absorbed
as a boy and which he studied professionally as an organist and composer. His
compositions often include hymn tunes.
48
Ives adapted or paraphrased hymn tunes in
over forty instrumental works or movements, including at least one and often every
movement in each of his symphonies, orchestral sets, string quartets, violin sonatas, and
piano sonatas.
49
Thirdly, European classical music influenced Ives during his time of
study at Yale University. Finally, the element of experimental music with its polytonality,
atonality, tone-clusters, quarter-tones, polymeters, and polyrhythms, influenced Ives.
50

The unique circumstances of Ivess career have bred a misunderstanding. His
works often took years from first sketch to final revisions, and most pieces existed
without being performed for decades.
51
Moreover, his work in insurance, combined with
the diversity of his output and the small number of performances during his composing

47
J. Peter Burkholder, Ives and the Four Musical Traditions, Charles Ives and His World, ed. J.
Peter Burkholder (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1996), 3-4; Nicolas Slonimsky,
Charles Ives: Americas Musical Prophet, Charles Ives and His World, ed. J. Peter Burkholder
(Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1996), 432.
48
Burkholder, Ives and the Four Musical Traditions, 3-4; Slonimsky,432.
49
Burkholder, The organist in Ives.
50
Burkholder, Ives and the Four Musical Traditions, 3-4; Slonimsky,432.
51
30

years, led to a perception of Ives as an amateur.
52
He had, however, a fourteen-year
career (1889-1902) as a professional organist, and went through formal training in
composition.
53
Moreover, recent scholarship has demonstrated that he developed
numerous innovative techniques before his European counterparts, including polytonality,
chords based on fourths and fifths, atonality, and polyrhythm.
54

Ives composed about 441 works: marches, music for bands, songs, choral pieces,
piano works, chamber ensembles, symphonies, and other orchestral works.
55
Among
them, his Symphony no. 3 ([1904], c. 1908-11) won the Pulitzer prize in 1947.
56
There
are six organ works composed in Ives early period (Figure 3-1).
57
Only two of his organ
pieces have been published with edition by E. Power Biggs (1906-1977) in 1949:
Variations on America (c. 1909-10) and Adeste Fideles in an Organ Prelude
(1949).
58

52
Ibid., 686.
53
William Osborne, Charles Ives the Organist, The American Organist 24 (July 1990): 58.
54
55
Ibid., 696-709.
56
Ibid., 694.
57
Ibid., 703.
58
Ibid., 700 and 703.
31

Figure 3-1. Charles Ives Organ Works
59

Title Scoring Composed Year
Variations on America Organ Solo 1891-2
Canzonetta in F Organ Solo c. 1893-4
Fugue in C Minor Organ Solo c. 1898
Fugue in E
b
Organ Solo c. 1898
Interlude for Hymns Organ Solo c. 1898-1901
Adeste Fideles in an Organ Prelude Organ Solo [1898], c. 1903

II. Musical Analysis of Variations on America

America is a patriotic hymn, whose melody was derived from the British national
anthem, God Save the King. The lyrics of America were written by Samuel Francis
Smith (1808-1895). The hymn was premiered in public on July 4, 1831, at a children's
Independence Day celebration in Park Street Church, Boston, and was first published in
1832.
60
The lyrics begin as follows:
My Country, tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
Of thee I sing;
Land where my fathers died,
Land of the pilgrims pride,
From every mountainside
Let freedom ring!

59
Ibid., 703. Dates in square brackets are derived from Ives own writing, but represent a piece or
stage of the composition, for which no manuscript is extant. The list of extant completed works with organ
is available in J. Peter Burkholder, The organist in Ives, Journal of the American Musicological Society
55, no. 2 (2002): 255-310.703.
60
John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes, eds., American National Biography, volume 20 (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 281.
32

Ives composed Variations on America (1891-2) as a sixteen-year-old, and
premiered it at Methodist church in Brewster, New York, on February 17, 1892.
61
He
often performed the work with spontaneous improvisatory modifications.
62
Ives' musical
manuscripts are located in the Charles Ives Papers (MSS 14), Music Library of the Yale
University School of Music, New Haven, Connecticut. Power Biggs edited the closing
measures of Variations on America. In mm. 183 and 185-86 of Ives manuscript, Ives
notated a sustained low A for the pedal, which is below the range of the normal pedal
keyboard and thus unplayable on most instruments. Moreover, the original pedal passage
in the closing parts was so demanding that when E. Power Biggs prepared an edition for
his own performances in 1948 and for publication in 1949, he cut the upper pedal octaves
in mm. 179-82, omitted mm. 183-86, and substituted four measures from the introduction,
which were much easier to play.
63

A. Form
Variations on America consists of an introduction, presentation of the tune,
five variations, and two interludes as follows (Figure 3-2):

61
Jan Swafford, Charles Ives: A Life with Music, (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1996),
443; Burkholder, Ives, Charles, 703.
62
Swafford, 443.
63
More detail about the E. Power Biggs edition, please refer Burkholder, The organist in Ives.
33

Figure 3-2. Ives, Variations on America: Form
Key Meter Tempo Dynamics Variations
Introduction
(mm.1-32)

Tonal
center in
F

3/4 Allegro ff-p-cresc.-
f -mf-f-p-f-
p-f-p-cresc.
Melodic fragments from tune
A B C A
(4+4) (4+4) (4+4) (4+4)
mm.1-8 mm.9-16 mm.17-24 mm. 25-32
Polytonality: tonal center is F major
with use of D major, D minor, and
D Hypodorian
Tune
(mm.33-46)
F 3/4 Moderato F Exposition of tune: homophonic
four voice-hymn setting
Simple harmonic progression
F: I-IV-ii-V
7
-I
Variation I
(mm.47-61)
F 3/4 Moderato f-ff Right hand: melodic ornamentation
in 16th and 32nd notes
Left hand: tune supported by
quarter-note block chords
Pedal: providing a bass line
Repeat sign in the second half of the
tune
Variation II
(mm.62-75)
F 3/4 Andante mp-dim. Tune in the treble voice supported by
chromatic harmony of the lower
voices
Interlude I
(mm.76-84)
Bitonality
F/D
b

3/4 ad lib. ff (F )
pp (D
b
)
First half of the tune used
Each hand set to three-voice block
chords
Pedal provides a bass line
Variation III
(mm.85-114)
D
b
6/8 Allegro mf-f-ff-p Entire tune is heard twice
Melodic variants in final two measures
from the original tune
Tune in the treble voice set to the
block chords
Melodic ornamentation by the left
hand and the pedal
Variation IV
(mm.115-142)
F 3/4 Polonaise mf-f-dim.
mm.115-116
Introduction
mm.117-130
Tune in solo style by the
right hand
Accompaniment by the left
hand and the pedal
mm.131-138
Repetition of the second
phrase of the tune which is
heard from left hand, then
the right hand, and finally
the left hand
mm.139-142
Postlude
Interlude II
(mm.143-146)
Bitonality
A
b
/F
3/4 ad lib. ppp (A
b
)
ff (F)
Last four bars of the tune used
Each hand set to three voice-block
chords supported by the pedal
34

Variation V
(mm.147-194)

Difficult
pedal part

Mixture of
receding and
new musical
ideas

F 3/4 Allegro-
as fast as
pedals
can go
(mm.147- 160)
f Entire tune in the treble voice set to
three voice-block chords
No left hand part used
Pedal: fast melodic elaboration
using neighboring and passing tones
Allegretto
ad lib.
(mm.161-194)
ff-cresc. Tune
mm.161-172
. Right hand: the tune repeated
one octave above and set to
three-voice block chords
Left hand: melodic and
rhythmic materials from the
left hand of variation III
Pedal: almost the same as in
mm. 147-160
the last two bars of the tunes
are interrupted by an episode
Episode
mm.173-192
Passages from introduction
(mm.175-182 and 187-194)
and new idea (mm.183-184)
Tune
mm.193-194
Completion of last two bars
of the tune

35

The variation form is by definition cyclic, a formal process that is common in
jazz.
64
Early New Orleans musicians (c.1895-1915), working at high society balls and
parties, were required to play from written parts with improvisation, using embellishment
and variation techniques.
One of the processes found in both jazz and other ensemble music is the so-called
call and response form, in which a member of the band offers a musical phrase that is
like a question, and others follow it with a new phrase that is like an answer. For
example, brass players pose the question, and saxophones offer the answer.
65
The
introduction to the Ives work includes two passages that recall the call and response form
in regard to melody, tonality, and dynamics (Figure 3-3).

Figure 3-3. Ives, Variations on America: Call and Response

64
Tucker, 905.
65
Gridley, 47.

Call

Response

I

mm. 9-16

4 bar-phrase
(mm. 9-12)
Call in a descending melody
F major/
D Hypodorian
f- mf

4 bar-phrase
(mm. 13-16)
Response in a descending melody
D major/
D Hypodorian
f- p

II

mm. 17-24

6 bar-phrase
(mm. 17-22)
Call in a ascending melody
D major
f

2 bar-phrase
(mm. 23-24)
Response in a descending melody
D minor
p

First, the call is posed by a fou
decrescendo (mm. 9-12), which
descending melody in D major with a

Example 3-1. Ives,

posed by a four-bar phrase in a descending melody in F major with a
12), which is followed by the response of a four-bar phrase in
in D major with a f-p diminuendo (mm. 13-16).
Ives, Variations on America: Call and Response I, mm. 9
36
in F major with a f-mf
bar phrase in a
Call and Response I, mm. 9-16

The second call and response follows with the contrast of length, dynamics, and keys.
The call is suggested by a six
dynamic marking (mm. 17
marked p (mm. 23-24), which has the aspect of a response phrase

Example 3-2. Ives, Variations on America

D Major --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

D Major-------------------------------
----
call and response follows with the contrast of length, dynamics, and keys.
The call is suggested by a six-bar phrase in an ascending melody in D major, with a
(mm. 17-22). It is followed by a two-bar phrase response
, which has the aspect of a response phrase.
Variations on America: Call and Response II,

D minor----------------------------

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------
37
call and response follows with the contrast of length, dynamics, and keys.
y in D major, with a forte
bar phrase response in D minor,
Call and Response II, mm. 17-24

----------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
38

B. Timbre
Although the introduction of the piece does not provide registration detail, the
musical atmosphere in the introduction is reminiscent of band music, which is another
style that influenced early jazz.
66
In fact, this piece has been often performed by a
concert band. The presumption is that the band music influence came directly out of
Ives childhood, when he would frequently listen to his fathers band and the town
musicians concerts.

The introduction opens like a fanfare, characterized by a simple
homophonic passage. The phrases sound like a band playing, with dynamic contrasts and
the call and response style.

C. Melody
Melodic features include melodic ornaments, trills, and grace notes in an
improvisatory style. Some of these features parallel embellishments from earlier classical
style. First of all, melodic decorations are prominent in variation I. The right hand
embellishes the first half of the tune with continuous sixteenth and thirty-second notes in
chromatic stepwise motion (mm. 47-52). After the transition of improvisatory trills (m.
52), the melody is decorated above the last half of the tune by chromatic scales in thirty-
second notes, with one sextuplet and one twelve-tuplet, in the improvisatory style (mm.
47-61).

66
For more about band music, please refer Appendix A: Musical Terms in Jazz Style.

Example 3

3-3. Ives, Variations on America: mm. 47-54 and 59
Chromatic
39
54 and 59-61

40

In variation II, the tune is in the treble voice, which is supported by elaborate chromatic
lines in the lower voices (mm. 62-75).

Example 3-4. Ives, Variations on America: mm. 62-75

Chromatic
lines
in the
lower
voices
Tune in the
treble voice
41

Trills are also in the pedal in variation V (mm. 191-192).


Trills

Another example of melodic ornamentation
passing tones (PT) in variation III (mm. 85

Example 3-6. Ives,
Tune
Melodic
Ornaments

NT

NT
xample of melodic ornamentation includes chromatic neighbor
passing tones (PT) in variation III (mm. 85-114) and variation V (mm. 161
Ives, Variations on America: mm. 85-92 and 161
NT NT
NT
PT NT NT NT
T

PT
42
neighbor tones (NT) and
161-177).
92 and 161-166

PT
NT
43

Secondly, grace notes are prominent as melodic embellishments in variation IV
(mm. 131-140).

Grace notes

Tune
on the
Treble
Voice
Melodic
Ornament
s
44

D. Harmony
Harmony in Variations on America features frequent major-minor shifts,
modality, extensive use of sevenths and ninths, and polytonality. Although the primary
key of the introduction is F major, the key frequently shifts to D major, D minor, and
(melodically) D Aeolian as follows:

Figure 3-4. Ives, Variations on America: Key Shifts in Introduction
Measure Key Harmonic Progression
mm. 1-10 F major I- iv-V- ii- II- v-V
7
-I-V
7

mm. 11-12 D minor /
D Aeolian
D minor V-i
Cadence with D Aeolian scale in the treble
voice
mm. 13-14 D major I-V-I and D major scale
mm. 15-16 D major /
D Aeolian
V-I cadence is expected,
but cadence in D Aeolian
mm. 17-22 D major V-I
mm. 23-24 D minor V-i
mm. 25-32 F major I- iv-V- ii-II-v-V
7
- I -V
7

The consecutive harmonic shifts are F major to D Aeolian (mm. 11-12), followed by a D
major scale (mm. 13-14), and an abrupt cadence in D Aeolian (mm. 15-16). There is a
return to D major (mm. 17-22), followed by an unexpected D minor cadence (mm. 23-
24).

Example 3-8. Ives,

Ives, Variations on America: mm. 11-24
45

Variation II includes frequent major
often shifts into F minor (
minor cadence (mm. 62-75).

Example

requent major-minor shifts. Although the passage is in F major, it
minor (the parallel minor key), but F minor is not established
75).

46
Although the passage is in F major, it
established by a F
75

47

Variation II uses many sevenths, including major sevenths, minor sevenths, half-
diminished sevenths, diminished sevenths, and dominant sevenths, as well as ninths (see
Example 3-9). Moreover, there are passages of consecutive diminished chords over the
pedal: G - F
#
- E - A
b
- G
b
- F - A - G
#
- F
#
(mm. 183-184).


48

Bitonality in two interludes is a noteworthy harmonic feature. In the first
interlude, the right hand is in F major. Meanwhile, the left hand is in D
b
major. Although
the pedal and the left hand are in the same key, they create dissonance when they sound
together: F against an E
b
chord (m. 81), D
b
against an A
b
chord (m. 82), C against a D
b

chord (m. 83). Obviously, more dissonance is created when two different keys sound
together (mm. 76-84).


D
b
chord

C
A
b
chord

D
b

E
b
chord

F
49

Although this section is bitonal, one key is marked as ff (F major), in the other as pp (D
b
major), thus creating a strong sense of a primary key.
67
In the second interlude (mm.
143-146), the left hand and pedal are marked in ff (F major), against the right hand is in
ppp (A
b
major).

From his youth, Ives seemed to have consistent interest in using bitonality and
polytonality. Ives had sketched earlier works, including several on London Bridge Is
Falling Down in various combinations of two keys, and played one of them in a Baptist
church service in1891.
68
The idea had come from his father, including the game of
having the boys sing in one key while he accompanied in another.
69
Variations on
America demonstrates the first systematic use of bitonality in classical music.
70

Originally, this work contained pages his father would not let him play at the Brewster
concert because they had canons in two and three keys simultaneously that proved to be

67
Stover, 73.
68
Swafford, 443.
69
Ibid., 63-64.
70
Ibid., 443.
50

unsuited to performance in church because they made the other boys laugh out loud and
become noisy. A little later the young composer wrote a fugue in four keys in which the
successive entrances of the voices are each in a different key.
71

E. Rhythm
Rhythmic features in Variations on America include syncopation, dance
rhythms, rhythmic filling for silent beats, and polyrhythm. These rhythmic components
are crucial elements in the piece. For instance, syncopation features prominently in the
right hand of the introduction (mm. 5-8 and 29-32).

Example 3-13. Ives, Variations on America: mm. 5-8 and 29-32

71
Henry Cowell and Sidney Robertson Cowell, Charles Ives and His Music (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1975), 28-29.
Syncopation
Syncopation

Secondly, variation IV is marked as Polonaise,
(mm. 115-142).
72
The typical

The application of polonaise rhythm

Example 3-15

Moreover, this section is the only variation set to a minor key, and uses grace notes as
melodic ornamentation.

72
In the letter to E. Power Biggs
variation should be omitted, because the nationality of Polonaise was not suitable for
was in a rather sad minor key (Owens, 338).
73
Stephen Downes,
Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell
Polonaise r

, variation IV is marked as Polonaise, and quotes Polonaise dance rhythm
The typical Polonaise is in triple meter as follows:
73

Example 3-14. Polonaise Rhythm

The application of polonaise rhythm is the left hand of the piece is as follows:
15. Ives, Variations on America: mm. 115-118

er to E. Power Biggs, Mrs. Ives wrote that Ives father always insisted that the fourth
variation should be omitted, because the nationality of Polonaise was not suitable for America
er sad minor key (Owens, 338).
Stephen Downes, Polonaise, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
John Tyrrell (London; Washington, D.C.: Macmillan Publishers, 2001)
Polonaise rhythm
51
and quotes Polonaise dance rhythm

the piece is as follows:
118

Ives father always insisted that the fourth
America, and also it
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2
nd
ed., ed.
, 2001), 45-46.
52

Thirdly, rhythmic filling of the beats is in variation V. While the tune is played
by the right hand, the left hand is filling the silent space between the beats of the right
hand (mm. 161-174, and 191).

Each note of the tune is followed by the rest fillers which fill rest beats with broken
chords in the left hand (mm. 179 and 181).

Rhythmic filling
Rhythmic filling

Rhythmic filling

Tune
Tune

Finally, one of the unique
polyrhythm. In variation
before the final cadence. Both hands play four groups of consecutive three
notes against three quarter notes in

Example 3-

Finally, one of the unique facets of the variations is the treatment of
In variation V, the tune is suddenly interrupted by a polyrhythmic passage
before the final cadence. Both hands play four groups of consecutive three
notes against three quarter notes in the pedal part (mm. 183-186).
-18. Ives, Variations on America: mm. 183-186
Polyrhythm
53
s of the variations is the treatment of
V, the tune is suddenly interrupted by a polyrhythmic passage
before the final cadence. Both hands play four groups of consecutive three sixteenth
186

54

Variations on America shows four musical traditions, as Burkholder claimed in
Ives music: popular musical tradition (reminiscence of band music in the introduction);
Protestant church musical tradition (use of hymn tune); European tradition (harmonic,
melodic, and rhythmic features used in the classical style of Mozart and Beethoven); and
experimental procedures (use of chromaticism and bitonality).
Although Variations on America is seemingly a classical composition, it also
includes jazz elements. From the view point of analysis of jazz elements, the musical
features found in this piece are also the major elements of jazz: form (a cyclic structure
[a variation form] and a call and response form), timbre (brass band), harmony (major-
minor shifts, modality, extensive use of sevenths, ninths, and polytonality), rhythm
(syncopations, a dance rhythm, rhythmic filling for the silence beats, and polyrhythm),
and melody (melodic ornaments, trills, and grace notes).
Polyrhythm, a crucial element in jazz, occurs when different rhythms are played
simultaneously by individual instrumentalists.
74
For example, there are multiple rhythms
in jazz performance, such as the rhythm in a solo instrument, that of the bassist, the
drummers four limbs, and the pianists two hands.
75
Polyrhythm is often created by
fitting groups of different numbers of notes against each other, and by one-rhythm
pulling against another, resulting in less-than-perfect superimposition.
76

74
Gridley, 364-365.
75
Ibid.
76
Ibid.
55

Rhythmic filling of the beats is conventional practice in jazz.
77
While the tune
is played by the right hand, the left hand is filling the silent space between the beats of
the right hand in variation V (see Example 3-16 and Example 3-17).
Moreover, the quotation of the Polonaise in variation IV is different from that of
classical music, i.e., Chopins Polonaises, such as Polonaise No. 6 in A
b
Major, op. 53,
Heroique and Polonaise, Op. 40, No. 1 in A Major, Military. Although variation
IV uses Polonaise rhythm, the style is different from classical music. To be more
specific, the important point is the use of grace notes in the right hand. Without the
grace notes, variation IV could be a classical style of Polonaise. Instead, it achieves a
popular style by adding the grace notes (see Example 3-7). In variation IV, the musical
atmosphere, in terms of rhythm, key, and melody, recalls cabaret music.
Cabaret is a place of entertainment, such as nightclubs, which offers a wide
variety of showmanship, with food and drink often included with dances. Naturally,
there is a great demand for music in cabarets.
78
New Orleans jazz bands often
accompanied dancing and performed in places serving alcoholic beverages: restaurants,
night clubs, cabarets, and dance halls.
79
Moreover, cabaret is a form of artistic and social
activity that flourished for about half a century between the opening of Le Chat Noir
(the Black Cat) in Paris in 1881 and the political crises in Europe in the 1930s.
80
After
World War I the Parisian cabaret reached a new peak, with many American jazz

77
Ibid.
78
Klaus Wachmann and Patrick OConnor, Cabaret, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and
Musicians, 2
nd
ed., ed. Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London; Washington, D.C.: Macmillan Publishers,
2001), 762.
79
Tucker, 904.
80
Ibid.
56

musicians arriving and influencing the local style as well as taking on a more European
texture in their music.
81
Cabaret music was considered bawdy, rhythmic, and often lewd,
with numerous lyrical double entendres. Melodic lines could be smooth and soft, but
most lines could be filled with extended interval leaps.
82
Although there is no distinctive
musical form in cabaret music, the genre includes slow waltz or dance-oriented songs,
folksong, popular song, and operatic parodies, upon the composers inspiration.
Moreover, it provides improvisation and innovative, avant-garde experimental music as
well.
83

Studies have shown the synthesis of classicism and American vernacular music
(such as ragtime, blues, and jazz) in Ives Variations on America.
84
Stover stated that
Ives variations were different from classical variations as follows:
Ivess variation, however, with flippant grace notes and concluding oompahs, has
a whiff of the subversive about it, a bit of nose-thumbing at the sacrosanct
traditions of high European art.
85

Concerning the rhythmic back beat in the left hand in mm. 161-163 from variation V (see
Example 3-16), Stover suggested that it is Ivess own idiosyncratic blend of high art
[classical music] and the vernacular.
86

The effect of the extension of this figure in the repeated section is to transform the
rhythmic movement from one with accents predominantly on the strong beat to
one with accents predominately on the weak beat. The effect is one that rhythm-

81
Ibid., 763-764.
82
Keith Johnson, Cabaret, in All Music Guide to Jazz: the Definitive Guide to Jazz Music,
Vladimir Bogdanov, Chris Woodstra, and Stephen Thomas Erlewine, ed., 10.
83
Wachmann and Connor, 764.
84
Harold Stover, 72-75; William Keith Sullivan, Indigenous Influences on Organ Music: Jazz,
Ragtime, and Blues, D. M. A. diss., Indiana University, 1987: 18-27.
85
Harold Stover, 73.
86
Ibid.,74.
57

andblues musicians knows as a back beat
87

When Ives composed Variations on America (1891), it was in the developing
period for the appearance of jazz. As mentioned in Chapter One, jazz began developing
during the 1890s and was fully established in the early 1920s.
88
Stover also mentioned
that Ives heard ragtime and African-American rhythm.
Later in life, Ives recalled hearing black faced white musicians ragging
their songs at the Danbury Fair sometimes before 1892, in other words, at the time
of the composition of Variations on America, and his inquisitive mind seems to
have assimilated the new style immediately. He had already been primed to
encounter the African-American rhythmic innovations by hearing white religious
revivalists at outdoor camp meetings doing something very similar with their
works, not only secular pieces like the Ragtime dances, which originated during
his stints as a barroom pianist in his Yale days, but also in collages of hymn tunes
like the Rock-strewn Hills Join in the Peoples Outdoor Meeting from the
second orchestral set and the riotous version of Bringing in the Sheaves
incorporated into the first piano sonata.
89

One of the essential elements of jazz is the entertainment of listeners. Variations
on America is one of the few organ works capable of bringing an audience to laughter.
Based on the analysis above, this piece includes several entertaining elements.
Specifically, the listeners may be amused when they hear a sudden odd dissonance, in
which one might assume that the organist had mistakenly played wrong notes (m. 13).
The sudden tritones (A-D-G
#
) in the left hand could evoke this effect. Moreover, G
#

87
Ibid.
88
Gridley, 32.
89
Stover, 74-75.

clashes with A from the bass and treble voice
in treble voice (simultaneous cross

Example

Not long after this
unexpected modal cadence
with the C
#
leading tone (
can be found in bitonal interlude
neighboring tones in variation III
left hand). The best musical joke may be in variation IV. Most variations in the piece are
rather close to classical music style
every time it occurs, i.e.,

90
Cross-relation (false relation) is described as the succession of a pitch in one voice by a
chromatic alteration of that pitch (or its equivalent in another octave) in another voice. A simultaneous or
vertical cross-relation is the simul
false relation, in The New Harvard Dictionary of Music
Massachusetts; London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1986], 215
the bass and treble voices, as well as with G on the next
in treble voice (simultaneous cross-relation).
90

Example 3-19. Ives, Variations on America: mm. 13
Not long after this hilarious dissonance, Ives surprises the listener with
cadence where one would normally expect to hear a D major cadence
leading tone (mm. 15-16; see Example 3-19). Other entertaining elements
nterludes (see Example 3-11 and Example 3-12), and
in variation III (mm. 84-94 [see Example 3-6], and mm.
. The best musical joke may be in variation IV. Most variations in the piece are
to classical music style, in which the theme is repeated in a different manner
melodic ornamentations and harmonic alterations

false relation) is described as the succession of a pitch in one voice by a
relation is the simultaneous occurrence of two pitches related in this way
The New Harvard Dictionary of Music, ed. Don Michael Randel, [Cambridge;
London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1986], 215
58
, as well as with G on the next eighth note
m. 13-16

Ives surprises the listener with an
expect to hear a D major cadence
Other entertaining elements
, and chromatic
mm. 161-174 in the
. The best musical joke may be in variation IV. Most variations in the piece are
theme is repeated in a different manner
and harmonic alterations. In variation
false relation) is described as the succession of a pitch in one voice by a
wo pitches related in this way (Cross-relation,
el, [Cambridge;
London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1986], 215).
59

IV, however, the musical atmosphere abruptly changes to a popular music style evoking
cabaret music. This change is accomplished through rhythmic oompahs, sudden grace
notes, and a minor key (mm. 115-142. See Example 3-6 and Example 3-7).
Based on this analysis, the stylistic comparisons of classical elements with jazz
elements in Variations on America are as follows (Figure 3-5):

60

Figure 3-5. Ives, Variations on America: Stylistic Comparisons

Classical
Elements
Jazz
Elements
Ives
Four Musical
Traditions
Form
Cyclic structure (variations),
and a call and response form

Used in classical
music, but not as
major formal
features in
classical style

Used as major
formal
structures in
jazz

Popular and
European
traditions
Timbre
Jazz band style
(the introduction only)

Can be found in
classical music

Band music
influenced in
early jazz.

Popular tradition
Melody
Use of a hymn tune, decorative
melodies, grace notes, trills,
a tremolo, chromaticism,
an improvisatory style, and
modality

Used in classical
music

Used as major
melodic features
of jazz

Popular, church
and European
traditions
Harmony
Frequent major and minor
harmonic shifts, modality,
bitonality, and extensive use of
7ths and 9ths chords

Used in classic
style, but not as
major features of
classical music

Used as major
features of jazz
harmony

Popular,
European, and
experimental
traditions
Rhythm
Syncopations, oompahs,
rhythmic fillings for the silence
beats, polyrhythm, and dance
rhythm (Polonaise)

Used in classical
style, but not as
major features of
classical music

Used as major
rhythmic features
of jazz

Can be European
tradition, but
more toward
popular tradition
Entertaining Elements
Capability of bringing an
audience to laughter

Can be found in
classical music

Used as one of
the major
features in jazz

Can be European
tradition, but
more toward
popular tradition
61

In conclusion, although Variations on America gives evidence of the classical
style, the piece is not completely segregated from jazz elements because of the formal,
timbral, melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic features. Although Variations on America is
not a jazz piece, it certainly contains a glimpse of jazz. The work is music in transition
between classical and jazz styles, giving a foreshadowing of the musical elements that
would be associated with jazz styles as they developed.

62

CHAPTER FOUR: ALBRIGHTS SWEET SIXTEENTHS

I. William Albright (1944-1998)
A. Biography
William Albright was an American composer, organist, pianist, professor, and at
the time of his death, chair of the Department of Composition at the University of
Michigan in Ann Arbor.
91
Albright was born in Gary, Indiana. His mother received a
masters degree, majoring in mathematics. His father earned a Doctor of Philosophy in
education and taught at the college level.
92
Albrights early musical study in piano and
composition took place at the Juilliard Preparatory Department (1959-62).
93
After
attending Eastman School of Music for one year (1962-23), Albright earned three degrees
from the University of Michigan: Bachelor of Music (double major, organ and
composition; 1966), Master of Music (organ and composition; 1967), and Doctor or
Musical Arts (composition; 1970).
94
At the University of Michigan, Albright studied
organ with Marilyn Mason and composition with Leslie Bassett (b. 1923), his primary
teacher, and Ross Lee Finney.
95
His other composition teachers include Olivier Messiaen
(at the Conservatoire de Paris in 1968-69), Max Deutsch (1968-69), Niccol Castiglioni

91
University Record September 23, 1998: Obituary William Albright, available from
<http://www.ur.umich.edu/9899/Sep23_98/obit.htm>; Internet; accessed 17 September 2008.
92
Interview with Pamela Decker, who was Albrights beloved wife and colleague.
93
Robert Douglas Reed, The Organ Works of William Albright: 1965-1975, D. M. A. diss.,
The University of Rochester, Eastman School of Music, 1977: 190.
94
Ibid.
95
Interview with Pamela Decker. About Leslie Bassett, refer to Leslie Bassett, Composer,
available from <http://www.lesliebassett.com/index.html>; Internet; accessed 19 November 2008.
63

(1967), George Rochberg (1966), and Gunther Schuller (1964).
96
With regard to
contemporary composers, Albrights favored works were by George Cacioppo (1926-84);
Stephen Albert (1941-1992); Christopher Rouse (b. 1949); and William Bolcom (b.
1938), with whom Albright co-composed a piano rag titled Brass Knuckles.
97

His long-term friend and colleague William Bolcom remembered him as a genius
composer and one of the twentieth century's greatest organists.
98
Albright received
numerous awards including the Queen Marie-Jos Prize (for Organbook I), an award
from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, two Fulbright and two Guggenheim
fellowships, two National Endowment for the Arts grants, two Koussevitzky Competition
Awards, and an ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers)
Award.
99
He was selected to represent the USA in UNESCOs International Rostrum of
Composers (1979) and won the Composer of the Year Award from the American Guild
of Organists (1993). Professor Albright is remembered as a marvelous teacher, who
cared about teaching and put his whole heart into it, and was beloved for his wonderful
sense of humor.
100
The University of Michigan recognized him with a Distinguished

96
Reed,190.
97
Interview with Pamela Decker. Further readings about these composers mentioned above are
available from the following sources: George Cacioppo from <http://www.moderecords.com/profiles/
georgecacioppo.html>; Internet; accessed 19 November 2008; Stephen Albert from <http://www.
schirmer.com/default.aspx?TabId=2419&State_2872=2&composerId_2872=22>; Internet; accessed 19
November, 2008; and Christopher Rouse, Composer from <http://www.christopherrouse.com>; Internet;
accessed 19 November 2008.
98
University Record September 23, 1998: Obituary William Albright, available from
<http://www.ur.umich.edu/9899/Sep23_98/obit.htm>; Internet; accessed 17 September 2008.
99
Don C. Gillespie, Albright, William, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2
nd

ed., ed. Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London; Washington, D.C.: Macmillan Publishers, 2001), 326.
100
University Record September 23, 1998: Obituary William Albright; Brave New Works,
The Music of William Albright, from <http://wwwpersonal.umich.edu/~cyoungk/albright.htm>; Internet;
accessed 17 September 2008.
64

Service Award, a Faculty Recognition Award, and a Faculty Fellowship Enhancement
Award.
101

At the University of Michigan, Albright was associate director of the electronic
music studio, and pursued research into live and electronic modification of acoustic
instruments. In addition, he was a principal figure in the revival of interest in ragtime and
stride masters. He composed and performed his modern ragtime works, and recorded
classical ragtime, stride piano, boogie-woogie, and the complete works of Scott Joplin.
Albrights jazz styles were influenced by James Hubert [Eubie] Blake (1887-1983) and
the big three of the stride style of jazz piano in Harlem: Willie "The Lion" Smith
(1893 -1973), James Price Johnson (1894-1955), and Fats Waller (1904 -1943).
102

Albright especially favored James P. Johnson, who was referred to as the Bach of jazz
and the Father of stride. Albright took Johnson as a role model for his stride style.
103

Fats Wallers influence on Albright can be illustrated as the following concert review on
Albrights organ recital.

101
University Record September 23, 1998: Obituary William Albright.
102
Interview with Pamela Decker. Further readings about these jazz pianists of the stride style are
available from the following sources. Harlem and the Kings of Stride, available from
<http://pagespersoorange.fr/jcarl.simonetti/harlem_kings.html>; Internet; accessed 19 November 2008;
Willie The Lion Smith, available from <http://www.redhotjazz.com/THELION.html>; Internet;
accessed 19 November 2008; James Price Johnson, available from <http://redhotjazz.com/JPJohnson.
html>; Internet; accessed 19 November 2008; Fats Waller, available from <http://www.redhotjazz.com/
Fats.html>, Internet, accessed 19 November 2008; A Story of Fats Waller, available from
<http://pagesperso-orange.fr/jcarl.simonetti/harlem_kings.htm>; Internet; accessed 19 November 2008; and
Institute of Jazz Studies Rutgers University Libraries, Fats Waller Forever, available from
<http://newarkwww.rutgers.edu/ijs/fw/fatsmain.html>; Internet; accessed 19 November 2008.
103
Interview with Pamela Decker.
65

It seems that the organ, not the piano, was Waller's favorite instrument he
called it ''the God box'' and made a number of organ recordings. Mr. Albrights
performance was a delighttrue to the blues, to Handy and to Waller, and it
inspired an ovation from the knowledgeable audience.
104

His musical output includes a wide variety of genres, such as vocal solos, choral
works, piano pieces, instrumental solos and ensembles, orchestral works, and drama-
related works.
105
He was primarily known for his keyboard works.
106
His organ works
have substantially enriched the contemporary repertory for that instrument.
107
Although
Albright's early organ works were influenced by Messiaens colorful registration and
chromaticism, his later works in a variety of mediums combine a complex rhythmic and
atonal style with elements of American popular and non-Western music. Much of his
music displays humor and a fresh improvisatory spirit, as in Organbook III and The King
of Instruments.
108
Albrights complete organ works are as follows (Figure 4-1):

104
Rockwell, John. Organist: William Albright, New York Times (New York) 25 February 1983,
available from <http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D03E2DC133BF936A15751
C0A965948260>; Internet; accessed 19 November 2008.
105
Gillespie, 326.
106
University Record September 23, 1998: Obituary William Albright.
107
Gillespie, 325.
108
Ibid.

66

Figure 4-1. William Albrights Organ Works

Title Scoring
Composed
Year
Choale-Partita in an Old Style on "Wer
nur den lieben Gott lsst walten"
Organ Solo 1963
Juba Organ Solo 1965
Pneuma Organ Solo 1966
Organbook I Organ Solo 1967
Organbook II Organ and Tape 1971
Stipendium Peccati Organ, Piano, and Percussion 1973
Gothic Suite Organ, Strings, and Percussion 1973
Dream and Dance Organ and Percussion 1974
Sweet Sixteenths Originally written for Piano solo
Arranged for Organ Solo with an Assistant
1975
1976
Jericho Organ and Trumpet 1976
Organbook III Organ Solo 19778
De Spiritum Organ Duo 1978
Halo Organ and Metal Instruments 1978
The King of Instruments Organ and Narrator 1978
Bacchanal Organ and Orchestra 1981
Romance Organ and Horn 1981
That Sinking Feeling Organ Solo 1982
The Enigma Syncopations Organ, Flute, Double Bass, and Percussion 1982
In Memoriam Organ Solo 1983
1732: In Memoriam Johannes Albrecht Organ Solo 1984
Chasm Organ and Optional Echo Instrument 1985
Symphony Organ Solo 1986
Valley of Fire Organ and Saxophone Quartet 1989
Flights of Fancy: Ballet for Organ Organ Solo 1992
Cod Piece Organ Solo 1996
Bells in the Air Carillon 1996
Chorale Prelude Nun Komm der
Heiden Heiland
Organ Solo 1997

67

II. Musical Analysis of Sweet Sixteenths

Sweet Sixteenths is related to a series of Albrights piano rags composed between
1967 and 1970.
109
At the time Sweet Sixteenths was written, Albright believed that it
would be the last rag he would ever write.
110
The first version of Sweet Sixteenths was
composed in 1974 as a part of a chamber work, Seven Deadly Sins (the ragtime sin was
envy), scored for flute, clarinet, string quartet, and piano. Then, it was expanded as a
piano solo for a friends sixtieth birthday, and later arranged for organ, as well as for an
ensemble version for piano, clarinet, cello, and trombone written for the Warsaw New
Music Workshop.
111

A. Form
The form of ragtime derives from duple meter dances: march, two-step, polka,
and Schottische.
112
The formal characteristics include a symmetrical form, independent
16-bar themes, and repetition of the theme.
113
Typical thematic patterns were
AABBACCC, AABBCCDD, or AABBCCA.
114
Common interpolations to the form
include an introduction and an interlude between themes. The overall form of Sweet

109
William Albright, the program note in In Memoriam William Albright, Douglas Reed,
(Yokohama, Japan: Equilibrium, 2001), EQ35, compact disc: 5.
110
Terry Waldo and Emily Foster, the program note in Sweet Sixteenths: A Ragtime Concert,
William Albright and William Bolcom, (Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1980; Oakhurst, New Jersey, 1990: Jazz
Heritage Society), 5185142, compact disc: 5.
111
Albright, the program note: 5.
112
Edward A. Berlin, Ragtime, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2
nd
ed., ed.
Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London; Washington, D.C.: Macmillan Publishers, 200l), 756.
113
Ibid.
114
Ibid.

68

Sixteenths is an ABCA form with an introduction and an interlude between themes of B
and C. Each of the principal sections features a unique theme plus a variant on the theme.
Every theme is heard four times before the conclusion of the piece (see Figure 4-2).

Figure 4-2. Albright, Sweet Sixteenths: Form

Introduction
mm. 1-4

B minor

V- I- V7
A
mm. 5-19
(15 bars)

D
b
Major

B
mm. 20-51
(32 bars)

F minor
D Blues Scale

Interlude
mm. 52-56

C
mm. 57-88
(32 bars)

G
b
Major

Transition
mm. 89-91

A
mm. 92-107
(16 bars)

D
b
Major
a
mm.
5-10
(6 bars)

V-I
a
mm.
11-19
(9 bars)

V-I
b+b
mm.
20-35
(8+8 bars)

IV- bVI
9
- i

b+b
mm.
36-51
(8+8 bars)

i-VI
9
-i
c+c
mm.
57-72
(8+8 bars)

I-V
9
-I
c+c
mm.
73-88
(8+8 bars)

I-V
9
-I
a
mm.
92-97
(6 bars)

V-I
a
mm.
98-107
(10 bars)

V-I

As in the conventional ragtime form, Sweet Sixteenths is symmetrical: (1) each section
consists of thirty-one or thirty-two bars (section A consists of thirty one bars; sections B
and C each consist of thirty-two bars); (2) the disposition of the sections is symmetrical, i.
e. section A is divided around the axis of B and C (see Figure 4-3); and (3) each theme
comprises a sixteen-bar phrase, repeated four times (see Figure 4-2).

Figure 4-3. Albright, Sweet Sixteenths: Symmetrical Relation of Sections

A B C A
(15 bars) (32 bars) (32 bars) (16 bars)
69

The original theme of each section is as follows (Examples of 4-1, 4-2, and 4-3):

Example 4-1. Albright, Sweet Sixteenths: Theme a in section A, mm. 5-12

70

Example 4-2. Albright, Sweet Sixteenths: Theme b in section B, mm. 20-27

71

Example 4-3. Albright, Sweet Sixteenths: Theme c in section C, mm. 57-64

B. Harmony
Most ragtime music is in a major key. Sometimes, ragtime begins in a minor key,
then proceeds to the relative major, and then to the subdominant key of the original
key.
115
The tonal plan of Sweet Sixteenths resembles this pattern. Sweet Sixteenths opens
with a B
b
minor introduction. Section A is in D
b
major (the relative major of B
b
minor).
Section B follows in F minor (the mediant minor of D
b
major). After a short interlude,

115
Ibid.
72

section C enters in G
b
major (the subdominant key of D
b
major). After a short transition,
there is a return to D
b
major for the reprise of section A (see Figure 4-2).

C. Rhythm
Most ragtime pieces are in simple duple meters. Syncopation is the most
important element of ragtime.
116
In many of Joplins pieces, syncopation appears
immediately in the introduction, which often features passagework in octaves.

Example 4-4. Joplin, The Easy Winners: a Rag Time Two Step: mm. 1-4

Example 4-5. Joplin, The Entertainer: A Ragtime Two Step: mm. 1-4

116
Berlin, 756.

73

After the introduction, syncopation permeates the first theme. The themes very essence
is the ragged or syncopated melodic line fitted against a regular bass beat. The left
hand reinforces the meter with a regular alternation of low bass notes on strong beats
with mid-range chords in between. The right hand provides a melody, combining even
march-like rhythms with syncopations.
117

Example 4-6. Joplin, The Easy Winners: A Ragtime Two Step: mm. 1-8

117
Ibid.
74

Example 4-7. Joplin, The Entertainer: A Ragtime Two Step: mm. 1- 8

Albright faithfully follows Joplins rhythmic approach. Sweet Sixteenths is also in
a simple duple meter. It opens with an introduction characterized by rhythmic
syncopation in unison at the octave.
Example 4-8. Albright, Sweet Sixteenths: mm. 1-3

75

In the first theme, the pedal provides bass notes alternating with left hand chords
(on weak beats), and the right hand plays a syncopated melody in perfect imitation of
Joplins textures.


Another rhythmic device featured in Sweet Sixteenths is swing. Swing is a rhythmic
phenomenon in jazz styles resulting from the conflict between a fixed pulse and the wide
variety of accents and tempo rubato employed by performers.
118
In the third section of
Sweet Sixteenths, the composer asks that the rhythm be slightly swinging.

118
J. Bradford Robinson, Swing, in Grove Dictionary Music and Musicians 24, 2
nd
ed., ed.
Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London; Washington, D.C.: Macmillan Publishers, 2001), 784.
76


D. Melody
Many ragtime melodies are built on pentatonic or major scales
principal themes in Sweet Sixteenths
theme c is in G
b
major (s
During the 1910s,
known as the blues. Albright incorporates three melodic influences from blues
work: blues scale, blue notes, and ornaments, such as grace notes and glides
scale consists of six different no
lowered fifth degree (diminished
consists of D - F - G - A -
notes in the D blues scale

Example 4-
D Minor Pentatonic S

119
William Bolcom and Max
and Ragtime (London: Macmillan, 1986),
120
Michael Furstner, Blues Scale,
<http://esvc001419.wic024u.server
time melodies are built on pentatonic or major scales.
119
Sweet Sixteenths are in major keys: theme a is in D
b

major (see Example 4-1 and Example 4-3).
During the 1910s, ragtime language developed, evolving into what came to be
known as the blues. Albright incorporates three melodic influences from blues
: blues scale, blue notes, and ornaments, such as grace notes and glides
different notes, five notes from the minor pentatonic scale plus a
diminished 5th).
120
More specifically, the D minor pentatonic scale
- C D. The lowered 5
th
degree, therefore, is A
b
le are D - F - G - A
b
- A - C D.
-11. Pentatonic Scale and Blues Scale

D Minor Pentatonic Scale D Blues Scale
a lowered 5th

William Bolcom and Max Harrison, The New Grove Gospel, Blues and Jazz: with Spiritual
London: Macmillan, 1986), 25.
l Furstner, Blues Scale, from Jazz Class; available from
http://esvc001419.wic024u.server-web.com/scales/scablu.htm#01>; Internet; accessed 20 August
77
119
Two of the
major, and
developed, evolving into what came to be
known as the blues. Albright incorporates three melodic influences from blues in this
: blues scale, blue notes, and ornaments, such as grace notes and glides. The blues
he minor pentatonic scale plus a
More specifically, the D minor pentatonic scale
b
. Thus, the

5th
zz: with Spiritual
accessed 20 August 2008.
78

In Sweet Sixteenths, theme b of the second section is based on D blues scale, in which the
A natural is omitted.


79

The second blues influence is the blue notes. In blues and jazz, singers and
instrumentalists use so-called blue notes, i. e., lowered third, fifth, and seventh degrees
(diatonic), approximately lowered by a semitone (often in microtonal fluctuations).
121

For example, blue notes in F minor are as follows:
F minor: Flatted 3
rd
A
b

Flatted 5
th
C
b
(=B)
Flatted 7
th
E
b

The blue notes appear as a main melodic element in theme b over the tonic pedal point,
F.

121
Gerhard Kubik, Blue Note (i), The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2
nd
ed.,
ed. Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London; Washington, D.C.: Macmillan Publishers, 2001), 727.
However, the blue notes are not exactly coincide with Western temperamental system. Following
is the further explanation of blue notes. Blue notes are sort of, but not exactly, flattened from the major
form of the interval; this is because they are a compromise from the African scales wherein the notes in
question are right between the notes in our scale[for example] between E
b
and E, B
b
and B. The blue
notes are a Western compromise of sorts, and the tension between the desired African note and the
flattened notes is a source of much of jazz charm. Quotation from the email of William Bolcom
responding to Pamela Decker, 15 April 2009.

80


81

Among other melodic devices, Joplin often used the unison introduction (see Example 4-
4 and Example 4-5) and ornaments such as grace notes and short glides. The musical
examples are as follows:

Example 4-14. Joplin, Country Club: Ragtime Two Step: mm. 1-10

82

Example 4-15. Joplin, The Crush Collision March: mm. 82-89

Example 4-16. Joplin, A Breeze From Alabama: mm. 21-24

83

Albright uses these devices extensively.



84

Moreover, in addition to grace notes, Albright used a glissando technique in the pedal
that evokes Joplins melodic ornament.


The intonation used by blues singers, often with glides and considerable melismas,
deviates by microtonal values from the standard tuning of the guitar or the piano.
122

Albright incorporates this process into Sweet Sixteenths by using the blues scale, blue
notes, grace notes, glides, and a glissando.
To conclude, Sweet Sixteenths shows the musical character of ragtime in its form,
harmony, rhythm, and melody, though there also are elements drawn from the blues and
swing tradition. The formal structure is symmetrical in length for all three sections and in
thematic reprise. The concept of harmony in Sweet Sixteenths resembles that of
conventional ragtime: it opens in a minor key (B
b
minor), proceeding to the relative

122
Kubik, 727.
85

major (D
b
major) and the subdominant (G
b
major); and returning to a major key (D
b
major). Syncopation that is found in ragtime is used extensively. Melodically, Sweet
Sixteenths mirrors Joplins style, opening with a unison passage, with glide notes. It also
features a pedal glissando, a creative evolution of the melodic style that Albright achieves
through an adaptation of organ technique. Although ragtime is the most prominent
element in Sweet Sixteenths, the piece also contains the elements of blues and swing.

Figure 4-4. Albright, Sweet Sixteenths: Summary, Elements of Jazz Styles

Jazz Styles
Form Ragtime: Symmetric structure
Harmony Ragtime: Key relationship between sections
Rhythm Ragtime: Syncopation
Jazz: Swing rhythm
Melody Ragtime: Unison opening, grace notes, glide notes,
and a glissando
Blues: Blues scale and blue notes
86

CHAPTER FIVE: BOLCOMS SOMETIMES I FEEL

I. William Bolcom (b.1938)
A. Biography
Born in Seattle, Washington, Bolcom is a composer, pianist, and professor at the
University of Michigan since 1973. He earned a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from
Stanford University, and studied with Olivier Messiaen and Darius Milhaud at the Paris
Conservatoire, where he received the 2me Prix de Composition. His musical creativity
allowed him numerous honors and awards, including two Guggenheim fellowships (1965,
1968), Investiture in the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1992), the Pulitzer Prize
(1998) for Twelve New Etudes for Piano, and the National Medal of Arts bestowed by the
President of the United States (2006). The recording of his Songs of Innocence and of
Experience received four Grammys for Best Classical Album, Best Choral Performance,
Best Classical Contemporary Composition, and Best Producer of the Year (2005).
Bolcom was also named the Composer of the Year by the American Guild of Organists
(1998) and Composer of the Year by Musical America (2007). In 2007, Bolcom was
feted in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, with a two and a half-week festival of his
music, titled Illuminating Bolcom.
123

Bolcom married mezzo-soprano Joan Morris, with whom he began to develop
programs on the history of American popular song from the early twentieth century. As a

123
Net Acceleration, William Bolcom: Welcome, available from
<http://williambolcom.com/index.php?contentID=1010>; Internet; accessed 23 August 2008; William
Bolcom: 1998 AGO Composer of the Year, The American Guild of Organist 32 (August 1998): 26.
87

pianist, Bolcom has performed and recorded his own works, frequently in collaboration
with his wife. He also developed a style of playing ragtime, through concerts and
recordings, which placed him in the forefront of the ragtime revival.
124

Bolcom began his composing career in a serial idiom, and particularly admired
the works of Pierre Boulez (b. 1925), Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928 2007), and Luciano
Berio (1925 2003). Through this academic approach, however, he gradually embraced a
wider variety of musical styles. In most of his mature works, he has sought to erase
boundaries between popular and serious music, as in Black Host for organ and percussion;
and a cabaret opera, Dynamite Tonite.
125
Bolcoms musical output includes eight
symphonies, three operas, several theater operas, eleven string quartets, instrumental
solos, choral works, vocal songs including cabaret and other popular songs, two film
scores, other stage works, and works for concert bands. Bolcom's setting of William
Blake's Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience (1984), a full evening's work for
soloists, choruses, and orchestra, culminated his twenty-five years of work on the
piece.
126
Bolcoms complete organ works are as follows (Figure 5-1):

124
Steven Johnson, William Bolcom, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2
nd

ed., ed. Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London; Washington, D.C.: Macmillan Publishers, 2001), 818.
125
Ibid.
126
Net Acceleration, William Bolcom: Meet the Composer, available from
<http://williambolcom.com/index.php?contentID=1011>; Internet; accessed 24 August 2008.
88

Figure 5-1. William Bolcoms Organ Works
127

Title Scoring Composed
Year
Black Host Organ, Chimes,
Cymbals, Bass Drum,
and Electric Tape
1967
Praeludium Organ and Vibraphone 1969
Chorale and Prelude on Abide with Me Organ Solo 1970
Hydraulis Organ Solo 1971
Mysteries Organ 1976
Humoresk Organ and Orchestra 1979
Twelve Gospel Preludes Organ Solo 1979-1984
Book
I

1. What a Friend We Have In Jesus
2. La Cathdrale Engloutie
(Rock of Ages)
3. Just As I Am
Book
II
4. Jesus Loves Me
5. Shall We Gather at the River
(Fantasia)
6. Amazing Grace
Book
III

7. Jesus Calls Us: Oer the Tumult
8. Blessed Assurance
9. Nearer, My God, to Thee
Book
IV
10. Sometimes I Feel
11. Sweet Hour of Prayer
12. Free Fantasia on O Zion, Haste
and How Firm a Foundation
Fanfare: Converging on the Mountains Brass, Timpani,
Percussion, and Organ
1989
Borborygm Organ Solo 2001
Four Preludes on Jewish Melodies Organ Solo 2005

Gospel Preludes, Book IV was commissioned for the American Guild of Organists
National Convention in Detroit in 1986, and was premiered by Marilyn Mason at the
University of Michigan in the same year.
128

127
Johnson, 818; William Bolcom: Compositions available from
<http://williambolcom.com/index.php?contentID=1024>; Internet; accessed 24 August 2008.
89

II. Musical Analysis of Sometimes I Feel

Bolcoms arrangement of Sometimes I Feel was written in memory of Marvin
Gaye (1939-1984), who was an African-American popular singer-songwriter and pianist
within the genres of rhythm-and-blues, soul, and funk jazz. His complex personal life
was ended when he was the victim of murder in 1984.
129

The spiritual is a type of folksong that originated in America between 1740 and
1900. The term is derived from the biblical spiritual songs, a designation used to
distinguish the text from metrical psalms and hymns of traditional church usage.
130
Black
spirituals differed from white spirituals in a number of ways. Significant was the use of
the melody, which has microtonally flatted notes, sometimes identified as lowered thirds,
fifths, and sevenths. Special qualities of vocal timbre include the slides from one note to
another, turns, rasp, and a shrill falsetto, enriching the sound amid interpolated cries of
glory. The rhythms of black spirituals feature syncopation, which shifted the accents
by anticipating or delaying the expected note, and counter-rhythms, which were marked
by hand-clapping.
131

Sometimes I Feel is a traditional African-American spiritual composed prior to

128
Martin Jean, the program note in The Reddel Memorial Organ at Valparaiso University,
Martin Jean (Richmond: Raven Recording, 2002), OAR-480, Compact disc, 2; Marilyn Mason, the
program note in Paul Freeman Introduces: Marilyn Mason, Vol. XI, Marilyn Mason (New York: Albany
Records, 2004), TROY 706, Compact disc, 4.
129
Mason, 4; Antti Sokero, Marvin Gaye Biography, available from
<http://www.marvingayepage.net/biography.>; Internet; accessed 1September 2008.
130
Paul Oliver, and James C. Downey Spiritual, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and
Musicians, 2
nd
ed., ed. Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London; Washington, D.C.: Macmillan Publishers,
200l), 189.
131
Ibid.,193.
90

1865.
132
The song dates back to the era of slavery in the United States when it was
common practice to sell children of slaves away from their parents. The song is clearly
an expression of pain and despair as it conveys the hopelessness of a child who has lost
his or her mother. The motherless child could be a slave separated from and yearning
for his African homeland, and suffering a long way from home.
133
The lyric is as
follows:
134

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child (repeat three times)
A long way from home (repeat twice), True Believer
A long way from home (repeat twice)

Blues was the vocal music of the uptown Blacks in New Orleans in the late
nineteenth century. It began as an unaccompanied solo vocal style, but eventually used
guitar or banjo as accompaniment. Blues encompasses Afro-American work songs
(devised to ease the burden of laborers), spirituals, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple
narrative ballads. Their music was a compromise between European church music and
African vocal style. African influences were the use of blue notes, call-and-response
patterns, and the cry of the street vendor, a kind of music that capitalized on expressive
variations in pitch and voice quality. Blues uses simple melodies, repetitive phrases, and

132
Blue Gene Tyranny, "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child, available from
<http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=42:71995~T1>; Internet; accessed 1 September 2008.
For more about Spiritual, please refer Appendix I: Musical Terms in Jazz Style.
133
Tyranny, <http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=42:71995~T1>; Internet;
accessed 1 September 2008.
134
Negrospirituals.Com, "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child available from
<http://www.negrospirituals.com/news-song/sometimes_i_fell.htm>; Internet; accessed 1 September 2008.
91

twelve bars of blues chord progression.
135
The blues influenced later American popular
music, and became the roots of jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll.
136

Rhythm-and-blues (R & B) drew from African-American music, including blues,
jazz, gospel songs, and popular songs. Rhythm-and-blues emphasizes swing, and blues,
with overt emotion and rhythmic excitement. It emphasizes extremely simple melodies
with extensive pitch bending, and relies upon strict adherence to steady tempo and
ostinato.
137
Rhythm-and-blues evolved in the later 1950s into the style known as soul
jazz, which reintegrated many rhythm-and-blues instrumentalists into the mainstream of
jazz.
138

A. Form
The overall form of the piece consists of two parts: (1) introduction (mm. 1-7),
and (2) the spiritual song, used a spiritual song, blues, and rhythm-and-blues styles (mm.
8-40). The tune occurs twice (first in mm. 12-25 and its reprise in mm. 26-40); (see
Figure 5-2).

135
Gridley, 34.
136
Ibid., 327.
137
Ibd.,328; Rye, 309.
138
Rye, 309. See Appendix A for the detail of soul jazz.
92

Figure 5-2. Bolcom, Sometimes I Feel: Form
Key Meter Tempo
Changes
Dynamic Changes
Introduction
(mm. 1-7)
( 2+2+3 bars)
Tonal Center:
E
b

4/4 3/4 Adagio molto;
Drammatico
ff-fff-molto rit.
Sometimes I Feel
(mm. 8-40)

Introduction
mm. 8-11

Tune
(4+4+3+3 bars)
mm. 12-25

Reprise
(3+3+3+6 bars)
mm. 26-40
E
b
minor Frequent
meter shifts
including
4/4, 3/2, 3/4,
5/4, and 1/4
Very rhythmic;
Implacable;
Cantabile
legato
Cresc. -sffz -mp/mf-
sffz f--ff-fff-ff-mf-mp-
p-f-ff-sffz-dim.-molto
p/mp-poco rit.-pp
Indications for adding
and removing stops
Use of swell box for
dynamic changes

The introduction is scored as adagio molto drammatico, 4/4 (mm. 1-6), and 3/4 (m. 7).
Although it has no key signature, it shows a tonal center of E
b
. The opening consists of
three 2+2+3 bar phrases, and each phrase emphasizes the tonic and subdominant of E
b

minor. The introduction ends in a plagal cadence (iv
9
or IV
9
-i in E
b
minor) with a sffz
chord punctuation on E
b
mm
7
, where the introduction elides with the opening of the
spiritual section (mm. 7-8). The spiritual section is in E
b
minor and features a consistent
dotted note ostinato, and frequent meter shifts, including 4/4, 3/2, 3/4, 5/4, and1/4.

B. Melody
This piece is highly polyphonic: altogether a nine-voice figure in the first strain
(four voice-block chords for each hand, and a pedal voice), and seven voices are active in
93

the reprise (reduced to two voices in right hand). The spiritual tune is played by the right
hand, which is set with block chords underneath the tune, and accompanied by the pedal
and the left hand.
There are distinctions in treatment between manual and pedal parts. The most
significant melodic feature of the right hand is blues style, which includes grace notes,
blues scale, and blue notes. First of all, blues pianists often create grace notes for
melodic effect.
139
In the opening spiritual section, a grace note is heard right before the
sffz chord. This melodic ornament contributes to a blues feeling (mm. 7-9).

Example 5-1. Bolcom, Sometimes I Feel: mm. 7-9

139
Paul Olive, Blues, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2
nd
ed., ed. Stanley
Sadie and John Tyrrell (London; Washington, D.C.: Macmillan Publishers, 200l), 722.
94

Secondly, the treble melody of the right hand in Sometimes I Feel is based on an E
b
blues
scale and blue notes. Originally, the tune of the spiritual (Motherless Child) is based on a
F blues scale with a flatted seventh blue note (E
b
) (Example 5-2).
140

Example 5-2. African-American Spiritual, Motherless Child:
Original Tune on F blues Scale with a Flatted Seventh Blue Note (E
b
)

140
William Eleazar Barton, Old Plantation Hymns: A Collection of Hitherto Unpublished
Melodies of the Slave and the Freedman, with Historical and Descriptive Note (New York: AMS Press,
1972), 18.

Bolcom used only a part of the tune
and D
b
, which coincide with

Example 5

141
The E
b
blues scale consists of E
flatted 3rd, a flatted 5th, and a flatted 7th

part of the tune with melodic components of E
b
, F, G
with E
b
blues scale and blue notes, if F is omittin
5-3. Bolcom, Sometimes I Feel: Melodic Structure
E
b
Blues Scale

Blue Notes

blues scale consists of E
b
, G
b
, A
b
, A (=B
bb
), B
b
, and D
b
. Since blue notes include
d, a flatted 5th, and a flatted 7th, the blue notes in E
b
minor are G
b
, B
bb
, and D
b
95
, F, G
b
, A
b
, B
bb
, B
b
,
is omitting.
141

Melodic Structure

Since blue notes include a
b
.

Melody Based on E

ased on E
b
Blues Scale and Blue Notes, mm. 12-

96
:
-40

Although E
b
minor
parts frequently incorporate
pitches through the piece.

Example
Chromatic

minor is the primary key of the left hand and the pedal
corporate chromatic melodic lines, and eventually use all twelve
through the piece.
Chromatic Pedal Voice Based on E
b
minor, mm. 8-9, and

97
pedal parts, these
use all twelve
9, and 18-19

The left hand moves stepwise
Example

Unlike the first strain, the reprise includes
but also in the left hand:
leaps in the pedal. The melodic contrast
underneath the melody (mm. 26
Example

Stepwise motions

Leaps
Leaps

Leaps
moves stepwise, while the pedal plays frequent melodic leaps
the reprise includes prominent melodic leaps, not only in the pedal
fifth and seventh leaps in the left hand, and success
pedal. The melodic contrast of the right hand lies in broken chords
underneath the melody (mm. 26-27).
Stepwise motions
Leaps
Leaps
98
frequent melodic leaps.

only in the pedal
uccessive octave
broken chords
27

99

C. Harmony
The harmony of Sometime I Feel explores blues and jazz styles, including blues
progressions (= blues form), suspension, polychords, and a wide use of seventh, ninth,
eleventh, and thirteenth chords. Blues progression is an important harmonic structure
used in the blues style. The most common blues form is a twelve-bar chord progression.
These cyclic twelve bars consist of three four-bar phrases with the chord pattern of I-IV-
I-V (or IV) - I, and many variants of its pattern are possible.
142
The example below
illustrates blues form: each slash (/) indicates one beat, and here, one bar consists of four
beats for the purpose of illustration.

Figure 5-3. Twelve Bar-Blues Progression
143

Tonic (I7)
/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /
(progression to subdominant)

Subdominant (IV7) Tonic (I7)
/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /
(activity around subdominant) (progression to cadence)

Cadence (V7 or IV7) Tonic (I7)
/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /
(activity around tonic)

142
Barry Kernfeld and Allan F. Moore, Blues progression, The New Grove Dictionary of Music
and Musicians, 2
nd
ed., ed. Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London; Washington, D.C.: Macmillan
Publishers, 200l), 737.
143
Ibid.; Gridley, 378-379; Nettles and Graf, 103.

The principal chord changes occur in the fifth, seventh, ninth, and
Modern blues progression
measure and uses a variety of passing and substitute harmonies.
the most stressed.
145
When the blues is s
way over the twelve bars, i
measures) and strum (second
and strum in the blues progression is as follows:

Example 5-8. Distribution of Lyrics and Strum in the

144
Gridley, 377; Kernfeld and Moore, 737.
145
Nettles and Graf, 98.
146
Ibid., 101.
147
Ibid.
The principal chord changes occur in the fifth, seventh, ninth, and eleventh measures.
blues progression, however, often employs more than one chord change in a
and uses a variety of passing and substitute harmonies.
144
Yet, the ton
When the blues is sung, the words are often distributed in a stan
bars, in which each four-measure set consists of lyrics (
second two measures without words).
146
The example of
and strum in the blues progression is as follows:
Distribution of Lyrics and Strum in the Blues Progression

Kernfeld and Moore, 737.
98.
100
eleventh measures.
e chord change in a
the tonic chord is
ung, the words are often distributed in a standard
measure set consists of lyrics (first two
The example of lyrics
Blues Progression
147

Based on this analysis, Bolcoms arrangeme
includes more than twelve bars of
verse and fifteen bars for
strum per phrase in the first strain, and no
To illustrate further, t
bars in mm. 12- 25). Although melodically the tune stays in the tonic, it is set to various
harmonies. However, it begins and ends in the tonic. The harmonic progression is as
below.

Example

on this analysis, Bolcoms arrangement is a modified blues form
includes more than twelve bars of irregular phrases per strain: fourteen bars
for the reprise. In regard to strum, Bolcom uses only a one bar
per phrase in the first strain, and no strum in the reprise.
ustrate further, the first strain consists of fourteen bars (phrases
. Although melodically the tune stays in the tonic, it is set to various
101
nt is a modified blues form, and
bars for the first
uses only a one bar
bars (phrases of 4+4+3+3
. Although melodically the tune stays in the tonic, it is set to various

Then, it progresses to subdominant in the second phrase.

Example

t progresses to subdominant in the second phrase.
102

The authentic cadence is made in the final two phrases.

Example

The authentic cadence is made in the final two phrases.
103

104

Overall the harmonic progression of the first strain is as follows:


Varied Blues Form in the First Strain, mm. 12-25

Tonic
i7 - iv7 i7 i (i7-9-iv7-v9-i7)
/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /
m.12 m.13 m14 m.15

Subdominant
iv7 iv9-i9-i7-11 iv9 (VI7-bII7-IV9- ii7)
/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /
m.16 m.17 m.18 m.19

Cadence
i7-V9-i11 V7-9 (L.H) v7-i7 iv7 ii11-V7-(VII7) i7 i7
/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /
m.20 m.21 m.22 m.23 m.24 m.25

The reprise consists of fifteen bars (phrases of 3+3+3+6 bars in mm. 26-37). There are
several differences from the first strain. First, the strum is reduced in the reprise, where
the first two phrases are shortened to three measures (from the original four bar-phrases).
Meanwhile, the final phrase is extended to six measures. Lastly, the harmonic
progression coincides with blues progression, and this time it ends in a plagal cadence.
With respect to harmonic progression, the tonic is the harmonic axis of the first
phrase (mm. 26-28). The subdominant area is used in the second and third phrases (mm.
29-34).

Example Example 5-12. Bolcom, Sometimes I Feel: mm. 26-34
105

The final phrase (mm. 34

Example

The overall blues form of the

Varied Blues Form in

Tonic
i7 i7
/ / / / / / / / /
m.26 m.27

Subdominant
iv7 iv7
/ / / / / / / / /
m.29 m.30

Cadence
VI v7 V7
/ / / / / / / /
m.35 m.36
mm. 34-40) ends in a plagal cadence.
The overall blues form of the reprise is as follows:

Varied Blues Form in the Reprise, mm. 26-40
i7
/ / / / / /
m28
i7 VI7-iv9-v7 IV9
/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / /
m31 m.32 m.33

V7 IV9- i -VII V7 IV9-
/ / / / / / / / / / / /
m37 m.38 m.39 m.40
106

ii9-iv7-9-VII
/ / / / /
m34
- i9
/ /
m.38 m.39 m.40

Secondly, jazz elements such as linear progression,
minor seconds are important harmonic components in
the left hand is moved by
adjacent seventh chords. This linear progression creates subsequent suspensions between
both hand parts.

Example

This suspension brings about polychords and minor
The polychords are D
b
MM
are B
b
and B
bb
, A and A
b
(m. 20), D
Example 5-14). This chromaticism is similar to the microtonal melody of the African
American vocal style.
148

In the course of the final cadence, polychords and dissonant minor
produced by chromatic voice leading (see

148
Oliver, Spiritual, 193.
elements such as linear progression, suspension, polychord, and
s are important harmonic components in the piece. The treble melody of
the left hand is moved by linear stepwise progression realized in pairings of dense,
This suspension brings about polychords and minor-second dissonances between voices.
MM
7
and C
b
MM
7
add
11
; F
m
7
add
9
, B
b
Mm
7
(m. 20). The
(m. 20), D
b
and D, B
bb
and B
b
, C
b
and C B
bb
and B
4). This chromaticism is similar to the microtonal melody of the African

In the course of the final cadence, polychords and dissonant minor
produced by chromatic voice leading (see Example 5-15). An A
b
major chord is heard in

Oliver, Spiritual, 193.
107
, polychord, and
The treble melody of
realized in pairings of dense,

dissonances between voices.
The

minor seconds
and B
b
(m. 21) (see
4). This chromaticism is similar to the microtonal melody of the African-
In the course of the final cadence, polychords and dissonant minor seconds are
major chord is heard in

the right hand, while the left hand plays A
Combining three different chords creates a polychord: the sustained
left hand, a C
b
major chord in the right hand, and A
dissonant clash has been made between C and C
progresses through B
b
m
minor second clash between F and F

Example
Minor

the right hand, while the left hand plays A
7

supported by A-natural in the pedal (m. 34).
Combining three different chords creates a polychord: the sustained D major chord in
major chord in the right hand, and A
b
major triads in the pedal. Here, a
dissonant clash has been made between C and C
b
(m. 35). Then, the right hand
G
b
M
7
B
b
M
7
over F
b
M
7
, which results in a polychord, and
minor second clash between F and F
b
(m. 36).

mm. 34-36.
Minor-Second Clashes and Polychords

Minor-Second Clashes (A: A
b
, C: C
b
, and F: F
b
)

108
natural in the pedal (m. 34).
D major chord in the
major triads in the pedal. Here, a
Then, the right hand
ch results in a polychord, and a
36.

Polychords (A

Polychords (A
b
M
: A
7
, D
M
: C
b
M
: A
b
M
, and B
b
m
G
b
M
7
: F
b
Mm

109
Mm
7
)

While the pedal is chromatically descending from B
seconds from G and G
b
, B and B

Example
Chromatic
Minor-

While the pedal is chromatically descending from B
bb
through F, the dissonant minor
, B and B
b
, and A and A
b
are observed (mm. 37-39).

mm. 37-39

Chromatic Descending (B
bb
-A
b
-G-G
b
-F) and

-Second Clashes (G:G
b
, B: B
b
, and A and A
b
)
110
through F, the dissonant minor
39).
39

111

Finally, jazz harmony recognizes an extensive use of seventh chords: major
sevenths, minor sevenths, half diminished sevenths, diminished sevenths, and dominant
sevenths. Bolcom continually uses these various seventh chords through the entire piece,
along with ninths, elevenths, and thirteenths (refer to Example 5-9 through Example 5-
16).

D. Rhythm

Ostinato and syncopation are essential rhythmic components in jazz. In both
classical and jazz styles, an ostinato pattern or rhythm may be repeated in strict fashion or
varied; in the case of a rhythmic ostinato, patterns may transform in subtle ways while
keeping the essence of the rhythmic ostinato.
149
They are also core rhythmic components
in this piece, and give rhythmic excitement through the entire piece. After the
introduction, the rhythmic ostinato is heard in the pedal and the left hand (mm. 8-9). The
ostinato is characterized by dotted notes with rhythmic cooperation between the pedal
and the left hand. There is a primary rhythmic pattern (Example 5-17) with its variants
(Figure 5-6). These brief rhythmic figures are repeated extensively to the end (mm. 8-
39). This rhythm recalls a jazz singers counter-rhythms by hand-clapping, or those of a
drummer in a jazz performance.

149
Ostinato available from <http://oxfordmusiconline.com:80/subscriber/article/grove/music/
20547>; Internet; accessed 16 April 2009.

Example 5-17. Bolcom,

Bolcom, Sometimes I Feel:

Rhythmic Ostinato,
112
mm. 7-9

Figure 5-6. Bolcom, Sometimes I Feel

Sometimes I Feel:

Variants of Rhythmic Ostinato,

113
Ostinato, mm. 8-39

Secondly, syncopation
prominently in all parts (mm. 34

Example

copation is a significant rhythmic feature in this piece
prominently in all parts (mm. 34-38).

mm. 34-38
Syncopations
114
is a significant rhythmic feature in this piece, being used
38

In the tune of the reprise,
downbeat, which leads to
mm. 16-17 compared to mm. 29

Example

, the third note of each phrase is slurred over to the next
leads to rhythmic syncopation (mm. 12-13 compared to
mm. 29-30; and mm. 20-21 compared to mm. 32

mm. 12-
Syncopations
115
s slurred over to the next
13 compared to mm. 26-27;
mm. 32-33).
-40

116

E. Registration

The registration and dynamics reflect the timbre of jazz and rhythm-and-blues
styles. The opening of the piece, played by a full registration, recalls a jazz band fanfare
(mm. 1-7). The introduction is interrupted by a sudden sffz chord that resembles the tutti
of a jazz band (mm. 8-9). An even more striking honking sound comes in on an upbeat
after two measures (m. 10). It is marked as sffz in a 16
th
note with a full registration
including reeds. This screaming sound recalls the sound effect of the rhythm and blues.
As rhythm-and-blues developed, there was a particular tendency to emphasize solo
instruments, in which honking and screaming effects were used to whip up excitement.
150

The tune of Sometimes I Feel is heard in the right hand with an 8 Trumpet stop. The
trumpet solo is accompanied by the left hand and the pedal with a soft registration,
including foundation stops without reeds (mm. 12-25). This registration is reminiscent of
a trumpet solo with jazz ensemble.
In conclusion, the jazz styles applied in Sometimes I Feel are as follows (Figure 5-
7):

150
Howard Rye, Rhythm and Blues, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2
nd
ed.,
ed. Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London; Washington, D.C.: Macmillan Publishers, 200l), 309.
117


Summary, Elements of Jazz Styles

Influenced Jazz Styles
Melody Blues: Blues scale, blue notes, and grace notes
African-American Spiritual: Used for the tune
Harmony Blues: Blues progression
Jazz: Polychords, suspension, a wide use of seventh, ninth,
eleventh, and thirteenth chords, and chromaticism
similar to microtonality of an African-American vocal
style
Rhythm Jazz: Syncopation
Rhythm-and-Blues: Ostinato
Registration Jazz: Use of a trumpet stop for tune and a soft registration for
accompaniment, recalling the sound of a trumpet solo
with a jazz band
Rhythm-and-Blues: Honking and screaming effects

118

CHAPTER SIX: BOLCOMS FREE FANTASIA ON O ZION, HASTE AND
HOW FIRM A FOUNDATION

I. Musical Analysis of Free Fantasia on O Zion, Haste and How Firm a
Foundation
A. Form
The Free Fantasia consists of three sections: (1) an improvisatory section (mm.
1-22) based on the theme of O Zion, Haste; (2) a swing section (mm. 23-76) based on
How Firm a Foundation; and (3) the finale (mm. 77-93).

Figure 6-1. Bolcom, Free Fantasia: Form
Section Key Meter Tempo Dynamics Tune
Improvisation
(mm. 1-22)

Musical Ideas
A, B, and C

Classical
Style

Atonality
No meter
(mm. 1-6;
20-22)

4/4
(mm. 7-18)
2/4
(m. 19)

Free,
Highly irregular
A wide range of
dynamics from ppp to
fff
Frequent changes of
dynamics
Many uses of crescendo
and dim.
Gradual addition and
removal of stops

O Zion,
Haste

Swing
(mm. 23-76)

Jazz Style

A
b
major

5/4
Slow to a quarter
note =132, Lively;
Slowly beginning
to swing; Strict
tempo to the end
A wide range of and
frequent changes of
dynamics
ppp- pppp- pp-p-mp-
mf-ff-fff- ff-fff
Gradual addition and
removal of stops

How Firm a
Foundation

Finale
(mm. 77-93)

Classical and
Jazz Styles

Atonality
(mm. 77-83)

A
b
major
(mm. 84-93)

5/4
a quarter note =132
Strict tempo
(mm. 77-87)

Molto rit.
(mm. 88-89)

Adagio
(mm. 90-93)

f-ff-fff-ffff-sffzp-mf-p-
ffffz
Adding stops
Uses of crescendo and
dim

O Zion,
Haste and
How Firm a
Foundation

119

There are distinctive contrasts between the improvisation and swing sections in
regard to keys, harmony, meters, tempos, and styles, suggesting a gradual progression out
of the darkness into the light.
151
The improvisation includes atonal, chromatic, and
dissonant harmony; also included are very irregular, improvisatory rhythm and tempo.
Opening with no meter indication (mm. 1-6), the piece is metered 4/4 (mm. 7-18) and 2/4
(m. 19), then returns to meter-free (mm. 20-22) with frequent tempo shifts.
152
All of
these musical characterizations reflect darkness from the text of O Zion, Haste. On the
contrary, the swing section is diatonic, more consonantly tonal in A
b
major, and metered
in 5/4, keeping regular beats and a steady tempo from the beginning to the end. These
musical features of the swing section reflect the text, How Firm a Foundation. With
respect to musical style, the improvisation section is closer to atonal music of the
twentieth century, while the swing section displays jazz styles, which will be illustrated
later in this chapter.
The finale synthesizes the previous improvisation and swing sections. It starts with
the quotation from the opening of the piece, which is atonal and has a melodic fragment
of O Zion, Haste in the pedal (mm. 77-83). Following are the musical ideas from the
swing section, which are homophonic texture, syncopation, swing rhythm, and a melodic
reminiscence of How Firm a Foundation in A
b
major (mm. 84-93). Through the entire

151
David Gammie: the program note in Royal Albert Hall Organ Restored, Simon Preston (Middx,
United Kingdom: Signum Classics, SIGCD04, 2006), Compact disc, 6.
152
The tempo is based on improvisatory style. The tempo shifts are as follows: free, fast,
improvisational poco accel. very fast rit. slower moderately fast a little slower rest on
fermata not too fast with more movement accel. almost fast accel .poco presto slow
accel. poco a poco poco maestoso, ma allegro rubato poco accel. rall. free, rhapsodic,
moderato rit. moderato rapid accel.

120

piece, a wide range of dynamics is used, from ppp to fff, with many appearances of
crescendo and diminuendo. Also, dynamics vary by adding and removing stops.

B. The Improvisation Section
The improvisation section is atonal in nature. The music features no meter, no
key signature, rhythmic complexity, chromaticism, dissonances, atonality, polytonality,
harmonic uses of parallel perfect fourths (quartal harmony), whole tone scales, and
chromatic scales. The musical details are as follows.

1. Three Musical Ideas, Melody, and Harmony
The improvisation section is constructed in three distinctive musical ideas: A, B,
and C. A is the opening idea characterized by whole tone scales, chromatic scales, and
parallel perfect fourths over a long pedal point. B is a short, rapid melodic passage in
mostly thirty-second notes. This passage is followed by a passage with whole notes in
slow tempo, which serves as a punctuation for the preceding musical idea, as well as a
bridge between A and C. C uses the tune, O Zion, Haste and its melodic fragments and is
the main portion of the improvisation section, characterized by rhythmic complexity
interweaven all voices. The musical ideas of A and C return in the final section. The
structure of the improvisation section is as follows (Figure 6-2):

Figure 6-2. Bolcom, Free Fantasia

A
m.1

The melodic structure of idea A
right hand is ascending in whole tone scales (A
in the middle; E
b
-F-G-A-B in the lower part), while the left hand is descending in
chromatic scales (C-B-B
b
-
middle; D-C
#
-C-B-B
b
-A-G
harmonic structure of the passage (perfect
the right hand; perfect fourths

Example 6

Whole tone
Scales
Parallel 4ths,
Chromatic
Scales
Free Fantasia: Structure of the Improvisation Section, mm. 1
B A C B C
m.2 mm. 3-5 m.6 at the end of at the end of
m.6 mm.6-19
he melodic structure of idea A is a mixture of whole tone and chromatic scales. The
right hand is ascending in whole tone scales (A-B-C
#
-E
b
- F-G in treble part;
B in the lower part), while the left hand is descending in
-A-A
b
-G-F
#
in the uppermost part; G-F
#
-F-E-E
b
G
#
in the lowest). The parallel perfect fourths

form the basic
harmonic structure of the passage (perfect fourths between the top and middle voices of
fourths of the left hand in the axis of the middle voice).
Example 6-1. Bolcom, Free Fantasia: m. 1
121
Structure of the Improvisation Section, mm. 1-21
B
at the end of mm.20-21

is a mixture of whole tone and chromatic scales. The
G in treble part; F
#
-G
#
-B
b
-C-D
B in the lower part), while the left hand is descending in
b
-D-C
#
in the
form the basic
middle voices of
voice).

After the opening passage, musical idea B is followed

Example 6

After the opening passage, musical idea B is followed with atonality.
122

The musical idea C is an improvisation on
hymn, for which the text is by
Walch (1837-1901).
153
Bolcom used only
original tune is as follows:
Example 6

153
Convention Press, The Baptist Hymnal
About gospel music, see Appendix I.

The musical idea C is an improvisation on O Zion, Haste. O Zion, Haste
, for which the text is by Mary Ann Thompson (1834-1923) and the
Bolcom used only the first phrase of the tune in this piece. The
original tune is as follows:
Example 6-3. James Walch, O Zion, Haste: Original Tune

The Baptist Hymnal (Nashville,Tennessee: Convention Press
About gospel music, see Appendix I.
Quotation to Bolcoms Free Fantasia
123
O Zion, Haste is a gospel
the tune by James
phrase of the tune in this piece. The
: Original Tune

Tennessee: Convention Press, 1991), 583.
124

The melodic fragments of O Zion, Haste appear in the right hand. The tune follows in
the left hand, and interweaves all parts consecutively in different pitch levels (E
b
major,
A
b
major, C major, A major, and E major), which results in polytonality. Then, the first
phrase of the tune clearly emerges (first in A major, then in G
b
major, finally in B major)
from the surrounding chaos that is represented by atonality; dissonances; frequent
melodic leaps; and chaotic, irregular, and complex rhythms. In this section, melodic
fragments from the original tune are also heard.

Example 6 Example 6-4. Bolcom, Free Fantasia: mm. 6-20
125

126

127

2. Rhythm
The rhythmic pulse of the improvisation section is improvisatory, free, highly
irregular, and very complex. As each hand and pedal part move individually, polyrhythm
results. Two examples of the polyrhythm are as follows. First, an individual rhythmic
pulse can be seen in each part. While the right hand plays a rhythmic combination of
sixteenth-note triplets, rests, tied notes, and syncopations, the left hand moves much more
slowly as it plays the tune of O Zion, Haste in quarter and eighth notes. In the pedal, a
long pedal point C
#
appears, followed by an eighth-note triplet, tied notes, and
syncopations that create rhythmic complexity and a different rhythmic pulse in each hand.

Example 6

Example 6-5. Bolcom, Free Fantasia: a part of m. 6
128

Secondly, while the left hand is playing in an irregular rhythm, the right hand moves in
regular quarter-note triplets, while the pedal moves in an eighth

Example 6

C. The Swing and Finale Sections

In contrast to the improvisation section, the swing and finale sections include
several jazz styles: jazz, blues,

1. Melody
The swing section includes
rhythm-and-blues. First,

154
For more about h
note triplets, while the pedal moves in an eighth-note pulse (mm. 7
Example 6-6. Bolcom, Free Fantasia: mm. 7-9
The Swing and Finale Sections
contrast to the improvisation section, the swing and finale sections include
jazz, blues, and rhythm-and-blues.
Melody
he swing section includes two melodic elements derived from the
, gospel music is an essential source in both genres

hard bop, please refer Appendix A.
129
note pulse (mm. 7-9).

contrast to the improvisation section, the swing and finale sections include
from the blues and
both genres.
154
This

section uses the gospel hymn tu
of How Firm a Foundation

Example 6-7. American Folk Melody,

155
How Firm a Foundation
Joseph Funk (1778-1862) and words by John Rippon (1751
Presbyterian Hymnal: Hymns, Psalms, and Spiritual Songs
Knox Press, 1990), 361.
gospel hymn tune, How Firm a Foundation. Below is the original tune
How Firm a Foundation.
155

American Folk Melody, How Firm a Foundation: Original Tune

How Firm a Foundation is a gospel hymn, published in a Protestant hymn book
1862) and words by John Rippon (1751-1836). Westminster John Knox Press
Presbyterian Hymnal: Hymns, Psalms, and Spiritual Songs (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster
130
the original tune
: Original Tune

blished in a Protestant hymn book, with music by
John Knox Press, The
lle, Kentucky: Westminster John
131

Secondly, Bolcoms treatment of melodic decoration is similar to several jazz
styles. Rhythm-and-blues emphasizes simple melodies with extensive pitch bending.
156

Gospel singers often sing the notes with decoration by placing a pitch bend in the middle
of the notes, or singing with no vibrato, slow vibrato, fast vibrato, drop, scoop, and
smear.
157
Jazz pianists play grace notes and glissandi, striking adjacent keys.
158

In the swing section, the melody shows a different treatment each time it
reappears. The entire tune appears three times, first in the pedal (mm. 26-42), then twice
in the right hand (mm. 43-58). When it repeats, the tune is decorated with grace notes
and melodic ornamentations (mm. 59-76). See Example 6-8.

156
Gridley, 328.
157
Ibid., 45-46.
158
Oliver, 722.

Treatment of the T

Example 6-8. Bolcom, Free Fantasia:
Treatment of the Tune, O Zion, Haste, mm. 26-76 and 87-
132
-93

Grace notes are frequently used
pitch-bending style (mm. 44
the pedal plays grace notes and a glissando, resembling a jazz pianists melodic varia
(m. 88-93).
Example 6

2. Rhythm and
Although the gospel tune is originally 2/2, Bolcom set this
indicated to group the beats
of jazz and rhythm-and-blues.
The swing section suggests
First, as previously mentioned, the
race notes are frequently used for melodic ornaments, recalling jazz singer
bending style (mm. 44-45, 47, and 49. Refer to Example 6-8). In the final section,
the pedal plays grace notes and a glissando, resembling a jazz pianists melodic varia
hythm and Tempo
Although the gospel tune is originally 2/2, Bolcom set this section
ndicated to group the beats mostly as 3+2 (m. 23). Rhythm and tempo feature the style
blues.
section suggests two important characteristics of rhythm
, as previously mentioned, the swing feeling and strict, steady tempo
133
for melodic ornaments, recalling jazz singers
8). In the final section,
the pedal plays grace notes and a glissando, resembling a jazz pianists melodic variants

section in 5/4 and
Rhythm and tempo feature the styles
rhythm-and-blues.
steady tempo are essential

elements of the rhythm-and
be played with swing rhythm.
performed in steady tempo and writes in detail about it:
slowly beginning to swing, however, eighths remain str
must be rock-solid and strict tempo to end, and more and more abandon, but dont
speed.
The second character
emotion and rhythmic excitement.
in jazz styles.
162
The swing section uses
the tune, How Firm a Foundation
figures (mm. 27-42).
Example 6

159
Rye, 309; Gridley, 328.
160
The term swing needs to be
the swing era of the American popular music history that began during the 1930s and 1940s (Gridley,
161
Ibid., 328; Rye, 309
162
Gridley, 44.
and-blues style.
159
Bolcom indicates that the swing section
swing rhythm.
160
Moreover, the composer intends this section to be
steady tempo and writes in detail about it: a quarter note = 132, lively;
slowly beginning to swing, however, eighths remain straight or nearly so, tempo
solid and strict tempo to end, and more and more abandon, but dont
The second characteristic of rhythm-and-blues is a rhythmic ostinato
emotion and rhythmic excitement.
161
Ostinato is similar to riffs repeating a brief pattern
The swing section uses repetitive rhythmic patterns extensively
How Firm a Foundation, appears for the first time, both hands play off

Gridley, 328.
The term swing needs to be classified in its use as a synonym for jazz itself and as a label for
the swing era of the American popular music history that began during the 1930s and 1940s (Gridley,
309.
134
swing section is to
section to be
a quarter note = 132, lively;
aight or nearly so, tempo
solid and strict tempo to end, and more and more abandon, but dont
ostinato with overt
is similar to riffs repeating a brief pattern
epetitive rhythmic patterns extensively. When
the first time, both hands play offbeat

its use as a synonym for jazz itself and as a label for
the swing era of the American popular music history that began during the 1930s and 1940s (Gridley, 6).

In the second appearance of the tune
the left hand plays offbeat

Example 6

In the second appearance of the tune, the pedal begins to plays an ostinato
eft hand plays offbeat (mm. 43-58).
135
ostinato rhythm, and

When the tune repeats a third time, offbeat is
another rhythmic ostinato

Example 6

Syncopation is a traditional jazz element. When the tune is played, the
syncopated offbeats are heard
chorus against a soloist. This syncopation pattern is
swing section, and is used in the entire swing section
and syncopation-offbeat patterns (No. 1) and their variants (No. 2 through No. 13), which
give the music more rhythmic excitement (Figure 6
repeats a third time, offbeat is played by both hands, and the pedal plays
ostinato (mm. 59-74).
heard, set off from the rest of the parts, similar to a
chorus against a soloist. This syncopation pattern is a distinct rhythmic feature of the
is used in the entire swing section. There are basic rhythmic
beat patterns (No. 1) and their variants (No. 2 through No. 13), which
rhythmic excitement (Figure 6-3).
136
played by both hands, and the pedal plays

st of the parts, similar to a band
a distinct rhythmic feature of the
There are basic rhythmic ostinato
beat patterns (No. 1) and their variants (No. 2 through No. 13), which

Figure 6

Figure 6-3. Bolcom, Free Fantasia: Offbeat and Ostinat

137
Ostinato

3. Harmony
The swing section features distinctive
uses of sevenths, ninths, elevenths, and thirteenths
Harmonies with sevenths, ninths,
throughout the swing section (mm. 49

Example 6

Harmony
swing section features distinctive harmony derived from jazz style:
sevenths, ninths, elevenths, and thirteenths, smooth voice leading, and polychord
sevenths, ninths, and secondary dominants are consistently used
throughout the swing section (mm. 49-57).
138
derived from jazz style: extensive
th voice leading, and polychords.
and secondary dominants are consistently used

The use of the ninths, elevenths, and thirteenths

Example 6

Secondly, voice leading
notes from one chord to another, largely in stepwise motion.
swing section also uses this princip
chromatic motion. These chromatic mel

163
Robert Rawlins, Nor Eddine Bahha, and Barrett Tagliarino,
Jazz Theory for All Musicians
ninths, elevenths, and thirteenths is as follows.
voice leading in jazz results in the smooth movement of individual
notes from one chord to another, largely in stepwise motion.
163
Voice leading in the
section also uses this principle. The individual notes move smoothly in stepwise
chromatic motion. These chromatic melodies are harmonized as follows (

Robert Rawlins, Nor Eddine Bahha, and Barrett Tagliarino, Jazzology: The Encyclopedia of
(Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Hal Leonard Corporation, 2005), 11.
139

smooth movement of individual
Voice leading in the
The individual notes move smoothly in stepwise
odies are harmonized as follows (Example 6-15):
Jazzology: The Encyclopedia of
Hal Leonard Corporation, 2005), 11.

Example 6

140

141

The chromatic voice leading

Example 6-16.

The stepwise voice leading crea
examples illustrate these

Example 6

chromatic voice leading is heard in the final cadence of the piece.
16. Bolcom, Free Fantasia: Pedal Melody, mm.
stepwise voice leading creates clashes of dissonant minor seconds. The following
clashes.
Clash of Minor 2nd: F and F
b

142
87-89

nds. The following

Example 6

Thirdly, the use of polychords is one of the jazz elements. Examples of polychords in the
piece are as follows:
Example 6
Polychord: A Major and A

Example 6-18 Bolcom, Free Fantasia: mm. 83 and 91
Clash of a Minor 2nd: A and A
b

Polychord: A Major and A
b
Major on G

143
mm. 83 and 91


Example 6

D and D
b
produce the polychord of B

Example

Polychord: G Major and G
b
Major

produce the polychord of B
b
major and B
b
minor.
Polychord: B
b
Major and B
b
minor

144

The clash between F and F

Example 6
Polychord: B

D and D
b
results in either G
even greater dissonance because of B
same beat.
Example 6
Polychord: G
b
Augmented, G
The clash between F and F
b
makes a polychord of B
b
minor and B
b
diminished.
Example 6-22. Bolcom, Free Fantasia: mm. 73
Polychord: B
b
minor and B
b
diminished

results in either G
b
augmented or G
b
major in the right hand. Moreover, there is
because of B
bb
(in the left hand) and B
b
(in the right hand) on the
Augmented, G
b
Major, and G
b
minor; G Major and F Major
145
diminished.
Moreover, there is
(in the right hand) on the
minor; G Major and F Major

146

4. Registration
The tune appears as a pedal solo with an 8 reed stop in mm. 27-42. When the
tune repeats, the tune is placed in the right hand with a bright registration of 8 and 4
(mm. 43-58). When the tune recurs a third time, the registration adds trumpets, creating a
trumpet solo with brass band chorus, recalling a brass jazz band (mm. 59-74).
Based on the analysis above, the improvisation section includes musical features
of classical music in the twentieth century: use of free meter, no key signature, rhythmic
complexity, chromatic dissonance, atonality, polytonality, and use of parallel perfect
fourths, whole tone scale, and chromatic scales. The swing section, however, reveals a
multitude of jazz styles: blues, rhythm-and-blues, influences of gospel music, and use of
harmonic and melodic languages from jazz.

Figure 6-4. Bolcom, Free Fantasia: Summary, Elements of Jazz Styles

Influenced Jazz Styles
Melody Rhythm-and-Blues: Gospel tune
Blues: Grace notes, glissando
Harmony Jazz: Polychord, a wide use of sevenths, ninths, elevenths, and
thirteenth chords, and chromaticism similar to
microtonality of an African-American vocal style
Rhythm and
Tempo
Jazz: Syncopation
Rhythm-and-Blues: Swing rhythm, rhythmic ostinato and
strict tempo
Registration Jazz: Use of Trumpet stops for tune and a softer registration for
accompaniment, recalling the sound of a trumpet solo with
a jazz ensemble
147

CHAPTER SEVEN: CONCLUSION

Jazz styleas well as the distinctive treatments of musical elements that define
and distinguish the many forms of jazzhas proven influential in the selected organ
works of Charles Ives, William Albright, and William Bolcom. Each of these composers
pursued a career that involved both performance and composition; as a result, these
composers were able to experience the many influences of developing American jazz
style in both hands-on and conceptual ways. The compositions covered in this study
give evidence of a wide range of jazz-related genres, with the organ employed both as
itself and as a clever stand-in for other instruments that were popular in jazz
performance, such as the trumpet. The organs timbral color and variety, through the art
of registration, makes it ideally suited to these creative uses. Variations on America,
composed in the transition of establishing jazz, offered a glimpse of jazz such as jazz
band style, syncopations, chromaticism, seventh chords, bitonolity, and polyrhyhms.
Albright and Bolcom developed more substantial jazz styles such as ragtime, blues, and
rhythm-and-blues in their selected organ works.

Future Directions

American organ music has been largely influenced by European organ works:
fugues and chorale-based works by German composers; improvisational, program, and
orchestral works by French composers; and voluntaries and airs by English composers.
148

Many European organists have come to the United States and had a profound effect on
American organ music. One of the first to live in America was Karl Theodore Pachelbel
(1690-1750), son of Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706).
164
European organists from schools,
and prestigious cathedrals, such as Notre Dame Cathedral and Saint-Sulpice, have been
invited for annual organ conventions, schools, and concerts. In the early twentieth
century, many leading American organ composers such as Dudley Buck (1839-1909),
John Knowles Paine (1839-1906), George Chadwick (1854-1931), Horatio Parker (1863-
1919), and James H. Rogers (1857-1940) pursued studies in Europe with well-known
teachers, such as Franz Liszt (1811-1886), Joseph Rheinberger (1839-1901), Alexandre
Guilmant (1837-1911), and Charles-Marie Widor (1844-1937).
165
Even today, many
organists and scholars visit Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Italy to study organ.
Even considering the magnitude of the European influence on organ literature, Americans
Ives, Albright, and Bolom have greatly contributed to organ literature by incorporating
American vernacular music. Although Albright and Bolcom also studied in France and
with teachers from Germany, Albright and Bolcom beautifully melded American
vernacular music with European music in their organ works.
Today many young organists have become more interested in jazz style. One
young recitalist performed an improvisation in jazz style at the American Guild of
Organists National Convention in Minnesota in 2008. Most of the selected organ works
in this study can often be heard in young organists recitals. Moreover, many non-

164
Corliss Richard Arnold, Organ Literature: Historical Survey, 3
rd
ed. (Metuchen: Scarecrow
Press, 1955), 285.
165
Ibid.
149

musicians, particularly in younger generations, seem to favor popular music. Organ
compositions with jazz influences could be an ideal way to draw a new generation of
listeners or players into the world of the organ. It is hoped that this study will motivate
organists and composers to explore and create jazz-based organ works. By incorporating
jazz influences, composers could foster interest in American organ literature, and the
future of the organ world would be enhanced, thereby increasing the number of organ
enthusiasts and further developing the musical elements that distinguish American organ
music from European organ music.

150

APPENDIX A: MUSICAL TERMS IN JAZZ STYLE
(Terms are in alphabetical order)

Band music Band music was usually present at social activities, including
dances, parties, funerals, parades, picnics, sporting events, political
speeches, and dramatic presentations in town. The brass band
instrumentation includes horns, trumpets, cornets, trombones,
drums, and cymbals.
166
But the early Louisiana bands also
included a clarinet and later a saxophone. When the social activity
was held indoors, smaller string bands were also comprised of
cornet, violin, guitar, bass, and piano.
167

Band music influenced early jazz.
168
The historical band
tradition in New Orleans was derived from, a time long before the
Civil War. About thirty different regimental bands of the
occupying force were stationed in and around New Orleans. They
played at the many military ceremonies, and patriotic and popular
music concerts.
169
During 1890s, there were bands in almost every
small town and settlement of Southern Louisiana. Band music
combined march and ragtime. Moreover, these two styles were
interrelated.
170
John Philip Sousa (1854 1932), the most
important figure in American band music, included ragtime pieces
in his band concerts. Also, ragtime pianists often performed
Sousas marches in a ragtime style. Band music influenced jazz
quite directly. By the beginning of the twentieth century, New
Orleans was accustomed to hearing brass bands and military bands.

The military band often provided dances in the middle 1800s.
Also, the march form was sometimes modified and used as dance
music. Later a popular dance called two step was done to march
styles. Eventually, roles of instruments were transferred from
marching band to jazz band. For instance, the flute and piccolo
parts from march arrangements were imitated by jazz
clarinetists.
171

The relationship between jazz and the New Orleans
band began developing between 1895 and 1916. Small ensembles
from New Orleans, playing spirited, syncopated dance music,

166
Tucker, 905; Gridley, 35.
167
Gridley, 35.
168
Gridley, 35-37.
169
Ibid., 35.
170
Ibid., 36-37.
171
Ibid.
151

began featuring the termspelled as jassin their names. The
musical style of these ensembles was energetic, and blues style
derived from southern Black musicians. In 1917, the word jazz
gained wide-spread use in popular music, and was used mainly as
an adjective descriptive of a band.
172

Gospel The gospel song was an important source of jazz styles in blues,
rhythm-and-blues, hard bop, and soul jazz.
173
The term gospel
refers to gospel hymn, gospel song, gospel music, and
simply gospel. Gospel is an American religious song with text
that reflects personal experiences of Protestant evangelical groups,
both white and African-American. The poems are generally
subjective or hortatory, are often addressed to ones fellow man,
and center upon a single theme, which is emphasized through
repetitions of individual phrases and a refrain following each
stanza.
174

While white gospel music is of little relevance to jazz, the
African-American stream has had an enormous impact upon
jazz.
175
The appearance of black gospel music coincided with the
beginning of ragtime, blues, and jazz, and with the rise of the
Pentecostal churches at the end of the 19
th
century. Also it
departed from African-American spirituals and incorporated the
texts of white hymns ranging from those of Isaac Watts and Fanny
Jane Crosby, but transformed by black American styles of rhythm
(syncopation), pitch (flexible inflection and blue notes),
harmonization (quartal and quintal harmonies) and performance
(call and response format between preacher and congregation and
which in jazz is between an improvising soloist and ensemble, or
between an improvising soloist and the audience).
176
The basic
performance style of African-American gospel music was
originated in Memphis about 1907, and was performed by the
skilled song-leaders drawn from the congregation, with bodily
movement (swaying, head-shaking), rhythmic responses (hand
clapping and foot stamping), and shouted interpolations in the
tradition of ring-shouts and circle dances in the nineteenth

172
Tucker, 905.
173
Ibid., 197, 215, and 328; Bogdanov, Woodstra, and Erlewine, 14.
174
H. C. Boyer, Harry Eskew, and James C. Downey, Gospel Music, The New Grove
Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2
nd
ed., ed. Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London; Washington,
D.C.: Macmillan Publishers, 200l), 172.
175
Ibid.
176
Boyer, 177.
152

century.
177
The shouts, or ring-dance, is characterized by
stamping and singing while moving in a circle counter-clockwise
in a loose-limbed, shuffling dance.
178
After a regular worship
service, congregations used to stay for a ring shout. It was a
revival of primitive African dance. So, educated ministers and
congregation members sometimes placed a ban on it. The men and
women arranged themselves in a ring. The music started, perhaps
with a Spiritual, and the ring began to move, at first slowly, then
with quickening pace. The same musical phrase was repeated over
and over for hours. This produced an ecstatic state. Women
screamed and fell. Men exhausted were dropped out of the ring.
179

The term shouting still applies to the ecstatic singing and
dancing, accompanied by hand-clapping.
180
The instruments used
to accompany gospel include percussion, such as drums, triangles,
tambourines, and even washboards played with wire coat- hangers,
and banjo, guitar, trumpet, trombone, saxophone, and piano. The
style of gospel pianists combined the syncopations of ragtime with
left-hand octaves derived from the stride style of jazz piano.
181

By the middle of the twentieth century, gospel music
became a distinct category of popular songs.
182
Gospel provided
strong inspiration for developments in jazz and for the emergence
of both rhythm-and-blues, hard bop, and soul jazz featuring self-
conscious and programmatic evocations of the sound and spirit of
the African-American gospel churches (most notably in Charles
Mingus Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting and Better Git It in
Your Soul), along with the occasional use of chord progressions
borrowed from the gospel repertory.
183

Hard Bop Hard bop appeared during 1950s and was derived from African-
American music.
184
Some of the hard bop musicians were pianists
and organists in taverns and cocktail lounges.
185
Journalists coined
new names for the style: hard bop, funky jazz, mainstream, post
bop, and soul jazz. Unfortunately, the new names were applied

177
H. C. Boyer, Howard Rye, and Barry Kernfeld, Gospel, The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz,
2
nd
ed., ed. Barry Kernfeld (London; New York: Groves Dictionaries Inc., 2002), 71.
178
Oliver, Harrison, and William Bolcom, 195.
179
Available from <http://www.negrospirituals.com/song.htm>; Internet; accessed 28 September
2008.
180
Oliver, Harrison, and William Bolcom, 195.
181
Boyer, 181.
182
Ibid., 172.
183
Boyer, Rye, and Kernfeld, 72.
184
Gridley, 328.
185
Ibid., 197.
153

without much consistency.
186
The musical style of hard bop is
influenced by blues and gospel music, and is characterized by
simple melodies, intricately syncopated drum rhythms, and bass
figures.
187
Although hard bop had roots in bop, they are
different.
188
The main differences are that hard bop tends to be
simpler, more soulful, looser in rhythm, and influenced by
gospel and rhythm-and-blues.
189
Moreover, improvised lines are
simpler than bop, and bop has more variety in accompaniment
patterns, fewer tune chord progressions, darker, weightier tone
qualities, and more emphasis on hard, unrelenting swinging.
190

Soul Jazz Soul jazz was begun in the middle of the 1950s and popularized in
the1960s.
191
It was traced back to the pianist Horace Silver, whose
funky style infused bop with influences of blues, church, and
gospel music. Soul jazz was often played by in small groups led
by a tenor (or alto) saxophonist, a pianist, or a Hammond organist.
Soul music is a combination of the rhythm-and-blues and gospel,
including a greater emphasis on vocalists, rhythmic groove, simple,
tuneful themes, and improvisation.
192

Spiritual African-American spirituals are principally associated with
African-American churches.
193
The common form was an
alternating line and refrain performed by leader and chorus in
antiphonal singing. The lead singer replies to a line or stanza with
frequent improvisation. Refrain lines are sung by the whole
congregation.
194
Many spiritual texts are melancholic and
sorrowful, and set in slow tempo. Other spirituals, however,
sometimes called jubilees, have more optimistic texts. They are
quick tempo, highly rhythmic, often syncopated, and performed in
a call-and-response. The spiritual includes walk around or ring
shout, a shuffling circular dance to chanting and handclapping,
which accompanied more joyous jubilees. From 1871, African-
American spirituals were brought to an international audience
through the appearance of Jubilee Singers from Fisk University in
Nashville, Tennessee. The purpose of the group was to raise funds

186
Ibid., 195.
187
Ibid., 197 and 328.
188
Ibid., 195.
189
190
Gridley, 197 and 215.
191
Barry Kernfeld, Soul Jazz, The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, 2
nd
ed., ed. by Barry Kernfeld,
Grove Dictionaries INC. (New York: New York, 2002), 635.
192
Gridley, 215; Bogdanov, Woodstra, and Erlewine, 14; Kernfeld, 635.
193
Oliver, 191.
194
Ibid., 192.
154

for the university. Its members were black students whose
repertoire included black spirituals. After the 1950s, spirituals had
been largely replaced by gospel songs.
195

195
Ibid., 193.
155

APPENDIX B: PERMISSIONS

Charles Ives: Variations on "America" (1891) for organ and Adeste Fidelis in an
Organ Prelude (1897), published by King of Prussia, Philadelphia: Mercury Music
Corporation.
Copyright 1949 by Carl Fischer LLC in New York.
Used musical excerpts by permission of Carl Fischer LLC on October 22, 2008.

The Chord Scale Theory and Jazz Harmony by Barrie Nettles and Richard Graf.
Copyright 1997 by Advanced Music in Rottenburg, Germany.
Used a musical excerpt by permission of Advanced Music on March 12, 2009.

How Firm A Foundation
Traditional text compiled by John Rippon
Traditional music compiled by Joseph Funk
Arranged by William Bolcom
Copyright 1994 by Hal Leonard Corporation
International Copyright Secured All Rights Reserved
Used musical excerpts by permission of Hal Leonard Corporation on March 27, 2009

Jazz Styles: History And Analysis by Mark C. Gridley, 10
th
Edition
Copyright 2009 by Pearson Education, Inc. in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey
Used Examples of Vibrato in p. 49 by permission of Pearson Education, Inc. on March 27,
2009

O Zion, Haste
Words by Mary Ann Thomson
Music by James Walch

Old Plantation Hymns: A Collection of Hither to Unpublished Melodies of the Slave and
the Freedman, with Historical and Descriptive Notes by William Eleazar Barton.
Copyright 1972 by AMS Press, Inc. in New York.
Used a musical excerpt by permission of the AMS Press, Inc. on March 16, 2009.

156

Scott Joplin: Complete Piano Rags, edited by David A. Jasen.
Copyright 1988 by Dover Publications Inc. in New York.
Used musical excerpts by permission of Advanced Music on March 10, 2009.

Sometimes I Feel
African-American Spiritual

Sweet Sixteenths
Music by William Albright
Copyright 1978 by Edward B. Marks Music Company

157

158

159

160

Date: Thu, 12 Mar 2009 16:51:01 +0100 [03/12/2009 08:51:01 AM MST]
From: Veronika Gruber <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Permission

Dear Mi Kyung Hwang,

We received your request to use an excerpt from "The Chord Scale Theory and Jazz
Harmony." by Barrie Nettles and Richard Graf. Rottenburg, Germany: Advanced
Music, 1997. The musical example from p. 101. For your Dissertation,
ELEMENTS OF JAZZ STYLE IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY AMERICAN
ORGAN WORKS: SELECTED WORKS OF CHARLES IVES, WILLIAM ALBRIGHT,
AND WILLIAM BOLCOM.
This email will include a permission sheet for to use it as mentioned above.

Most sincerely,
Veronika Gruber
Advance Music

..
Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2009 08:40:59 -0500 [04/21/2009 06:40:59 AM MST]
From: Daniel Peters <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Permission

Dear Ms. Kyung:

The minute the check cleared you had permission.

Sincerely,
Daniel Peters
Permissions Administrator
Business Affairs
Hal Leonard Corporation
414-774-3630 ext. 5254
414-774-3259 fax

161

Date: Mon, 16 Mar 2009 16:19:10 -0400 [03/16/2009 01:19:10 PM MST]
From: David Ramm <[email protected]>
Subject: RE: Permission

Dear Mi Kyung:

The text in question is in the public domain and may be used as wish. We only request
that you cite our edition using a standard bibliographic format.
With congratulations on the completion of your dissertation--

David Ramm
Editor-in-Chief [and Ives lover]
AMS Press, Inc.
718-875-8100
718-875-3800 (fax)
http://amspressinc.com
[email protected]
For mail sent through the post office:
AMS Press, Inc.
Brooklyn Navy Yard
63 Flushing Ave., Unit 221
Brooklyn NY 11205-1073

..
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 12:44:02 -0400 [03/10/2009 09:44:02 AM MST]
From: "Barell, Susan" <[email protected]>
Subject: RE: Copy permission

Dear Mi Kyung Hwang,

Thank you for your inquiry. Dover Publications, Inc. hereby grants you permission to
include the below-referenced musical excerpts for inclusion in your forthcoming
dissertation. Please provide standard credit to the Dover edition
including title, author/editor, year and publisher. Best wishes!

Sincerely,
Susan Barell
Dover Publications, Inc.
Contracts/Rights & Permissions
31 East Second Street
Mineola, NY 11501

162

REFERENCES

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Wisconsin: H. Leonard Corp., 2000.

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rd
ed. Metuchen:
Scarecrow Press, 1955.

Barton, William Eleazar. Old Plantation Hymns: A Collection of Hitherto Unpublished
Melodies of the Slave and the Freedman, with Historical and Descriptive Notes.
New York: AMS Press, 1972.

Berlin, Edward A. Ragtime. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. 2
nd

ed. eds. Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London; Washington, D.C.: Macmillan
Publishers, 200l.

Bogdanov, Vladimir, Chris Woodstra and Stephen Thomas Erlewine. All Music Guide to
Jazz: the Definitive Guide to Jazz Music. 4th ed. San Francisco: Backbeat
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Boyer, H. C., Harry Eskew, and James C. Downey. Gospel Music. The New Grove
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ed. ed. Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell.
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Boyer, H. C., Howard Rye, and Barry Kernfeld. Gospel. The New Grove Dictionary
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ELEMENTS OF JAZZ STYLE IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY AMERICAN ORGAN

WORKS: SELECTED WORKS OF CHARLES IVES, WILLIAM ALBRIGHT, AND

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