Chicago Blues (Essay)

Probably no strain of blues has a more universally recognized form, feel and sound than Chicago blues. Chicago is where the music became amplified and had the big beat put to it and like Muddy Waters said, the blues had a baby and they named it rock'n'roll. As a simple point of reference, it's the music that most sounds like 50s rhythm and blues/rock'n'roll, its first notable offspring; when you hear a tv commercial with blues in it, it's usually the Chicago style they're playing. It's the sound of amplified harmonicas, electric slide guitars, big boogie piano and a rhythm section that just won't quit, with fierce, declamatory vocals booming over the top of it. It's the genius of Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Elmore James, and Little Walter knocking an urban audience on their collective ears at some smoky, noisy South Side tavern, then transmitting that signal to the world. It's the infectious boogie of Hound Dog Taylor, John Brim, Jimmy Reed, Joe Carter mining similar turf while Robert Nighthawk and Big John Wrencher lay it down with rough and tumble combos Sunday mornings on the Maxwell Street open air market. And it's the up to date, gospel inspired vocals and B.B. King single note style of Otis Rush, Magic Sam and Buddy Guy meshing with it all. Though there's much primitive beauty to be found in this strain of the music, there's nothing subtle about it; its rough edge ambience is the sound of the Delta, coming to terms with the various elements of city life and plugging in and going electric to keep pace with a changing world. Chicago blues was the first style to reach a mass audience and, with the passage of time, the first to reach a world wide audience as well. When the average Joe thinks of the blues, one of two musical sounds pop into their brain pan; one is the sound of Delta blues-usually slide-played on an acoustic guitar. The other-if it's played through an amplifier-is almost always Chicago blues.

Although the Windy City had a burgeoning blues scene before World War II (see separate essay on Lester Melrose and Early Chicago Blues), a number of elements combined after the war to put the modern Chicago scene into motion.

First, there was the societal aftermath of World War II to deal with. Blacks-after serving their country and seeing how the rest of the world was-came back home, packed up their few belongings and headed North to greener pastures, better paying jobs and the promise of a better life. It was a simple case of "how ya keep 'em down on the farm;" once Blacks had left the oppressive life of Southern plantation life behind and 'had seen the world,' the prospect of toiling in a meat packing plant in Chicago looked a whole lot more upscale than standing behind a mule somewhere in Mississippi.

And so they headed North. This influx of new migrants all finding new jobs and housing also infused Chicago with a lot of capital to be had and spent in these flush post-War times. The rise of the independent recording label after shellac rationing (and the development of space age plastics) also had a lot to do with the development of the sound as well. New record labels that dealt exclusively with blues for a Black market started to proliferate after 1950. Chess and its myriad subsidiaries and Vee-Jay had the lion's share of the market, but medium to tiny imprints like Ora-Nelle (an offshoot of the Maxwell Street Radio Repair Shop), JOB, Tempo Tone, Parkway, Cool, Atomic H, Cobra, Chance, Opera, United, States, Blue Lake, Parrot, C.J. and others all helped to bring the music to a wider audience.

Up to this point, John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson, Big Bill Broonzy and Tampa Red were the three acknowledged kingpins of the local scene, but their hegemony was soon to be challenged and eventually relinquished to the new breed. The new migrants wanted to be citified and upscale, but still had strong down home roots that needed to be tended to. The jazzier jump blues offerings in the city were fine, but newly arrived Southerners wanted something a little more gritty, packed with a little more realism and a lot more emotional wallop. One day a train dropped a young slide guitarist from Mississippi into the city and soon the new audience had the sound and the style that suited their needs, both urban, rural and emotionally. Muddy Waters had come to Chicago and the sound of Chicago blues as we know it was about to be born.

Waters worked the house party circuit at first, driving truck by day and playing his music wherever he had the chance. He fell in with a loose group of players which included guitarists Baby Face Leroy Foster, Blue Smitty, and Jimmy Rogers. Muddy had tried to plug into the Melrose style recording scene three years after arriving, but a one-off recording session issued on Columbia under an assumed name did the singer little good. The sound was urban, but it wasn't his style, the sound that captivated his listeners at house rent parties along the South side.

Muddy noticed two things about playing in Chicago. One, he needed amplification if he was going to be heard over the noisy din in your neighborhood tavern. He needed an electric guitar and an amplifier to go with it and he needed to turn both of them full blast if he was going to make an impression. Secondly, he needed a band; not a band with trumpets and saxophones in it, but a modern version of the kind of string band he worked in around Clarksdale, Mississippi. It stands as a testament to Muddy Waters' genius that he created the blueprint for the first modern electric blues band and honed that design into a modern, lustrous musical sheen. There had certainly been blues combos in the city previous to Waters' arrival, but none sounded like this.

Muddy's first band was euphemistically called the Headhunters because of their competitive nature of blowing any band off the stage they came in contact with and usually taking their gig from them in the bargain. Although Muddy was having hits on Chess with just his guitar and a string bass in support, in a live situation it was a different matter entirely. Baby Face Leroy Foster was soon replaced by Elgar Edmonds (aka Elgin Evans) on drums, Jimmy Rogers wove complex second guitar patterns into the mix and in due time, Otis Spann would bring his beautiful piano stylings to the combo, following Muddy's every move. But it was with the addition of harmonica genius Little Walter where the face of the Chicago blues sound began to change. If the Muddy and Jimmy's guitars were amplified and cranked up, Walter got his own microphone and amplifier and responded in kind. Though others played electric before him (Walter Horton among them), it was Little Walter who virtually defined the role and sound of amplified harmonica as it sat in this new band context. His honking, defiant tone-full of distortion, hand controlled compression wedded to swooping saxophone-styled licks-became the sound for every aspiring combo and harmonica player to go after. By the time Walter left Muddy to form his own band, the Jukes (named after his hit instrumental), his sound was so pervasive that club owners would only hire combos that had a harmonica player working in that style. Bands would do without a drummer if need be, but the message was clear; one had to have that harp in order to work.

Soon there were newly amplified bands springing up everywhere and coming from everywhere, as the word was soon out that Chicago was quickly becoming the new promised land of the blues. The competition was fierce and tough, with lesser bands like Bo Diddley's Langley Avenue Jivecats or Earl Hooker working for tips on Maxwell Street, while others squeezed onto postage stamp sized stages just trying to establish their reputations. Among these were future blues legends in the making Big Walter Horton, Johnny Shines, J.B. Lenoir, Snooky Pryor, Jimmy Reed, John Brim, Billy Boy Arnold, and J.B. Hutto. Muddy Waters' first challenge to his newly acquired crown as king of the circuit came from Memphis bluesman Howlin' Wolf. Wolf had just signed a contract with Chess Records and had a hit on the R&B charts to go with it. He came into town, looking for work and by all accounts, Muddy was most helpful in getting him started. But what started as professional courtesy soon blossomed into a bitter, intense rivalry between the two bandleaders that lasted until Wolf's death in 1976. They'd steal sidemen from each other, compete with each other over who would record Willie Dixon's best material and when booked on the same bill together, would pull every trick possible to try and outdo each other onstage.

The preponderance here on the club scene in Chicago is pivotal in understanding how the music developed. For all their business acumen and commercial expertise, Chess and every other Chicago label that was recording this music was doing it because it was popular music in the Black community. This was an untapped market that was tired of being spoon fed Billy Eckstine and Nat King Cole records and wanted to sent back home and a three minute 78 of it just might hit the spot. Just like every other honest trend or development in American music, it simply happened; the people responded, and somebody was smart enough to record it and sell it.

But by the mid 50s-as one bluesman put it-'the beat had changed.' The blues did have a baby and they did name it rock'n'roll. Suddenly everyone from Big Joe Turner to Bo Diddley were being lumped in with Elvis and Bill Haley and a hundred vocal groups named after birds or automobiles. The Black audience started to turn away from blues to the new music and suddenly the local scene needed a fresh transfusion of new blood. Over on the West Side, younger musicians were totally enamored of the B.B. King style of playing and singing and began to incorporate both into a new Chicago blues hybrid. Working with a pair of saxes, a bass player and a drummer, most West Side combos were scaled down approximations of B.B.'s big band. When the group couldn't afford the sax section, the guitarists started throwing in heavy jazz chord like fills to flesh out the sound. Suddenly Otis Rush, Buddy Guy and Magic Sam were on equal footing with the established heavies and even Howlin' Wolf and Elmore James started regularly recording and playing with saxophones. As rhythm and blues started getting a harder edged sound as it moved into soul music territory by the mid 60s, the blues started keeping its ear to the ground and its beat focused on the dance floor. While the three primary grooves up til now had been a slow blues, a boogie shuffle and a 'cut shuffle' (like Muddy's "Got My Mojo Working"), suddenly it was okay to put a blues to a rock groove, sometimes with quite satisfying results. One of the first to mine this turf was harmonica ace Junior Wells. Wells' first hit, "Messing With The Kid," was blues with a driving beat and a great guitar riff, signaling that once again, the blues had reinvented itself to keep with the crowd. Working in tandem with Buddy Guy at Pepper's Lounge, the duo worked like a downscale miniature blues'n'soul show, combining funky beats with the most down in the alley blues imaginable. By the middle 60s, Chicago produced its first racially mixed combo with the birth of the highly influential Paul Butterfield Blues Band, featuring the high voltage guitar work of Michael Bloomfield and members from Howlin' Wolf's rhythm section. And the permutations that have come since then and flourish in the current day Chicago club scene echo those last two developments of the Chicago style. The beats and bass lines may get funkier in approach, the guitars might be playing in a more modern style, sometimes even approaching rock pyrotechnics, in some cases. But every time a harmonica player cups his instrument around a cheap microphone or a crowd calls out for a slow one, the structure may change, but every musician and patron doffs their symbolic hats in appreciation to Muddy Waters and the beginnings of the Chicago blues, still very much alive and well today.

by Cub Koda

Hip-Hop Producers (Essay)

Just about any genre of music has its share of producers who are as famous (or almost as famous) as the artists themselves. That is true in rock, country, jazz and R&B, and it is also true in rap. From Sylvia Robinson to Russell Simmons to Sean "Puffy" Combs, rap has had its share of famous producers over the years. This essay takes a look at some of hip-hop's most important studio wizards -- people who have been as important to hip-hop as Bob Ezrin and Jimmy Iovine are to rock, Orrin Keepnews is to jazz and Kenny Gamble & Leon Huff are to Philadelphia soul.

During hip-hop's old school era of 1976-1982 -- old school as in pre-Run-D.M.C. -- the most important producer was Sylvia Robinson of Sugar Hill Records (not to be confused with a folk label that has the same name). Robinson (b. Mar. 6, 1936) was a vocalist herself and had a resume long before her involvement with early hip-hop; in the '50s, she was half of the male/female R&B duo Mickey & Sylvia (best known for their hit "Love Is Strange"). And in the early '70s, Robinson recorded as a solo artist and favored a sensuous, sexy approach to northern soul; her biggest solo hit during that period was "Pillow Talk," although the single "Sweet Stuff" also enjoyed some radio airplay. In those days, Robinson was both a producer/A&R person (she worked with the Moments and other soulsters) and a vocalist. But by the late '70s, Robinson was putting most of the energy into A&R and producing. At Sugar Hill Records, she became one of the first people to document rap. The Sugarhill Gang's 1979 smash "Rappers Delight" put Sugar Hill Records on the map, and the company soon acquired a reputation for being the Motown or Stax of old school hip-hop. In fact, their roster was a who's-who of pre-Run-D.M.C. rappers -- a roster that included Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five, the Sequence (rap's first all-female group), Lady B (the first female rapper to record as a solo artist), the Funky Four Plus One, Spoonie Gee, Super Wolf and, of course, the Sugarhill Gang. Robinson worked with every one of those artists, and she would have been quite capable of working with Kurtis Blow if given the chance. But that famous old school rapper never recorded for Sugar Hill; instead, he signed with Polygram in 1979 and became the first rapper to record for a major label.

When Blow recorded his self-titled debut album in 1980, he was being managed by Russell Simmons (the older brother of Run-D.M.C.'s Joseph "Run" Simmons). That year, Russell Simmons had a fledgling company called Rush Productions. But several years later, Rush would be a lot more than just a small business. When hip-hop's old school era ended and the second wave rappers (Run-D.M.C., L.L Cool J, etc.) took over around 1983-1985, Simmons built a hip-hop empire -- not only as a producer and the head of Rush Productions, but also, as the co-founder of Def Jam Records. The list of artists Simmons worked with in the '80s (as a producer, manager or A&R person) included, among many others, Run-D.M.C., LL Cool J, Public Enemy, Davy D and the Beastie Boys.

The person Simmons co-founded Def Jam with in 1984 was Rick Rubin, who is important as both a rap producer and a rock producer. For several years, Simmons and Rubin were quite a team. But in the late '80s, they parted company due to creative differences. Rubin shared Simmons' love of hip-hop; as a producer, he worked with Run-D.M.C., L.L. Cool J, Public Enemy and the Beasties. But he also wanted to produce a lot of rock, whereas Simmons wanted to make hip-hop his main focus. So when Simmons and Rubin parted company and Simmons assumed full control of Def Jam, Rubin founded his own label Def American. At Def American, Rubin continued to produce rappers (including the Geto Boys and Sir Mix-A-Lot), but he also signed everyone from the Black Crowes to Danzig to the infamous death metal/thrash band Slayer.

While Def Jam is Simmons' baby, Cold Chillin' Records was the home of Marlon Williams, aka Marley Marl -- one of the top rap producers of the late '80s and early '90s. At Cold Chillin', the Queens, NY native fashioned a distinctive East Coast sound that combined drum machines with extensive sampling; Marl, in fact, did a lot to popularize the use of James Brown samples. All of the New Yorkers on the Cold Chillin' roster (who included Big Daddy Kane, Kool G. Rap, Roxanne Shanté, Biz Markie and MC Shan) had the Marley Marl sound, which influenced DJ Mark the 45 King, Audio Two, the King of Chill and other East Coast rap producers of that period.

Marley Marl was known for a very raw, hard-edged, rugged type of sound, while fellow New York producer Hank Shocklee (who was part of the Bomb Squad) is famous for the dissonant, abrasive, noisy sounds that he helped Public Enemy bring to life in the late '80s. But out on the West Coast, Andre Young, aka Dr. Dre (b. February 18, 1965), envisioned something totally different. Dre's style of producing, which came to be called G-funk, was much sleeker and smoother than what one expected from Marley Marl, DJ Mark the 45 King or Shocklee. The Los Angeles-based Dre (not to be confused with New York's Doctor Dre, as in Doctor Dre & Ed Lover) started out as a member of the World Class Wreckin' Cru in the early '80s, but it was during his years with N.W.A (1987-1991) that he came to be recognized as a studio genius. During his N.W.A years, Dre not only produced N.W.A -- he also worked with Dallas rapper the D.O.C., L.A. gangsta rappers Above the Law, female pop-rap group JJ Fad and urban contemporary singer Michel'le. And Dre became even more famous as a producer when, in 1992, he launched his solo career with The Chronic. That album was amazingly influential; thanks to Dre, countless hip-hoppers embraced the G-funk sound (especially on the West Coast) and went for a combination of clean grooves and dirty lyrics. Whether Dre was working with Eminem, Snoop Doggy Dogg or the late Eazy-E, his production style has always been distinctive and recognizable.

One of the many people The Chronic influenced was New Orleans gangsta rapper/producer Master P, a major player in the Dirty South school of rap (which became popular in the '90s and was still going strong in the early 2000s). Not all Dirty South is gangsta rap, but gangsta rap has been the main focus of Master P and his No Limit label. Not only did Dre influence the lyrics of Master P's No Limit artists -- who have included Ghetto Commission, Silkk the Shocker, Fiend, the Gambino Family, Soulja Slim and C-Murder -- he also influenced Master P's production style.

The '90s also saw the rise of two major producers who had one foot in rap and the other in R&B: the New York-based Sean "Puffy" Combs, aka Puff Daddy or P-Diddy, and Timbaland. Puff Daddy (b. Nov. 4, 1970) heads Bad Boy Entertainment, and that company has been both a hip-hop outfit and an urban contemporary outfit. In the '90s, Bad Boy (which is both a label and a production company) was known for the Notorious B.I.G., but it was also known for R&B singer Faith Evans. Puff Daddy's work has often underscored the way R&B and rap became seriously joined at the hip in the '90s; all of the urban singers he has produced (who range from Evans to Mary J. Blige to Total) have been greatly influenced by hip-hop.

Similarly, Virginia native Tim Mosley, aka Timbaland, became known for both hip-hop and hip-hop-drenched R&B in the late '90s. Timbaland (b. March 10, 1971) is famous for his work with Jay-Z, Nas and other major rap stars, but he is just as famous for working with urban singers like Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott, Total, K-Ci & JoJo (of Jodeci fame) and the late Aaliyah. Timbaland (who heads the Beat Club label) has extensive Dirty South credits; Ludacris, Petey Pablo, Bubba Sparxxx, Shade Sheist and Pastor Troy are among the many southern rappers he has produced. But Timbaland is just as likely to work with someone from another part of the U.S., such as L.A.'s Snoop Doggy Dogg, New York's Jay-Z or Chicago's Da Brat.

Of course, Dre was producing hip-hop-drenched R&B before either Puff Daddy or Timbaland. In 1990, Dre's work with Michel'le showed listeners the possibilities of a hip-hop-minded style of neo-soul -- and that album came two years before Mary J. Blige's first album, What's the 411?. But rap has been Dre's primary focus, whereas Timbaland (like Puff Daddy) is as much of an R&B producer as he is a rap producer. And in the late '90s and early 2000s, it was impossible to listen to urban radio without coming across something that Timbaland produced.

There is no telling where hip-hop production styles will go in the future; in hip-hop, trends can come and go quickly. With R&B and rap having formed such a close alliance in the '90s, it's quite possible that there will be a lot more producers like Timbaland and Puff Daddy -- that is, studio wizards who are both rap-friendly and R&B-friendly. Here's what we can say for certain: from the late '70s to early 2000s, hip-hop has been a very lucrative field for a lot of producers.

by Alex Henderson

Jazz Singers (Essay)

For decades the question has been asked: What is a jazz singer? Some listeners claim that a vocalist has to scat like a horn (what do they consider Billie Holiday?) while others say that simply swinging is enough (do they include Tony Bennett and Jack Jones?).

Here is the most logical definition. A jazz singer is a vocalist who brings his or her own interpretation to a song and improvises through words, sounds, notes and/or phrasing. The difference between a jazz and a pop singer (and the same can be said for musicians) is that a jazz vocalist is spontaneous in concert. The goal is not to duplicate a record (although arrangements and frameworks can be followed), but rather to express how one feels at the moment. Respect can be shown for the original lyrics and melody, but if one is only duplicating the written music, the chances are that the singer falls into the cabaret area.

Since the human voice was the first musical instrument and the earliest music had to be spontaneous, one can accurately surmise that the first musical sounds were made by a jazz singer. However, it was in the 1920s that the first jazz vocalists were documented on record.

For simplicity's sake, the history of male and female jazz singers are here discussed separately. Starting with the former, Louis Armstrong and Bing Crosby were the most important male jazz singers of the '20s, but they were not the first. Cliff Edwards (known as Ukulele Ike), a talented performer who also played ukulele and kazoo, was a colorful jazz-oriented singer who led his first record dates in 1924. Although he became an alcoholic and a part-time actor used for comedy relief, Edwards made a brief comeback in the early 1940s as the voice of Jiminy Cricket in Pinocchio, singing "When You Wish Upon A Star." Another early singer was the versatile arranger-reed player Don Redman, who took the first ever recorded scat vocal (substituting nonsense syllables for words) with Fletcher Henderson on 1924's "My Papa Doesn't Two-Time No Time."

Most male singers who were caught on record in the 1920s are difficult to listen to today. Notable primarily for their volume and ability to sing words clearly, the great majority come across as pompous and semi-classical. The early blues singers were exceptions, but they had less of a connection to the jazz world than their female counterparts (such as Bessie Smith).

Louis Armstrong was the first major male jazz singer. Other than one early song with Fletcher Henderson, his initial vocals on record were in 1925-26 with his Hot Five, and they still sound fresh and lively today. Armstrong vocalized with the phrasing of a trumpeter, consistently improvised, and (starting with "Heebies Jeebies") proved to be a masterful scat singer. Even when Satch was sticking close to the words, his phrasing was spontaneous, and he altered both the notes and their timing to dramatic effect. Through the years his singing was such a huge influence on everyone from Bing Crosby and Billie Holiday to Ella Fitzgerald and Jon Hendricks that it would not be much of an exaggeration to say that he largely invented jazz singing.

Bing Crosby, a great admirer of Armstrong's, brought Louis' innovations into the world of pop music, first as part of the Rhythm Boys with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra and then as the premier "crooner" of the 1930s. Crosby's baritone voice saved the world from the many "boy tenors" who were threatening to dominate music of the late 1920s. Other important pre-swing male singers included the always-exciting Cab Calloway, trombonist Jack Teagarden and pianist Fats Waller, plus the Mills Brothers. While the Mills Brothers became famous in later years for their pop records, in the 1930s they brought the art of imitating instruments to an unparalleled level, often sounding like a five-piece band when in fact the only "real" instrument that they used was an acoustic guitar.

During the swing era, female singers were much more common than male jazz vocalists (virtually every big band had the former), but there were some major stylists. From Kansas City came the two memorable blues singers Jimmy Rushing (with Count Basie's Orchestra) and Big Joe Turner, both of whom had long careers. Billy Eckstine made his debut with Earl Hines' band, and Frank Sinatra (an inspiration to jazz vocalists, although not an improvising jazz singer himself) became famous with Tommy Dorsey. A brilliant pianist, Nat King Cole's highly appealing singing would eventually draw him to the world of pop. Two other influential forces were the jivey Slim Gaillard (whose "Flat Foot Floogie" kept him going for 50 years) and the charismatic Louis Jordan, who with his Tympani Five helped launch R&B.

With the rise of bebop in the mid-1940s, jazz and pop singing largely split apart. Scat singing became more complex as practiced by Babs Gonzales (with his Four Bips and a Bop), Joe Carroll and Dizzy Gillespie. Vocalese, the art of writing lyrics to fit recorded solos, was developed by Eddie Jefferson, popularized by King Pleasure (whose "Moody's Mood for Love" and "Parker's Mood" are classics) and brought to its highest level by Jon Hendricks in the 1950s as part of the definitive jazz vocal group (Lambert, Hendricks and Ross) with Dave Lambert and Annie Ross. Manhattan Transfer in the 1980s and '90s, when they perform jazz, sometimes approaches the magic of L, H & Ross.

While Ray Charles mixed gospel, soul and R&B with the spirit of jazz, and Jimmy Witherspoon, Ernie Andrews, Bill Henderson and Joe Williams fell into both the jazz and blues worlds, Chet Baker's boyish charm on ballads in the '50s made him a heartthrob for a period. Billy Eckstine's warm baritone voice would have made him a movie star were it not for the racism of the period; blacks were not given romantic leads in the 1950s. Eckstine did influence a generation of ballad singers including Earl Coleman and Johnny Hartman (whose 1963 collaboration with John Coltrane is a classic).

Two of the most significant male jazz singers of the 1960s (and beyond) were both talented lyricists who sang ironic and socially conscious words: Oscar Brown Jr. and Mose Allison. However, there were few important male singers in the avant-garde and fusion movements, although Leon Thomas' yodelling with Pharoah Sanders made "The Creator Has A Master Plan" into a surprise hit. Mark Murphy and Bob Dorough had their niches, and Dave Frishberg developed into a superb lyricist and composer, but by the 1980s and into the '90s, there was a serious shortage of significant jazz singers under the age of 60. Dominating the era was the swinging and remarkable Mel Torme (who until his stroke in 1996 was improving with age throughout his sixties) and the seemingly ageless Joe Williams. The talented Al Jarreau had shown great promise in the 1970s, but then chose to spend his musical life in R&B. Bobby McFerrin, an incredible singer (check out the hard-to-find Elektra Musician LP The Voice for an unaccompanied concert), maintained a disappointingly low profile after having a major hit in 1988 with "Don't Worry, Be Happy." The gospel-jazz a cappella group Take Six also were wandering away from jazz into pop music.

However, in the mid-1990s two new voices emerged. While Kevin Mahogany is building his career on the tradition of Joe Williams, bop and standards, Kurt Elling is an extension of Mark Murphy, who also takes wild chances, sometimes improvising words and stories. Both show great promise in keeping alive the legacy largely founded by Louis Armstrong seventy years before.

In contrast, there has never been a shortage of female singers. Starting with the classic blues singers in the 1920s (Mamie Smith began it all with "Crazy Blues" in 1920), females have largely graced bandstands as singers rather than musicians; that situation has only been gradually changing in the 1990s. The fact that so many females can sing at least at a mediocre level (and an average singer always seems to get more applause than any mere musician) has resulted in a great deal of unfair prejudice against female singers in general through the decades. As is true of the male vocalists, the best female singers are the ones that have a real feel for the music rather than just a pleasant voice, and the greats always emerge eventually from the masses.

An incomplete history of female jazz singers can be described in four words: Bessie, Billie, Ella and Sassy. Bessie Smith, the Empress of the Blues, towered over the 1920s. After Mamie Smith started the blues craze, many female singers who had ties to the vaudeville stage, carnival shows or just had strong voices were rushed to the recording studios. Among the more memorable performers were Ma Rainey, Ida Cox and Alberta Hunter (who made a successful comeback in the late 1970s when she was in her 80s), but Bessie Smith outshone everyone. Her powerful voice overcame both the primitive recording facilities of 1923 and erratic musicians; her interpretations of timeless messages still communicate to today's listeners. Fortunately Columbia has made all of Smith's recordings available, most recently on five double-CDs.

Ethel Waters was Bessie Smith's closest competitor in the 1920s and she eventually surpassed Bessie. A versatile singer who started with the blues, Waters was one of the first black performers who was permitted to interpret superior American popular songs; Irving Berlin even wrote several numbers specifically for her. Waters, who introduced such standards as "Dinah," "Am I Blue" and "Stormy Weather," also became a dramatic actress and a major influence on such slightly later singers as Lee Wiley.

Ruth Etting was probably the best-known female vocalist of the early 1930s and, although more of a pop singer than a jazz performer, her voice is still worth hearing. Annette Hanshaw was her counterpart in jazz, and only her decision to retire when she was but 23 kept her from gaining worldwide fame for her very likable style. The Boswell Sisters also broke up early (in 1936 when all of the sisters got married), but during the seven previous years, they set a very high standard for jazz vocal groups that was not reached until Lambert, Hendricks and Ross were formed two decades later. Connee Boswell continued a reasonably successful solo career, but it is her early work with Martha and Vet Boswell that is most stirring.

Mildred Bailey was the first "girl singer" to perform regularly with a big band (Paul Whiteman's). She soon became a leader in her own right and, during her marriage to xylophonist Red Norvo, co-led his orchestra. Her high voice appealed to many, and she helped to popularize "Georgia On My Mind" and "Rockin' Chair."

During the swing era there were countless female singers who straddled the boundary between jazz and pop music. Most were used by big bands to add glamour to the stage, and they generally only had the opportunity to take one melody chorus per song. Among the better band singers were Helen Ward with Benny Goodman, Helen O'Connell with Jimmy Dorsey, Ivie Anderson with Duke Ellington, and Helen Forrest who spent time with the bands of Goodman, Harry James and Artie Shaw.

However, the mid- to late 1930s were most notable for the emergence of Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald. Lady Day's behind-the-beat phrasing disturbed some clubowners and fans at first before they became used to her approach. Her phrasing was subtle (influenced initially by Louis Armstrong), and Holiday frequently altered melodies to fit her small range and her particular mood. She spent mostly undocumented periods with the orchestras of Count Basie and Artie Shaw, but it was her small group recordings with all-star groups headed by pianist Teddy Wilson (and which by 1937 often teamed her with tenor saxophonist Lester Young) that initially made her famous. Lady Day's chaotic personal life and eventual heroin addiction ruined her life and career (during the 1950s her voice declined year by year), but her prime (1935-52) was filled with classic music that still inspires other singers, for Billie Holiday often lived the words she sang.

Ella Fitzgerald had a major hit ("A-Tisket, A-Tasket") with Chick Webb's Orchestra in 1938 when she was only 20. Although quite popular from then on, she was often saddled in her early years with juvenile novelty tunes, despite the fact that she was actually superior at that point on ballads. After becoming a solo artist in 1942, Ella developed quickly as a jazz singer and within a few years was a superb scat singer and witty ad-libber. Her beautiful voice allowed her to uplift virtually everything she sang and she was a major attraction throughout the 1940s, '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s and into the early '90s, when bad health forced her retirement. Some observers have carped that Ella always sounded too happy (she absolutely loved singing) and that she did not put enough feeling into heavier songs such as "Love For Sale" and "Lush Life." However, late in life, Ella once again became a superior ballad interpreter. The ironic part is that her upbringing was as tumultuous as Billie Holiday's, but to her, singing was an escape from her beginnings. Certainly when it came to swinging and adding beauty to a song, she had few competitors.

Other top female singers from the swing era include Anita O'Day (who found her initial fame with Gene Krupa's band), Helen Humes (who came into her own after leaving Count Basie's band), the sophisticated Lee Wiley (the first singer to record full sets of a specific composer's songbook), Maxine Sullivan, and Peggy Lee (whose quiet style foreshadowed and inspired the cool-toned singers of the 1950s).

Late in the swing era, Dinah Washington and Sarah Vaughan made their first impact. Dinah Washington, after starting with Lionel Hampton, proved during the 1945-58 period that she could sing anything: jazz, blues, R&B, religious hymns and pop. Her distinctive and spirited voice made her a regular big seller. After having a giant hit in "What a Difference a Day Makes" in 1959, Washington stuck mostly to pop music during her last few years.

Sarah Vaughan, who first sang with the Earl Hines and Billy Eckstine Orchestras, had an incredible voice. From the mid-1940s until her death in 1990, Sassy was always one of the top jazz singers, even when she spent long periods off records. She understood bebop (recording with Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie), and she had the technique to interpret any song that interested her; sometimes she would strangle weak material to death. If only Sassy had recorded with Ella!

Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan dominated the postwar years, but they were far from alone among female jazz singers. Anita O'Day's sly, swinging style was an influence on June Christy, whose work with Stan Kenton in turn inspired other cool-toned singers. The 1950s and '60s found such vocalists maturing as Carmen McRae (who had a productive 40-year career), Helen Merrill, Chris Connor, Annie Ross (the female third of the innovative vocal group Lambert, Hendricks and Ross), Ernestine Anderson and Peggy Lee. Abbey Lincoln interpreted dramatic lyrics under the tutelage of Max Roach, Betty Carter stretched the boundaries of scat singing, and a housewife named Astrud Gilberto cooed "The Girl From Ipanema."

Although initially tied to the bop tradition, Betty Carter could be considered among the first avant-garde jazz singers. Sheila Jordan (who is one of the few who can improvise intelligent words in rhyme) recorded infrequently but always memorably before becoming more active in the 1980s. Patty Waters recorded two atmospheric (and somewhat scary) records for ESP before slipping away; she re-emerged in the mid-1990s. Jeanne Lee, who debuted on a duet set with pianist Ran Blake, created some very explorative music in Europe, Flora Purim frequently hinted at greatness and Urszula Dudziak utilized electronic devices. However most female jazz singers have preferred to stick to standards.

With the passing of Ella and Sassy, there is not currently one single dominant female singer, but that is not from a lack of candidates. Veterans such as Shirley Horn (who mostly sticks to slow ballads), Ernestine Anderson, Etta Jones and Abbey Lincoln continued in the 1990s to make fine music. Dee Dee Bridgewater (based in France), Vanessa Rubin and Nnenna Freelon give consistently fresh viewpoints to standards. Kitty Margolis, Madeline Eastman, Roseanna Vitro and Karryn Allyson keep the spirit of bop alive, Diana Krall's Nat King Cole tribute delights many, Diane Schuur sounds at her best when a big band is blaring behind her, Banu Gibson is the finest of all the classic jazz singers and, when it comes to interpreting lyrics from the golden age of the American popular song, Susannah McCorkle is difficult to beat.

The biggest problem facing today's singers is the lack of new material that can be successfully turned into jazz; most pop songs of the 1980s and '90s are not easily transferable. Cassandra Wilson, who has gained a great deal of publicity in the mid-1990s after years spent performing complex M-Base funk, has found a fresh repertoire by combining ancient country blues with odd pop songs and world music. Dianne Reeves, who has the potential to be the pacesetter, has spent much of her career alternating between pop, R&B, world music and jazz but in recent times her formerly erratic recordings have been as exciting as her wonderful live performances.

Whether Dianne Reeves or Kurt Elling will affect the future of jazz at the level of an Ella Fitzgerald or Mel Torme is open to question, but one has few doubts about the health of creative singing as jazz continues in its second century.

by Scott Yanow

New Orleans Brass Bands (Essay)

What sets brass bands in New Orleans apart from other variants is the wide spectrum of functions they serve as an aspect of the festival traditions of the Crescent City. While many of the Black brass bands of the late 19th century (such as the Excelsior, the Eureka, and the Onward) began as marching units, with the rise of jazz near the turn of the century the interpretation of their functional connection to events such as parades and funerals underwent a major change. Taking the "jazz funeral" as an example, the use of dirges and hymns on the way to the cemetery remained constant, but the return trip began to move away from strict renditions of marches, loosening up the 6/8 march beats into a funkier 2/4 rhythm with a danceable backbeat. As the bands plied the neighborhoods of the city (on their way to favorite "watering holes"), a "second line" of gyrating dancers would spill onto the streets, becoming a part of the swelling procession and daring the band to heat up the playing. The expressiveness of the dancing encouraged the musicians to respond in kind, creating a vortex of intensified feeling designed to purge the members of a deceased's family and fraternal order of their sense of loss, replacing it with a celebration of life and a sense that the dear departed had gone on to "a better place." Whether in Mardi Gras parades or for the annual marches of the numerous Benevolent Associations and Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs, New Orleans brass bands have become world-renowned for their ability to evoke an unequalled excitement and involvement from their audiences, forcing even the most impervious listeners to "shake it."

During the period through the '20s, brass bands remained an important benchmark on the musical landscape of New Orleans, but by the mid-'40s there were very few of them left. Interest in the brass band tradition by adherents of the New Orleans revival helped to reverse the situation, and by the '60s many discontinued bands had been restored, with new units like the Young Tuxedo, the George Williams Brass Band, Dejan's Olympia, and the Gibson Brass Band developing and reinterpreting the tradition of rhythm and blues, funk, and modern jazz. Led by the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, this movement also includes the Algiers Brass Band, the Treme Brass Band, and the Rebirth. Today, the brass band tradition in New Orleans is thriving, as visitors to the French Quarter or other Big Easy environs will soon discover.

by William Ruhlmann

Blues on Film (Easay)

While there's a fair amount of blues on film from the past and present, blues fans have a less bountiful selection of goodies to choose from than rock and jazz lovers. The blues, having usually lurked at the commercial margins, has gotten less media exposure than some other forms of popular music. That means less cameras whirring at both television studios and live festivals; it also means less serious documentaries about the subject.

But the number of blues film clips may surprise you. In the early days of the music business, movie studios occasionally filmed musical shorts (called "soundies" for a time) that would run in theaters, as sort of Stone Age precursors to MTV. One of the first of these was a short film starring Bessie Smith that was built around her performance of the theme song, "St. Louis Blues." The blues revival of the 1960s found many of the rediscovered acoustic bluesmen being filmed for the first time, at folk festivals, by folklorists, or by television companies such as the BBC and PBS. As the blues assumes its rightful place as a pillar of American culture, there will no doubt be more and more historical documentaries of the music.

A trip to the video store (or, for that matter, a large music retail store) often yields a decent selection of blues videos to choose from, especially if you live in an urban area or university town. Those without access to these resources can still, for a larger cash outlay, order the videos themselves via roots music mail-order services such as Down Home Music. There are already so many blues videos that a comprehensive rundown is impossible to complete in a few paragraphs. Here we'll simply point readers to some of the best sources.

The two companies with the largest blues video catalogs are Vestapol and Yazoo. Vestapol's line is oriented toward the guitar player, with entire collections of clips for country blues guitar, Texas blues, and bottleneck guitar. Contrary to the impression you might get from a catalog listing, these are not instructional videos, but actual footage of the bluesmen and blueswomen themselves in performance. The appeal is not limited to guitar players (though they can certainly find much to admire); it's geared toward general blues fans, giving them a chance to watch their heroes in action.

There is an unavoidably inconsistent quality about the compilations, due to the varying nature of the sources. A sterling color clip from the BBC lies shoulder-to-shoulder, for instance, with grainy black-and-white footage in somebody's rundown kitchen (which can have an admitted charm all its own). The performances can vary as well; the elderly blues rediscoveries of the '60s can play as well as they did in their prime or, due to failing health, turn in performances that may have been best withheld from circulation, even given the rarity of clips in the field.

But this shouldn't dissuade blues enthusiasts from picking up Vestapol compilations, which are assembled with care. Each one is selected to ensure a diversity of content, and includes detailed liner notes about the musicians and the clips. Certainly the best of them are riveting; a trance-like John Lee Hooker playing solo, for instance, or a Swedish TV clip of Josh White suavely sticking a cigarette behind his ear as he plays. There are also entire compilations devoted to the work of major figures like Hooker, Albert King, and Freddie King. The Freddie King compilation The Beat!! is especially sweet, gathering about a dozen vintage color live film clips from a Texas-based R&B/soul TV show of the mid-'60s. (Vestapol also has several videos of jazz guitar players available.)

Yazoo is a name that most blues collectors associate with reissues of ancient country blues from the 1920s and 1930s. Their video line is more diverse than one might expect; indeed, it almost has to be, as there are few blues clips from the 1920s and 1930s of the kind of performers that Yazoo favors. The accent is still on country blues, with entire videos devoted to Furry Lewis, Son House, Big Joe Williams, and Mississippi Fred McDowell. More modern performers, however, are not ignored; there are also anthologies for Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, and Lightnin' Hopkins.

If you're still looking for more vintage film clips after exhausting the Vestapol and Yazoo catalog, you might want to try Rhino's two Blues Masters volumes. Companion pieces of sorts to the excellent 15-volume CD series of the same name, this unavoidably comes up short quantity-wise when stacked against the discs. But does offer footage of some of the greats, including Leadbelly, Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, B.B. King, and less expected figures like Mamie Smith, Roy Milton, and Jimmy Rushing. There is also BMG's similar Bluesland, affiliated with a blues history book of the same name.

Considering that only two photos of Robert Johnson have ever been circulated (and that was only after years of searching), it's ironic that there is now a video based around his work, Search for Robert Johnson (SMV). As the title implies, this is not so much a standard documentary (no footage, after all, exists) as a look into his environment, sources, and the few recollections we have been granted by his associates, narrated by John Hammond. Another video that delves into Mississippi deep blues is titled, logically enough, Deep Blues. Although critic Robert Palmer authored an excellent book by the name in the early '80s, and is also involved in the video, this is not really a companion piece, but a look at Mississippi blues as it is played in the early '90s. Accompanied by, of all people, ex-Eurhythmic Dave Stewart, Palmer spotlights the kind of contemporary, electric juke joint Delta performers that have surfaced on the Fat Possum label, including Junior Kimbrough and R.L. Burnside.

For modern blues, there are occasional releases of concerts by big names such as B.B. King and Buddy Guy, plus a mid-'90s PBS history of the blues, although the subject merits more than the three parts that the series allotted to it.

The milieu of the blues has yet to translate convincingly into fictional feature-length film treatments, despite the abundant fascinating source material. Maybe that's for the best; Crossroads, a mid-'80s Hollywood movie based around some aspects of the Robert Johnson legend, enraged purists even as it helped point some listeners that had been unaware of Mississippi Delta blues to the authentic thing. That film was scored by Ry Cooder, who has ensured that elements of traditional acoustic blues are conveyed to millions via his prolific soundtrack work. One movie worth keeping an eye out for that does not deal with the blues specifically, but does project aspects of the Southern Black experience that the blues details, is Sounder, with a soundtrack by Taj Mahal (who also has a small role in the film).

by Richie Unterberger

Jazz in Turkey (Essay)

The music of Turkey has so impressed past visiting jazzmen that many wrote music incorporating the local rhythms and colors. A few examples are Brubecks "Blue Rondo A La Turk," "Turkish Bath" by Don Ellis, and John Surman's "Galata Bridge." Closer to an "exotic" vogue is Pete LaRoca's album Turkish Women at the Bath, while Lennie Tristano's "Turkish Mambo" (definitely not a mambo) may have some Turkish connection as a dedication to the Ertegun brothers, two Turks that definitely played a major role in black music and jazz in the USA. Let's not forget Atlantic's Arif Mardin or Ilhan Mimaroglu, a pioneer of electronic music, producer of some Atlantic Mingus sessions, and author of some disturbing works featuring jazz soloists like Freddie Hubbard and Janis Siegel. Don Cherry included traditional Turkish tunes in his Live at Ankara, and the almost-forgotten multi-instrumentalist and educator Donald Rafael Garrett studied Turkish music intensively: some of his pioneering work is available on the live Ankara recording Memoirs of a Dream reissued by Kali Fasteau's label Flying Note.
Turkish music's variety of time signatures is inherently close to the polyrhythmic feeling typical of jazz. The harmonic system, close to what we call modal -- in fact all modes are called with names derived by Anatolian regions -- the microtonal "bending" of notes (similar to techniques used in jazz & blues idioms), are all elements appealing to jazz musicians.

For centuries in Istanbul, the most cosmopolitan of towns, musicians of Mediterranean origins -- Greeks, Jews, Italians, Armenians, Gypsies -- met virtuosos and theorists coming from the nations of Islamic civilizations. The modernist Turkey of the Twenties, with its eye on the West as the ideology of the new Republic, was especially open to Western dance music quickly popularized by radio and records. Incidentally, there's a wealth of Turkish tangos available on CD.

In the 30's there were professional jazz orchestras, and from the 40's on the radio began to broadcast jazz. In the 50's, trumpet player Maffy Falay was "discovered" by Dizzy Gillespie in Ankara, and went on -- with the American's encouragement -- to a major career. His group Sevda was among the first experiments, at the beginning of the 70's, in "fusion" of jazz and traditional Turkish idioms. In it a prominent role was played by percussionist Okay Temiz, whose own Oriental Wind was another step in the same direction. Temiz and Falay moved to Northern Europe, but their prestige and influence in the native country continued to grow, inspiring younger players like Burhan Oçal and Tuna Otenel. Oçal, a master darbuka player and multi-instrumentalist, can be heard in the Groove Alla Turca project co-led with Jamaladeen Tacuma: meeting of a jazz group with an oriental-style ensemble, it has exhilarating moments. Otenel, pianist and saxophonist, is a key sideman in many Turkish jazz records, and leads his own European trio in France where he recorded L'Ecume De Vian with Pierre Michelot on bass.

Turkish jazz musicians can be divided today into those more interested in developing a "proper" Jazz idiom, and those more oriented toward experiments that fuse jazz with different strains of Turkish music. Among the former, pianist Aydin Esen recorded for CBS in New York, and keeps a loose connection with top European players like Czech bassist George Mraz and French drummer Daniel Humair; guitarist Onder Focan is a major interpreter of the standard repertoire, but he plays in a wide variety on contexts. For the latter, very representative is Asia Minor, led by electric bass player Kamil Erdem and including saxophonist Yahya Dai, with a very attractive mixture of electric jazz and Turkish motifs. Erkan Ogur, extraordinary player of all plucked strings, traditional or otherwise, produces extended meditations influenced by Coltrane and Hendrix in his Telvin trio, and is a major force in all Turkish music.

Luckily there are no strict boundaries between groups and genres, so an internationally famous classical pianist like Fazil Say and the last exponent of the foremost lineage of Sufi ney players, Kudsi Erguner, naturally found their meeting ground in jazz. Their live collaboration has not yet been issued, but check out Erguner's excellent CDs Ottomania or Islam Blues on the German ACT label. Ihsan Ozgen, learned conservatory professor, leads his Anatolia group in extended improvisations, and brushed with European jazz in a one-time collaboration with Dutch pianist Guus Janssen. Songwriter Ozdemir Erdogan led a series of '70s jazz groups, where pop star Fatih Erkoç showed his "second identity" as a jazz trombone player, while in the current CDs of the queen of Turkish pop, Sezen Aksu, there are many jazz influences, with Marc Johnson playing bass and percussionist Arto Tunçboyaciyan arranging. The Armenian Navy band led by Tunçboyaciyan, now based in the USA, is a major example of traditionally-based, but jazz influenced, music.

Tenor saxophonist Ilhan Ersahin commutes with New York with his mixture of electronic rhythms, throaty jazz improvisation and poetry. Rapper Sultana, Saadet Turkoz, Sibel Kose and Feyza represent a growing group of vocalists, and established "art" singer Esin Afsar gave a charming jazz reading of Asik Veysel's hugely popular airs. Ayse Tutuncu created a unique sound with her Piano-Percussion group, its repertoire ranging from Debussy to Carla Bley, from Turkish tangos to the Yellowjackets, but the base of active jazz musicians is rapidly growing, and Butch Morris's Istanbul conductions featured many of them.

Keyboardist Ali Perret, drummers Can Kozlu and Cengiz Baysal are now teaching in the first major Jazz education program -- at Bilgi University in Istanbul where Mingus alumnus Ricky Ford leads the band -- but many Universities boast their own jazz society and well-attended festivals. The "alternative" Acik Radyo in Istanbul makes Jazz a substantial part of its offerings, and a specialized quarterly is widely available in bookstores and newsstands.

For the music-interested tourist, Istanbul is full of surprises: in the Beyoglu area many clubs feature live music, and one should check at least Babylon and Roxy, at the opposite ends of the pedestrian thoroughfare Istiklal Caddesi, where several excellent record shops are located, including Lale Plak, specialized in jazz, it's friendly and well-stocked, and is where labels featuring the best of Turkish production, like Doublemoon and Kalan, can be found.

by Francesco Martinelli

Jazz in Germany (Essay)

" If we cannot conquer the communist world with weapons, we will do it with the jazz trumpet."

--British Field Marshall Montgomery


What was the most important event in German history between 1980 and 2000? That's easy: the destruction of the Berlin wall. What was the worst thing that happened to German jazz musicians in the same era? Same answer. Tearing down the Berlin wall. Many Germans want to put the wall back up, and not just jazz musicians.

The wall itself was just a symbol for the divided Germany, whereas it was reunification that put the German government so far in the hole that arts funding had to be sliced into like a Bavarian ham thigh. The jazz scene on either side of the wall had much in common with the train system in Germany, and America for that matter. Neither jazz nor choo choo can pay its own way.

Musicians would earn less than dishwashers if it was left up to the public. In the old East German system a guaranteed wage was provided for those players who had been approved by an official panel of appointed music experts, a process that sounds threatening but is really is not much worse than getting a big name booker to touch a demo tape. Similar panels existed to green light new jazz clubs or performance spaces, some of which were like social meeting halls. In West Germany, a similar process had helped create a network of youth clubs, performing art centers and other venues, in villages as well as big cities

The post-war era was when the German "trad" jazz scene ruled whichever local gasthaus could put up with it, but from the 60's onward free jazz became a popular mode of expression. In the west it was seen as a music of rebellion and freedom. The fever took hold on both sides of the wall, and ironically, free jazz was something communists and capitalists seemed to agree about. Some eastern bloc governments regarded free jazz as a musical attack on the western capitalist system, and decided to encourage it. This included the ultra-repressive Caecescu government in Romania.

Among European nations, Germany was the king of free jazz. Not everyone was thrilled with this in an era when animosity between the old and new was at a height. Guitarist Attila Zoller, up til then one of the few German jazz musicians to make a name for himself in the United States, took strong exception to the music of young Peter Brotzmann. Despite Zoller's his own barbaric first name, he actually comparied Brotzmann to a Hun gone berserking.

Others looked for positive rather than negative connections between free jazz and the country's history, finding free jazz to part of a tradition of self-criticism dating back to Goethe. Original players such as guitarist and instrument inventor Hans Reichel, saxophonist Rudiger Carl, bassist Peter Kowald, and Brotzmann were furthermore part of a Ruhr Valley Style based on the idea that inhabitants of this overly populated, extremely busy industrial region had a special kind of energy sucked in from the surroundings, industrial pollution included.

Another explanation that has been offered for the popularity of free jazz in Germany is other styles of jazz required a feeling for playing the blues, something East Germans in particular were said to lack. "We really cannot play the blues. It is really quite impossible," was a stock explanation for this cultural drawback offered to musicians visiting East Germany. The sounds of an East German blues club might back up such an opinion, but it still runs contrary to the notion of blues being played best by people who have actually suffered. And suffering was how most jazz musicians on the German scene in the 70's and 80's would have described their lot, east or west. Little did they know they were actually really thriving compared to the future.

East German jazz players wound up feeling like they had been dropped off the edge of a cliff. The entire government program supporting them literally vanished overnight. It was also like waking up to every jazz recording company out of business, since the state-operated recording monopoly Amiga had been flushed down the drain along with the rest of the eastern bloc.

In West Germany, foreign musicians were hurt by the cutbacks as well as German passport holders. West Germany's arts subsidies had stuffed the wallets of many jazz and avant garde players from the United States, Japan and other European nations. Prior to the reunification, some of these musicians estimated a third of their income was Deutsch marks in a given year. Smaller audiences in all parts of Germany for jazz or improvised music events was also part of the cash crash. In the former Eastern bloc countries this was interpreted as a depressing trend in which the newly liberated youth embrace mainstream culture and in the words of Czech organizer Borek Halacek, "are no longer the slightest bit interested in anything alternative."

Falling subsidies were the largest problem for organizations such as Free Music Productions, a Berlin-based record label and concert organization responsible for much politically important musical interaction between East and West German improvisers. Its festivals such as the Total Music Meeting had always been well attended, but were never able to rely on ticket sales to pay all expenses. By 2000, FMP was in such bad financial condition it almost aborted its annual events-in the end, the festivals took place with musicians donating their services for free, a situation that would have been unheard of in the fat funding days. The creation of new enterprises with as epic a scope as the FMP catalog seemed unlikely in the future, although new jazz labels did crop up in Germany. These ranged from wee enterprises such as Grob which burn limited editions to the ambitious Between the Lines, a label backed by a German bank and windmill manufacturer.

The large scale jazz festival scene did continue, although Germans complained the events had gotten more expensive and too commercial. Compared to the United States, on the other hand, Germany would still seem to have many darn good festivals, no wall or no wall. These include events in Berlin, Nurnburg and Munich and the summer Moers Jazz Festival in the Ruhr. Sadly, the latter event's important improvisation project was scaled back drastically.

Darmstadt also holds an annual Jazzforum in which professionals convene in panels to discuss topics such as the changes in the jazz scene since the old days. There was the time, for example, when East German jazz drumming legend Gunter 'Baby' Sommer was finally allowed to come to West Berlin for the Free Music Workshop. He sat in the dimly lit café of the Berlin Latin Quarter club and watched a waitress calmly mash down the remains of a candle with an entirely new one. "In the east, we have no candles at all, so we would keep every scrap. In the west, they just put another candle on top of the old one and waste it," Sommer observed. That was the late 70's. By the late 80's, musicians from the east such as the trombone blowing brothers Johannes and Connie Bauer were no longer comparing candles with their West German brethren, but the scarcity of gigs. Total Music Meeting had become almost Total Lack of Gigs.

This no doubt made the increase in interest in European jazz among the American audience in this period all the more exciting, especially since it is said that

the dream of every German boy is to travel to America. Players would have gladly hitched themselves to covered wagons if that was necessary. Some German musicians had toured the states in the 80's--most notably the crazed Bergisch-Brandenburgisches Quartet with Reichel, Carl, the fire-breathing East German alto saxophonist Ernst Ludwig Petrowsky and goofy drummer Sven-Ake Johansen-but activity of this nature increased tenfold in the 90's. The most ambitious of these treks was that of bassist Peter Kowald, who claims to have landed 20 gigs in one night simply by posting his intentions on the internet. He not only likes to drive a band, but also likes to drive, period. Amongst German jazz musicians, it is known as "pulling a Kowaldsky" if one decides to drive home at night after the last gig of a tour no matter how far away home happens to be. Kowald arranged to buy a station wagon upon his arrival in America in 1999 and was off touring coast to coast for the next two months. He estimated that he performed with some five dozen different American improvisers and got in one car wreck in the process, all in all a much more successful tour then it would have been had these figures been reversed.

The amazing synthesizer player Thomas Lehn also toured in the late 90's with American percussionist Gerry Hemingway under the cartoonish name of Tom and Gerry. Big sound and big man, tenor saxophonist Brotzmann proved himself to be just as big a draw in the USA as any American free jazzer. And in a slight bit of payback, he was one of the few German players to benefit from some form of American funding, namely the McArthur grant that Chicago musician Ken Vandermark decided to spend a wad of mounting a Brotzmann large band tour.

The most famous German jazz musician of them all, the virtuoso trombonist Albert Mangelsdorff who comfortable in both free and swing styles, easily held onto his international reputation while doing most of his playing in Germany. He consolidated his considerable power on the scene by taking over as musical director of Jazzfest Berlin in the early 90's. and finally got to make a recording with one of his big influences, saxophonist Lee Konitz. What is considered a relative lack of animosity between young and old generations of players in Germany is often credited to the senior statesman Mangelsdorff's calm and engaging personality, setting a good example -- which is a lot more than anyone can say for Brotzmann! ~ Eugene Chadbourne

by Eugene Chadbourne

Italian Jazz (Essay)

Italy and Jazz go a long way back together. Around 1895 Joe Alexander (Alessandra) was already playing syncopated music in New Orleans. The first jazz record included Nick La Rocca, leader of the ODJB, the first band to record "Tiger Rag," and Tony Sbarbaro; Louis Armstrong took inspiration from Caruso's records for the projection of his trumpet sound.

At the end of the First World War General Pershing's orchestra played in Italy ragtimes and foxtrots. With his musicians played another Italian, guitarist Vittorio Spina, who met a 5-year-old Django Reinhardt when around 1915 the gypsy caravan wandered until Rome.

The 20's in Italy saw the introduction of the trap set - called "jazz" - while dance bands switched from violins to trumpets and saxophones. In 1932 Elio Levi, a Jew, praised Ellington in print; in 1935 Armstrong played his first Italian concert. Futurist musicians praised Jazz, but by the end of the 30's Fascism began to cut down on the "foreign" rhythms and the "degraded" music. Racial laws prevented black and white musicians to play together; little did the Duce know that his own son would become a jazz pianist of sorts….

During the II world war both the German and the Allied Armies relied on big bands for their propaganda broadcast, providing precious experience to musicians. In 1948 Gilberto Cuppini's Bebop Sextet recorded Night In Tunisia/Salt Peanuts: Italian modern Jazz was born. In 1949 pianist Armando Trovajoli's trio played the Paris Festival, and in the same Salle Pleyel in 1952 trumpetist Nunzio Rotondo with his cool style à la Miles Davis had a great success.

In 1957 Giorgio Gaslini presented at the Sanremo Festival his Tempo and Relazione op. 12, possibly the first attempt to combine jazz and dodecaphonic music in Europe. Accomplished classical pianist and composer, Gaslini's presence is crucial to the Italian scene, he's the first to bring jazz to the Conservatory. Another pianist took the road from his small village in the Alps and wandered all over Europe: Guido Manusardi will form an extraordinary partnership with Red Mitchell, and his compositions inspired by Rumanian airs remain among the most successful experiments of this kind. Tenorman Gianni Basso took advantage of his family's immigration to Belgium to learn from Toots Thielemans and Jacques Peltzer, and back in Italy founded with Oscar Valdambrini on trumpet a popular sextet, inspired by the relaxed approach of Al Cohn and Zoot Sims. Chet Baker and Gato Barbieri lived in Italy, famously playing for movie soundtrack and bringing up the standard of musicianship.

In the mid-sixties Giorgio Gaslini is again at the forefront of Free Jazz in Italy together with Mario Schiano and the Gruppo Romano Free Jazz. Other pioneers of free music in Italy are Guido Mazzon, Giancarlo Schiaffini, Marcello Melis: Schiano's Controindicazioni festival in Rome is still a major forum for European free improvisation.

Meanwhile Enrico Rava brought Italian Jazz out of the country: his 1965 Sanremo concert with Lacy, Moholo and Dyani shocks the audience, but after a long stay in New York his groups with Massimo Urbani and his European quartet will charm the whole continent, establishing the first truly international Italian jazz star.

During the musical and social turmoils of the Sixties Jazz gathered popularity, with festivals and schools blooming all over the country. Jazz-rock group were born: Area featured the multiphonics vocals of Demetrio Stratos, Perigeo launched the careers of major jazzmen Claudio Fasoli and Franco D'Andrea. In the 70's and 80's a new crop of talents appeared: pianists Enrico Pierannunzi, Rita Marcotulli and Piero Bassini, bassists Bruno Tommaso and Paolo Damiani, saxmen Eugenio Colombo, Gianluigi Trovesi, Pietro Tonolo, Carlo Actis Dato all gave their personal contribution to the creation of a recognizably Italian sound. Tiziana Ghiglioni pioneered a freewheeling style of vocal jazz inspired by Jeanne Lee and Betty Carter, opening the way for a number of other singers, notably Maria Pia De Vito. Another trumpeter, Paolo Fresu, followed Rava establishing an European career: he partly lives in France but keeps a strong relationship with his home town, Berchidda in Sardinia, where he created an internationally renowned Jazz festival. After Fresu, a number of younger, talented players has found its way on the French scene: among them, Riccardo Dal Fra (Fresu's bass partner), trumpeters Fabrizio Bosso and Fabio Boltro, saxmen Emanuele Cisi and Stefano Di Battista. Pianist Salvatore Bonafede and saxist Rosario Giuliani play a hard bop with a new twist.

Founded by Apulian trumpeter Pino Minafra in 1990 the Instabile Orchestra became the most durable and arguably the most renowned internationally of all Italian Jazz bands. From opera arias to brass bands, from contemporary composition to Mediterranean suggestions, the Italian musical traditions creating a fascinating sound through Jazz's improvisational practice. The Instabile also promotes yearly in Pisa its own festival.

A whole new generation came in the 80's from Apulia and Sicily: Roberto Ottaviano, Stefano Maltese, Gianni Gebbia, Sebi Tramontana, Giorgio Occhipinti. From Milan, Nexus' Daniele Cavallanti and Tiziano Tononi keep working at their swinging brand of free jazz, Tononi's monumental three-Cd tribute to Roland Kirk receiving world-wide recognition; Rome's answers are pianist Danilo Rea and his Doctor Three with Enzo Pietropaoli and Roberto Gatto. Riccardo Fassi's Tankio Band and Roberto Spadoni's Urkestra are fresh takes on the big band traditions. Dazzling pianist Stefano Battaglia played the modern jazz book with trio partners Paolino Della Porta and Fabrizio Sferra, lead Theatrum, an improvisation workshop band, and produced a series of brilliant piano solos. At Siena's Summer Jazz Seminars since 1978 young musicians meet the established Italian jazz stars, while from all over Italy new talents keep appearing: the Parma Jazz Frontiere orchestra led by bassist Roberto Bonati, the Apulian Dolmen Orchestra led by saxist Daniele Pisani, from Umbria clarinetist Gabriele Mirabassi's groups. Alongside Umbria and Rome Jazz Festivals, mammoth Italian versions of Montreux and North Sea, smaller festivals are promoted in many towns - among them Clusone, Parma, Bergamo, Vicenza, S. Anna Arresi, Tivoli, Barga, Roccella, Reggio Emilia - letting visitors discover less-known places and a wealth of exciting music. ~ Francesco Martinelli

by Francesco Martinelli

Gangsta Rap (Essay)

Ever since some gang-related violence occurred at a Run-D.M.C. concert in Long Beach, CA in 1986, rap music has been controversial; hip-hop had its detractors in the '80s and still has plenty of them in the 21st century. And no form of rap has been more controversial than gangsta rap, which has been attacked by everyone from Tipper Gore to conservative talk show host Bill O'Reilly. Why have so many people been critical of gangsta rap, including some of hip-hop's non-gangsta MCs? It all comes down to the first-person format; instead of rhyming in the third person about the problems of the inner city, gangsta rappers rhyme in the first person about the lives of thugs, felons, gang members, pimps and crack dealers. Gangsta rappers portray the thugs they're rapping about, which is a lot different from what Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five (one of rap's earliest groups) did on their 1982 classic "The Message." That gem found Flash and his New York colleagues rapping in the third person about the oppressive conditions of the inner-city ghetto, but they didn't actually portray criminals -- gangsta rappers, however, give listeners the perspective of a gangbanger, a drug dealer or someone who is serving hard time for armed robbery. And for that reason, gangsta rap has often been accused of glorifying -- or even promoting -- crime and violence. But many gangsta rappers have countered that portrayal should not be confused with advocacy; in other words, the fact that Ice-T, Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre have portrayed thugs on record doesn't mean that they're encouraging listeners to live the thug life. Ice-T would argue that when he gave first-person accounts of thug life on "6'N the Mornin'" and "Colors," it was comparable to Joe Pesci and Robert De Niro portraying hoodlums in Casino and Goodfellas -- that he wasn't promoting thuggery any more than director Martin Scorsese's modern film-noir.

Like any style of music that has generated gold and platinum sales, gangsta rap has been saturated with clone artists -- people who reasoned that the easiest way to sell a lot of CDs was to emulate N.W.A or the late 2Pac Shakur instead of developing something original. And in the hands of the clones, gangsta rap can seem like cheap exploitation and an endless stream of sexist, violent clichés. But the most compelling gangsta rappers -- including Ice-T, N.W.A, Shakur, Schoolly D, Ice Cube, Dr. Dre and the Geto Boys -- weren't about shock value for the sake of shock value. The best gangsta rap has served as an audio-documentary on the problems of the inner city; at its best, gangsta rap is film-noir with a beat.

Gangsta rap got started around 1986, when the seminal Ice-T wrote a disturbing tune called "6'N the Mornin'". Rapping in the first person, Ice-T took his audience on a guided tour through the world of a Los Angeles criminal. It wasn't the first time that a rapper examined the darker side of urban life; when Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five recorded "The Message" in 1982 and "New York, New York" in 1983, they painted a very troubling and depressing picture of the inner city. And there were many other East Coast MCs who, in the early to mid-'80s, rapped about social problems, including Run-D.M.C. and Kurtis Blow. But they never rapped about thug life in the first person -- if anything, they were complaining about the criminals who were making New York a dangerous place to live. "6'N the Mornin'," however, found the L.A.-based Ice-T portraying the sort of felon Flash and Run-D.M.C. were trying to avoid in their songs. And the first-person approach was effective on subsequent Ice-T offerings like "Drama," "Pain," "Colors" and "The Hunted Child," all of which were vehemently criticized by those who thought that he was glorifying crime and violence. But Ice-T often countered that his lyrics were being taken out of context -- that if you listened closely, his lyrics were actually anti-crime. In fact, there were no happy endings for the pimps, players and gangbangers in Ice-T's songs; they usually ended up dead or incarcerated, much like the thugs that James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson often portrayed in the '30s and '40s. In a subliminal way, Ice-T was telling his fans that crime doesn't pay; "The Hunted Child" and "Drama" paint as unattractive a picture of crime as Cagney's characters did in White Heat and Public Enemy (1931).

Although gangsta rap was dominated by the West Coast in the '80s, one of the early gangsta rappers was Philadelphia's Schoolly D. Lyrically, Schoolly wasn't as violent or as graphic as his West Coast counterparts; however, some of the first-person rhymes that he came out with around 1985-87 were more thuggish than anything else that the East Coast had to offer at the time. "PSK What Does It Mean?," "Saturday Night" and other singles that Schoolly provided during that period weren't as bloody as N.W.A or the Geto Boys, but they were still ahead of their time and deserve to be recognized as gangsta rap classics.

If gangsta rap's detractors found Ice-T and Schoolly D troubling, they were even more shocked when they heard N.W.A's influential Straight Outta Compton. Released in late 1988, that album turned out to be even more violent than Ice-T's work. N.W.A's members (Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, MC Ren, DJ Yella and the late Eazy-E) covered a lot of the same ground as Ice-T -- gang violence, drive-by shootings, drug dealing, etc. -- and the L.A.-based rappers didn't think twice about being as inflammatory as possible. One of the songs on Straight Outta Compton, "Fuck tha Police", inspired the FBI to write an angry letter to Priority Records. But Straight Outta Compton, for all its graphic violence, was far from an example of cheap exploitation -- it was really a cry for help, and the album told people all over the world just how dangerous life in Compton, CA and South-Central L.A. could be.

Other noteworthy gangsta rappers from the late '80s and early '90s ranged from the Houston-based Geto Boys to L.A.'s Cypress Hill, who brought some of the Chicano/Mexican-American influence to gangsta rap. Cypress Hill wasn't the first rap group with a Latino influence, but they were the first major group that brought a Latino perspective to West Coast gangsta rap. Meanwhile, the L.A.-based Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E. has demonstrated that Samoan-Americans can be a part of gangsta rap.

As influential as N.W.A turned out to be, the group only lasted about four years. In 1991, N.W.A broke up, and Dr. Dre launched his solo career with 1992's The Chronic (which was among the best selling gangsta rap albums of all time and put the distinctive Snoop Dogg on the map). Ice Cube, meanwhile, had been recording solo albums since 1990, when he left N.W.A and had a falling out with Dr. Dre and Eazy-E (who died of AIDS-related causes in 1995). Cube's solo output has always been extremely sociopolitical; if anyone has bridged the gap between the militant black nationalism of Public Enemy and the thuggery of gangsta rap, it's Ice Cube.

Most gangsta rappers have distanced themselves from the thug life that they rhyme about; a tragic exception was the late 2Pac Shakur, who was all too familiar with the urban horrors that he describes on albums like 1995's compelling Me Against the World. There was plenty of violence on Shakur's recordings, but there was also plenty of remorse -- Shakur, at times, expressed regret over having lived the thug life, and yet, he seemed addicted to it. The rapper had numerous run-ins with the law in the early to mid-'90s, and he made his share of enemies in the hip-hop world. Shakur was only 25 when, in September 1996, an unknown gunman shot him four times in Las Vegas; on September 13, 1996 (six days after the attack), Shakur's bullet wounds ended his life. And only six months later, Shakur's East Coast rival the Notorious B.I.G. was also murdered by gunfire. There was speculation that whoever murdered the Notorious B.I.G. did so to avenge Shakur's death, but nothing has ever been proven.

If gangsta rap hadn't received enough negative publicity in the late '80s and early '90s, it received even more when Shakur was killed in 1996. Nonetheless, gangsta rap continued to be incredibly popular and was still going strong when the 21st Century arrived. In 2001 and 2002, gangsta rap's critics weren't any less vocal than they had been 13 and 14 years earlier -- if anything, they had become even more vocal. And even some of gangsta rap's defenders had grown tired of all the predictable artists who kept jumping on the gangsta bandwagon. But despite all those things, the best gangsta albums -- gems like Shakur's Me Against the World, Ice-T's Power and N.W.A's Straight Outta Compton -- continue to hold up well and offer riveting descriptions of the tragic side of urban life.

by Alex Henderson

Female Rap (Essay)

Historically, rap has been a very male-dominated idiom -- much more so than R&B, country or dance-pop. That is true in the United States; it is true in Europe and Latin America, where women don't play nearly as prominent a role in rap as they do in Latin pop (a field that has given us countless female superstars). Nonetheless, female rappers have made some important and valuable contributions to hip-hop, which would have been a lot poorer without Queen Latifah, Salt-N-Pepa, MC Lyte or, more recently, Eve. From rap's old school era (roughly 1976-1982, give or take a year) to the early 2000s, the same pattern has prevailed when it comes to gender: male rappers outnumber female rappers, but talented female rappers will inevitably break through commercially. Every hip-hop era has been male-dominated but has also had some important female rap stars -- and they range from Queen Latifah, MC Lyte and Salt-N-Pepa in the '80s to Foxy Brown, Nonchalant, Da Brat and Lil' Kim in the '90s and Eve in the early 2000s.

From the beginning, hip-hop had a lot of testosterone; it has often functioned as a form of musical sportsmanship. The old school rappers who were active in Harlem or the South Bronx in the late '70s could be an extremely competitive bunch; microphone battles were quite common back then, and rappers spent a lot of time articulating why they thought they were the best and why "sucker MCs" (rival rappers) were inferior. Machismo was always a big part of hip-hop; talk show host Bill Maher (who had everyone from Chuck D to Snoop Doggy Dogg to Lil' Kim on his Politically Incorrect show when it was on ABC in the late '90s and early 2000s) has often said he loves the fact that rap is the one form of American music in which a male point of view is celebrated instead of marginalized. That said, hip-hop hasn't necessarily excluded a feminist perspective either -- the female rappers who have succeeded in their field have had a reputation for being assertive, take-charge women. No one could ever accuse MC Lyte, Roxanne Shanté, Queen Latifah or Foxy Brown of projecting a wimpy image or coming across as shrinking violets; if anything, the fact that hip-hop (hardcore rap more than pop-rap) tends to be so competition-minded forces female participants to have more of a feminist outlook.

The first example of a female rapper recording as a solo artist came in 1980, when the Philadelphia-based Lady B recorded her single "To the Beat, Y'all" for Sugar Hill Records. After that, Lady B didn't make rapping her main focus; she ultimately made her mark as a radio DJ in Philly. Nonetheless, she is a historically important figure, as are the members of the Sequence -- an early female rap group that also recorded for Sugar Hill Records in the early '80s and was quite popular during hip-hop's old school era. Another noteworthy female MC from that period was Sha Rock, who was part of a mostly male group called the Funky Four Plus One.

Unfortunately, the female rappers who were popular during rap's old school era were unable to maintain their commercial success when hip-hop's second wave (Run-D.M.C. , LL Cool J, Whodini, the Fat Boys, among others) took over around 1983-84. In rap, the turnover can be mind-blowing -- hip-hop has always had an "out with the old, in with the new" attitude, and MCs who stay on top as long as L.L. Cool J are the exception instead of the rule. By the mid-'80s, Sha Rock and the Sequence were considered old school, and there were plenty of younger hip-hop women to take their place (if you want to look at it that way). Roxanne Shanté, the Real Roxanne (a Puerto Rican MC), MC Lyte, Salt-N-Pepa (who were originally known as Super Nature), Queen Latifah, Antoinette, Sparky-D, Ice Cream Tee, Monie Love, Sweet Cookie and Pebblee-Poo are among the female rappers who emerged in the mid- to late '80s. And that list of artists underscores the fact that female rappers are as diverse a bunch as male rappers. While Shanté and MC Lyte are essentially hardcore rappers and are famous for their battle rhymes, Salt-N-Pepa have had more of a pop-rap focus -- the group has had no problem appealing to urban contemporary and dance-pop audiences.

When it came to female rappers, the term pop-rap could mean different things in the '80s. Salt-N-Pepa and Oaktown's 3.5.7 (who were MC Hammer protégées from Oakland, CA) had crossover appeal, but they weren't bubblegum -- certainly not the way that J.J. Fad and L'Trimm (two female pop-rap groups of the late '80s/early '90s) could be bubblegum. The Miami-based L'Trimm (best known for their 1988 hit "Cars with the Boom") never received any respect from rap purists, who disliked their cutesy, girlish image and their frivolous lyrics. But L'Trimm's work should be enjoyed for what it is: goofy, silly, frivolous, escapist fun. Comparing L'Trimm to MC Lyte or the Real Roxanne would be like comparing Poison to Slayer -- L'Trimm didn't pretend to be hardcore rap any more than Poison pretended to be death metal.

The early '90s saw the rise of a variety of female rappers, who ranged from Ice Cube associate Yo-Yo to the militantly sociopolitical (and downright controversial) Sista Souljah to some very sexually explicit groups: Chicago's HWA (Hoes with Attitude) and L.A.'s Bytches With Problems (BWP). Both of those groups came out with their first albums in 1990, which was six years before the release of Lil' Kim's debut solo album, Hard Core. Like HWA and BWP before her, Kim has never been the least bit shy about having X-rated lyrics. Kim commands a large following, but she also has her detractors; some feminists have argued that her willingness to exploit sex promotes the objectification of women. But if anyone is being objectified on Kim's albums, it's men. Kim has always projected a take-charge image on her albums -- if anything, Kim's releases have portrayed her as the dominatrix and men as the submissives who do her bidding. On the song "Not Tonight," for example, Kim bluntly states that she expects any man she is intimate with to perform oral sex on her -- and that men who cannot pleasure her in that way shouldn't even bother wasting her time.

The list of other female rappers who started recording in the '90s is a long one. It's a list that includes, among many others, Nonchalant, Da Brat, Mia X, Foxy Brown, Bahamadia, LeShaun, the Conscious Daughters, Shorty No Mas, Heather B, Overweight Pooch, Tam Tam and Queen Mother Rage. Gangsta rap was very male-dominated in the '90s -- like rap in general -- but it did give us Sh'killa, a Bay Area rapper who set out to be the female equivalent of Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg or Warren G. Sh'killa's Gangstrez from da Bay (released by Priority in 1995) was right out of the Dre/Snoop/Death Row Records school of West Coast G-funk.

The majority of female rappers have been black -- at least in the United States. But some white female rappers have recorded albums over the years, and they have ranged from L.A.'s aggressive, in-your-face Tairrie B (who was very much a hardcore rapper) to pop-rapper Icy Blu (who Irving Azoff's Giant Records envisioned as a female version of Vanilla Ice). In 1990, Tairrie went after the hip-hop world with her debut album, The Power of a Woman, which didn't sell. And subsequently, she shifted her focus from hardcore rap to rap-metal and alternative rock as a vocalist for the band Manhole (more recently known as Tura Satana).

When the 21st Century arrived, rap wasn't showing any signs of becoming less male-dominated -- the high level of testosterone that rap had in the late '70s and early '80s wasn't any weaker in 2000, 2001 or 2002. But if women were still a minority in rap, they were a commercially viable minority; Lil' Kim and Foxy Brown (just to give two examples) continued to command sizable followings, and the early 2000s were a great time for the Philadelphia-based Eve (whose first album came out in 1999). Again, every hip-hop era has had some major female stars, and there is no reason to believe that the future will be any different.

by Alex Henderson

European Rap (Essay)

"Representing the 'hood" is a term that one frequently hears in hip-hop circles. Historically, rappers have been obsessed with telling you where they're from and why they're proud to be from a particular area. That's why Run-D.M.C. described themselves as "kings from Queens" (as in the Queens borough of New York City), and it's why N.W.A called their second album, Straight Outta Compton (as in Compton, CA, the tough Los Angeles ghetto that N.W.A was from). It's also why hip-hoppers from Long Island, NY affectionately call that area "Strong Island" and why many southern MCs refer to their region as the Dirty South (not dirty as in physically unclean -- dirty as in having explicit lyrics). From Master P in New Orleans to the Roots in Philadelphia, rappers all over the United States have been representing the 'hood and doing so in a very loud, vocal way -- they want to make sure that listeners know exactly where they're from.

But the 'hood doesn't necessarily have to be in the United States or anywhere else in North America. Rap is huge in most parts of the world, and there are hip-hop scenes in places that range from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to Tokyo, Japan to Johannesburg, South Africa. There are rappers in Mozambique; there are rappers in the Philippines and different parts of India (where numerous Indian pop singers have incorporated hip-hop elements). The main focus of this essay, however, is European rap, and that could be anything from an Irish MC in Dublin to a German rapper in Munich (which the English-language section of a German hip-hop website calls "Muthaphukkin' Money Makin' Munich"). When a European rapper talks about life in the 'hood, he/she could be talking about Venice, Italy -- or perhaps the 'hood could be in Stockholm, Sweden or Barcelona, Spain. From Scandinavia to Portugal, hip-hop has been huge in Europe since the '80s.

In terms of European geography, this essay does not take a purist approach and classifies British, Scottish and Irish rap as part of the European hip-hop spectrum. Technically, the British Isles are not right on the European continent; one couldn't drive a car from London to Vienna or from Dublin to Geneva (unless the car could also function as a submarine -- and those kind of cars only exist in sci-fi movies). Nonetheless, the countries of the British Isles (England, Ireland and Scotland) are essentially part of the greater European community, and Americans tend to think of them as European countries -- if your ancestors were from Ireland but you were born and raised in New Jersey, you're considered a Euro-American. And if you're busting a rhyme on the streets of Manchester, Dublin or Glasgow, you're as much a part of European rap as someone from Paris, Copenhagen or Berlin.

For the most part, European rap has received very little attention in the U.S. -- and the language barrier has been a definite factor. To a hip-hop head from West Philly, East Oakland or South-Central L.A., it might sound strange to hear Germany's Die Fantastischen Vier rapping in German, Italy's Articolo 31 rapping in Italian or France's MC Solaar rapping in French. But it isn't considered strange in Europe, where all of those artists are well known and have sold a lot of CDs. Europeans, for the most part, tend to be a lot more multilingual than Americans; it isn't uncommon for someone to graduate from a European high school speaking several languages fluently (including English). Consequently, European hip-hop heads are used to hearing MCs flowing in different languages -- they speak enough English to understand most or all of Jay-Z's lyrics, but they're also quite comfortable hearing MC Solaar getting busy in French. Solaar (a jazz-influenced alternative rapper along the lines of De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest and the Jungle Brothers) is not only a major rap star in France; he's also sold a ton of CDs in other European countries. Solaar isn't nearly as well known in the U.S., but like other major European rappers, he has demonstrated that an MC can be a superstar by catering to the European market.

The fact that Europeans tend to be more multilingual than Americans not only explains why European rap fans are willing to hear rapping in different languages -- it also explains why some rappers from countries where English isn't the official language have been able to rap in English exclusively (including Denmark's Bootfunk and Sweden's ADL). Again, becoming multilingual is encouraged in many of Europe's public school systems, and fluency in English is a goal of many European kids -- they want to be able to understand the dialogue in a Martin Scorsese movie, the lyrics of a Lil' Kim tune or the material on CNN's website. In terms of language, European MCs generally feel that different options are available; a Dutch rapper might feel perfectly comfortable flowing in English, or he/she might prefer to rap in Dutch. Hip-hop fans in Holland (where the popular rappers have ranged from DTF and 24K to the Osdorp Posse) are open to hearing local artists rapping in either Dutch or English -- for that matter, Dutch rap fans are open to hearing rapping in French, German, Italian or Spanish. MC Solaar and Die Fantastischen Vier (whose name is German for the Fantastic Five) have sold plenty of CDs in the Netherlands.

Because English is the primary language of the British Isles, it stands to reason that British, Irish and Scottish MCs have a greater chance of reaching the American market than someone who raps in Dutch, German, French or Italian exclusively. And on rare occasions, British rappers have enjoyed exposure in the U.S. -- Monie Love, who reached her commercial peak in the late '80s and early '90s, is the British MC who has enjoyed the greatest commercial success in North America. Other noteworthy British hip-hoppers have ranged from the London Posse, Derek B and the Demon Boyz to the Wee Papa Girls and the Cookie Crew (two female pop-rap groups that have been described as a U.K. equivalent of Salt-N-Pepa). Linguists who take a close look at the hip-hop trends of the British Isles will hear the English language used in many different ways; British rap has, in some cases, sounded like a mixture of Cockney and African-American slang, whereas Irish and Scottish rappers have often combined a brogue with African-American slang. In fact, one can hear the parallels between House of Pain (the Irish-American rap group that made Everlast famous) and Scaryéire, a hardcore rap group from Ireland. Scaryéire is an intriguing example of multiculturalism -- the Irish rappers love African-American culture, but instead of trying to sound exactly like black MCs from the U.S., they combine African-American and Irish/Celtic influences. Instead of rapping about growing up in the projects of North Philly -- something they haven't experienced -- Scaryéire's members are wise enough to rap about something they do have first-hand knowledge of: life in Ireland. Scaryéire has represented the 'hood, which is also what rappers have done in Italy (where noteworthy hip-hoppers have ranged from Nuovi Briganti to the militantly sociopolitical 99 Posse). Italian hip-hop heads will tell you that MCs from different parts of Italy rap with different accents -- in Palermo, for example, one might encounter MCs with a Sicilian/Southern Italian way of rapping, whereas MCs from Milan have more of a Northern Italian flow. And there's a similar situation in Spain, where a rapper from Barcelona is likely to have a different accent from a Madrid-based rapper. It should be noted that Spanish-language rapping in Spain sounds a lot different from Spanish-language rapping in Latin America; similarly, Portuguese-language rapping in Portugal sounds a lot different from Portuguese-language rapping in Brazil (the only Latin American country where Spanish isn't the official language).

Although much of this essay has focused on Western Europe, hip-hop has been getting bigger and bigger in Eastern Europe. Back in the '80s -- when Eastern Europe was still dominated by Soviet-style communist regimes -- hip-hop was very underground in places like the Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic) and Hungary. Rap, like rock, was especially frowned upon in Albania and Romania, both of which had brutally repressive, totally xenophobic Stalinist regimes. But after the fall of communism in Eastern Europe in the late '80s and early '90s, it became a lot easier to obtain rap CDs in that part of the world. Rappers from former communist countries have ranged from Poland's BZiK to the Czech Republic's Rapmasters.

Whether or not European rap artists will make inroads in the U.S. remains to be seen; obviously, Europeans who rap in English have a better shot than those who don't (although British, Irish and Scottish rappers have tended to do much better in Europe than in North America). But then, plenty of European MCs have been selling a ton of CDs with little or no help from the U.S. market -- and that trend will likely continue for some time to come.

by Alex Henderson