The show that brought the dawn of a new age to Broadway in the mid-1960s was Hair. Addressing the hippie movement, the antiwar movement, and the rise of rock and roll, Hair had a more significant impact than any other musical in the 1960s. Galt McDermot’s show was subtitled “The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical” and was intended to represent “the fluid-abstract world of the ‘Flower Children.’” In many ways, Hair represented the dawning of a new age that the show called the “Age of Aquarius.”
LISTENING EXAMPLE 7: “AQUARIUS” FROM HAIR (1967)-- GALT MCDERMOT
While Bye, Bye, Birdie told the story of an imaginary 50s-style rock idol and thus included 50s rock-style music, Hair was a 100 percent rock musical of the 1960s. The music incorporated the instrumentation of rock and roll—there was a horn section, but there were no orchestral strings, and the rest of the pit consisted of rock-style keyboards, drums and percussion, and electric (and acoustic) guitars. This was a real rock musical—a new genre. The vocalists sang in rock and pop styles, and the rhythms and harmonies were straight out of rock and roll. As a matter of fact, one of the things that brought Hair to the attention of the listening public outside of New York City was that the pop soul group the 5th Dimension released a cover of “Aquarius” that reached number one on the pop charts. The recording became the second biggest hit of 1969, and the original cast album of Hair stayed on the charts for almost three years.
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One of the reasons Hair was so popular was because it was shocking and different. It was extremely controversial and thus garnered lots of publicity. Musically, it went against the grain of the conservative Broadway audiences. There were no soaring string melodies, no “Climb Every Mountain” anthems. The harmonies were mostly simple, and perhaps most musically offensive of all, the guitars, keyboards, and drums sounded like the rock music that many older Broadway patrons loathed. The subject matter was offensive to audiences who were accustomed to Rodgers and Hammerstein or Lerner and Loewe: Long-haired teenagers or early twenty-somethings, free love, drugs, rock and roll, antiwar protests, religious irreverence, and anti-government/anti-establishment rhetoric: “The draft is white people sending black people to make war on yellow people to defend the land they stole from red people.” Hair went even further to shock, with obscene language, casual use of racial epithets, and even nudity. Hair shocked its way to tremendous success, running for 1,750 performances on Broadway, making it the fifth longest-running musical on Broadway at that time. Broadway would never be the same.
The opening song of the musical is “Aquarius,” a song that establishes that this is going to be a show about the “flower power” generation. After singing that “peace will guide the planets” and “love will steer the stars,” the singers declare that “this is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius.” The form of the song is very simple. After the ethereal introduction, the soloist begins what sounds like a verse. It is followed by a refrain. There is a contrasting bridge, followed by a return of the whole first section, with the last two measures repeated, and then the last measure repeated one more time. It is basically an ABA form with a non-metered introduction to set the mood, and a slight extension at the end of the refrain.
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A Love Supreme
Adderley’s counterpart in the Miles Davis band, John Coltrane, was well known for his seriousness. Coltrane had undergone a spiritual transformation when quitting drugs in the late 1950s. His quest was both musical and religious, and just as he sought scales and groupings of notes and rhythms from cultures around the world, he also sought spiritual enlightenment from many sources. John Coltrane was on a musical quest and that meant he was looking for greater depth and more meaning. After “Alabama” in 1963, Coltrane had really become jazz music’s leader, moving the medium forward with his intense and serious improvisations. In 1964, Coltrane recorded A Love Supreme, a four-movement composition. In his liner notes for the LP, Coltrane made it clear that this was an expression of his religious beliefs and related to his “spiritual awakening” from 1957.
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The quartet for the album was the same group that had recorded “Alabama” in 1963: Coltrane on tenor saxophone, McCoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass, and Elvin Jones on drumset. These musicians had developed an incredible ability to communicate with each other during a performance and to make adjustments based on tiny cues from the other musicians’ playing, with Coltrane always in charge. Coltrane sketched out a four-movement form. Some portions of it had been played in club dates earlier, but much of it was developed that evening, December 9, 1964, in the recording studio. The four movements, “Acknowledgement,” “Resolution,” “Pursuance,” and “Psalm” were not notated in the traditional manner, but certainly the musicians had some knowledge in advance of what they would be recording since Jones knew to bring a Chinese gong and a timpani. The four movements take up the entire album, and last more than half an hour in total. Influences of modal jazz, blues, and free jazz abound. Coltrane’s notes for the recording session are fascinating and clearly lay out his conception of the piece.
LISTENING EXAMPLE 8: A LOVE SUPREME (1964)—JOHN COLTRANE
The first movement, “Acknowledgement,” consists of several sections. The first section is an unmetered introductory improvisation, with Coltrane restricting himself to the four rising notes with which he begins the improvisation.
He manipulates those notes rapidly, into any number of configurations, but emphasizes a six-note pattern that, like so much of Coltrane’s music, sounds speech-like.
He manipulates those notes rapidly, into any number of configurations, but emphasizes a six-note pattern that, like so much of Coltrane’s music, sounds speech-like.
The four-note pattern also restricts the intervals used in the introduction: major second, perfect fourth, perfect fifth. Particularly distinctive is the fact that no thirds are present, and thus the key, centered on E, is left ambiguous. There are no moving chords, but rather a group of notes that can be played in any order, as in modal jazz. The second section establishes the tempo (about 118 beats per minute) and the harmonic framework (mostly F minor pentatonic, but again with some ambiguity and an emphasis on fourths—and again without chordal motion) with the rhythm section for sixteen measures, propelled, in particular, by a syncopated ostinato four-note group in the bass, made up of a rising third and a rising fourth.
As the second section continues, Coltrane then enters and improvises with thematic material that expands on the four- note group of the introduction. After a lengthy improvisation, he adopts the four-note bass figure, revealing that it was a theme after all.
As the second section continues, Coltrane then enters and improvises with thematic material that expands on the four- note group of the introduction. After a lengthy improvisation, he adopts the four-note bass figure, revealing that it was a theme after all.
He manipulates it so that he plays it through all twelve keys, before returning to the original key. The next section is perhaps the most surprising. The four-note theme is now chanted to the text “A Love Supreme.” Coltrane was not known for including vocals in his performances, so this chanting of the title of the entire work was particularly striking and emphasized the importance of both the text and the four-note theme.
The final movement, “Psalm,” is one of the most striking of Coltrane’s compositions, reminiscent of the opening of “Alabama,” with Coltrane improvising freely over a static harmony and splashes of color from the rhythm section. The entire movement is what Coltrane called a “musical recitation” of the prayer that he included on the liner notes of the album. Interestingly enough, he did not specify that in the liner notes, nor did he tell his musicians before they recorded it.
The final movement, “Psalm,” is one of the most striking of Coltrane’s compositions, reminiscent of the opening of “Alabama,” with Coltrane improvising freely over a static harmony and splashes of color from the rhythm section. The entire movement is what Coltrane called a “musical recitation” of the prayer that he included on the liner notes of the album. Interestingly enough, he did not specify that in the liner notes, nor did he tell his musicians before they recorded it.
A Love Supreme was a hugely influential recording and remains so to this day. As author Eric Nisenson points out in his book about Coltrane, the year that Coltrane recorded A Love Supreme was the end of the “unique time of hope” guided by Kennedy’s “Camelot,” LBJ’s “Great Society” and “War on Poverty,” and Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream. The escalation of the war in Vietnam, the assassination of Malcolm X, and riots in Watts made 1965 a watershed year. It is no wonder that Coltrane’s music moved from the hopeful, calm, purposeful sound of 1964’s A Love Supreme to the more aggressive cacophony and dissonance of 1965’s Ascension.
Coltrane was blazing new trails in free jazz that went even beyond those of Ornette Coleman. Perhaps Coltrane was ready to lead jazz in a new direction entirely. Sadly, it was not to be. By 1967, Coltrane was continuing to work but was suffering physically and in “great pain.” Coltrane had liver cancer, and in July 1967 before reaching the age of forty, he succumbed. This was the end of an era.
Coltrane was blazing new trails in free jazz that went even beyond those of Ornette Coleman. Perhaps Coltrane was ready to lead jazz in a new direction entirely. Sadly, it was not to be. By 1967, Coltrane was continuing to work but was suffering physically and in “great pain.” Coltrane had liver cancer, and in July 1967 before reaching the age of forty, he succumbed. This was the end of an era.