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Vocabulary, Voice Leading, and Motivic Coherence in Chet Baker's Jazz Improvisations

xxv, 492 p. : music / This study applies Schenkerian theory to Chet Baker's jazz improvisations in order to uncover the melodic, harmonic, and contrapuntal hallmarks of his style. Analyses of short excerpts taken from multiple recorded improvisations reveal Baker's improvisational vocabulary, which includes recurring underlying structures that Baker embellishes in a wide variety of ways and places in a wide variety of harmonic contexts. These analyses also explore other traits (rhythmic, timbral, etc.) that appear in Baker's improvisations throughout his career. The dissertation culminates in three illustrative analyses that demonstrate the ways in which Baker constructs single, unified improvisations by masterfully controlling the long-range voice-leading tendencies of his improvised lines. As he weaves his vocabulary into these lines, he creates improvisations that unfold in a way that is logical, satisfying in the fulfillment of expectations, and motivically cohesive on multiple levels of structure. / Committee in charge: Steve Larson, Co-Chair;
Jack Boss, Co-Chair;
Stephen Rodgers, Member
Anne Dhu McLucas Member;
George Rowe, Outside Member;
Timothy Clarke, External Contributing Member

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:uoregon.edu/oai:scholarsbank.uoregon.edu:1794/12152
Date12 1900
CreatorsHeyer, David, 1979-
PublisherUniversity of Oregon
Source SetsUniversity of Oregon
Languageen_US
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis
Rightsrights_reserved
RelationUniversity of Oregon theses, Dept. of Music and Dance, Ph. D., 2011;

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