Nathan Holaway

Renaissance Music
Final Project - 12/10/2013

While New Orleans, Louisiana may be known for its French culture and influence, there

are some striking similarities between it and Renaissance Italy, specifically Venice. This paper

aims to display the comparisons between Renaissance Italy and 19th Century and early 20th

Century New Orleans through a few large categories. The categories will include location, social

climate, and humanistic elements in both locations.

There was no other place like Italy in 15th Century Europe. Venice was a port city that

was a major cosmopolitan center in Italy. As Allan Atlas states, Venice owed all of its “fame,

fortune, and fierce sense of independence to its position as a mercantile center.”1 Venice was the

Mediterranean’s most active port city being a nexus for trade routes between the East and West.

Besides being a port city, Venice had a very libertine nature in which religious activities and civic

activities were combined. This libertine identity, being a cosmopolitan hub, and having wealthy

patrons who wished to support artists of all types provided a “training ground” location for

upcoming artists, poets, and musicians. The number of guilds and confraternities in Venice gave

composers and performers a number of employment opportunities.2 This brought an influx of

talented composers from other regions such as the Netherlands and France (to name a few). In

essence, this created a “melting pot” in Venice of a myriad of cultures and nationalities, customs,

languages, and music.

1Allan W. Atlas, Renaissance Music: Music in Western Europe 1400-1600 (New York, London: W.W. Norton &
Company, Inc, 1998), 605.
2 Tim Carter, Music in Late Renaissance & Early Baroque Italy (Portland, Oregon: Amadeus Press, 1992), 28.

 New Orleans, also a port city, was in the early 1800s, the most cosmopolitan and the most

musical city in America.3 New Orleans, like Venice, owed much of its strength to being one of

the most successful trading ports in the country. This city also had wealthy patrons committed

to the arts, specifically music. In the decades before the Civil War, New Orleans was home to

three flourishing Opera companies as well as two full fledged symphony orchestras (one white,

one creole).4 This along with New Orleans’ decadence brought in many talented musicians of all

races and nationalities: Spanish musicians, Mexican bands, Cuban Orquestas Typicas, the most

famous being composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk whose compositions were inspired by Cuban

and slave music of the time.5 New Orleans was truly unique, because some blacks “enjoyed

certain freedoms there unavailable in the rest of the South” (pre-Civil War). Even by 1900, New

Orleans was still the twelfth largest city in America and reflected its multi-racial and multi-ethnic

cultures including Spanish, French, German and African settlers.6

The social climate of both Venice and New Orleans presented a multi-headed beast that

simultaneously possessed attractive and awful qualities. The first issue to examine are the

carnival traditions both of these locations possess. The Carnival in Venice was started in

celebration of victory by the Republic of Venice against the Patriarch of Ulrico. It occurs every

year the day before Lent begins (Ash Wednesday), and during this time, participants wear very

elaborate masks and color coordinated beads. Then, forty days after Easter, Venice participates

3 Ken Burns, Jazz: Episode 1 - Gumbo (Florentine Films: PBS, 2001), 28.??????
4 Ken Burns, Jazz: Episode 1 - Gumbo (Florentine Films: PBS, 2001), 28.??????
5 Daniel Hardie, The Birth of Jazz:Reviving the Music of the Bolden Era (New York, Lincoln, Shanghai: iUniverse,
Inc., 2007), 3
6Lewis Porter, et al., Jazz:From Its Origins to the Present (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Inc.,
1993), 20

in yet another celebration called the “Marriage of the Sea” which ties in with the Feast of the

Ascension.7 Iain Fenlon describes a similar event called Carnival Sunday, 1572 which included

a mascherata (“masquerade”) celebrating a victory over the Turks at Lepanto. Fenlon depicts

the scene as having “elaborate music” being a feature alongside eighty large torches that were

carried and thirteen mounted displays. Five of these floats were associated with Gabrieli’s

music. He goes on to say that this procession went “through the narrow streets, along the

Merceria to St. Mark’s Square” before ending close to the Grand Canal. He claims this was

“propagandistic and socially inclusive” accompanied by “rousing and unsophisticated music.”

Fenlon concludes by saying that this was a perfect display of Venetian public ritual and all of its

“differentiated modes of celebration.”8 Carnival culture was so important across Italy that it had

appealed every class of people, who participated in “processions of mummers, masquerades, and

sorely distorted mystery plays.”9 Florence had Shrove Tuesday (equivalent to Mardi Gras) the

day before Lent, and with financial help from the Medicis, they turned the event into a

celebratory circus. For these festivities, certain musical numbers (canti carnascialeschi, carnival

songs) were a highlight and were sung by masked serenaders and often contained double

entendres.10 Even in Ferrara, De Robeck points out comedies like Cassaria and the Suppositi,

Negromante, and Scolastica were all written for various carnivals.11 New Orleans has its very

own doppelgänger to Venice’s carnival called Mardi Gras or “Fat Tuesday” before Ash

7 Atlas, 605.
8Iain Fenlon, Music and Culture in Late Renaissance Italy (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2002),
19-20.
9 Nesta De Robeck, Music of the Italian Renaissance (New York:Da Capo Press, 1969), 64.
10 Atlas, 355.
11 De Robeck, 96.
 Wednesday. Mardi Gras was a result of Iberville and Bienville traveling to defend France’s

Louisiane. Mardi Gras is a carnival that is intertwined with religion and has similar customs to

those expressed regarding the Carnival of Venice. There are decadent masks, beads, floats, and

music (some specifically for Mardi Gras) that accompany parades through the streets of New

Orleans. These traditions continue today in New Orleans as well as Mobile, Alabama.

Also within the social climate of Renaissance Italy and New Orleans were instrumental

groups that held certain responsibilities to their region. Every region across Europe had their

own version of a Waits Band. The role of these instrumental music groups served many

functions. They would play in the mornings to wake residents and to let them know to go to

sleep. These musicians would also play if an important visitor was coming into town or if their

village was being attacked. Instrumental groups also held functions to introduce government-

related news or to announce a dignitary. In Renaissance Italy, musicians were hired to “protect

and display the magnificence of the state” and did so by providing music for “theatrical

entertainments, dances, banquets, and the liturgy.”12 Besides these functions, on the death of a

doge, a long procession would escort the body around St. Mark’s square that included family

members, trade guilds, monastic orders and the nine clerical congregations of Venice. These

continued through many narrow streets until it reached the church for burial. Accompanying

guilds usually had musicians for various occasions that played a wide range of music “from

‘celestial harmonies’ of sedate ensembles to the din of drums, piffari, and the inevitable ‘trombe

squarciate’.”13 Fenlon also brings attention to a surviving notebook from a 15th Century

12 Carter, 26.
13 Fenlon, 18.

 trumpeter that states that their repertoire consisted of everything from “contemporary chansons”

to “dance tunes” though their versions were simplified.14

Although they did not play to indicate when to sleep or wake, New Orleans has their own

version of a Waits Band that exists to this very day. They are called Brass Bands. These bands

had and continue to have great social duties and responsibilities. Throughout the 19th Century

and early 20th Century, New Orleans had between 200-500 societies and social clubs, with each

club having hundreds of members. Each of these clubs had a contract with a brass band. The

function of these societies and clubs was to help pay for burial costs in New Orleans. Funeral

and burial costs were expensive due to the water table in New Orleans. Because the ground only

goes as far as three feet before hitting water, bodies must be buried above ground in

mausoleums. Funeral traditions usually involved having a brass band play from the church to the

cemetery, and back. Funerals were seen as more of a celebratory event rather than a melancholy

one. This is usually tied back to Dahomey, Africa where a similar event takes place on one’s

passing. Besides funerals, societies also helped pay for medicine and doctor visits by their

members. Brass bands typically include up to twelve members, although some were larger.

They typically played at circuses, churches, funerals, picnics, dances, carnivals, minstrel and

medicine shows, political rallies, athletic contests, and holiday gatherings.15 Musician Zutty

Singleton recalled other places that he and brass bands would play: “We played for society kids

on Saturday afternoons - that was with Papa Celestin and the Tuxedo Band. We also played at

the New Orleans Country Club and the Louisiana Restaurant.”16 Many of these brass bands were

14 Fenlon, 43.
15 Porter, 22
16 Nat Hentoff, Shapiro, Nat, Hear Me Talkin’ To Ya? (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1955), 17.?????

 proud carrying on the tradition of “careful reading and execution of legitimate brass band music”

until around the turn of the 19th Century when brass bands started incorporating ragtime into

their repertoire.17 John McCusker explains that some brass bands were still playing marches and

polkas while other brass bands were playing ragtime and blues. Blues-based brass bands had

more of a public turnout and thus caused higher enrollment in the corresponding social club.

With an enrollment drop in social clubs affiliated with traditional brass bands (playing marches

and polkas), social clubs had an option of extending or dropping contracts with their

corresponding brass bands. The marketplace was at work, and brass bands had to adhere to what

was popular. This was not an easy task. Brass bands could simply no longer purchase music,

rehearse, and perform in order to be successful. They had to embrace a new type of musician

called a “get-off man” who could play music his own way while getting crowds excited at the

same time.18 Buddy Bolden was one of these and his long-lasting influence will be discussed

later. The brass band created such a following that the New Orleans Times Picayune wrote

“There is such a mania in this city for horn and trumpet playing. Citizens of every color and

nationality danced to brass bands.”19

The ugly side of the social climate in both Venice and New Orleans dealt with forms of

segregation. Venice, through all of its glory and decadence, contained what was known as the

Venetian Ghetto. Leon Modena was a musician, poet, and Jewish rabbi. When Modena, his wife

and their son decided to move to Venice in 1592, they had to settle into an all-Jewish community

17 Porter, 23.
18 John McCusker, New Orleans Stomp: The Story of Jazz (Florentine Films: PBS, 2001), 28.??????
19 Ken Burns, Jazz: Episode 1 - Gumbo (Florentine Films: PBS, 2001), 28.??????

because segregation was the law.20 In 1516, state and church came to an agreement allowing

Jews to stay in Venice but they would be confined to an island known as Ghetto Nuovo. Atlas

explains that “gates were put up at the two footbridges leading on and off the island were locked

at sunset and reopened at sunrise. Thus segregation was reinforced by a curfew.”21 Christian

landlords who rented to Jews were able to raise rent by one-third and that was tax-free. By 1541,

the Jewish population had swelled and Venice built a second island across from the first one, the

Ghetto Vecchio. Inside the ghettos, Jews were free to follow their traditions and customs. By

the end of the 16th Century, there were five synagogues in Venice with their own respective

schools. By 1628, Rabbi Modena became head of a Jewish music academy, and produced such

great musicians, police had to be summoned to control Christian crowds wanting to attend his

annual Simhat Torah concerts in the ghetto. Sadly, outside of the ghetto, Jews had to either wear

a badge or a certain colored hat for identification purposes. In 1548 Jews were barred from

printing books, Genoa and Lucca expelled any Jews, and by 1553 Rome and the Counter-

Reformation Popes were burning the Talmud and other Jewish books. It was not until Napoleon

gained control of Venice in 1797 that the ghettos were abolished.22 Unfortunately, New Orleans

shares a similar tale. In 1808 the city passed a law banning slaves in New Orleans from dancing

at city markets. Instead they allowed slaves to “follow their customs and traditions” (just like the

Jews in the Venetian Ghetto) in one centralized location: Congo Square.23 This was obviously

not well thought out, considering that by the middle of the 19th Century, there were four million

20 Atlas, 658.
21 Atlas, 659.
22 Atlas, 659.
23 John McCusker, New Orleans Stomp: The Story of Jazz (Florentine Films: PBS, 2001), 28.??????
 black slaves in North America alone.24 Congo Square was where slaves were allowed to recreate

scenes of African music and dance, and it too acted as a melting pot because slaves from

different African tribes, Haiti, and the West Indies would all play, sing and dance to music that

was from their respective native lands. The result was a dramatic amalgamation of polyrhythms

and chants and cultures that became a tourist attraction for New Orleans.

In 1861, Louisiana seceded from the Union in what was to become the Civil War. A mere

fifteen months later, a Federal fleet steamed up the Mississippi River and forced New Orleans

(the largest city in the Confederacy) to surrender. Union occupation unleashed a new burst of

creative energy from the city’s newly freed population.25 Twelve years of Union occupation after

the Civil War ended in 1877 in a corrupt “back room deal” between northern Republicans and

southern Democrats causing Reconstruction efforts to collapse overnight. Tyrannical white rules

were re-instated and they replaced slavery with sharecropping while keeping blacks segregated.

Then in 1890, the Louisiana Legislature decreed that blacks and whites must travel

separately on trains traveling within the state. This was especially difficult for a race known as

Creoles in New Orleans. Creoles were once categorized as a “free color” and were the product

of French and Spanish colonists and their slave mistresses. Some creoles even owned slaves and

plantations. Most creoles received French educations and were well versed in the arts. Many

creoles were classically trained musicians and prided themselves in knowing how to read music.

Creoles had their own flourishing opera company in New Orleans and a full symphony orchestra.

In 1892, a New Orleans creole by the name of Homer Plessy decided to test this new law

24John Fordham, Jazz:History, Instruments, Musicians, Recordings (London, New York, Stuttgart: Dorling
Kindersley, Ltd., 1993), 12.
25 Ken Burns, Jazz: Episode 1 - Gumbo (Florentine Films: PBS, 2001), 28.??????

 boarding an excursion train and insisted in sitting in the “whites only” car. Plessy was arrested,

tried and convicted. By 1896 in the Supreme Court case of Plessy v. Ferguson, the court decided

to uphold his conviction claiming “separate but equal” facilities was constitutional. This ruling

would create a blueprint for how life was to be governed in the American South for the next sixty

years.26 The Plessy v. Ferguson ruling categorized creoles in New Orleans as “black” overnight.

This unfortunately caused many creoles to lose their jobs (specifically in symphony orchestras),

and they were immediately forced into black communities. The technical musical virtuosity and

prowess of the creoles meshed directly with the blues-based, storytelling methods of bands in

black communities, and together they drastically changed every kind of music played in New

Orleans. Together they would give birth to what would be called Jazz. Black ghettos in New

Orleans, such as the Back O’ Town neighborhood (corner of Rampart & Perdido) would become

“ground zero” for the development of jazz as it was the home to Buddy Bolden, Johnny Dodds,

and a very young Louis Armstrong.27

The final comparison between Renaissance Italy and New Orleans lies within the

Humanistic qualities that connect the two. The Mirriam-Webster dictionary defines

“Humanism” as a term “most commonly applied to the cultural movement in Renaissance

Europe characterized by a revival of Classical letters, an individualistic and critical spirit, and a

shift of emphasis from religious to secular concerns.” To take this one step further, it could be

said that man was the center of his own universe, and that this new, modern way of thinking

about the world and man’s place in it replaces an old and backwards way of thought.

26 Ken Burns, Jazz: Episode 1 - Gumbo (Florentine Films: PBS, 2001), 28.??????
27 John McCusker, New Orleans Stomp: The Story of Jazz (Florentine Films: PBS, 2001), 28.??????

 Improvisation is the humanistic thread that connects Renaissance Italy and 19th Century New

Orleans. Improvisation is not only found in their instrumental music, dance music, and keyboard

music, but is also found as an indication of skill and a vehicle of expression.

What makes music in Renaissance Italy "humanistic?" Throughout Italy, individualism

was the cornerstone of the Renaissance as independent personalities emerged and individuals

created objective views of themselves. Palisca states that "much more fundamental than any

practical music revival of antiquity was the transformation of musical thought brought about by

the renewed pursuit of ancient learning.”28 Renaissance scholars believed very heavily in

humanism focusing on human beauty, man’s achievements and expressions, encouragement to be

curious and question received wisdom, and encouragement towards experimentation and

observation to solve problems. As this progressed, the next generation of humanists felt that

music was not just practical art but an intellectual discipline. Renaissance composers would turn

to madrigals as their most common vehicle for secular expression, fitting words and music

together in dramatic fashion. The madrigal was not only the most artistic genre of secular vocal

music, but was usually based on love-related poetry and is noted for its use of text painting and

imitation. There were two divisions of madrigals: serious, usually by Italian composers and

lighter or humorous, usually by English composers. Composers such as Arcadelt, Rore,

Gesualdo and Monteverdi saw the madrigal as the most malleable and elastic of current forms to

bring their music to life. As the humanists attacked vocal counterpoint, certain polyphonic

techniques that were a necessity of the Renaissance musical style found "a more natural home in

28Claude V. Palisca, Humanism In Italian Renaissance Musical Thought (New Haven, London: Yale University
Press, 1985), 13.

 the sphere of instrumental music.”29 Giovanni de' Bardi points out that "it suits the player when

he plays something other than airs adapted to singing or to the dance to make the parts move,

devising fugues, double counterpoints, or other inventions so as not to bore his listeners.”30

Nardo agrees by stating "musicians, indeed, start out with the aim of moving listeners to

particular feelings.”31 These statements point to a shift not only in thought regarding the

importance of music but a shift in thought from the performer's point of view.

What makes the beginning stages of jazz music "humanistic?" This answer is best given

by Wynton Marsalis: "Jazz music celebrates life. Human life. The range of it: The absurdity of

it, the ignorance of it, the greatness of it, the intelligence of it, the sexuality of it, the profundity

of it, and it deals with it.”32 Author Gary Giddins relates by saying that jazz is "the ultimate in

rugged individualism. It's going out there on that stage and saying it doesn't matter how anybody

else did it, this is the way I'm going to do it.”33 Sidney Bechet claims that jazz was more of a

spirit than a genre as ex-slaves "needed the music more than ever now; it was like they were

trying to find out in this music what they were supposed to do with this freedom...they had

learned it wasn't just white people the music had to reach to, nor even to their own people, but

straight out of life and to what a man does with his life when it finally is his.”34 Regarding the

earliest bands in New Orleans, Porter states that "it may even be their ability to play the blues

29 Carter, 176.
30 Carter, 177.
31 Palisca, 13.
32 Ken Burns, Jazz: Episode 1 - Gumbo (Florentine Films: PBS, 2001), 28.??????
33 Ken Burns, Jazz: Episode 1 - Gumbo (Florentine Films: PBS, 2001), 28.??????
34 Sidney Bechet, Treat It Gentle (New York: Da Capo Press, 1960), 50.

that defined them in people's minds as jazz bands, as opposed to merely brass bands which could

play ragtime.”35 It was also stated that musicians in New Orleans were getting the spiritual side

from the church and the secular sound from the blues, and the ones who could put both together

became the best players in New Orleans.36 Gerald Early states that the blues were "elastic" in

that one could do a lot within structures of twelve measure sequences, built on just three chords,

similar to the madrigal in Renaissance Italy. This type of music called on many variations that

involved more than just technique. These performers must possess and give feeling to the music.

The blues reached New Orleans from people coming from the Mississippi delta due to Jim Crow

laws mentioned earlier. New Orleans musicians deepened the blues by imitating the blues

vocalists they heard on their instruments. This practice was perfected later by artists like Freddie

Keppard who could make his trumpet laugh ("Stomp Time Blues") or Joe "King" Oliver who

could make his trumpet moan ("Dippermouth Blues"). One of the earliest musicians to do this

was Charles "Buddy" Bolden. Bolden was born in 1877, the year that Reconstruction ended and

was known as the first real jazz musician in that he wanted to play everything the way he "heard"

it in his head. He was less concerned about playing with virtuosity than playing with an

individual style. Jelly Roll Morton recalls Bolden in his interviews for the Library of Congress

stating Bolden was not a jazz musician, but a Ragtime musician and that musicians like Bolden

never wore a "collared tie" but would have their "shirts busted wide open with a red flannel

undershirt" underneath that would drive women crazy.37 This probably aided Bolden's

35 Porter, 16.
36 Ken Burns, Jazz: Episode 1 - Gumbo (Florentine Films: PBS, 2001), 28.??????
37Alan Lomax, Jelly Roll Morton: The Complete Library of Congress Recordings (Rounder Records: PBS, 2001),
“The Great Buddy Bolden (Part 2)”
 popularity. Because Bolden went insane and spent his final years in an asylum, he would never

get the chance to be a part of the new technology that was to come about, the audio recording.

The technology of the times no doubt played a very essential role in both Renaissance

Italy and in the early stages of jazz. In Renaissance Italy, the printing press helped new ideas

spread, thus causing a surge in the movement. In 1498, the Republic of Venice gave Ottaviano

Petrucci a twenty year privilege for a monopoly on printed polyphony and organ and lute

tablatures.38 He would comprise a volume of polyphony called the Harmonice musices

odhecaton A in 1501 that consisted of ninety-six French chansons and instrumental pieces by

composers of both the Josquin and Ockeghem-Busnoys generations.39 This was highly

successful and Petrucci comprised two similar collections in the following two years. Being a

savvy businessman, Petrucci also published other repertoires including collections consisting of

Italian frottolas, motets, lute collections, lute with voice collections, and volumes of Masses

dedicated to single composers. All of this was possible because Venice was a printing center in

Italy. The city's role as a trade center "encouraged the interaction of different artistic styles and

made it a major centre for printing.”40 But even with all of its success music printing would not

really take off until around 1530 in France with Pierre Attaingnant and it had a major effect on

music and its distribution to remote areas that would not have reached previously. This created a

"cross-fertilization of styles and genres" and made names like Josquin, Ockeghem, and Obrecht

household names.41 Around 1877, Edison had already invented a cylinder phonograph method

38 Atlas, 259.
39 Atlas, 260.
40 Carter, 28.
41 Atlas, 260-261.

 that could play pre-recorded material, but there was no practical way to mass produce cylinders

at the time. Then, in the 1880s, Emile Berliner created a flat-disc version of the cylinder that

could easily be mass produced similar to a printing press. Berliner had worked with Eldridge

Johnson on this and legal disputes forced Berliner to Canada while Johnson created the Victor

Talking Machine Company. By 1906, the Victor Talking Machine Company introduced the

Victrola. This was a machine that could play flat discs with a needle and motor mechanism.

Due to immense popularity, approximately 15,000 victrola machines were already sold by the

middle of 1909, causing the recording industry to soar. This device allowed music to reach

remote areas that would not normally hear artists currently making records. By 1914, Ragtime

was America's most popular music, there was a piano in every home, sheet music sales had

skyrocketed, and on February 26th 1917, the first jazz recording was made by the Original

Dixieland Jazz Band. Originally meant to be a humorous record, it was a hit and sold 250,000

copies at 75 cents, thus creating a surge of popularity for jazz music nationwide.

Another common thread between Renaissance Italy and New Orleans was dance music.

Atlas points out that 1530-1599 shows a "voluminous amount of dance music" either for lute and

keyboard or for repertory by 16th Century dance bands.42 The Castell'Arquato manuscripts

contain pavane-galliard pairings, which were movements in duple time and then a faster triple

time respectively, and the two dances were usually thematically or harmonically related. This

was also evident in Marco Facoli's Il secondo libro d'intavolatura di balli d'arpicordo (1588) and

Giovanni Maria Radino's Il primo libro d'intavolatura di balli d'arpicordo (1592) in which there

were a set of variations for each of the paired dances. In Renaissance dance music, prominent

42 Atlas, 500.

use was made of the harmonic formula and ostinato patterns.43 Instrumental music from

1525-1600 would "set out boldly in new directions" as Italy led the way for another century.44

Much like Italy, New Orleans loved dance music too. The types of dances used in Renaissance

Italy were quite similar to the types of dances in New Orleans between the late 19th Century and

early 20th Century. There was a progression of dance music and dance bands in New Orleans.

The first dance bands would play more written music than improvised music, and dancers would

dance European designed dance steps. A conventional dance band in the 1890's, like John

Robichaux's, would play for a more conservative creole crowd and his accounts show there were

marches, quadrilles, waltzes, schottisches, two-steps, gavottes, overtures, lancers, one steps,

songs, "characteristic pieces," and some unclassified tunes.45 Most of these dances display either

a duple or triple meter relation (similar to the pavane-gailliard pairings). These European based

steps would slowly be replaced by erotic and vogue dances of the day: the Grizzly Bear, the

Turkey Trot, the Texas Tommy, and the Todolo.46 Hardie claims that these dances probably came

from Afro American vernacular dances like the jig and Juba.47 As these steps evolved further

into more of a racy nature, dances like the Black Bottom and the Funky Butt became popular

after midnight when "nice people" went home and were accompanied by blues and

improvisational music.48

43 Carter, 175.
44 Atlas, 502-503.
45 Hardie, 15.
46 John Edward Hasse, Jazz: The First Century (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 2000), 14.
47 Hardie, 23.
48 Hasse, 14.

 Keyboard music was a central focus of Renaissance Italy and New Orleans as

practitioners in both locations would heighten its possibilities. Regarding Renaissance Italy,

Carter mentions Zoppino "il Cavaliere" da Lucca and Lorenzo da Gaeta stating there was no one

more "capricious than he in playing, nor who varied things more" than da Gaeta, and that if one

did not see him, they would believe there were two organists. There was great diversity in his

playing from one time to the next, and many regarded da Gaeta as the best of his generation.

Carter goes on to mention Baccio Moschini, who was an organist in Florence from 1539-52.

Moschini had a grandeur knowledge of music that rivaled anyone else. There is an account of

someone hearing Moschini play for his own pleasure, and states "I have heard him play

sometimes for his own pleasure, without many listeners, only for his study, is that for an hour it

took his fancy to play in syncopation, which made me cast aside all boredom, all displeasure, and

all bitterness that I felt, however greatly in my spirit." It should also be noted that the

performance skills of these musicians are what is primary and any compositions are considered

secondary.49 The word “ricercare” is an Italian verb meaning “to seek out” or “to search out,”

and typically ricercares were improvisational vehicles keyboardists used to “search” while

working through the imitative possibilities in the subject, or used in preludial functions.50 The

canzoni, with its rhythm (long-short-long-short tag), stylistic counterpoint, and clear harmony

became a great keyboard vehicle for instrumental performance. The toccata was yet another

instrumental vehicle for keyboard music that included the preludial functions of the ricercar.

Typically toccatas and ricercares would combine chordal passages with passage work in an

49 Carter, 165.
50 Atlas, 496.

improvisatory manner. Toccatas along with intonaziones, ricercares, and fantasias on plainsong

cantus firmi, with connections to falsobordone, modal identifications, and hidden psalm-tone

cantus firmi provided a structural basis for improvisation and were all genres that focused on the

keyboard. In New Orleans, keyboard music was being featured in "sporting houses" (Such as

Lulu White's Mahogany Hall) and played by practitioners called "professors." One of the

greatest piano "professors" was Ferdinand "Jelly Roll" Morton. Gunther Schuller describes

Morton being able to "jazz" any type of tune: ragtime pieces, operatic excerpts, quadrilles (one

that Morton claimed to have transformed into Tiger Rag), French tunes, Mexican standards, and

Sousa marches.51 This lends itself to believe that any type of music was fair game to alter.

Similar to the Renaissance, the primary focus seemed to be performance rather than composition.

Alan Lomax recalls from interviews with Morton a scene in 1902 which Morton describes a

typical evening after everyone was finished working: "All the girls that could get out their houses

was there. The millionaires would come and listen to their favorite pianists. There weren't any

discrimination of any kind. They all sat at different tables or anywhere they felt like sitting.

People came from all over the country and most times you couldn't get in."52 This describes the

kind of nexus of personalities and nationalities Morton encountered that led him to pen many

original compositions that featured blues, city elements, Caribbean Habanera rhythms,

syncopation, ragtime elements, and historical stories. Morton was the first to notate what was

being played naturally by ear from other jazz groups and caused Morton to famously claim that

51Gunther Schuller, Early Jazz: Its Roots and Musical Development (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1968), 139.
52 Alan Lomax, Mister Jelly Roll (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1950), 42.
 he alone "invented jazz music.”53 Examples of Morton's compositions are "Sidewalk Blues,"

"Dead Man Blues,""Mamanita," "The Crave," and "Buddy Bolden's Blues."

While anything associated with “classical” music has a reputation for being “uptight,”

Atlas says that “sixteenth-century musicians were less uptight” often embellishing “the written

music in front of them.”54 Renaissance musicians were fascinated by the ancient modes because

they were not only used in the past, but also because they felt the modes were able to “unlock the

powers of music over human feelings and morals.”55 For example, they believed that the Dorian

mode had a “severe and magnificent character” while the Phrygian mode was “exciting and

furious.”56 Regarding Renaissance instrumental improvisation, De Robeck points out that with

the arrival of the Gabrielis, “instrumental music enters upon a new epoch: it rises to a new level

and, independent of all restrictions.”57 The standard audition for organists at St. Mark’s involved

a great deal of improvisational skills. The first of three tests consisted of opening a choir book

and randomly improvising the beginning of a Kyrie without mixing up parts. The second test

was to open a book of plainchant and must improvise over the cantos firms and derive the other

three parts from it. The final test was improvising in the style of free-composed vocal polyphony

without the structural cantus firmus, usually found in fantasias.58 Arendt Willemsz’s 1525

account of St. Mark’s (previous to Willaert’s arrival in 1527) states that he heard “the most basic

53 Ken Burns, Jazz: Episode 1 - Gumbo (Florentine Films: PBS, 2001), 28.??????
54 Atlas, 490.
55 Palisca, 12.
56 Palisca, 324-325.
57 De Robeck, 53.
58 Carter, 168.

 form of musical provision” which happened to include “an alternatim style in which some

chanted, and the remainder sang simple improvised polyphony.”59 Another method that included

improvisation was the moresca in Italy by way of Spain and Naples. Similar to what would

become the blues, the moresca was dramatic and included scenes and dances (solemn or spirited)

with singing and recitations, some being strung out all evening. Like Buddy Bolden on the

trumpet, one of the best was Fra Serafino (or l’Unico Aretino as he was known), whose

improvisations on the lute would cause people to close their shops in order to hear his “amazing

flow of wit, and imagination, and beauty of language.”60

Regarding jazz improvisation, author Albert Murray said that "when you see a jazz

musician playing, you're looking at a pioneer, you're looking at an explorer, you're looking at an

experimenter, you're looking at a scientist, you're looking at all of those things because it is the

creative process incarnate!”61 Improvisation is a method of expression, and it could be said that

the root word of improvisation is “improve.” In Europe, there was a “rebirth,” an “improvement”

in the arts. Methods were “improved” for printing music and for creating a way to record sound

and play it back. Jews in the ghetto of Venice and slaves in Congo Square in New Orleans

needed a way to “improve” their conditions. Creoles, who were no longer considered a “free

color,” losing their social status and jobs overnight, needed a way to “improve” their situation.

Blacks escaping Jim Crow laws from the Mississippi delta used blues to spin stories of how

things would “improve” someday. Together blacks and creoles “improved” music for New

Orleans and in the process created an art form. Musicians in both Renaissance Italy and 19th

59 Fenlon, 38.
60 De Robeck, 93.
61 Ken Burns, Jazz: Episode 1 - Gumbo (Florentine Films: PBS, 2001), 28.??????

century New Orleans found a way to express the range of emotions they felt inside their minds

and hearts.