Editing Tone cluster (section)

===In jazz===
[[File:Scott Joplin.jpg|thumb|[[Scott Joplin]] wrote the first known published composition to include a musical sequence built around specifically notated tone clusters.]]
Tone clusters have been employed by [[jazz]] artists in a variety of styles, since the very beginning of the form. Around the turn of the twentieth century, [[Storyville, New Orleans|Storyville]] pianist [[Jelly Roll Morton]] began performing a [[ragtime]] adaptation of a French [[quadrille]], introducing large chromatic tone clusters played by his left forearm. The growling effect led Morton to dub the piece his "Tiger Rag" ({{Audio|Morton-Tiger Rag.ogg|listen}}).<ref>Lomax (2001), pp. 66–69; Spaeth (1948), p. 420.</ref> In 1909, [[Scott Joplin]]'s deliberately experimental "Wall Street Rag" included a section prominently featuring notated tone clusters.<ref>See Floyd (1995), p. 72; Berlin (1994), p. 187.</ref>
[[File:Scott Joplin, from Wall Street Rag 01.wav|thumb|Scott Joplin, from Wall Street Rag]]
[[File:Scott Joplin, from Wall Street Rag 02.png|thumb|center|500px|Scott Joplin, from Wall Street Rag]]

The fourth of [[Artie Matthews]]'s ''Pastime Rags'' (1913–1920) features dissonant right-hand clusters.<ref>Magee (1998), p. 402.</ref> [[Thelonious Monk]], in pieces such as [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RTUlX1P6aU "Bright Mississippi"] (1962), "Introspection" (1946) and "Off Minor" (1947), uses clusters as dramatic figures within the central improvisation and to accent the tension at its conclusion.<ref>Meadows (2003), ch. 10.</ref> They are heard on [[Art Tatum]]'s "Mr. Freddy Blues" (1950), undergirding the [[polyrhythm|cross-rhythms]].<ref>Harrison (1997), p. 315.</ref> By 1953, [[Dave Brubeck]] was employing piano tone clusters and dissonance in a manner anticipating the style [[free jazz]] pioneer [[Cecil Taylor]] would soon develop.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.jazzimprov.com/links/legends.cfm?legend_id=4|title=Jazz Legends: Dave Brubeck|work=Jazz Improv|access-date=2007-08-18 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070418205405/http://jazzimprov.com/links/legends.cfm?legend_id=4 |archive-date = April 18, 2007}}</ref> The approach of [[hard bop]] pianist [[Horace Silver]] is an even clearer antecedent to Taylor's use of clusters.<ref>Hazell (1997); Litweiler (1990), p. 202. See also Watrous (1989).</ref> During the same era, clusters appear as punctuation marks in the lead lines of [[Herbie Nichols]].<ref>Litweiler (1990), p. 23.</ref> In "The Gig" (1955), described by Francis Davis as Nichols's masterpiece, "clashing notes and tone clusters depic[t] a pickup band at odds with itself about what to play."<ref>Davis (2004), p. 78.</ref> Recorded examples of [[Duke Ellington]]'s piano cluster work include "Summertime" (1961) and ''[[...And His Mother Called Him Bill]]'' (1967) and [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpf5e2pecnI&list=PLyHn3f7-9IULMiUmc6vLeVHIrrDldflO8 ''This One's for Blanton!''], his tribute to a former bass player, recorded in 1972 with bassist [[Ray Brown (musician)|Ray Brown]].<ref>{{cite web|author1=Blumenfeld, Larry|author2=[[John Szwed|Szwed, John F.]]|editor=[[Gary Giddins]]|url=http://www.villagevoice.com/1999-06-08/news/rockin-in-rhythm/|title=Rockin' in Rhythm|work=[[The Village Voice]]|date=June 15, 1999|access-date=2009-06-03}}</ref> [[Bill Evans]]' interpretation of "[[Come Rain or Come Shine]]" from the album ''[[Portrait in Jazz]]'' (1960), opens with a striking [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDSXk0fWCN8 5-tone cluster].<ref>Lee, W. F. (2002, p. 6) ''Bill Evans Piano interpretations''. Hal Leonard.</ref>

In jazz, as in classical music, tone clusters have not been restricted to the keyboard. In the 1930s, the [[Jimmie Lunceford|Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra]]'s "Stratosphere" included ensemble clusters among an array of progressive elements.<ref>Determeyer (2006), p. 78.</ref> The [[Stan Kenton|Stan Kenton Orchestra]]'s April 1947 recording of "If I Could Be With You One Hour Tonight", arranged by [[Pete Rugolo]], features a dramatic four-note trombone cluster at the end of the second chorus.<ref>{{cite web|author=Vosbein, Terry|url=http://www.vosbein.com/rugolo.html|title=Pete Rugolo and Progressive Jazz|publisher=Self-published (scholarly paper by established composer and educator presented at the IAJE International Conference, Chicago)|date=January 2002|access-date=2007-08-17|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070912140200/http://www.vosbein.com/rugolo.html|archive-date=2007-09-12|url-status=dead}}</ref> As described by critic [[Fred Kaplan (journalist)|Fred Kaplan]], a 1950 performance by the Duke Ellington Orchestra features arrangements with the collective "blowing rich, dark, tone clusters that evoke Ravel".<ref>{{cite web|author=Kaplan, Fred|author-link=Fred Kaplan (journalist)|url=http://www.slate.com/Default.aspx?id=2111310&|title=All That Jazz: The Year's Best Records|work=Slate|date=2004-12-22|access-date=2007-08-18|archive-date=2007-09-30|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930203734/http://www.slate.com/Default.aspx?id=2111310&|url-status=dead}}</ref> Chord clusters also feature in the scores of arranger [[Gil Evans]]. In his characteristically imaginative arrangement of [[George Gershwin]]'s "There's a boat that's leaving soon for New York" from the album ''[[Porgy and Bess (Miles Davis album)|Porgy and Bess]]'', Evans contributes chord clusters orchestrated on flutes, alto saxophone and muted trumpets as a background to accompany [[Miles Davis]]' solo [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElKVdkSRe0c&t=1m14s improvisation]. In the early 1960s, arrangements by [[Bob Brookmeyer]] and [[Gerry Mulligan]] for Mulligan's Concert Jazz Band employed tone clusters in a dense style bringing to mind both Ellington and Ravel.<ref>{{cite web|author=Kaplan, Fred|url=http://www.avguide.com/film-music/music/musicreviews/tas146/146-jazz-caps.new.php |title=Jazz Capsules: ''The Complete Verve Gerry Mulligan Concert Band Sessions''|publisher=AVguide.com|year=2003|access-date=2009-06-03 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20071221033642/http://www.avguide.com/film-music/music/musicreviews/tas146/146-jazz-caps.new.php |archive-date = 2007-12-21}}</ref> [[Eric Dolphy]]'s bass clarinet solos would often feature "microtonal clusters summoned by frantic overblowing".<ref>Weinstein (1993), p. 84.</ref> Critic [[Robert Palmer (American writer)|Robert Palmer]] called the "tart tone cluster" that "pierces a song's surfaces and penetrates to its heart" a specialty of guitarist [[Jim Hall (musician)|Jim Hall]]'s.<ref>Palmer (1986).</ref>

Clusters are especially prevalent in the realm of free jazz. Cecil Taylor has used them extensively as part of his improvisational method since the mid-1950s.<ref>Litweiler (1990), p. 202. See also Anderson (2006), pp. 57–58.</ref> Like much of his musical vocabulary, his clusters operate "on a continuum somewhere between melody and percussion".<ref>Pareles (1988).</ref> One of Taylor's primary purposes in adopting clusters was to avoid the dominance of any specific pitch.<ref>Anderson (2006), p. 111.</ref> Leading free jazz composer, bandleader, and pianist [[Sun Ra]] often used them to rearrange the musical furniture, as described by scholar [[John Szwed|John F. Szwed]]:
<blockquote>
When he sensed that [a] piece needed an introduction or an ending, a new direction or fresh material, he would call for a space chord, a collectively improvised tone cluster at high volume which "would suggest a new melody, maybe a rhythm." It was a pianistically conceived device which created another context for the music, a new mood, opening up fresh tonal areas.<ref>Szwed (1998), p. 214.</ref>
</blockquote>
As free jazz spread in the 1960s, so did the use of tone clusters. In comparison with what John Litweiler describes as Taylor's "endless forms and contrasts", the solos of [[Muhal Richard Abrams]] employ tone clusters in a similarly free, but more lyrical, flowing context.<ref>Litweiler (1990), p. 182.</ref> Guitarist [[Sonny Sharrock]] made them a central part of his improvisations; in Palmer's description, he executed "glass-shattering tone clusters that sounded like someone was ripping the pickups out of the guitar without having bothered to unplug it from its overdriven amplifier."<ref>Palmer (1991).</ref> Pianist [[Marilyn Crispell]] has been another major free jazz proponent of the tone cluster, frequently in collaboration with [[Anthony Braxton]], who played with Abrams early in his career.<ref>Enstice and Stockhouse (2004), p. 81.</ref> Since the 1990s, [[Matthew Shipp]] has built on Taylor's innovations with the form.<ref>Weinstein (1996).</ref> European free jazz pianists who have contributed to the development of the tone cluster palette include [[Gunter Hampel]] and [[Alexander von Schlippenbach]].<ref>{{cite web|author=Svirchev, Laurence|url=http://www.jazzhouse.org/library/?read=svirchev11|title="If You Start from Point-Zero, You Have to Imagine Something": An Interview with Alexander von Schlippenbach|publisher=Jazz Journalists Association Library|year=2006|access-date=2007-08-17}}</ref>

[[Don Pullen]], who bridged free and mainstream jazz, "had a technique of rolling his wrists as he improvised—the outside edges of his hands became scarred from it—to create moving tone clusters", writes critic Ben Ratliff. "Building up from [[arpeggio]]s, he could create eddies of noise on the keyboard...like concise Cecil Taylor outbursts."<ref name=R205/> In the description of [[Joachim-Ernst Berendt|Joachim Berendt]], Pullen "uniquely melodized cluster playing and made it tonal. He phrases impulsively raw clusters with his right hand and yet embeds them in clear, harmonically functional tonal chords simultaneously played with the left hand."<ref>Berendt (1992), p. 287.</ref> [[John Medeski]] employs tone clusters as keyboardist for [[Medeski Martin & Wood]], which mixes free jazz elements into its [[soul jazz]]/[[jam band]] style.<ref>Pareles (2000).</ref>