Current copyright law discourages the vital reinterpretation of existing music that defines jazz aesthetics. It privileges the composer of a borrowed work as the sole owner, regardless of the meaningful and original transformations a new musician may bring to or derive from an existing chord progression or tune. Within the framework of current copyright law, the kind of borrowing, referencing, and reworking of existing music that characterizes the evolution of jazz is considered unoriginal and thus not up to the standards required to adhere to the law. Revisitation is essential to jazz, ranging from oblique reference to the arrangement and performance of standard songs. Therefore, a narrower definition of what is legally “derivative” must be introduced into copyright law, in order to protect and valuate the highly original contributions of jazz musicians who generate new works and interpolations from existing music. Given the musical originality of many such interpolations, copyright law should consider these to be transformative, and thus not only protected under fair use analysis but also privileged as original compositions, protected under the law. Moving forward, similar considerations may be applied to digital music compilation, since the ability to transform sources and create collages generates new modes of meaning in a similar way to jazz.

Works: John Coltrane (performer): Summertime (1944); Art Tatum (arranger and performer): Cherokee (1946); Live Crew: Oh, Pretty Woman (1951); Miles Davis (arranger and performer): Love for Sale (1951-53); Keith Jarrett (performer): I Got It Bad and That Ain’t Good (1959).

Sources: George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin: “Summertime” from Porgy and Bess (1944), I Got Rhythm (1948-49); Ray Noble: Cherokee (1946); Vincent Youmans and Irving Caesar: Tea for Two (1948); Joseph Kosma and Jacques Prévert: Autumn Leaves (1948); Roy Orbison: Oh, Pretty Woman (1951); Cole Porter: Love for Sale (1951-52); Duke Ellington and Paul Francis Webster: I Got It Bad and That Ain’t Good (1959).

Index Classifications: 1900s, Jazz

Contributed by: Molly Covington

An analysis of Leonard Bernstein’s numerous arrangements of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, which he made throughout his career, illustrates Bernstein’s controversial conviction that the piece was structurally flexible. They also reflect Bernstein’s ambivalent relationship with the piece and with Gershwin, which is also evident in his interviews and essays. Bernstein’s earliest arrangement was written in 1937, when he was still a teenager, and his 1959 recording of the performance with the BBC is one of the best-known versions of the piece today. Certain omissions, stylistic aberrations, reorchestrations, and score annotations in Bernstein’s arrangements offer clues to his developing relationship with the piece and potentially to which editions of the score he knew best.

Works: Leonard Bernstein (arranger): Rhapsody in Blue [1959 version] (75-77, 90-92), Rhapsody in Blue [1937 version] (82-89), Rhapsody in Blue [1938 version] (90).

Sources: George Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue (73-96).

Index Classifications: 1900s, Jazz

Contributed by: Molly Covington

By the 1960s, Rhapsody in Blue was generally not considered authentic to the African American jazz tradition, as it had become a standard of the more classicized genre of “symphonic jazz.” Duke Ellington was one of the few African American composers to engage with the piece regularly over the course of his career, allowing us to trace his relationship to the music over time. On his 1963 album Will Big Bands Ever Come Back?, Ellington and co-arranger Billy Strayhorn sought to create a more authentic, less classicized version of the piece through the reorchestration and reorganization of musical themes and by recasting the piano part in a more typical jazz role, comping chord changes and taking improvised solos. This 1963 arrangement stands apart from Ellington’s earlier arrangements of the piece. The earliest, from 1925, differs little from Ferde Grofé’s popular 1924 arrangement for the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, and it was likely thought of as a crowd-pleaser in a time when the Ellington band worked primarily on tips. His 1932 arrangement was likely also composed to please audiences, but here Ellington is more harmonically and thematically experimental, while maintaining the overall structure of the original. Ellington’s 1963 version was described by David Schiff as a “brilliant act of deconstruction—and renewal.” Ellington and Strayhorn’s arrangement was meant to be a historical retrospective as much as anything, and it achieves its historicism through stylistic allusions to earlier styles of both “black” and “white” jazz. But an even more telling historical narrative of jazz at large may be traced in the stylistic progression of Ellington’s three arrangements.

Works: Duke Ellington (arranger and performer): One O’Clock Jump (97), Woodchopper’s Ball (97), Rhapsody in Blue [1925 version] (101-3), Rhapsody in Blue [1932 version] (104-10); Duke Ellington (arranger and performer) and Billy Strayhorn (arranger): Rhapsody in Blue [1963 version] (110-17); Robert Sadin (arranger) and Marcus Roberts (performer): Rhapsody in Blue (115).

Sources: George Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue (97-115); Count Basie: One O’Clock Jump (97); Woody Herman: Woodchopper’s Ball (97); Ferde Grofé (arranger): Rhapsody in Blue (101, 107).

Index Classifications: 1900s, Jazz

Contributed by: Molly Covington

An accomplished jazz composer and arranger who is little-known today, Melba Liston was able in her arrangements of existing compositions to render dramatically altered versions of existing works that highlight her own compositional ingenuity—namely, her unique harmonic and melodic language as well as her command of sophisticated motivic material. Her original compositions incorporate elements from other musical traditions, particularly African rhythms. Geof Bradfield’s 2012 composition Melba! takes Liston’s music as a model in a variety of ways. Bradfield sought, through careful analytical study of Liston’s musical scores (drawn from the CBMR archives), to take her use of African rhythms and themes as a model for his own compositions. He also sought to identify works by Liston that he could revise, arrange, or orchestrate. Both of these initiatives began with the analytical study presented here, which has resulted in a musical composition by Bradfield that not only borrows directly from Liston (using fragments of her music as source material), but programmatically celebrates her contribution to jazz. More broadly, Melba! incorporates stylistic elements drawn from a survey of Liston’s original compositions, as well as her collaborations with figures like Dizzy Gillespie and Randy Weston.

Works: Geof Bradfield: Melba!

Sources: Mary Lou Williams: Virgo (87); Melba Liston: “Bantu” from Uhuru Africa (88-92), African Sunrise (89-92), Just Waiting (90-92), Len Sirrah (92); Melba Liston and Elvin Jones: And Then Again (92); Melba Liston and Randy Weston: Cry Me Not (93).

Index Classifications: 2000s, Jazz

Contributed by: Molly Covington

Paul Dessau’s score for the pseudo-documentary propaganda film . . . Du und mancher Kamerad employs extensive quotation throughout in order to effectively underscore the themes and emotional content of the film, and to provoke critical reflection in line with his political leanings. For Dessau, quotation was a tool for innovation, as well as a means to generate a sense of historical continuity. In this way, it could be both didactic and creative. The eclectic assemblage of musical quotations employed in the score mirrors the compiled nature of the film, drawn from sources scoured over the course of two years. Aside from two prominent leitmotifs (one of which is an altered quotation of a German folk song), Dessau treats his abundance of quotations—drawn from folk songs, soldiers’ songs, and his own compositions—as musical documents. They are treated in a similar manner as the passing footage fragments, appearing in relation to an image or series of images and never recurring. In some cases, Dessau actively produces critical detachment, or the creation of a musical setting that is incongruous with the musical document it treats or visual images it accompanies in order to engender critical reflection. It is in Dessau’s uncomfortable incongruities that his sense of irony and his penchant for Marxist dialectics is most directly expressed. Through this approach, he is able to both score the film, and to provide his own political commentary alongside it.

Works: Paul Dessau: Score to . . . Du und mancher Kamerad, “Da sind sechs Mörder” from Deutsches Miserere (210).

Sources: Anonymous: Schnitterlied (201-2); Balthasar Gerhard Schumacher (text): Heil dir im Siegerkranz (204); Anonymous: God Save the Queen (204); Max Kegel and Carl Gramm: Sozialistenmarsch (205); Pierre de Geyter and Eugène Pottier: The Internationale (205); Heinrich Anacker, Hans Tieszler, Hans-Wilhelm Kulenkampff (text), and Norbert Schultze (music): Von Finnland bis zum schwarzen Meer (205); Hugo Zuschnied (text): Nun geht’s ans Abschiednehmen (205); Vassili Lebedev-Kumatch (text), Erich Weinert (German text), and Isaak Dunajewski (music): Fatherland, No Enemy Shall Imperil You (206); Hoffmann von Fallersleben: O wie ist es kalt geworden (206); Wilhelm Hauff (text) and Johann C. Günther (music): Morgenrot Morgenrot (206-7): Paul Dessau: Lilo Herrmann (207-8), Sinfonischer Marsch (208-9), Sinfonie in einem Satz (209), Kol Nidre-Sinfonie (209-10); Herrmann Scherchen: Brüder, zur Sonne, zur Freiheit (209); Max Schneckenberger (text) and Karl Wilhelm (music): Die Wacht am Rhein (209); Arno Pardun: Volk ans Gewehr (209); Bertolt Brecht (text) and Paul Dessau (music): Deutsches Miserere (209-10); Chopin: Polonaise in A Major, Op. 40, No. 1 (210); Haydn: Symphony No. 94 in G Major, Hob.I:94 (“Surprise”) (212-13).

Index Classifications: 1900s, Film

Contributed by: Molly Covington

Although Thelonious Monk is primarily recognized for his original compositions, a look at his engagement with popular song can yield insight into his musical development during the early 1940s. It was during this time that Monk composed many of his later-recorded originals, and yet as a house pianist at Minton’s, Monk probably spent much of his time playing with other soloists on standard tunes. Monk’s application of idiosyncratic dissonances and tritone substitutions to songs as familiar as Lulu’s Back in Town and There’s Danger in Your Eyes, Cherie go beyond parody or eccentricity. They also cannot be thought of strictly as a modernist revolt against the commercialism of Tin Pan Alley “tunesmiths.” Instead, Monk’s arrangements of standards, both in studio recordings and live performance, can be regarded as interpretations. As such, they expose the seeds of his compositional style and serve as an autobiographical inscription of his Tin Pan Alley roots.

Though it is possible that Monk developed his personal style of composition and then applied that style to standards, it is equally possible that he derives his harmonic style from his reshaping of standards, given that the standards he chose to perform and record often lend themselves to Monk’s preferred reharmonizations. This is the case in his 1971 performance of Gershwin’s Nice Work If You Can Get It, in which Monk aggressively foregrounds dissonances which were subtle in the original. In either case, it benefits our understanding of Monk as a composer to acknowledge his true affection for popular song (as opposed to a modernist revolt against it), and it is likely that this affection is common among other bebop artists as well.

Works: Thelonious Monk (performer): Lulu’s Back in Town [1959 version] (170), There’s Danger in Your Eyes, Cherie [1959 version] (170), Tea for Two [1956 version] (170), Sweet Loraine [1941 version] (171-72), Nice Work if You Can Get It [1941, 1971 versions] (174-77), Ghost of a Chance [1957 version] (177-78), April in Paris [1957 version] (178-83); Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie: Koko (172-73).

Sources: Harry Warren (music) and Al Dubin (text): Lulu’s Back in Town (170); Vincent Youmans (music) and Irving Caesar (text): Tea for Two (170); Cliff Burwell (music) and Mitchell Parish (text): Sweet Loraine (171-72); Ray Noble: Cherokee (172-73); George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin: Nice Work if You Can Get It (174-77); Victor Yang: (I Don’t Stand a) Ghost of a Chance (177-78); Vernon Duke: April in Paris (179-81).

Index Classifications: 1900s, Jazz

Contributed by: Molly Covington

Duke Ellington and Bubber Miley’s 1927 composition Black and Tan Fantasy exhibits a variety of contrasting idioms, adopting stylistic elements from blues and jazz, as well as quotations from a well-known spiritual and one from Chopin’s second piano sonata. The concept of “signifying,” put forth by Henry Louis Gates Jr., illuminates a fundamental strategy for quotation in jazz: repetition and revision. The intersection of these strategies in Black and Tan Fantasy is expressed both on the level of quotation and on deeper levels within the borrowed material of the piece. For example, the spiritual Hosanna, quoted in the opening phrases, is in turn a revision of Stephen Adams’s The Holy City. The tensions between old and new, black and white, and secular and sacred that result from Ellington and Miley’s juxtaposition of styles and sentiments generate sophisticated instances of ironic play. This ironic play can subsequently be seen as participating in the ongoing tradition of troping in African American art-culture, as described by Gates.

Works: Duke Ellington and Bubber Miley: Black and Tan Fantasy; King Oliver and his Creole Jazz Band: Chimes Blues (62-63); Johnny Dodd: Weary City (62-63); Felix Arndt: Desecration Rag (63-64).

Sources: Anonymous (Spiritual): Hosanna (51-52); Chopin: Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-flat Minor, Op. 35 (51-53, 63-68); Stephen Adams: The Holy City (51-53, 58-67).

Index Classifications: 1900s, Jazz

Contributed by: Molly Covington

One of the central questions in jazz research is the relationship of a specific jazz musician to his or her jazz predecessors. Harold Bloom’s anxiety-based model of influence, despite its current popularity across the humanities, is not an effective starting point in the ethnomusicological discourse surrounding quotation or allusion in jazz. Alternatively, Henry Louise Gates Jr.’s model of “Signifyin(g)” offers a better tool for understanding jazz musicians’ relationship to their precursors, as well as the ways they can generate meaning from this tension. Gates’s model is better for two reasons. First, it directly addresses jazz music and folk improvisation in addition to literary traditions whereas Bloom’s model focuses on literature. Second, it reflects the vernacular, communal nature of African American art versus the refinement and monolithic originality idealized by nineteenth-century authors. In other words, the influence of predecessors is felt joyfully rather than anxiously in jazz improvisation, and musical quotations tend to reflect homage. In the context of “Signifyin(g),” Joe Henderson’s quotation of a motive from Charlie Parker’s Buzzy in a chorus of his 1965 recording If, or in his 1981 recording of Freddie Hubbard’s Bird Like, generates a joyful dialogue between the performer and an audience or ensemble who would recognize the reference, rather than an anxious dialogue between the performer and his predecessor. Repetition, interpretation, and transformation rest on the assumption of a communal language which accurately reflects the nature of mainstream jazz improvisation more broadly.

Works: Joe Henderson: If (10-11, 13); Joe Henderson (performer) and Freddie Hubbard (composer and performer): Bird Like (10-17).

Sources: Charlie Parker: Buzzy (10-17).

Index Classifications: General, 1900s, Jazz

Contributed by: Felicia Miyakawa, Molly Covington, Matthew G. Leone

Texting is the process by which existing instrumental music is used to compose a new, texted work. The extent to which the original music is modified can vary, as can the degree of allusion intended by the composer. As a form of textual interpretation, texting is both a compositional tool and a kind of musical criticism. As such, it is a method of borrowing that sees a rich expression in nineteenth-century music, when the roles of composer and critic often overlapped and styles of texted and untexted musical genres commonly borrowed from one another. A variety of motivations for texting are evident in the Romantic repertoire, from a desire to engage the borrowed work symbolically or thematically (as in Franz Liszt’s use of themes from Beethoven’s Third Symphony in his Zur Säkularfeier Beethovens), to less sincere forms of musical play (as in Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel’s texting of themes from Felix Mendelssohn’s Sonata écossaise, Op. 28). Cases of texting can be complex and obscure, at times involving multiple layers of borrowed material. Once a texting is identified, an analysis of the new work’s interaction with its source material can yield a better formal, harmonic, and thematic understanding of the music.

Works: Franz Liszt: Zur Säkularfeier Beethovens (90); Berlioz: L’Enfance du Christ (91-93); P. E. Lange-Müller: Se, Natten er svanger med Vellugt fin (93-94); Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel: Nachtreigen (94-95); Robert Schumann: Hoch, hoch sind die Berge, Op. 138, No. 8 (95-97); Clara Schumann: Sie liebten sich beide, Op. 13, No. 2 (95-97); Brahms: Über die See, Op. 69, No. 7 (95-97), Der Tod, das ist die kühle Nacht, Op. 96, No. 1 (97), Wehe, so willst du mich wieder, Op. 32, No. 5 (97-98).

Sources: Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major, Op. 55 (“Eroica”) (90), String Quartet in C-sharp Minor, Op. 131 (91-93); Saint-Saëns: Piano Concerto No. 2 in G Minor, Op. 22 (93-94); Felix Mendelssohn: String Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 12 (94-95), Andante cantabile e Presto agitato, WoO 6 (97-98), Elijah, Op. 70 (97-98); Clara Schumann: Piano Sonata in G Minor (95-97); Robert Schumann: Hoch, hoch sind die Berge, Op. 138, No. 8 (95-97), Piano Sonata in G Minor, Op. 22 (97).

Index Classifications: 1800s

Contributed by: Molly Covington

Melodic quotation is the process by which a jazz instrumentalist quotes melodic fragments from one or more jazz compositions, while improvising on another. This technique is used to import various elements from the source material, such as the imagery of the lyrics or title. Depending on how they are combined, these elements can generate meaning through ironic juxtaposition, thematic unity, or narrative coherence. Additional meaning may be generated by the ways and the degrees to which the quotation is altered in the moment. This is both a musical and rhetorical phenomenon, and recognition by the listener is required. Since quotations may come from multiple sources—of varying degrees of obscurity—different levels of competence will result in a unique meaning for each listener. Melodic quotation in jazz improvisation is still seen somewhat as gimmick and is not as likely to be heard on commercial recordings as it is in live performance in small clubs. Despite this, the technique merits consideration, especially for studies of audience experience.

Works: Dexter Gordon (performer): There’s a Small Hotel (6-7); Jimi Hendrix (performer): The Star-Spangled Banner (20).

Sources: Wagner: “Bridal Chorus” from Lohengrin (6); Richard Rodgers (composer) and Lorenz Hart (lyricist): There’s a Small Hotel (6-7); Francis Scott Key (lyricist): The Star-Spangled Banner (20); Daniel Butterfield: Taps (20).

Index Classifications: 1900s, Jazz

Contributed by: Molly Covington

As a composer working within the ideological constraints of socialist realism, Paul Dessau brought together classical models (from Bach, Beethoven, and others) and modernist compositional techniques (from Schoenberg and Webern) in two important works from the 1960s: Bach Variations (1963) and Orchestermusik No. 3, “Lenin” (1969). Within these pieces, Dessau employs a mixture of styles, musical quotations, and both tonal and atonal musical languages. During his exile in France and then the United States during World War II, Dessau formed significant aspects of his compositional style, including a deep interest in the works of Schoenberg and other modernist composers. After the war and his return to the socialist state of East Germany, an ideological tension emerged in the peripheries of cold-war politics regarding German musical heritage. Especially in East Germany, questions of elitism, utility, and a true adherence to the “classics” complicated the adoption of modernist techniques in contemporary composition. Whereas figures like Hans Eisler preferred to keep the modern and the classical separate in composition, Dessau blended them for a variety of musical, political, and aesthetic reasons, making him a unique figure in the dialectic of past and present in post-war German music.

Works: Paul Dessau: Symphonic Mozart Adaptation after the Quintet KV 614 (186-87), In Memoriam Anton Webern (187), Bach Variations (188-89), Orchestermusik No. 3, “Lenin” (190-91).

Sources: Mozart: String Quintet No. 6 in E-flat Major, K.614 (187); Johann Sebastian Bach: The Musical Offering, BWV 1079 (187), “Musette,” BWV Anh. 126, from Notenbüchlein für Anna Magdalena Bach (189); C. P. E. Bach: Peasant’s Dance (188-89); Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 23 in F Minor, Op. 57 (“Appassionata”) (190-91); Paul Dessau: Grabschrift für Lenin (190), Appell der Arbeiterklasse (191).

Index Classifications: 1900s

Contributed by: Molly Covington

Thelonious Monk’s 1955 album Thelonious Monk Plays Duke Ellington demonstrates both a fluid definition of the “mainstream ” as it emerged in the mid-1950s, as well as some of the ways Monk responded musically to its commercializing forces. During this decade, musicians and critics alike were formulating a new definition of the jazz mainstream that accounted for styles that fell between traditional swing and modern bebop styles. Monk’s producers, Orrin Keepnews and Bill Grauer Jr., were sensitive to the new commercial pressures of mainstream appeal, and Monk’s “Ellington album” was a tool for drawing a wider audience to an artist whose reputation for difficulty was well-known. The result, however, was not an ideal synthesis of old and new styles. There are moments of musical interest, as in the clever harmonies in the introduction to “Mood Indigo” and the impressive double-time solo on “I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart.” In general, however, Monk plays with the detachment of someone who, as Keepnews suggested, had never seen the pieces before. This can be interpreted as a simple lack of familiarity with the music (however unlikely, since the songs were chosen for their popularity), or else as an expression of protest to commercializing forces. Although the Ellington album—by admission of the producers—was an attempt to bring Monk’s music to a mainstream audience, the lack of any drastic stylistic evolution between prior and subsequent albums Monk recorded with Prestige and Riverside indicates that it is not Monk’s music that changes over the course of the 1950s, but rather its critical reception and the definition of the jazz “mainstream.”

Works: Thelonious Monk (performer): These Foolish Things [1952 version] (235), Black and Tan Fantasy [1955 version] (237), It Don’t Mean a Thing [1955 version] (238-9), Mood Indigo [1955 version] (238), I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart [1955 version] (238-9), Solitude [1955 version] (239), Sophisticated Lady [1955 version] (239).

Sources: Duke Ellington: Sophisticated Lady (228), I Got It Bad (and That Ain’t Good) (228), Mood Indigo (228), It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing (228), I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart (228), Caravan (229), Black and Tan Fantasy (228).

Index Classifications: 1900s, Jazz

Contributed by: Molly Covington

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, a particular subgenre of hip-hop arose, defined by its use of musical gestures, lyrical references, and images already encoded into popular audiences’ conception of jazz at that time. By the late eighties, due to the “jazz Renaissance” of that decade, jazz was deeply associated with “high art” and often discussed as an analog for an American classical tradition. As such, it brought with it a complex of hierarchies and standards for authenticity that jazz rap artists navigated in forging personal, artistic identities. Jazz “codes,” or musical elements which had been definitively associated with jazz (such as acoustic walking bass, muted trumpets, and other brass instruments) could be deployed concretely as samples or through the inclusion of jazz musicians in actual performance. They could also be deployed allusively, as timbral, lyrical, and rhythmic topics. Notably, these codes are demonstrably different from the gestures used in other subgenres of rap at the time, and can be found in the works of groups such as De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, Gang Starr, and Digable Planets.

Works: A Tribe Called Quest: Verses from the Abstract (55), Check the Rhime (56), Jazz (We’ve Got) (56), Excursions (56-57); Digable Planets: Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat) (58-63), It’s Good to Be Here (60-61), Swoon Units (61).

Sources: The Last Poets: Time (58).

Index Classifications: 1900s, Jazz, Popular

Contributed by: Molly Covington