Jazz was evolving in the black south from an amalgamation of African rhythms, southern blues, spirituals, folk music, marches, and ragtime. Dixieland Jazz was imported from New Orleans, thought to be the birthplace of Jazz. A new wind blows into the Windy City, and this new Jazz was captivating audiences. Chicago's theatres and dance halls were doing big business showcasing the syncopated Dixieland Jazz, that had a hold on America's youth in the 1920s. An increasingly common scene in Prohibition Chicago was the influx of black and white musicians from New Orleans. Chicago's large black community supported a well established black entertainment industry, and this was certainly driven by the mass movement of southern blacks, into Chicago's South Side. Chicago's blacks were far from wealthy, but they had a lot more money to spend than they had in the south. Times were good, and the dance clubs and theatres on the famed South State Street were hopping to the upbeat tunes of Ragtime Music.
At the corner of Wabash and Van Buren in the Chicago Loop, the Friars Inn attracted the city's rich and infamous, such as Dion O'Bannion and Al Capone. An eight piece house jazz band called The New Orleans Rhythm Kings featured the new Jazz style.The Band was fronted by clarinetist Leon Roppolo, cornetist Paul Mares, and Trombonist George Brunies. The crowds reaction to the bands charisma was undeniable, and the band was viewed as commercially viable, and the music was a worthy entry into the Chicago Jazz Scene.
A cross pollination between white and black approaches to jazz, blues, and country music is evident, despite the social barriers imposed between races. Today, with the great attention paid to the differences between black and white cultures in America, we tend to forget that a healthy and mutual respect actually existed between black and white musicians in the 1920s.
Gennett Records is a persistent footnote in music history, although a detailed account of the recording company and its owners has never been undertaken. How did Italian piano manufacturers stumble across, and record so many of America's great music innovators? Record companies, in the 1920s, grew alongside America's emerging jazz, blues, and country music styles. Gennett Records embraced these new genres, and was one of the first record labels to cater to both black and white record markets. Their studio might record a black jazz band in the morning, and then record a white Appalachian string band in the afternoon. Gennett's ground breaking Jazz, Blues, and country records sold modestly in department stores, music stores, and mail order catalogs. It was an era when a "hit" record generally sold by the thousands, and not by the millions. It would be a decade later, before radio would be used to promote musical recordings. As the Great Depression took hold, Gennett Records, and a marvelous era in music recording, came to a crashing halt. The Gennett label is an icon in American folk music, and few record companies documented America's musical grassroots as thoroughly as Gennett Records. Hundreds of rare Gennett Label "Old Time", sacred, and country blues recordings preserved the regional songs and music styles, which were important parts of the early evolution of country and rock music. Among serious record collectors and historians of early jazz, blues, and country music, the hard to find, antique 78-rpm discs on the Gennett Records Label, have been coveted for years.
Monday, September 26, 2011
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
The Roots Of Ragtime Music
Ragtime Music is considered, in many minds, a primitive form of jazz. Others see it as a type of folk music, and others called it popular music during its time. Ragtime music was really all of these things and much more. Ragtime's roots encompasses every musical source in America, and extends way back to the 1800s. Ragtime was Americas first, and most unique contribution to musical literature.
Although no one still living knows for sure the original meaning for the word ragtime, it is most often thought to have come from the phrase "ragged time'- meaning tearing time apart. A rag, strictly speaking, is a syncopated instrumental march. Ragtime is a much more eclectic term that can apply to almost any music that is syncopated. To rag a song is to play it in a syncopated style. Therefore, Ragtime music encompasses more than just instrumental rags, and should include more diverse musical forms like the rag song and Dixieland music.
Syncopation is the continuous superimposition of an irregular rhythm over top a regular rhythm. Although syncopation is essentially of African origin, its combination with the European musical system accounts for the uniqueness of Ragtime music. Ragtime is composed within the European written framework, and uses a notational system based on measures and divisions of measures. African music is polyrhythmic, and based on an entirely different frame of reference that gives at least as much emphasis to rhythmic parts as it does to melody and harmony. As a result, much of the African music contains very sophisticated and complex polyrhythmic patterns. Commonly called secondary rag, it often appears in ragtime as duple meter, coinciding with triple meter. Another important African musical element is the emphasis on the percussiveness of the music. This results in a great variety and subtlety of accents. The African influence is seen in the melodic and harmonic structures of Ragtime. Although based on the traditional European major and minor scales, much of Ragtime uses a preference for the pentatonic scale, which is more prevalent in African music.
The nature of early Afro-American music varied from locale to locale. Slaves were barred from performing their pure African music, which forced them to perform European music, improvised in the African style. Black musicians were transforming this material into new compositions, and developing new styles of playing in the process.
The large body of Afro-American music still came from slaves and was pure folk music, and evolved from their daily lives. Although slave work songs are generally considered to be primary sources for blues songs and not Ragtime, a case could be made that the vocal style of the work songs influenced all black music, including Ragtime. The melancholy emotional intensity can be detected in many of the rags. A number of Ragtime melodies can be traced to these types of vocal work songs, according to many of the old timers. The Ragtime era influenced the development of most of our popular music ever since.
Although no one still living knows for sure the original meaning for the word ragtime, it is most often thought to have come from the phrase "ragged time'- meaning tearing time apart. A rag, strictly speaking, is a syncopated instrumental march. Ragtime is a much more eclectic term that can apply to almost any music that is syncopated. To rag a song is to play it in a syncopated style. Therefore, Ragtime music encompasses more than just instrumental rags, and should include more diverse musical forms like the rag song and Dixieland music.
Syncopation is the continuous superimposition of an irregular rhythm over top a regular rhythm. Although syncopation is essentially of African origin, its combination with the European musical system accounts for the uniqueness of Ragtime music. Ragtime is composed within the European written framework, and uses a notational system based on measures and divisions of measures. African music is polyrhythmic, and based on an entirely different frame of reference that gives at least as much emphasis to rhythmic parts as it does to melody and harmony. As a result, much of the African music contains very sophisticated and complex polyrhythmic patterns. Commonly called secondary rag, it often appears in ragtime as duple meter, coinciding with triple meter. Another important African musical element is the emphasis on the percussiveness of the music. This results in a great variety and subtlety of accents. The African influence is seen in the melodic and harmonic structures of Ragtime. Although based on the traditional European major and minor scales, much of Ragtime uses a preference for the pentatonic scale, which is more prevalent in African music.
The nature of early Afro-American music varied from locale to locale. Slaves were barred from performing their pure African music, which forced them to perform European music, improvised in the African style. Black musicians were transforming this material into new compositions, and developing new styles of playing in the process.
The large body of Afro-American music still came from slaves and was pure folk music, and evolved from their daily lives. Although slave work songs are generally considered to be primary sources for blues songs and not Ragtime, a case could be made that the vocal style of the work songs influenced all black music, including Ragtime. The melancholy emotional intensity can be detected in many of the rags. A number of Ragtime melodies can be traced to these types of vocal work songs, according to many of the old timers. The Ragtime era influenced the development of most of our popular music ever since.
The Origins Of Bluegrass Music
The origins of Bluegrass Music are nearly four hundred years old, and developed as a result of political, economic, and social events. Accordingly, a chronological approach, from back porch amateurs to professional musicians, from barn raisings and medicine shows, to records, radio, and movies, this brand of music has spanned the world, as well as the centuries.
Not everyone agrees on what "Bluegrass" is. Purists believe that Bluegrass must be played on unamplified instruments. Although most people recognize the music when they hear it, what exactly is Bluegrass? Musicologists offer the following definition: Bluegrass is polyphonic vocal and instrumental music played on certain unamplified instruments, based on music brought over from the British Isles to Appalachian regions, and refined by additions of Negro and urban music styles. A Bluegrass band typically consists of a five-string banjo, a guitar, a fiddle, a Dobro guitar or mandolin, and a bass fiddle. Lead vocal parts are rendered in a high pitched style, with chorus harmonies added by a "high tenor", sung a third or fifth above the lead, and a lower baritone and or bass vocal lines. This definition might satisfy the purists, but some exceptions expand upon it, adding drums, electric guitars and basses. Some people object to such expansions, but often, if a band sounds "bluegrassy", it is included as a Bluegrass group.
The easiest way to think of Bluegrass, is as country music's equivalent to Dixieland Jazz. Against a solid or syncopated rhythm, banjo, fiddle, mandolin, and Dobro alternate solos, and when not in the forefront, they supply counter melodies or additional rhythms. The subtleties of the music, and the virtuosity of its practitioners became apparent to a generation of people from both inside and outside the rural tradition. The spontaneity and effortlessness of professional groups was the result of hours of rehearsing singly and as a group, to capture the exact sound that the musicians wanted to present.
The word bluegrass is a relatively recent term. Before 1940, string-band music was rough hewn. A special sound began to crystallize, and Bill Monroe began to draw from sources outside of country music. Monroe added elements of blues, ragtime, and jazz, to develop subtle flexibilities of accent and tone. Monroe's group, called the"Blue Grass Boys", made refinements to the emerging style, and their music was an immediate success. It took about a decade for the name to be applied to the musical style, but people noted that other bands played "like the Blue Grass Boys", and soon the word Bluegrass became the generic term for any band that played that down home pickin' and singin' music.
The lyrics, whether story-telling ballads, hymns, or expressions of lost romantic or family ties, came out of the tradition of songs heard for centuries throughout the south. The music itself, satisfies the same urges as wearing blue jeans, going barefoot, and joining a friendly gathering. When a Bluegrass band launches into a break-neck number, it needs no explanation. It is just plain ol' foot-stompin', good time music, no matter where you hail from.
Not everyone agrees on what "Bluegrass" is. Purists believe that Bluegrass must be played on unamplified instruments. Although most people recognize the music when they hear it, what exactly is Bluegrass? Musicologists offer the following definition: Bluegrass is polyphonic vocal and instrumental music played on certain unamplified instruments, based on music brought over from the British Isles to Appalachian regions, and refined by additions of Negro and urban music styles. A Bluegrass band typically consists of a five-string banjo, a guitar, a fiddle, a Dobro guitar or mandolin, and a bass fiddle. Lead vocal parts are rendered in a high pitched style, with chorus harmonies added by a "high tenor", sung a third or fifth above the lead, and a lower baritone and or bass vocal lines. This definition might satisfy the purists, but some exceptions expand upon it, adding drums, electric guitars and basses. Some people object to such expansions, but often, if a band sounds "bluegrassy", it is included as a Bluegrass group.
The easiest way to think of Bluegrass, is as country music's equivalent to Dixieland Jazz. Against a solid or syncopated rhythm, banjo, fiddle, mandolin, and Dobro alternate solos, and when not in the forefront, they supply counter melodies or additional rhythms. The subtleties of the music, and the virtuosity of its practitioners became apparent to a generation of people from both inside and outside the rural tradition. The spontaneity and effortlessness of professional groups was the result of hours of rehearsing singly and as a group, to capture the exact sound that the musicians wanted to present.
The word bluegrass is a relatively recent term. Before 1940, string-band music was rough hewn. A special sound began to crystallize, and Bill Monroe began to draw from sources outside of country music. Monroe added elements of blues, ragtime, and jazz, to develop subtle flexibilities of accent and tone. Monroe's group, called the"Blue Grass Boys", made refinements to the emerging style, and their music was an immediate success. It took about a decade for the name to be applied to the musical style, but people noted that other bands played "like the Blue Grass Boys", and soon the word Bluegrass became the generic term for any band that played that down home pickin' and singin' music.
The lyrics, whether story-telling ballads, hymns, or expressions of lost romantic or family ties, came out of the tradition of songs heard for centuries throughout the south. The music itself, satisfies the same urges as wearing blue jeans, going barefoot, and joining a friendly gathering. When a Bluegrass band launches into a break-neck number, it needs no explanation. It is just plain ol' foot-stompin', good time music, no matter where you hail from.
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