A Concise History of Jazz

[Lord Larehip]

By the 1920s, ragtime was an all but forgotten musical form despite the fact that raggy elements still abounded in the music of the 20s. It was called “The Jazz Age” which F. Scott Fitzgerald immortalized in his writings but the jazz was often diluted. About this time, many society dance bands had to learn some amount of jazz to land gigs and many of these opted for a light jazz tinge to their otherwise Tin Pan Alley sound. This type of jazz is now known as “sweet.” Paul Whiteman’s band was probably the premier sweet band despite having two of the best hot jazz musicians in its ranks—Frankie Trumbauer on C-sax and Bix Beiderbecke on cornet.

[video=youtube;I93i2XeAK9Q]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I93i2XeAK9Q[/video]

[Lord Larehip]

Another type of jazz that often typifies the 20s nowadays is “corn jazz.” Corn was popular among the younger white kids primarily the college set. When you see a 1920s college student today they are typified as wearing pork pie or straw hats, long fur coats and carrying pennants as they drove about in Stutz Bearcat automobiles (a popular sports car of that era). Another image is the cheerleaders with the letter sweaters shouting through megaphones.

Corn bands often co-opted both looks. Many colleges, in fact, had their own corn bands. Lou Weimer’s Gold & Black Aces were Perdue University’s corn band and recorded a great corn number called “Merry Widow’s Got a Sweetie Now.” Corn jazz is considered a subset of sweet jazz and often included hillbilly skits and what not. Kay Kyser carried on the corn jazz band legacy into the 40s and had a radio show called “The Kollege of Musical Knowledge” that went off the air for good in 1950 unable to compete with the rise of rocknroll. Below, a nice corn number from 1929:

[video=youtube;Q3LS0PDFuR0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3LS0PDFuR0[/video]

[Lord Larehip]

The third type of jazz in the 20s was “swing jazz.” This should not be confused with the swing era jazz although that type of swing is an outgrowth of the 20s swing jazz. This music was hot and heavy on the jazz. Where sweet and corn restrained themselves from going too far, swing jazz pulled out the stops. It was jazz full force with virtually no society dance elements left. Two things need to be noted, however:


1. Many jazz historians do not feel that there ever really were full tilt swing bands. Hot swing was really an ideal to aspire to but could never be reached. No matter how hot it was, it could always be hotter.


2. This is linked to the fact that even the hottest black swing bands of that era played sweet and corn jazz as well. The reason is simply because they wanted to get hired for as many gigs as they could land. So their hot jazz was strewn with sweet and corny elements and it was impossible to remove them.


Perhaps the best swing band recordings of the 20s would be Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five and Jelly Roll Morton’s Red Hot Peppers (both of which featured the incomparable Kid Ory playing tailgate trombone). The first clip is “West End Blues” by the Hot Five from 1928. Louie’s cornet solo in the intro is considered by many jazz musicians to be the start of be-bop which wouldn’t come to fruition over another decade. The second clip is Jelly Roll Morton’s Red Hot Peppers from 1926 doing one of Morton’s many compositions. He is considered to be the first true composer of jazz.

[video=youtube;pXHdqTVC3cA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXHdqTVC3cA[/video]

[Lord Larehip]

Another example of swing before the Swing Era:

[video=youtube;jzCVOL2cf-Q]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzCVOL2cf-Q[/video]

[Lord Larehip]

But the twenties had other influences. Starting about 1915, Hawaiian music became a huge rage in the U.S. Hawaiian sheet music sales and recordings were the hottest sellers by far. The guitar started to overtake the banjo in popularity because people wanted to learn to play Hawaiian music which used the guitar instead of the banjo. By the 1920s, American music was thoroughly Hawaiianized. Two of the biggest stars of that era were Roy Smeck and Ukulele Ike (real name Cliff Edwards). Both played the ukulele and were so popular that people began playing ukes more than guitars. If you wonder why so many songs from the 20s are played on ukes, now you know. Roy Smeck was an amazingly talented musician:

[video=youtube;RcQYt7xvA8M]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcQYt7xvA8M[/video]

[Lord Larehip]

Cliff Edwards from 1929. This song was a gigantic hit for him. You probably thought Gene Kelly did the original version. If Edwards’s voice sounds familiar it’s because he was cast as the voice of Jiminy Cricket in 1940’s Pinocchio. His version of "When You Wish Upon a Star" is ranked #7 in the American Film Institute's 100 Greatest Songs in Film History:

[video=youtube;7GdN_NncZkM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GdN_NncZkM[/video]

[Lord Larehip]

Of course the Hawaiian strain of music would meld with the jazz of that era to produce some interesting hybrids as Mr. Edwards demonstrates in this 1926 recording:

[video=youtube;Z3btN5m6iYw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3btN5m6iYw[/video]

So this is how things stood at the end of the twenties. Hawaiian music would continue to be popular into the 40s and even made some inroads into rocknroll but by the 60s, it would all but evaporate leaving behind it, however, the instrument that changed how music was made—the guitar.

Next, we'll cover the Swing Era.

[FromItaly]

If somebody of you know italiana language I propose the beautiful book of the major jazz history export in italy. Storia del jazz di Arrigo Polillo...