Jazz

A

New Orleans Jazz

Shortly after the turn of the 20th century, the earliest fully documented jazz style emerged and centered in New Orleans, Louisiana. In this style the cornet, trumpet, or violin carried the melody, the clarinet played florid countermelodies, and the trombone played rhythmic slides and sounded the root notes of chords or simple harmonies. Below this basic trio the guitar or banjo sounded the chords, along with a piano, if available; a string bass (or tuba for marching parades) provided a bass line; and drums supplied the rhythmic accompaniment. In theory, these roles were the same as in other kinds of music—it was the addition of improvisation, along with elements of other black music such as blues and ragtime, that made jazz unique.

A musician named Buddy Bolden appears to have led some bands that influenced early jazz musicians, but this music and its sound have been lost to posterity. Although some jazz influences can be heard on a few early phonograph records, not until 1917 did a jazz band record. This band, a group of white New Orleans musicians called The Original Dixieland Jazz Band, created a sensation overseas and in the United States. Among the band’s many successors, two groups emerged in the early 1920s that were particularly celebrated: the New Orleans Rhythm Kings and the Creole Jazz Band, the latter of which was led by cornetist King Oliver, an influential stylist. The series of recordings made by Oliver’s band are often considered the most significant jazz recordings by a New Orleans group. Other leading New Orleans musicians included trumpeters Bunk Johnson and Freddie Keppard, soprano saxophonist and clarinetist Sidney Bechet, drummer Warren “Baby” Dodds, and pianist and composer Jelly Roll Morton. The most influential jazz musician nurtured in New Orleans, however, was King Oliver’s second trumpeter, Louis Armstrong.

B

Armstrong’s Impact

Armstrong was a dazzling improviser, technically, emotionally, and intellectually. He and his generation changed the format of jazz by bringing the soloist to the forefront, and within his recording groups, the Hot Five and the Hot Seven, he demonstrated that jazz improvisation could go far beyond simply ornamenting the melody—he created new melodies based on the chords of the initial tune. He also set a standard for later jazz singers, not only by the way he altered the words and melodies of songs, but also by improvising without words, like an instrument. This form of vocal improvisation is known as scat singing.

C

Chicago and New York City

For jazz, the 1920s was a decade of great experimentation and discovery. Many New Orleans musicians, including Armstrong, migrated to Chicago, Illinois, influencing local musicians and stimulating the evolution of the Chicago style. This style was derived from the New Orleans style but emphasized soloists, often added saxophone to the instrumentation, and usually produced tenser rhythms and more complicated textures. Instrumentalists working in Chicago or influenced by the Chicago style included trombonist Jack Teagarden, banjoist and guitarist Eddie Condon, drummer Gene Krupa, and clarinetist Benny Goodman. Also active in Chicago was Bix Beiderbecke, whose lyrical approach to the cornet provided an alternative to Armstrong’s bravura trumpet style. Many Chicago musicians eventually settled in New York City, another major center for jazz in the 1920s.

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D

Jazz Piano

Another vehicle for the development of jazz in the 1920s was piano music. The Harlem section of New York City became the center of a highly technical, hard-driving solo style known as stride piano. The master of this approach in the early 1920s was James P. Johnson, but it was Johnson’s protégé Fats Waller—a talented vocalist and entertainer as well—who became by far the most popular performer of this idiom.

A second piano style to develop in the 1920s was boogie-woogie. A form of blues played on the piano, it consists of a short, sharply accented bass pattern played repeatedly by the left hand while the right hand plays freely, using a variety of rhythms. Boogie-woogie became especially popular in the 1930s and 1940s. Leading boogie-woogie pianists included Meade Lux Lewis, Albert Ammons, Pete Johnson, and Pine Top Smith.

The most brilliant pianist of the 1920s, comparable to Armstrong in sheer innovation and present on some of his most influential recordings, was Earl “Fatha” Hines, a Chicago-nurtured virtuoso considered to possess a wild, unpredictable imagination. His style, combined with the smoother approach of Waller, influenced most pianists of the next generation—notably Teddy Wilson, who was featured with Goodman’s band in the 1930s, and Art Tatum, who performed mostly as a soloist and was regarded with awe for his virtuosity and sophisticated harmonic sense.

E

The Big-Band Era

Also during the 1920s, large groups of jazz musicians began to play together, after the model of society dance bands. These were the so-called big bands, which became so popular in the 1930s and early 1940s that the period was known as the swing era. One major development in the emergence of the swing era was a rhythmic change that smoothed the two-beat rhythms of some early bands into a more flowing four beats to the bar. Musicians also developed the use of short melodic patterns, called riffs, in call-and-response patterns. To facilitate this procedure, orchestras were divided into instrumental sections, each with its own riffs, and opportunities were provided for musicians to play solos.

The development of the big band as a jazz medium was strongly influenced by the achievements of Duke Ellington and Fletcher Henderson. Henderson’s arranger, Don Redman, and later Henderson himself, introduced written jazz scores that were widely admired for their effort to capture the quality of improvisation that characterized the music of smaller ensembles. To achieve this improvisation, Redman and Henderson were aided by gifted soloists such as tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins and by Armstrong, who played in Henderson’s band during 1924 and 1925.

Ellington led a band at the Cotton Club in New York City during the late 1920s. Continuing to direct his orchestra until his death in 1974, he composed colorful experimental concert pieces ranging in length, from the three-minute “Ko-Ko” (1940) to the hourlong Black, Brown, and Beige (1943), as well as songs such as “Solitude” and “Sophisticated Lady.” More complex than Henderson’s music, Ellington’s music made his orchestra a cohesive ensemble, with solos written for the unique qualities of specific instruments and players. Other black bands that were popular among musicians and audiences were led by Jimmie Lunceford, Chick Webb, and Cab Calloway.

A different style of big-band jazz was developed in Kansas City, Missouri, during the mid-1930s and was epitomized by the band of Count Basie. Originally assembled in Kansas City, Basie’s band reflected that region’s emphasis on improvisation, keeping the prepared passages relatively short and simple. The wind instruments in his band exchanged ensemble riffs in a free, strongly rhythmical interplay, with pauses to accommodate instrumental solos. Basie’s tenor saxophonist Lester Young, in particular, played with a rhythmic freedom rarely apparent in the improvisations of soloists from other bands. Young’s delicate tone and long, flowing melodies, laced with an occasional avant-garde honk or gurgle, opened up a whole new approach, just as Armstrong’s trumpet and cornet playing had done in the 1920s.

Other trendsetters of the late 1930s were trumpeter Roy Eldridge, electric guitarist Charlie Christian, drummer Kenny Clarke, and vibraphonist Lionel Hampton. Jazz singing in the 1930s became increasingly flexible and stylized. Ivie Anderson, Mildred Bailey, Ella Fitzgerald, and, above all, Billie Holiday were among the leading singers. Europeans also became more active in jazz during this time. Christian, for example, was influenced by Belgian guitarist Django Reinhardt, whose brilliant recordings were available in the United States.