Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues, ragtime, European harmony and African rhythmic rituals. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major form of musical expression in traditional and popular music. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, complex chords, call and response vocals, polyrhythms and improvisation.
Ragtime, also spelled rag-time or rag time, is a musical style that had its peak from the 1890s to 1910s. Its cardinal trait is its syncopated or "ragged" rhythm. Ragtime was popularized during the early 20th century by composers such as Scott Joplin, James Scott and Joseph Lamb. Ragtime pieces are typically composed for and performed on piano, though the genre has been adapted for a variety of instruments and styles.
Scott Joplin was an American composer and pianist. Dubbed the "King of Ragtime", he composed more than 40 ragtime pieces, one ragtime ballet, and two operas. One of his first and most popular pieces, the "Maple Leaf Rag", became the genre's first and most influential hit, later being recognized as the quintessential rag. Joplin considered ragtime to be a form of classical music meant to be played in concert halls and largely disdained the performance of ragtime as honky tonk music most common in saloons.
Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe, known professionally as Jelly Roll Morton, was an American ragtime and jazz pianist, bandleader, and composer of Louisiana Creole descent. 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.
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.
Barnett, Kyle (2020). Record cultures: the transformation of the U.S. recording industry. Ann Arbor, [Michigan]: University of Michigan Press. p. 42. ISBN 978-0-472-12431-2.
Charles Luckyth Roberts, better known as Luckey Roberts, was an American composer and stride pianist who worked in the jazz, ragtime, and blues styles. Roberts performed as musician, band/orchestra conductor, and dancer. He taught music and dance. He also owned a restaurant and bar in New York City and in Washington, D.C. Luckey Roberts noted compositions include "Junk Man Rag", "Moonlight Cocktail", "Pork and Beans" (1913), and "Railroad Blues".
General Records was a small American record label during the late 1930s and early 1940s. Its most notable releases are piano solos recorded by Jelly Roll Morton in December 1939 late in his career.
Morten Gunnar Larsen is a Norwegian jazz pianist and composer, well known for several stride piano recordings and collaborations.
William Russell was an American music historian and modernist composer. Named Russell William Wagner at birth, when he decided to become a classical music composer, he dropped his last name—as it already "was taken" by Richard Wagner. He was commonly known as "Bill Russell".
The soundtrack to the film Pretty Baby used many local New Orleans musicians playing in the jazz, ragtime, and blues style of the city in the early 20th century. An LP album of the soundtrack, also entitled Pretty Baby, was issued in 1978 on ABC Records. The film is named after the song "Pretty Baby" by Tony Jackson.
Kustbandet is a Swedish jazz orchestra founded as a school band in Stockholm in 1962 by Christer Ekhé and Kenneth Arnström. Originally playing in traditional New Orleans jazz style and, as the band grew, moving towards big band style as played by Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Luis Russell, Jelly Roll Morton et al. in the 1920s - 1930's.
Rudolph Pickett Blesh was an American jazz critic and enthusiast.
Elmer Schoebel was an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger.
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.
"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".
Terry Waldo is an American pianist, composer, and historian of early jazz, blues, and stride music, and is best known for his contribution to ragtime and his role in reviving interest in this form, starting in the 1970s. Says Wynton Marsalis in his introduction to Waldo's book: "He teaches Ragtime, he talks about Ragtime, he plays it, he embodies it, he lives it, and he keeps Ragtime alive." The book, This is Ragtime, published in 1976, grew out of the series of the same title that Waldo produced for NPR in 1974. Waldo is also a theatrical music director, producer, vocalist, and teacher. He is noted for his wit and humor in performance, as "a monologist in the dry, Middle Western tradition." Eubie Blake describes his first impression of Waldo's performance thus: "I died laughing...that's one of the hardest things to do—make people laugh. Terry's ability to do this, combined with his musicianship, actually reminds me of Fats Waller."
The New England Ragtime Ensemble was a Boston chamber orchestra dedicated to the music of Scott Joplin and other ragtime composers.
This is a timeline documenting events of Jazz in the year 1902.
