Bluegrass is indisputably a form of jazz.

Discuss.

Rand, have you been nippin' at Grandma's cough medicine again?

Does this make "Deliverance" a jazz musical?

Let's see...

Different origin
Different history
Different ethnic/racial background
Different geographical center(s)
Different harmonic structure
Different intrumentation

Other than that they're exactly the same.

blog treatment

You seem to have a very restricted definition of jazz. What is the "harmonic structure" of jazz? The instrumentation? The "geographic center"? The "ethnic/racial background"?

I'm fascinated. Are you saying that the David Grisman quintet wasn't jazz?

Jazz has its origins in brass band music in New Orleans, spread through Chicago and into New York and L.A. It's primarilly a cultural phenomenon of urban blacks. Bluegrass is played by rural white folks from Appalachia and the Ozarks.

Traditional jazz has its basis in brass and wind instruments, and tends to cluster around keys asociated with these band instruments, B flat, F and E flat. Bluegrass is based on stringed instruments and tends towards the keys most easilly played by them, G, D, A and E.

Bluegrass pretty much sticks to major scales, 4/4 time and simple harmony. Jazz has been at the forefront of exploration of odd time signatures, minor scales, modes and non diatonic scales. And, other than the one example of David Grisman there is next to no overlap of musicians between the two styles. What are you hearing as similarities?

Oh yeah,

Jazz also has a long tradition of free improvisation over the basic chord structure of a composition. I don't think bluegrass does much of that.

In addition to David Grisman? Tony Rice. Mark O'Connor. Bela Fleck.

Jazz also has a long tradition of free improvisation over the basic chord structure of a composition. I don't think bluegrass does much of that.

Sorry, Man Mountan, but based on these two comments, you obviously don't know much about bluegrass at all.

Both are expressions of their respective cultures. Perhaps the relative unpopularity of Bluegrass is due to racial/cultural stereotyping? I personally know a number of snobs who would not be caught dead listening to Bluegrass but could go on all night (and frequently have) about the nuances of what seems to me to be discordant noise.

Blugrass is of mainly Scottish Highland influence. It was devised by the Scotts-Irish who settled the Appalachian mountains in the upper south/lower mid-atlantic. The place from wence I hail.

The reason it is not popular is because it is repetetive and boring IMO>

I think bluegrass is a case of parallel evolution, but it is not parallel to jazz, but to the blues. Call it white blues.

Just like the blues, it has its own harmonic signature. Im not a musician, but there is a distinctive sound to bluegrass, similar to the "blue note". Maybe it is the echo of a bagpipe drone that comes from the 5th string of the banjo.

Some contemporary bluegrass does become jazz-like;
listen to the tune "We Hide and Seek" on the Allison Kraus/Union Station live album. The instrumental tune is structured ABCBA, and each intstrument gets its turn at the theme(s). Just like postwar jazz, everybody takes an improvisational break before returning to the head.

As for boring, Mike, you and I must be listening to totally different stuff.

Bluegrass is a blend of blues (which is itself a form of jazz), country and Celtic fiddle tunes, and was invented in Indiana (not Appalachia or the Piedmont). In the late 1940s. It's only a few years older than rock and roll.

Improvisational solos is a hallmark of it, and has been from its beginnings.

And I'm amazed at the narrow view of jazz expressed by some here.

And yes, I also am amazed that anyone could consider bluegrass "boring." I can understand not liking it, but I can't understand that.

Indiana? I thought Bill monroe was the father of Bluegrass. Seems like Ky, Va and NC deserve the credit.

I have nothing against Bluegrass but id doesn't push my buttons.

"Bluegrass Music: The Roots

The street balladry of the people who began migrating to America in the early 1600s is considered to be the roots of traditional American music. As the early Jamestown settlers began to spread out into the Carolinas, Tennessee, Kentucky and the Virginias, they composed new songs about day-to-day life experiences in the new land. Since most of these people lived in rural areas, the songs reflected life on the farm or in the hills and this type of music was called "mountain music" or "country music."

The invention of the phonograph and the onset of the radio in the early 1900s brought this old-time music out of the rural Southern mountains to people all over the United States. Good singing became a more important part of country music. Singing stars like Jimmie Rodgers, family bands like the Carter family from Virginia and duet teams like the Monroe Brothers from Kentucky contributed greatly to the advancement of traditional country music.

The Monroe Brothers were one of the most popular duet teams of the 1920s and into the 1930s. Charlie played the guitar, Bill played the mandolin and they sang duets in harmony. When the brothers split up as a team in 1938, both went on to form their own bands. Since Bill was a native of Kentucky, the Bluegrass State, he decided to call his band "Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys," and this band sound birthed a new form of country music.

"Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys" first appeared on the Grand Ole Opry in 1939 and soon became one of the most popular touring bands out of Nashville's WSM studios. Bill's new band was different from other traditional country music bands of the time because of its hard driving and powerful sound, utilizing traditional acoustic instruments and featuring highly distinctive vocal harmonies. This music incorporated songs and rhythms from string band, gospel (black and white), work songs and "shouts" of black laborers, country and blues music repertoires. Vocal selections included duet, trio and quartet harmony singing in addition to Bill's powerful "high lonesome" solo lead singing. After experimenting with various instrumental combinations, Bill settled on mandolin, banjo, fiddle, guitar and bass as the format for his band.

While many fans of bluegrass music date the genre back to 1939, when Monroe formed his first Blue Grass Boys band, most believe that the classic bluegrass sound jelled in 1946, shortly after Earl Scruggs, a 21 year old banjo player from North Carolina, joined the band. Scruggs played an innovative three-finger picking style on the banjo that energized enthusiastic audiences, and has since come to be called simply, "Scruggs style" banjo. Equally influential in the classic 1946 line-up of the Blue Grass Boys were Lester Flatt, from Sparta, Tenn. on guitar and lead vocals against Monroe's tenor; Chubby Wise, from Florida, on fiddle; and Howard Watts, also known by his comedian name, "Cedric Rainwater," on acoustic bass.

When first Earl Scruggs, and then Lester Flatt left Monroe's band and eventually formed their own group, The Foggy Mountain Boys, they decided to include the resophonic guitar, or Dobro into their band format. The Dobro is often included in bluegrass band formats today as a result. Burkett H. "Uncle Josh" Graves, from Tellico Plains, Tenn., heard Scruggs' three-finger style of picking in 1949 and adapted it to the then, almost obscure slide bar instrument. With Flatt & Scruggs from 1955-1969, Graves introduced his widely emulated, driving, bluesy style on the Dobro.

From 1948-1969, Flatt & Scruggs were a major force in introducing bluegrass music to America through national television, at major universities and coliseums, and at schoolhouse appearances in numerous towns. Scruggs wrote and recorded one of bluegrass music's most famous instrumentals, "Foggy Mountain Breakdown," which was used in the soundtrack for the film, Bonnie & Clyde. In 1969 he established an innovative solo career with his three sons as "The Earl Scruggs Revue." Scruggs still records and performs selected dates in groups that usually include his son, Randy on guitar, and his son, Gary on bass.

After parting with Scruggs in 1969, Lester Flatt continued successfully with his own group, "The Nashville Grass," performing steadily until shortly before his death in 1979.

By the 1950s, people began referring to this style of music as "bluegrass music." Bluegrass bands began forming all over the country and Bill Monroe became the acknowledged "Father of Bluegrass Music."

In the 1960s, the concept of the "bluegrass festival" was first introduced, featuring bands that had seemed to be in competition with each other for a relatively limited audience on the same bill at weekend festivals across the country. Carlton Haney, from Reidsville, N.C., is credited with envisioning and producing the first weekend-long bluegrass music festival, held at Fincastle, Va. in 1965.

The increased availability of traditional music recordings, nationwide indoor and outdoor bluegrass festivals and movie, television and commercial soundtracks featuring bluegrass music have aided in bringing this music out of modern day obscurity. "Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs & the Foggy Mountain Boys" achieved national prominence with tour sponsorship by Martha White Flour and for playing the soundtrack for previously mentioned film, Bonnie and Clyde, as well as on a television show called The Beverly Hillbillies. The Deliverance movie soundtrack also featured bluegrass music-in particular, "Dueling Banjos," performed by Eric Weissberg on banjo and Steve Mandel on guitar. In 2001, the multi-million selling soundtrack for the Coen Brothers movie, O Brother, Where Art Thou? attracted wider audiences for bluegrass and traditional country music.

Bill Monroe passed away on September 9, 1996, four days before his 85th birthday. In May 1997, Bill Monroe was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame because of the profound influence of his music on the popular music of this country.

Bluegrass music is now performed and enjoyed around the world--the IBMA alone claims members in all 50 states and 30 countries. In addition to the to the classic style born in 1946 that is still performed widely, bluegrass bands today reflect influences from a variety of sources including traditional and fusion jazz, contemporary country music, Celtic music, rock & roll ("newgrass" or progressive bluegrass), old-time music and Southern gospel music--in addition to lyrics translated to various languages."

You're right--he was originally from Kentucky, but he held his annual Beanblossom festivals near his home in Indiana in his later years.

In any event, bluegrass is a genre of its own, in the jazz tradition, as a blend of several other forms of music.

Rand, I agree with your comment about the narrow definition of jazz.

For some real 'non-jazz' jazz, let me commend to you a piece from the '70s, John Renborne's The Lady and the Unicorn. The rendition of Scarborogh Faire on guitar, flute and fiddle is some of the best jazz I've ever heard.

Several people I work with are Bluegrass fanatics and travel to festivals on the weekends so I can pretty much get the answer to any bluegrass related question in short order.

Rand said;

"Bluegrass is a blend of blues (which is itself a form of jazz), country and Celtic fiddle tunes, and was invented in Indiana (not Appalachia or the Piedmont). In the late 1940s. It's only a few years older than rock and roll."

That's funny. I can hear more than a trace of Celtic music (fiddle and bagpipe stuff) in Bluegrass - I'd always assumed it was transmitted in part at least by the Scots-Irish. My ear seems to tell me that 'modern celt' and Bluegrass are cousins, if distant.

But hey, I'm not a musician. I just enjoy listening.

I like Bluegrass, jazz in its mainstream form - Miles Davis and such, is certainly technically good, but it bores me to tears. I don't know whether that's because I'm merely a reactionary who is reflexively against anything that the cultural elites demand that I appreciate, or it's just boring, I don't know. But I don't own a single album that can be found in the jazz section -- and I doubt I ever will.

I'd say bluegrass is a related style of music to jazz, but not a form of it.

BG and jazz share many of the same sources, most importantly the blues - Monroe gigged with an influential (but unfortanately unrecorded) blues guitarist named Arnold Schulz in his very young days before he left Rosine, KY for industrial work in Indiana - but in different proportions. BG is generally a lot more vocal oriented (vocal harmonies are a key part of the BG sound, but pretty much a curiousity in jazz) and a lot more structured than jazz.

David Grisman's Quartet very seldom plays bluegrass music, although Grisman certainly has it in him when he chooses to. Tony Rice, Bela Fleck, and Mark O'Connor (among many others) are also capable of playing both, but it's pretty easy to tell which is which. One of Rice's "Bluegrass Album Band" recordings isn't exactly interchangeable with "Acoustics" or his work with the DGQ, after all.

obrother where art thou has a excellent sound track but isnt that more pure county than blue grass??

obrother where art thou has a excellent sound track but isnt that more pure county than blue grass??

Immigrants brought w/ them their traditional styles of music....English,Irish, Scottish, ANglo-Celtic...as they began to write songs about their day-to-day rural lives, the songs took on a more country tone. These settlers of appalachia that actually covers 18 states from maine to georgia wrote ballads and dance tunes, some traditional from their native countries and some new ones about their new land. These songs were usually accompanied by one or more fiddle. Making a long story short.. african american music became more influential, changing the bacic percussion, the instrumentation began to change along with experimenting with different tunings,....the guitar gave the singers a foundation so to say to base their singing on...."old time" music began to dominate....henry ford held contests for old time music....word got out that these mountain bands were decent....the record companies gave them a try and to their surprise an industry was born....around this time in rosine kentucky....a kid named bill monroe was learning to play the mandolin and learning to harmonize in church...began a duet team with brother charlie playing old time music, they sang in harmony which was different than people were used to. monroe started a band called The KEntuckians....later to be the bluegrass boys w/ Flatt & Scruggs......These Three men i feel gave the most infuence to the bluegrass sound. Now i dont think jazz is in the roots of bluegrass, but people have added many jazz aspects to the music. I can't hear much jazz though in the early recordings of bill monroe.

I attended a Bean Blossom (Indiana) Bluegrass Festival 1968, and one night it was hard to sleep, and I awoke to hear the unmistakable tones of Monroe's exalted mandolin. I and some others joined him in a pre-dawn jam session. So his farm is in Indiana. He was born in Kentucky but lived all his later years in Indiana.

Anyone who says Bluegrass is boring and too non-progressive hasn't heard the New York Bluegrass players of reknown, such as Folk Studio owner Roger Sprung (banjo) and his typical world-champion winning pick-up band, sometimes including the unbeliveable progressive guitarist JON SCHOLLE and Mandolinist JODY SCHECTER, among others. You hear good, authentic Bluegrass in Appalachia, but wait until you hear the serious New Yorkers play it. Amazing...