Research On Swing-Jazz Harmonic Style And Techniques

In the history of Jazz musical in America, 1935-1945 is called to be the "Swing-Jazz" period. The "Swing-Jazz" of this period makes performance by the form of big band, characterized by strong swing rhythm, smooth melody, glorious harmonic acoustics. It once was so popular among the audiences of every class in American. That it became the commercialized music which was fashionable throughout the world. The history of Jazz music is over 100 years. During this time, Swing-Jazz accomplished the historical transition from folk music to commercial music, having an important historical position of forming a connecting link between the preceding and the following. From arranging to performing, the music has formed into a whole set of uniform standard, its unique harmonic style is relatively mature and stable. So, the research on the harmony of Swing-Jazz can be the foundation of our research on the harmonic style of American Jazz.From the study of ontology of Swing-Jazz harmony, this article studies the aspects such as the establishment of Swing-Jazz big band, vertical structure of chord, basic harmonic vocabulary, the displacement chord in common use, the apply of mode and the development tonality. Finally, it concludes the basic characteristics of harmony style and the techniques of Swing-Jazz, including seventh chord being the basic vertical structure; the techniques of "four-part block voicing" based on the walking bass, and the organization of harmonic vocabularies on the basis of the fourth proceeding. It uses the displacement chords widely such as major third and minor third, augmented fourth, what's more, it enlarges them into the development of tonality and enriches the major and minor modes chord through absorbing the characteristic harmonies of the Blues mode, and Church mode. We can learn from the above analysis that Swing-Jazz harmony is a further development based on the European traditional harmony. Swing-Jazz helps us widen our horizon and develop the composition of pop-music in our country.