Black Bottom Stomp

Last updated
"Black Bottom Stomp"
Song by Red Hot Peppers
Published1925
Genre Jazz
Composer(s) Jelly Roll Morton

"Black Bottom Stomp" is a jazz composition. It was composed by Jelly Roll Morton in 1925 and was originally entitled "Queen of Spades". It was recorded in Chicago by Morton and His Red Hot Peppers, for Victor Records on September 15, 1926.

Contents

Technique

The recording has many features that are typical of the New Orleans style:

Structure

John Szwed notes that in "Black Bottom Stomp," "Morton practiced what he preached, managing to incorporate in one short piece the 'Spanish tinge,' stomps, breaks, stoptime, backbeat, two-beat, four-beat, a complete suspension of the rhythm section during the piano solo, riffs, rich variations of melody, and dynamics of volume, all of the elements of jazz as he understood it." [1]

  1. Intro: B♭ major, 8 bars, full ensemble
  2. A section in B♭. Three 16 bar choruses: (i) full ensemble; (ii) trumpet calls with ensemble response; (iii) clarinet solo
  3. Interlude: 4 bars, for full ensemble
  4. B section in E♭: Seven 20 bar choruses: (i) Full ensemble with trumpet and trombone break; (ii) clarinet solo (iii) piano solo; (iv) trumpet solo stop-time chorus; (v) banjo solo; (vi) full ensemble with drum break; (vii) full ensemble with trombone break
  5. Coda in E♭ for full ensemble

The harmonic basis is relatively simple, using standard II - V - I progressions. During the A section chorus, the chord progression passes through the relative minor.

With only seven instruments in the ensemble, Morton produces five distinct textures:

  1. trumpet and rhythm section
  2. clarinet
  3. banjo and rhythm section
  4. clarinet and rhythm section
  5. piano solo

The piece displays traits of Morton's compositional style:

Some distinct rhythmic features of New Orleans jazz appear throughout:

Performers

The performers on the original recording were:

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jelly Roll Morton</span> American ragtime and jazz pianist, bandleader and composer

Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe, known professionally as Jelly Roll Morton, was an American ragtime and jazz pianist, bandleader, and composer. Morton was jazz's first arranger, proving that a genre rooted in improvisation could retain its essential characteristics when notated. His composition "Jelly Roll Blues", published in 1915, was one of the first published jazz compositions. He also claimed to have invented the genre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Big band</span> Music ensemble associated with jazz music

A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s and dominated jazz in the early 1940s when swing was most popular. The term "big band" is also used to describe a genre of music, although this was not the only style of music played by big bands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New Orleans Rhythm Kings</span> American jazz band

The New Orleans Rhythm Kings (NORK) were one of the most influential jazz bands of the early to mid-1920s. The band included New Orleans and Chicago musicians who helped shape Chicago jazz and influenced many younger jazz musicians.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark-Anthony Turnage</span> British composer

Mark-Anthony Turnage CBE is a British composer of classical music.

The swing era was the period (1933–1947) when big band swing music was the most popular music in the United States. Though this was its most popular period, the music had actually been around since the late 1920s and early 1930s, being played by black bands led by such artists as Duke Ellington, Jimmie Lunceford, Bennie Moten, Cab Calloway, Earl Hines, and Fletcher Henderson, and white bands from the 1920s led by the likes of Jean Goldkette, Russ Morgan and Isham Jones. An early milestone in the era was from "the King of Swing" Benny Goodman's performance at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles on August 21, 1935, bringing the music to the rest of the country. The 1930s also became the era of other great soloists: the tenor saxophonists Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster and Lester Young; the alto saxophonists Benny Carter and Johnny Hodges; the drummers Chick Webb, Gene Krupa, Jo Jones and Sid Catlett; the pianists Fats Waller and Teddy Wilson; the trumpeters Louis Armstrong, Roy Eldridge, Bunny Berigan, and Rex Stewart.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trad jazz</span> Form of jazz in Britain in the 1950s and 1960s

Trad jazz, short for "traditional jazz", is a form of jazz in Britain in the 1950s and 1960s, played by musicians such as Chris Barber, Acker Bilk, Kenny Ball, Ken Colyer and Monty Sunshine, based on a revival of New Orleans Dixieland jazz, on trumpets, trombones, clarinets, tambourines, banjos, double basses, saxophones, Hammond organs, pipe organs, pianos, electric basses, guitars typically and drums and cymbals, with a populist repertoire which also included jazz versions of pop songs and nursery rhymes.

Mike John Brett Daniels was a British dixieland revivalist jazz trumpeter and bandleader born in Norbiton near Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey.

Red Hot Peppers was a recording jazz band led by Jelly Roll Morton from 1926–1930. It was a seven- or eight-piece band formed in Chicago that recorded for Victor and featured the best New Orleans-style freelance musicians available, including cornetist George Mitchell, trombonist Kid Ory, clarinetists Omer Simeon and Johnny Dodds, banjoists Johnny St. Cyr and Bud Scott, double bass player John Lindsay, and drummers Andrew Hilaire and Baby Dodds.

James Elliot Dapogny was an American jazz musicologist, pianist, composer, arranger and bandleader, active principally in the traditional jazz revival scene.

In music and jazz harmony, the Stomp progression is an eight-bar chord progression named for its use in the "stomp" section of the composition "King Porter Stomp" (1923) by Jelly Roll Morton. The composition was later arranged by Fletcher Henderson, adding greater emphasis on the Trio section, containing a highly similar harmonic loop to that found in the Stomp section. It was one of the most popular tunes of the swing era, and the Stomp progression was often used.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jelly Roll Blues</span> Song by Jelly Roll Morton

"Original Jelly Roll Blues", usually shortened to and known as "Jelly Roll Blues", is an early jazz fox-trot composed by Jelly Roll Morton. He recorded it first as a piano solo in Richmond, Indiana, in 1924, and then with his Red Hot Peppers in Chicago two years later, titled as it was originally copyrighted: "Original Jelly-Roll Blues". It is referenced by name in the 1917 Shelton Brooks composition "Darktown Strutters' Ball".

Dixieland jazz, also referred to as traditional jazz, hot jazz, or simply Dixieland, is a style of jazz based on the music that developed in New Orleans at the start of the 20th century. The 1917 recordings by the Original Dixieland Jass Band, fostered awareness of this new style of music.

October is a contemporary piece for concert band that was written by Eric Whitacre in 2000. Based on the guidelines as established by the authors of Teaching Music through Performance in Band, October is a Grade 5 piece.

Walter Melrose was a music publisher and lyricist in the 1920s and 1930s.

<i>Standard Time, Vol. 6: Mr. Jelly Lord</i> 1999 studio album by Wynton Marsalis

Standard Time, Vol. 6: Mr. Jelly Lord is an album by jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis that was released in 1999. The album peaked at number 7 on the Billboard Top Jazz Albums chart.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louis Armstrong Hot Five and Hot Seven Sessions</span> Album

The Louis Armstrong Hot Five and Hot Seven Sessions were recorded between 1925 and 1928 by Louis Armstrong with his Hot Five and Hot Seven groups. According to the National Recording Registry, "Louis Armstrong was jazz's first great soloist and is among American music's most important and influential figures. These sessions, his solos in particular, set a standard musicians still strive to equal in their beauty and innovation." These recordings were added to the National Recording Registry in 2002, the first year of the institution's existence.

<i>The Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz</i> 1973 compilation album

The Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz is a six-LP box set released in 1973 by the Smithsonian Institution. Compiled by jazz critic, scholar, and historian Martin Williams, the album included tracks from over a dozen record labels spanning several decades and genres of American jazz, from ragtime and big band to post-bop and free jazz.

Snake Rag is a 1923 Dixieland jazz standard composed by Joseph "King" Oliver of King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band. It features Oliver and Louis Armstrong on cornet, Honoré Dutrey on trombone, Johnny Dodds on clarinet, Lil Hardin on piano, Baby Dodds on drums, and William Manuel Johnson on banjo. The rag was a result of improvisation during a session at Richmond, Indiana on April 6, 1923.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tuba Skinny</span> Traditional jazz band based in New Orleans

Tuba Skinny is a traditional jazz street band based in New Orleans, Louisiana. The band's instrumentation includes cornet, clarinet, trombone, tuba, tenor banjo, guitar, frottoir, and vocals. The ensemble draws its inspiration from the early jazz, ragtime, and blues music of the 1920s and 1930s. The group began as an itinerant busking band and has performed around the world, including at music festivals in Mexico, Sweden, Australia, Italy, France, Switzerland, and Spain.

The Castle Jazz Band was a Dixieland jazz band, part of the "West Coast revival" of traditional jazz music. Their recordings were popular worldwide for a time, although touring outside their Portland, Oregon base was limited.

References

  1. Szwed, John. "Doctor Jazz: Jelly Roll Morton" (PDF). New York: Jazz Studies Online. p. 15. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 26, 2011. Retrieved September 14, 2010.

Sources