Modern approaches to swing in jazz drumming: A stylistic analysis of twelve American jazz drummers, 1980-2008

Abstract

Following the revolutionary work of Elvin Jones and Tony Williams in the sixties, advances in straight-ahead jazz drumming have, without doubt, been overlooked, with a general view that developments in the genre have been limited and lacking significance. Throughout the eighties and nineties, drummers who possess definable and original styles, with strong roots in the tradition, have continued to emerge. The musicians I refer to tend to be perceived as ‘less original’ than their counterparts in more recently developed jazz styles, with lesser reliance on the tradition, and so my research aims to highlight their contributions, in a bid to assess the validity of such views.

I have chosen to analyse the styles of twelve figures active in the United States and working in straight-ahead jazz, using notated transcriptions of studio and live recordings. My thesis begins with an introductory chapter explaining the developments prior to 1980; this is followed by the main text and analysis, which also includes chapters on developments relating to time and the changes in the approaches to using brushes.

Date of Award	Oct 2008
Original language	English
Supervisor	Frank Lyons (Supervisor)