Name: ______________________
Class: _________________
Date: _________
ID: A
Final Exam - Music 8
Multiple Choice
Identify the choice that best completes the statement or answers the question.
____
1. Today, jazz historians tend to view bebop as:
a. a revolution against swing
c.
b. a subcategory of swing
d.
a rebirth of New Orleans style
an evolution from swing
____
2. Kenny Clarke is credited with the drumming innovation of shifting the time-keeping:
a. from the ride cymbal to the bass drum
b. from the bass drum to the high-hat cymbal
c. from the bass drum to the ride cymbal
d. from the ride cymbal to the tom-toms
____
3. Over the new drumming style, bebop soloists used __________ rhythms.
a. long, flowing streams of sixteenth notes
b. disorienting and unpredictable rhythms
c. frequent on-the-beat quarter notes
____
4. How did pianists accompany bebop improvisations?
a. with stride patterns in the left hand
b. with chords that complemented the drummer’s accents and the solo line
c. with insistent four-beat chording
____
5. While bassists continued in their walking, time-keeping role, in bebop they also:
a. reached a new level of virtuosity, as in the case of Oscar Pettiford
b. began playing electric bass
c. began laying out (not playing) for long periods during the tune
____
6. What was the source of Charlie Parker’s nickname “Yardbird” or “Bird”?
a. his composition “Ornithology”
b. an episode involving a run-over chicken while he was on tour
c. his childhood job raising chickens
____
7. According to legend, this well-known swing musician humiliated Charlie Parker after Parker played
poorly on “Body and Soul” at a jam session.
a. Coleman Hawkins
c. Fats Waller
b. Jo Jones
d. Benny Goodman
____
8. During one summer he spent in the Ozarks, Charlie Parker learned to:
a. play fluently in every key
b. play every tune he knew backward
c. play piano as well as he played saxophone
d. play classical saxophone works
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Name: ______________________
____
ID: A
9. What incident led to the start of Dizzy Gillespie’s freelance career in 1941?
a. an altercation with a policeman outside Birdland
b. being falsely accused of throwing a spitball at the leader of the band he was working
for
c. being arrested for narcotics while riding in a car with a pianist
____ 10. What was Dizzy Gillespie’s attitude towards musicians who were trying to learn to play bebop?
a. He guarded his knowledge jealously.
b. He published textbooks on bebop.
c. He used his skill at piano, drums, and theory to teach other musicians the new music.
____ 11. Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie worked together in big bands led by all of the following EXCEPT:
a. Earl Hines
c. Billy Eckstine
b. Cab Calloway
____ 12. The first true bebop records date from:
a. 1941
b. 1943
c.
d.
1945
1947
____ 13. When Charlie Parker was practicing soloing over the progression that “Ko Ko” is based on, he realized
that:
a. the changes to the bridge are the same as that of “Body and Soul”
b. any note, no matter how dissonant, could be made to resolve in a chord
c. he should limit his soloing to the A sections
____ 14. All
a.
b.
c.
d.
of the following are true of Charlie Parker’s time in California in 1946 and 1947 EXCEPT:
He left the band he had formed with Dizzy Gillespie.
He abused drugs and alcohol.
He was arrested after accidentally setting fire to his bed in a hotel.
He was put in prison, where he had to quit drugs on his own.
____ 15. Charlie Parker’s decline was so serious that at the time of his death at thirty-four in the apartment of a
famous jazz patron, the coroner estimated his age at:
a. forty-four
c. fifty-nine
b. fifty-three
d. sixty-two
____ 16. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, Dizzy Gillespie achieved all of the following EXCEPT:
a. He formed a big band.
b. He commissioned compositions from George Russell.
c. He collaborated with Chano Pozo and made important Latin jazz recordings.
d. He created a somber stage persona.
____ 17. All
a.
b.
c.
d.
of the following are true of Bud Powell’s early life EXCEPT:
His father was a New York stride pianist.
His brothers also became musicians.
His instruction was limited to jazz repertoire.
Thelonious Monk was an early admirer of his playing.
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Name: ______________________
____ 18. All
a.
b.
c.
d.
ID: A
of the following are true of Bud Powell’s innovative and influential approach to the piano EXCEPT:
The left hand plays chordal comping.
The right hand plays intricate, virtuosic lines.
He sometimes played block chords, as in a big-band soli.
He pioneered the piano-bass-guitar trio format.
____ 19. Like his idol Charlie Parker, Dexter Gordon liked to __________ in his solos.
a. ask the rhythm section to stop playing so he could play alone
b. quote other songs
c. base his improvisation solely on the melody of the song he was improvising on
d. hold one note for an entire blues chorus
____ 20. What role does bebop play in jazz education today?
a. Its study is an option, like that of New Orleans jazz.
b. It is the foundation of contemporary jazz education.
c. It is ignored in today’s jazz education.
____ 21. Why was bebop hard for many fans, critics, and musicians of the 1940s to appreciate?
a. Bebop musicians did not play Tin Pan Alley standards.
b. The public’s tastes were formed by swing, which functioned as dance music and
entertainment, and it viewed bebop as a fad.
c. Jazz records and concerts had become too expensive.
____ 22. During the 1950s, jazz historians began speaking of jazz in terms of schools because:
a. the learning of jazz had shifted exclusively to schools
b. listeners had to take a course to be able to appreciate it
c. after bebop, jazz seemed to splinter into discrete realms of cool jazz, hard bop, and
other styles
____ 23. Cool jazz, in the context of jazz styles, has:
a. aggressive rhythms and overt expressiveness
b. a consistent four-beat dance feel
c. a light, laid-back, reticent quality
____ 24. The
a.
b.
c.
aspect of Lennie Tristano’s teaching that the saxophonist Lee Konitz perfected was:
the importance of a large vocabulary of licks or patterns
the refusal to play familiar licks or riffs
the importance of playing only his own original compositions
____ 25. The impact of the Miles Davis Nonet’s music was not felt strongly until the release of the 1954 album
titled:
a. Into the Hot
c. Birth of the Cool
b. New Bottle Old Wine
d. Out of the Cool
____ 26. All of the following are included in the instrumentation of the Miles Davis Nonet EXCEPT:
a. piano, bass, drums, trumpet
c. alto and baritone saxophones
b. tenor saxophone
d. French horn and trombone
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Name: ______________________
ID: A
____ 27. Gil Evans’s arrangement of “Moon Dreams” is unusual, compared with other jazz arrangements, because
it lacks:
a. upper chord extensions
b. improvised solos
c. fully notated parts for each instrumentalist
____ 28. All
a.
b.
c.
d.
of the following are true of Gerry Mulligan EXCEPT:
He was a baritone saxophonist and arranger.
He was from New York.
He played in Stan Kenton’s orchestra.
He started a piano-less quartet in Los Angeles.
____ 29. All
a.
b.
c.
d.
of the following are true of the Modern Jazz Quartet EXCEPT:
It was founded by the pianist and composer John Lewis.
Its musical style was restrained and not swinging.
It lasted for forty-two years, forty with the same musicians.
It presented itself in a formal way in concerts.
____ 30. All
a.
b.
c.
d.
of the following are true of hard bop EXCEPT:
Critics coined the term in the mid-1950s.
Most hard bop tunes had even more harmonic complexity than bebop.
Drummers played assertively, driving the soloists.
Hard bop activity was concentrated on the East Coast.
____ 31. LP
a.
b.
c.
technology inspired hard bop bands to:
record more elaborate arrangements
record tunes in head-solos-head format with long solos
sign with major labels such as Columbia and RCA
____ 32. Hard bop bands kept the mainstream jazz audience engaged by emphasizing:
a. a strong backbeat
c. comic stage routines
b. at least one vocal on most hard bop LPs
____ 33. Art Blakey formed the Jazz Messengers quintet with the pianist:
a. Bud Powell
c. Sonny Clark
b. Horace Silver
d. Tommy Flanagan
____ 34. Which word became associated with Horace Silver’s brand of soulful jazz?
a. acid
c. funky
b. beatnik
d. groovy
____ 35. What special quality do Horace Silver’s compositions have?
a. long, developmental themes that are hard to memorize
b. catchy melodies that seem familiar and new at the same time
c. difficult chord changes that are challenging to soloists
____ 36. The quintet that Clifford Brown led with the drummer __________ was often cited as the last great
bebop ensemble.
a. Ed Thigpen
c. Max Roach
b. Kenny Clarke
d. Connie Kay
4
Name: ______________________
ID: A
____ 37. Sonny Rollins composed the first widely noted bebop waltz, “Valse Hot,” while a member of what
important group?
a. the Clifford Brown / Max Roach Quintet
b. the Charlie Parker Quintet
c. the Horace Silver Quintet
d. the Jazz Messengers
____ 38. In 1956, Sonny Rollins released this album, one of the most highly praised albums of the era:
a. Way Out West
c. Worktime
b. Saxophone Colossus
d. The Sound of Sonny
____ 39. In 1959, Sonny Rollins took his first of three extended __________, each of which enabled him to grow
artistically.
a. trips to Europe
c. periods of academic musical study
b. sabbaticals (breaks from performing)
____ 40. Rollins broke with bebop’s tendency to favor harmonic improvisation by:
a. composing his solos in advance
b. using modal improvisation exclusively
c. using motives from the melody in his solo
____ 41. Which solo technique, also used by Louis Armstrong, has Sonny Rollins developed to a greater degree
than other soloists?
a. scat singing
c. the cadenza
b. circular breathing
d. the shout chorus
____ 42. How did Wes Montgomery’s technique differ from that of other guitarists?
a. He played without amplification.
b. His left hand was disfigured in a fire.
c. He struck the strings with his thumb instead of a pick.
d. He tapped the strings on the fingerboard with his right hand.
____ 43. Which of the following correctly lists the order of events in a typical Wes Montgomery solo?
a. chords, octaves, single note lines
c. octaves, chords, single note lines
b. single note lines, chords, octaves
d. single-note lines, octaves, chords
____ 44. All
a.
b.
c.
d.
of the following are true of Wes Montgomery’s pop recordings EXCEPT:
They were based on familiar tunes.
Montgomery played the melodies in octaves.
He played few improvised solos.
The recordings sold poorly.
____ 45. Which composer does this describe? Worked
ragtime, and classical music; expanded forms
a. Thelonious Monk
b. Charles Mingus
with conventional forms; added elements of gospel,
into longer works.
c. George Russell
d. Gil Evans
____ 46. Which composer does this describe? Worked almost exclusively with blues and song forms; rarely
composed themes longer than thirty-two bars.
a. Thelonious Monk
c. George Russell
b. Charles Mingus
d. Gil Evans
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Name: ______________________
ID: A
____ 47. Which composer does this describe? Introduced modalism into jazz; found fresh ways of approaching
harmony and the connection between improvisation and composition.
a. Thelonious Monk
c. George Russell
b. Charles Mingus
d. Gil Evans
____ 48. Which composer does this describe? Focused on the music of other composers and radically altered it
into imaginative new pieces.
a. Thelonious Monk
c. George Russell
b. Charles Mingus
d. Gil Evans
____ 49. After Duke Ellington, who wrote between 1,500 and 2,000 pieces, Thelonious Monk is the most widely
performed of jazz composers. This is remarkable when you consider that Monk wrote __________
pieces.
a. around 500
c. around 130
b. around 250
d. around 70
____ 50. Thelonious Monk was at the center of the development of bebop when he worked with Kenny Clarke as
the house pianist at this club:
a. Five Spot
c. Monroe’s
b. Minton’s Playhouse
d. Small’s Paradise
____ 51. This ballad, which Cootie Williams recorded in a big-band version in 1944, was the most important of
Thelonious Monk’s early compositions:
a. “Ask Me Now”
c. “’Round Midnight”
b. “Reflections”
d. “Ruby, My Dear”
____ 52. Thelonious Monk received all of the following honors (either during his lifetime or posthumously)
EXCEPT:
a. a hit song on the Billboard chart
c. a Pulitzer Prize in music
b. a Time magazine cover story
____ 53. Thelonious Monk made prominent use of __________ in his playing and composing.
a. Baroque-style counterpoint
b. extended forms, such as multithematic ragtime forms
c. dissonances, such as minor ninths, tritones, and minor seconds
d. perfect intervals such as fifths, fourths, and octaves
____ 54. Thelonious Monk believed that a meaningful improvisation should flow from and develop:
a. the improviser’s stock of formulas, or licks
b. the composed theme
c. the rhythms played on the drum set
d. the ideas played by the previous soloist
____ 55. Charles Mingus’s achievements include all of the following EXCEPT:
a. As a composer, he expanded the variety and scope of American music.
b. As a bassist, he was an accomplished virtuoso.
c. As a memoirist, he brought new insights into the struggle against racial prejudice.
d. As a businessman, he established a profitable record label that still exists today.
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Name: ______________________
ID: A
____ 56. Why was Charles Mingus advised to switch from cello to bass as a young musician?
a. because he played bass better than cello
b. because as a black man he could not succeed in classical music
c. because it was difficult to find a good-quality cello
____ 57. Gil Evans’s primary musical role was that of:
a. composer
c.
b. pianist
arranger
____ 58. Gil Evans achieved national recognition in 1957 for the album of arrangements that featured the trumpet
player:
a. Clifford Brown
c. Art Farmer
b. Miles Davis
d. Louis Armstrong
____ 59. All
a.
b.
c.
d.
of the following are characteristic of Gil Evans’s arranging style EXCEPT:
generous use of counterpoint
sonorous, slow-moving chords
repertory limited to Tin Pan Alley standards
combinations of instruments with very low and very high ranges
____ 60. Which form of arrangement is Gil Evans best known for?
a. through-composed works without improvisation
b. riff-based arrangements with long strings of solos
c. concerto-form works designed to feature soloists
____ 61. Later in his career, Gil Evans embraced jazz-rock fusion and recorded orchestral versions of music by:
a. the Rolling Stones
c. Jimmy Page
b. Sly and the Family Stone
d. Jimi Hendrix
____ 62. All
a.
b.
c.
d.
of the following are true of Miles Davis’s early life EXCEPT:
He was raised in a wealthy family.
He sat in with the Billy Eckstine band alongside Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker.
He graduated from the Juilliard School.
He recorded with Charlie Parker.
____ 63. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Miles Davis struggled with drug addiction, made successful appearances
in Europe, and recorded the tracks that resulted in the album:
a. Miles Ahead
c. Birth of the Third Stream
b. Birth of the Cool
d. Birth of the Hot
____ 64. In a 1954 recording session with Sonny Rollins, Miles Davis used a __________, which would become
emblematic of his style.
a. cup mute
c. Harmon mute
b. plunger mute
d. straight mute
____ 65. In 1955 Miles Davis gained recognition for his muted version of the tune __________ at the Newport
Jazz Festival.
a. “My Funny Valentine”
c. “It Never Entered My Mind”
b. “’Round Midnight”
d. “If I Were a Bell”
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Name: ______________________
ID: A
____ 66. To fulfill his contract with Prestige Records before recording for Columbia, Miles Davis and his quintet
made four albums for Prestige. Which of the following is NOT one of them?
a. Relaxin’
c. Burnin’
b. Steamin’
d. Workin’
____ 67. All of the following were members of Miles Davis’s first great quintet EXCEPT:
a. John Coltrane
c. Sonny Rollins
b. Red Garland
d. Paul Chambers
____ 68. All of the following are true of Kind of Blue EXCEPT:
a. Davis did not show the arrangements to the other musicians until they arrived at the
studio.
b. It was an influential example of modal improvisation.
c. The drummer was Jimmy Cobb.
d. Ahmad Jamal was the pianist on one tune.
____ 69. One of Bill Evans’s most important trios, which was recorded live at the Village Vanguard in 1961, was
formed with the drummer Paul Motian and the bassist:
a. Gary Peacock
c. Scott LaFaro
b. Eddie Gomez
d. Jimmy Garrison
____ 70. Bill Evans recorded this ten-measure-long composition on Kind of Blue:
a. “Very Early”
c. “Turn Out the Stars”
b. “Blue in Green”
d. “Peri’s Scope”
____ 71. All
a.
b.
c.
d.
of the following are true of “So What” EXCEPT:
The form is AABA, thirty-two bars long.
The A sections are based on the D Dorian mode.
The opening is thought to have been sketched by Gil Evans.
Davis and Coltrane take a similar approach to their solos.
____ 72. In 1960 John Coltrane had a hit recording with:
a. “Naima”
c.
b. “Greensleeves”
d.
“My Favorite Things”
“Body and Soul”
____ 73. What personal meaning did A Love Supreme have for John Coltrane?
a. In it, he expressed his love for his family.
b. In it, he expressed his gratitude for the spiritual awakening that enabled him to
overcome addiction.
c. In it, he expressed his love for the world’s musical traditions.
____ 74. All of the following were members of Miles Davis’s second great quintet EXCEPT:
a. Tony Williams
c. Herbie Hancock
b. Ron Carter
d. George Coleman
____ 75. All of the following are characteristics of postbop style as exemplified by Miles Davis’s second great
quintet EXCEPT:
a. harmonic ambiguity
b. original compositions with new harmonic frameworks
c. mostly medium and slow tempos, avoiding very fast tempos
d. a rhythm section so independent, the members appeared to be soloing all the time
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