[Dixielandjazz] The Birth of Jazz?

[Stephen G Barbone]

Perhaps Jazz was born 40,000 years ago? A five hole flute carved from  
a Vulture bone was found in Germany and is dated at 35 to 40 thousand  
years old. If, as Dr. Conrad of the University in Tubingen says, there  
must have been Paganinis, Mozarts and Hendrixes, back  in those days,  
then why not Boldens, Armstrongs and Beiderbeckes?
Note too, that the scale notes of the 5 holes in the flute match the  
Oh Say Can You See notes, which were, as noted in a recent post,  
derived from a British Drinking Song. I wonder if the Britons copied  
the tune from a drunken German jazz man. <grin>

Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband


June 28, 2009 - NY TIMES - By Daniel J. Wakin
Pondering Prehistoric Melodies


“I have a reasonable good ear in music,” says Bottom in Shakespeare’s  
“Midsummer Night’s Dream.” “Let’s have the tongs and the bones.”

A Stone Age ancestor living near what is now Ulm, Germany, did Bottom  
one better. He took the hollow bone of a griffon vulture, carved five  
holes in it and made one of the first flutes known to exist. (Perhaps  
it was a she; there are lots of great women flutists.)

This was at least 35,000 years ago — maybe even 40,000 years ago.  
Could it have been around the time of the birth of human-made melody,  
a period when speech perhaps began to develop? It must have been a  
fine improvement on the whack of tongs and bones.

A report of the flute’s discovery last week gives rise to all sorts of  
speculation about the origins of music and how it creates a palpable  
link between us and our prehistoric predecessors.

“It’s easier to think of them as conscious, autonomous individuals if  
they’re making music,” said Sato Moughalian, a New York-based  
professional flutist. “To make the step from just breathing to  
actually producing a sound requires a different sense of self.”

At the least, the find delights flute players, who like to point out  
that their instrument (outside of percussion) is the most elemental of  
all. No reeds to blow past, no strings to make vibrate, no mouthpiece  
to buzz.

“It’s very simple,” Robert Langevin, the principal flutist of the New  
York Philharmonic. “There’s no intermediate thing to produce the  
sound. Our way of breathing is similar to the way of singers.” And  
nothing is more natural to the human organism than breathing.

Of course, Mr. Langevin and his colleagues play something much  
different than the cave flute. Their flutes are generally made of  
metal (sometimes even gold), have keys and pads that cover holes. They  
are also played sideways.

The five-hole vulture bone flute has a notched end, across which the  
player blows. Its discovery was reported in an article in the journal  
Nature. Nicholas J. Conard of the University of Tübingen in Germany  
was one of the authors. He said an experimental archaeologist named  
Wulf Hein made a reproduction and recorded several tunes, including  
“The Star-Spangled Banner.” The flute’s basic scale replicates the  
notes accompanying the line “Oh say can you see,” Dr. Conard said.

The flute and several other types found nearby indicate a high-level  
of musical and technological sophistication, he said. While the nature  
of the music they made at the time is unknown, “There had to have been  
Paganinis, Mozarts, Hendrixes,” he said.

The discovery is also a reminder that music was present at the  
earliest flowering of human culture, an idea that musicians and music  
lovers can embrace with great joy, said Steven Stucky, a composer (who  
has written a double concerto for flutes and orchestra). “This must  
have been a fundamental part of life,” he said.

It is, of course, impossible to establish how humans became musical.  
The song of birds and patter of rain may have provided examples. “Once  
humans got the musical bug going, I can imagine sort of looking at  
everything,” said Peter Schickele, the composer and alter ego of P. D.  
Q. Bach. “Can you hit it, can you blow it, can you make a sound out of  
it?” He added, “I’ve done a fair amount of that in my own life.”

Dr. Conard suggested music strengthened and extended social bonds,  
perhaps contributing to the evolutionary survival of homo sapiens. The  
flute was found in an area also inhabited by Neanderthals, who —  
according to the archaeological record — did not appear to be very  
musical.

About 10,000 years later, they fell extinct.