Unit 12: Early American Jazz

The Piano

Piano music had its own history. Primarily employed in taverns and houses of pleasure, the piano was used for sounding out melodies in addition to establishing a rhythm.So when it joined a jazz band it was used for both purposes there as well. A special style of music called "ragtime" was particularly well suited for a solo piano. Originally based on tunes for marching bands, ragtime music is marked by a syncopated melodic line with a regularly accented bass. During the course of music, the beat pattern frequently shifts, say, from 2/4 to 3/4. Now the technology for "recording" pianos comes well before the invention of Edison's phonograph. Player pianos were devices that "read" the music punched as holes in rolls of paper and then depressed the keys of the instrument accordingly, much like a Jacquard weaving loom. Many such piano rolls, made from the keyboard fingering of famous players, still survive, and vinyl or CD reproductions of the music are now available.

Scott Joplin

Sidney Bechet

Tunes composed specifically for ragtime piano were being published in the 1890's by such composers as Scott Joplin. In 1896 Joplin published the first really popular ragtime tune, "Maple Leaf Rag",which is still listened to with pleasure by newcomers to this music. But any tune could be given a ragtime treatment, illustrated by Jelly Roll Morton during his interview with the Library of Congress. That is, ragtime is an approach, a style of playing music of almost any type. The same incidentally can be said for jazz itself: there are tunes specifically composed for jazz bands, yet almost any tune could be "jazzed up." Sidney Bechet was notorious for taking straight tunes such as Summertime, and giving them a jazz treatment.

Ragtime piano and jazz evolved together in the first decades of the century. In New York however a new, distinctive style of piano playing called "stride" piano emerged in Harlem, the most notable proponent of this style

Today's Harlem, a Tourist Property

Fats Waller, America's Greatest Stride Pianist

being James P. Johnson, whose protege Fats Waller also gained a measure of fame. Johnson's "Carolina Shout" is a masterful example of stride piano, and many developing young pianists learned how to play this style from copying that number. Fats Waller recorded "Handful of Keys" in 1929, a number that assured him of a place among great jazz pianists. His self-mocking humor was quite distinctive with him and is nicely illustrated in his rendition of "Honeysuckle Rose."

In Harlem a tradition of pianists competing with each other, one trying to outdo the other in technically difficult pieces, led to this strident form of playing, where playing bass figures in tenths was not unusual. In New Orleans the tradition of competition between bands and even separate musical instruments was commonplace at picnics, parades, and fairs. In Harlem, however, the setting was usually a "house rent party," which as the name indicates was a party of drinks, food, and music for which admission was charged, the fee going to pay the rent of the organizer.

Edward Duke Ellington

Count Basie

Harlem at this time was a breeding ground for many jazz musicians who earned fame later in the 1930's. Among them were the gifted pianist Art Tatum, and the highly successful orchestra leader, and no mean pianist himself, Edward "Duke" Ellington. Count Basie, who was born in Red Bank, NJ, actually began his career in Kansas, but after that he spent his later years in Harlem developing his style. Both Tatum and Basie were strongly influenced by Earl Hines, mentioned above. Hines also mentored or strongly influenced many other jazz pianists.

Previous Page        Next Page