Overview
The history of jazz rightly begins in the city of New Orleans. In this section, we will learn about great New Orleans jazz musicians and their early recordings in Chicago. In the process, will also learn about the emerging Chicago jazz scene and some of the artists from that area who helped develop early jazz musical styles. Finally, we will do a short overview of early jazz in New York.
Objectives
Upon completion of this lesson, you will be able to do the following:
- Define collective improvisation
- Identify early jazz musicians and their contribution to jazz music
- Appreciate the significance of Dixieland jazz
- Recognize the impact Chicago had for musicians of early jazz
- Recognize the growing importance of New York for further developments in jazz
- Define chord substitutions
Harlem Stride Piano
Unlike New Orleans, New York had little history of brass bands among the African-American community. (The band led by Lt. James Europe is a notable exception.) Piano, though, was quite another story. African-American pianists in New York generally possessed a higher level of performance skill than their counterparts in the South, in large part because of the notable concentration of classically-trained pianists in the city. Audiences in New York were accustomed to the best, and musicians rose to those expectations.
Cutting contests were a regular part of life for stride pianists in Harlem in the 1920s and 1930s. This concept emerged from the battles of the street bands that had taken place in New Orleans in the preceding decades, as well as from ragtime piano contests in the Midwest. These cutting contests served as a way for musical ideas to be passed around — and provided great entertainment! In Harlem, the two principal performance venues for stride piano cutting contests were nightclubs and "rent parties."
While African Americans who had arrived from the South enjoyed considerably more personal freedom in Harlem, the cost of food and housing was such that a tradition of rent parties developed as a way to raise the money needed to pay the month's rent. Rent parties were numerous, and those organizing them would advertise in advance with flyers, charge an admission, get a piano onto the premises, and the music would take care of itself!
Stride players were a competitive bunch, and they enjoyed a spirited competition to see who could "best" the other, taking turns at the piano. It is said that James P. Johnson (a.k.a. Jimmy Johnson) reigned as king of stride piano in New York until 1933, when he relinquished his crown to a young pianist from Toledo, Ohio named Art Tatum. (We'll hear more from Art Tatum in the next lesson.)
