The JAZZ Story

The JAZZ Story 

     An Outline History of Jazz 

     In the span of less than a century, the remarkable native American music

     called Jazz has risen from obscure folk origins to become this country's

     most significant original art form, loved and played in nearly every land on

     earth.

     Today, Jazz flourishes in many styles, from basic blues and ragtime

     through New Orleans and Dixieland, swing and mainstream, bebop and

     modern to free form and electronic. What is extraordinary is not that Jazz

     has taken so many forms, but that each form has been vital enough to

     survive and to retain its own character and special appeal. It takes only

     open ears and an open mind to appreciate all the many and wide-raging

     delights jazz has to offer. 

     THE ROOTS 

     Jazz developed from folk sources. Its origins are shrouded in obscurity, but

     the slaves brought here from Africa, torn from their own ancestral culture,

     developed it as a new form of communication in song and story.

     Black music in America retained much of Africa in its distinctive rhythmic

     elements and also in its tradition of collective improvisation. This heritage,

     blended with the music of the new land, much of it vocal, produced more

     than just a new sound. It generated an entire new mode of musical

     expression.

     The most famous form of early Afro-American music is the spiritual.

     These beautiful and moving religious songs were most often heard by

     white audiences in more genteel versions than those performed in rural

     black churches. What is known as gospel music today, more accurately

     reflects the emotional power and rhythmic drive of early Afro-American

     music than a recording of a spiritual by the famous Fisk Jubilee Singers

     from the first decade of this century.

     Other early musical forms dating from the slavery years include work

     songs, children's songs, and dances, adding up to a remarkable legacy,

     especially since musical activity was considerable restricted under that

     system. 

     BIRTH OF THE BLUES 

     After the slaves were freed, Afro-American music grew rapidly. The

     availability of musical instruments, including military band discards, and

     the new-found mobility gave birth to the basic roots of Jazz: brass and

     dance band music and the blues.

     The blues, a seemingly simple form of music that nevertheless lends itself

     to almost infinite variation, has been a significant part of every Jazz style,

     and has also survived in its own right. Today's rock and soul music would

     be impossible without the blues. Simply explained, it is and eight (or

     twelve) bar strain with lyrics in which the first stanza is repeated. It gets its

     characteristic "blue" quality from a flattening of the third and seventh notes

     of the tempered scale. In effect, the blues is the secular counterpart of the

     spirituals. 

     BRASS BANDS AND RAGTIME 

     By the late 1880's, there were black brass, dance and concert bands in

     most southern cities. (At the same time, black music in the north was

     generally more European-oriented.) Around this era, ragtime began to

     emerge. Though primarily piano music, bands also began to pick it up and

     perform it. Ragtime's golden age was roughly from 1898 to 1908, but its

     total span began earlier and lingered much later. Recently, it has been

     rediscovered. A music of great melodic charm, its rhythms are heavily

     syncopated, but it has almost no blues elements. Ragtime and early Jazz

     are closely related, but ragtime certainly was more sedate.

     Greatest of the ragtime composers was Scott Joplin (1868-1917). Other

     masters of the form include James Scott, Louis Chauvink Eubie Blake

     (1883-1983) and Joseph Lamb, a white man who absorbed the idiom

     completely. 

     ENTER JASS 

     Ragtime, especially in its watered-down popular versions, was

     entertainment designed for the middle class and was frowned on by the

     musical establishment. The music not yet called Jazz (in its earliest usage it

     was spelled "jass"), came into being during the last decade of the 19th

     century, rising out of the black working-class districts of southern cities.

     Like ragtime, it was a music meant for dancing.

     The city that has become synonymous with early Jazz is New Orleans.

     There is reality as well as myth behind this notion. 

     New Orleans: Cradle of Jazz 

     New Orleans played a key role in the birth and growth of Jazz, and the

     music's early history has been more thoroughly researched and

     documented there than anywhere else. But, while the city may have had

     more and better Jazz than any other from about 1895 to 1917, New

     Orleans was by no means the only place where the sounds were

     incubating. Every southern city with a sizable black population had music

     that must be considered early Jazz. It came out of St. Louis, which grew to

     be the center of ragtime; Memphis, which was the birthplace of W.C.

     Handy (1873-1958), the famed composer and collector of blues; Atlanta,

     Baltimore, and other such cities.

     What was unique to New Orleans at the time was a very open and free

     social atmosphere. People of different ethnic and racial backgrounds could

     establish contact, and out of this easy communication came a rich musical

     tradition involving French, Spanish, German, Irish and African elements. It

     was no wonder that this cosmopolitan and lively city was a fertile breeding

     ground for Jazz.

     If New Orleans was the birthplace of Jazz in truth as well as in legend, the

     tale that the music was born in its red light district is purest nonsense. New

     Orleans did have legalized prostitution and featured some of the most

     elaborate and elegant "sporting houses" in the nation. But the music, if any,

     that was heard in these establishments was made by solo pianists.

     Actually, Jazz was first heard in quite different settings. New Orleans was

     noted for its many social and fraternal organizations, most of which

     sponsored or hired bands for a variety of occasions -- indoor and outdoor

     dances, picnics, store openings, birthday or anniversary parties. And, of

     course, Jazz was the feature of the famous funeral parades, which survive

     even today. Traditionally, a band assembles in front of the church and

     leads a slow procession to the cemetery, playing solemn marches and

     mournful hymns. On the way back to town, the pace quickens and fast,

     peppy marches and rags replace the dirges. These parades, always great

     crowd attractions, were important to the growth of Jazz. It was here that

     trumpeters and clarinetists would display their inventiveness and the

     drummers work out the rhythmic patterns that became the foundation for

     "swinging" the beat. 

The best way to account for the early development of jazz in New Orleans is to familiarize yourself with the cultural and social history of this marvelously distinctive regional culture.

One might say that jazz is the Americanization of the New Orleans music developed by the Creoles, occuring at a time when ragtime, blues, spirituals, marches, and popular "tin pan alley" music were converging. Jazz was a style of playing which drew from all of the above and presented an idiommatic model based on a concept of collective, rather than solo, improvisation.

Ultimately, New Orleans players such as Louis Armstrong and  Sidney Bechet developed a new approach which emphasized solos, but they both began their careers working in the collective format, evident in the early recordings by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band (1917), Kid Ory's Sunshine Orchestra (1921), the New Orleans Rhythm Kings (1922, 1923) and King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band (1923).

Armstrong's impact became apparent with the popularity of his Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings (1925-28), redirecting everyone's imagination toward inspired solos. Meanwhile, in New Orleans, community connections such as "jazz funerals" in which brass bands performed at funerals held by benevolent

associations continued to underline the role of jazz as a part of everyday life.

Jazz may have been a luxury (entertainment) in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, but in New Orleans it  was a necessity--a part of the fabric of life in the neighborhoods. And it still is. 

     THE EARLY MUSICIANS - Buddy, Bunk, Freddie and The King 

     The players in these early bands were mostly artisans (carpenters,

     bricklayers, tailors, etc.) or laborers who took time out on weekends and

     holidays to make music along with a little extra cash.

     The first famous New Orleans musician, and the archetypal jazzman, was

     Buddy Bolden (1877-1931). A barber by trade, he played cornet and began

     to lead a band in the late 1890's. Quite probably, he was the first to mix

     the basic, rough blues with more conventional band music. It was a

     significant step in the evolution of Jazz.

     Bolden suffered a seizure during a 1907 Mardi Gras parade and spent the

     rest of his life in an institution for the incurably insane. Rumor that he

     made records have never been substantiated, and his music comes from

     the recollection of other musicians who heard him when they were young.

     Bunk Johnson (1989- 1949), who played second cornet in one of Bolden's

     last bands, contributed greatly to the revival of interest in classic New

     Orleans jazz that took place during the last decade of his life. A great

     storyteller and colorful personality, Johnson is responsible for much of the

     New Orleans legend. But much of what he had to say was more fantasy

     than fact.

     Many people, including serious fans, believe that the early jazz musicians

     were self-taught geniuses who didn't read music and never took a formal

     lesson. A romantic notion, but entirely untrue. Almost every major figure

     in early jazz had at least a solid grasp of legitimate musical fundamentals,

     and often much more.

     Still, they developed wholly original approaches to their instruments. A

     prime example is Joseph (King) Oliver (1885-1938), a cornetist and

     bandleader who used all sorts of found objects, including drinking glasses,

     a sand pail, and a rubber bathroom plunger to coax a variety of sounds

     from his horn. Freddie Keppard (1889-1933), Oliver's chief rival, didn't

     use mutes, perhaps because he took pride in being the loudest cornet in

     town. Keppard, the first New Orleans great to take the music to the rest of

     the country, played in New York vaudeville with the Original Creole

     Orchestra in 1915. 

     JAZZ COMES NORTH 

     By the early years of the second decade, the instrumentation of the typical

     Jazz band had become cornet (or trumpet), trombone, clarinet, guitar,

     string bass and drums. (Piano rarely made it since most jobs were on

     location and pianos were hard to transport.) The banjo and tuba, so closely

     identified now with early Jazz, actually came in a few years later because

     early recording techniques couldn't pick up the softer guitar and string bass

     sounds.

     The cornet played the lead, the trombone filled out the bass harmony part

     in a sliding style, and the clarinet embellished between these two brass

     poles. The first real jazz improvisers were the clarinetists, among them

     Sidney Bechet (1897-1959). An accomplished musician before he was 10,

     Bechet moved from clarinet to playing mainly soprano saxophone. He was

     to become one of the most famous early jazzmen abroad, visiting England

     and France in 1919 and Moscow in 1927.

     Most veteran jazz musicians state that their music had no specific name at

     first, other than ragtime or syncopated sounds. The first band to use the

     term Jazz was that of trombonist Tom Brown, a white New Orleanian who

     introduced it in Chicago in 1915. The origin of the word is cloudy and its

     initial meaning has been the subject of much debate.

     The band that made the word stick was also white and also from New

     Orleans, the Original Dixieland Jass Band. This group had a huge

     success in New York in 1917-18 and was the first more or less authentic

     Jazz band to make records. Most of its members were graduates of the

     bands of Papa Jack Laine (1873-1966), a drummer who organized his

     first band in 1888 and is thought to have been the first white Jazz

     musician. In any case, there was much musical integration in New Orleans,

     and a number of light skinned Afro-Americans "passed" in white bands.

     By 1917, many key Jazz players, white and black, had left New Orleans

     and other southern cities to come north. The reason was not the notorious

     1917 closing of the New Orleans red light district, but simple economics.

     The great war in Europe had created an industrial boom, and the musicians

     merely followed in the wake of millions of workers moving north to the

     promise of better jobs. 

     LITTLE LOUIS & THE KING 

     King Oliver moved to Chicago in 1918. As his replacement in the best

     band in his hometown, he recommended an 18-year-old, Louis Armstrong.

     Little Louis, as his elders called him, had been born on August 4, 1901, in

     poverty that was extreme even for New Orleans' black population. His

     earliest musical activity was singing in the streets for pennies with a boy's

     quartet he had organized. Later he sold coal and worked on the levee.

     Louis received his first musical instruction at reform school, where he

     spent eighteen months for shooting off an old pistol loaded with blanks on

     the street on New Year's Eve of 1913. He came out with enough musical

     savvy to take jobs with various bands in town. The first established

     musician to sense the youngster's great talent was King Oliver, who tutored

     Louis and became his idol. 

     THE CREOLE JAZZ BAND 

     When Oliver sent for Louis to join him in Chicago, that city had become

     the world's new Jazz center. Even though New York was where the

     Original Dixieland Jass Band had scored its big success, followed by the

     spawning of the first dance craze associated with the music, the New York

     bands seemed to take on the vaudeville aspects of the ODJB's style

     without grasping the real nature of the music. Theirs was an imitation

     Dixieland (of which Ted Lewis was the first and most successful

     practitioner), but there were few southern musicians in New York to lend

     the music a New Orleans authenticity.

     Chicago, on the other hand, was teeming with New Orleans musicmakers,

     and the city's nightlife was booming in the wake of prohibition. By all

     odds, the best band in town was Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, especially

     after Louis joined in late 1922. The band represented the final great

     flowering of classic New Orleans ensemble style and was also the

     harbinger of something new. Aside from the two cornetists, its stars were

     the Dodds Brothers, clarinetists Johnny (1892-1940) and drummer Baby

     (1898-1959). Baby Dodds brought a new level of rhythmic subtlety and

     drive to jazz drumming. Along with another New Orleans-bred musician,

     Zutty Singleton (1897-1975), he introduced the concept of swinging to the

     Jazz drums. But the leading missionary of swinging was, unquestionably,

     Louis Armstrong. 

     FIRST JAZZ ON RECORDS 

     The Creole Jazz Band began to record in 1923 and while not the first black

     New Orleans band to make records, it was the best. The records were

     quite widely distributed and the band's impact on musicians was great.

     Two years earlier, trombonist Kid Ory (1886-1973) and his Sunshine

     Orchestra captured the honor of being the first recorded artists in this

     category. However, they recorded for an obscure California company

     which soon went out of business and their records were heard by very

     few.

     Also in 1923, the New Orleans Rhythm Kings, a white group active in

     Chicago, began to make records. This was a much more sophisticated

     group than the old Dixieland Jass Band, and on one of its recording dates,

     it used the great New Orleans pianist-composer Ferdinand (Jelly Roll)

     Morton (1890-1941). The same year, Jelly Roll also made his own initial

     records. 

     JELLY ROLL MORTON 

     Morton, whose fabulous series of 1938 recordings for the Library of

     Congress are a goldmine of information about early Jazz, was a complex

     man. Vain, ambitious, and given to exaggeration, he was a pool shark,

     hustler and gambler a well as a brilliant pianist and composer. His greatest

     talent, perhaps was for organizing and arranging. The series of records he

     made with his Red Hot Peppers between 1926 and 1928 stands, alongside

     Oliver's as the crowning glory of the New Orleans tradition and one of the

     great achievements in Jazz. 

     LOUIS IN NEW YORK AND BIG BANDS ARE BORN 

     That tradition, however, was too restricting for a creative genius like Louis

     Armstrong. He left Oliver in late 1924, accepting an offer from New

     York's most prestigious black bandleader, Fletcher Henderson

     (1897-1952). Henderson's band played at Roseland Ballroom on

     Broadway and was the first significant big band in Jazz history.

     Evolved from the standard dance band of the era, the first big Jazz bands

     consisted of three trumpets, one trombone, three saxophones (doubling all

     kinds of reed instruments), and rhythm section of piano, banjo, bass (string

     or brass) and drums. These bands played from written scores

     (arrangements or "charts"), but allowed freedom of invention for the

     featured soloists and often took liberties in departing from the written

     notes.

     Though it was the best of the day, Henderson's band lacked rhythmic

     smoothness and flexibility when Louis joined up. The flow and grace of his

     short solos on records with the band make them stand out like diamonds in

     a tin setting.

     The elements of Louis' style, already then in perfect balance, included a

     sound that was the most musical and appealing yet heard from a trumpet; a

     gift for melodic invention that was as logical as it was new and startling,

     and a rhythmic poise (jazzmen called it "time") that made other players

     sound stiff and clumsy in comparison.

     His impact on musicians was tremendous. Nevertheless, Henderson didn't

     feature him regularly, perhaps because he felt that the white dancers for

     whom his band performed were not ready for Louis' innovations. During

     his year with the band, however, Louis caused a transformation in its style

     and, eventually, in the whole big band field. Henderson's chief arranger,

     Don Redman, (1900-1964) grasped what Louis was doing and got some of

     it on paper. After working with Louis, tenor saxophonist Coleman

     Hawkins (1904-1969) developed a style for his instrument that became the

     guidepost for the next decade.

     While in New York, Louis also made records with Sidney Bechet, and

     with Bessie Smith (1894-1937), the greatest of all blues singers. In 1925,

     he returned to Chicago and began to make records under his own name

     with a small group, the Hot Five. Included were his wife Lil Hardin

     Armstrong (1899-1971) on piano, Kid Ory, Johnny Dodds, and guitarist

     Johnny St. Cyr. The records, first to feature Louis extensively, became a

     sensation among musicians, first all over the United States and later all

     over the world. The dissemination of jazz, and in a very real sense its

     whole development, would have been impossible without the phonograph. 

     KING LOUIS 

     The Hot Five was strictly a recording band. For everyday work, Louis

     played in a variety of situations, including theater pit bands. He continued

     to grow and develop, and in 1927 switched from cornet to the more

     brilliant trumpet. He had occasionally featured his unique gravel voiced

     singing, but only as a novelty. Its popular potential became apparent in

     1929, when, back in New York, he starred in a musical show in which he

     introduced the famous Ain't Misbehavin' singing as well as playing the

     great tune written by pianist Thomas (Fats) Waller (1904-1943), himself

     one of the greatest instrumentalists-singers-showmen in Jazz.

     It was during his last year in Chicago while working with another pianist,

     Earl (Fatha) Hines (1903-1983), that Louis reached his first artistic peak.

     Hines was the first real peer to work with Louis. Inspired by him, he was

     in turn able to inspire. Some of the true masterpieces of Jazz, among them

     West End Blues and the duet Weatherbird, resulted from the

     Armstrong-Hines union. 

     THE JAZZ AGE 

     Louis Armstrong dominated the musical landscape of the 20's and, in fact,

     shaped the Jazz language of the decade to come as well. But the Jazz of

     the Jazz Age was more often than not just peppy dance music made by

     young men playing their banjos and saxophones who had little

     understanding of (or interest in) what the blues and/or Louis Armstrong

     were about. Still, a surprising amount of music produced by this

     dance-happy period contained genuine Jazz elements. 

     PAUL WHITEMAN - King of Jazz? 

     The most popular bandleader of the decade was Paul Whiteman

     (1890-1967), who ironically became known as the King of Jazz, although

     his first successful bands played no Jazz at all and his later ones precious

     little. These later bands, however, did play superb dance music, expertly

     scored and performed by the best white musicians the extravagant

     Whiteman paychecks could attract. From 1926 on, Whiteman gave

     occasional solo spots to such Jazz-influenced players as cornetist Red

     Nichols, violinist Joe Venuti, guitarist Eddie Lang (1904-1933), and the

     Dorsey Brothers' trombonist-trumpeter Tommy (1905-1956) and

     clarinetist-saxophonist Jimmy (1904-1957), all of whom later became

     bandleaders in their own right.

     In 1927, Whiteman took over the key personnel of Jean Goldkette's

     Jazz-oriented band, which included a young cornetist and sometime pianist

     and composer of rare talent, Bix Beiderbecke (1903-1931). Bix's very

     lyrical, personal music and early death combined to make him the first

     (and most durable) jazz legend. His romanticized life story became the

     inspiration for a novel and a film, neither of them close to the truth.

     Bix's closest personal and musical friend during the most creative period of

     his life was saxophonist Frank Trumbauer (1901-1956). Fondly known as

     Bix and Tram, the team enhanced many an otherwise dull Whiteman

     record with their brilliant interplay or their individual efforts. 

     THE BEIDERBECKE LEGACY 

     Bix's bittersweet lyricism influenced many aspiring jazzmen, among them

     the so-called Austin High Gang, made up of gifted Chicago youngsters

     only a few of whom ever actually attended Austin High School. Among

     them were such later sparkplugs of the Swing Era as drummers Gene

     Krupa (1909-1973) and Dave Tough (1908-1948); clarinetist Frank

     Teschemacher (1905-1932); saxophonist Bud Freeman (1906-1991);

     pianists Joe Sullivan (1906-1971) and Jess Stacy (b. 1904); and

     guitarist-entrepreneur Eddie Condon (1905-1973). Their contemporaries

     and occasional comrades-in-arms included a clarinet prodigy named Benny

     Goodman (1905-1986); and somewhat older reedman and character, Mezz

     Mezzrow (1899-1972), whose 1946 autobiography, Really the Blues,

     remains, despite inaccuracies, one of the best Jazz books.

     Trumbauer, though not a legend like Bix, influenced perhaps as many

     musicians. Among them were two of the greatest saxophonist in Jazz

     history, Benny Carter (b.1907) and Lester (Prez) Young (1909-1959). 

     BLACK & WHITE 

     A great influence on young Goodman was the New Orleans clarinetist

     Jimmie Noone (1995-1944), an exceptional technician with a beautiful

     tone. Chicago was an inspiring environment for a young musician. There

     was plenty of music and there were plenty of masters to learn from.

     Cornetist Muggsy Spanier (1906-1967) took his early cues from King

     Oliver. In New York, there was less contact between black and white

     players, though white jazzmen often made the trek to Harlem or worked

     opposite Fletcher Henderson at the Roseland. When a young Texas

     trombonist, Jack Teagarden (1905-1964), came to town in 1928, he

     startled everyone with his blues-based playing (and singing), very close in

     concept to that of Henderson's trombone star, Jimmy Harrison

     (1900-1931). These two set the pace for all comers.

     Teagarden, alongside Benny Goodman, worked in Ben Pollack's band.

     Pollack, who'd played drums with the New Orleans Rhythm Kings, was

     quite a talent spotter and always had good bands. When Henderson

     arranger Don Redman took over McKinney's Cotton Pickers in 1929 and

     made it one of the bands of the `20s, his replacement was Benny Carter.

     Carter could (and still can) write arrangements and play trumpet and

     clarinet as well as alto sax. For many years, he was primarily active as a

     composer for films and TV; but in the late 1970's, Carter resumed his

     playing career with renewed vigor. (Editor's Note-Carter just turned

     eighty and is still playing and recording.) 

     THE UNIQUE DUKE 

     Another artist whose career spanned more than fifty years is Duke

     Ellington (1899-1974). By 1972, he was one of New York's most

     successful bandleaders, resident at Harlem's Cotton Club--a nightspot

     catering to whites only but featuring the best in black talent.

     Ellington's unique gifts as composer-arranger-pianist were coupled with

     equally outstanding leadership abilities. From 1927 to 1941, with very few

     exceptions and occasional additions, his personnel remained unchanged--a

     record no other bandleader (except Guy Lombardo, of all people) ever

     matched.

     Great musicians passed through the Ellington ranks between 1924 and

     1974. Among the standouts: great baritone saxist Harry Carney