Part 1 Multiple choice
Listen to part 1. You are going to hear about the blues. Choose the correct answer, A, B, C or D to complete the sentences (1-3) 1 D; 2 A; 3 B. Part 2 Sentence completion
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Listen to part 2. You are going to hear about American jazz. Complete the sentences (4-7) with NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS in each gap. New Orleans was considered to be the birthplace of jazz because of the mixture of Creole and black subcultures. The Creole community spoke French and Spanish and became an important part of New Orleans upper class/society although they had originally come from the West Indies. Jazz began when the upper-class, educated Creole community, with their sophisticated knowledge of European music, moved into the black section of New Orleans. The conditions needed to produce Jazz were the mixture of ethnic, cultural and musical conditions that were only to be found in the United States. Part 3 Short answer question
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Answer the following questions (8-10) after listening to the complete text. What was enacted in 1894? In 1894 a racial segregation law was enacted in New Orleans. What was specific to New Orleans? The mixing of the Creole and black subcultures. (The Creoles were free, French and Spanish speaking Blacks, originally from the West Indies. They rose to the highest levels of New Orleans society during the 19th century and had formal knowledge of European music, precise technique and soft delicate tone).
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produce jazz? The freedom of individual expression supported by group interaction. (They came from the multiplicity of ethnic, cultural and musical conditions and the necessary philosophical impetus). TRANSCRIPT The Blues The Blues is an American musical and verse form. Its roots were in various forms of African American slave songs such as work songs and spirituals. The Idee per i nsegnare la letteratura i nglese con Sp i azz i , Tavella, Layton Performer Culture & Literature 3 © Zanichelli 2013
Blues reflected the sadness and the tribulations of the Afro-Americans on a secular level, as opposed to the religious Gospel songs. The Blues was the philosophical expression of the individual contemplating his situation in relation to the conditions surrounding him. The most charming peculiarity of the Blues was its individual character which made it unique, and, at the same time, the universality of its content that could be understood by everybody and was thus collective. Though composed under the pressure of improvisation, the Blues has a rigid pattern which demands simple diction, repetition and an elementary rhyme scheme; it is arranged into three lines of verse, the second line repeating the first, and the third rhyming with the first two. As the African American community that created the Blues began moving away from the South to escape systematic racial prejudice, Blues music evolved to reflect new circumstances. The thousands of African American farm workers who migrated north to cities like Chicago and Detroit during both World Wars wanted to hear music that reflected their new urban surroundings. In response, transplanted Blues artists such as Muddy Waters, who had lived and worked on a Mississippi plantation before moving to Chicago in 1943, replaced acoustic guitars with electric ones and expanded their sound with drums, harmonica, and standup bass. This gave rise to an electrified Blues sound with an emotional beat that drove people onto the dance floor and paved the way to Rhythm and Blues and Rock and Roll.
O I T L S E G E T L D I E 5 D 1 N I n O o I Z I i t Z a C i c U R f L E i c O S e p S E S
Jazz Tracing the origins of Jazz in the formative years (1895-1917) is not easy. Even the geographic location of the earliest Jazz experiments have been the subject much controversy because the forms of black music from which Jazz was formed were known in dozens of cities in the United States. Why then was New Orleans chosen as the birthplace of Jazz? This was due to the mixing of the Creole and black subcultures. The Creoles were free, French and Spanish speaking Blacks, originally from the West Indies. They rose to the highest levels of New Orleans society during the 19th century and had formal knowledge of European music, precise technique and soft delicate tone. Their social and cultural values were those of the upper class. In sharp contrast were the newly freed blacks who were 83
