Chapter 72

Early Jazz

Early Jazz

• Jazz refers to several styles of American popular music that emerged in the early 20th Century.

• It is a type of music that mixes elements from:– ragtime– blues– popular songs– dance music.

• Its roots reach back to earlier types of improvised music of African Americans.

Characteristics of Early Jazz

• The most likely birthplace of jazz is New Orleans [the term “jazz” was applied to music played in a free manner by small dance bands.]

• These bands were subdivided into a group of instruments:

- playing melody (often cornet, clarinet, trombone) - instruments playing accompaniment ( a “rhythm

section” often made up by piano, drums, and bass).

• A distinctive feature of their music-making was group improvisation, in which all of the melody instruments created a closely knit polyphony.

• Dance music (prior to the Big Band phenomenon of the late 1920’s)– had no single identity in medium or form.

• Popular songs around 1900 were strophic compositions – in which each stanza (or verse) was ended by a refrain (called a

chorus).

Typical Characteristics of Piano Rags

• Rag - is a march-like piano character piece– in which a syncopated melody – is joined to a rhythmically regular

accompaniment

• moderate march tempo

• duple meter

• percussive treatment of the piano

• pieces composed and played as written

• multi-thematic, multi-sectional form – with contrasting trio sections

Typical Characteristics of Early Blues

• Blues – was originally an improvised strophic song whose stanzas (or choruses) span 12-measure phrases – and rest upon a fixed and simple harmonic

progression.

• flexible in medium (vocal or instrumental)

• swinging rhythms

• wide range of expression

• use of blue notes (the expressive lowering of a note by ½ step – especially the 3rd or 7th degree of the major scale.

Scott Joplin, “Maple Leaf Rag,” 1899

Multithematic, multisectional form

James P. Johnson, “Carolina Shout,” 1921

Multithematic, multisectional form

Bessie Smith, “Lost Your Head Blues,” 1926

12-measure blues form (variational)

King Oliver, “Dippermouth Blues,” 1923

12-measure blues form

Louis Armstrong, “West End Blues,” 1928

12-measure blues form