EARLY JAZZ pre 1918
Although
the record player was invented around 1890, the same time musicologists speculate
jazz began to take form, jazz was not recorded until at least 1918, and not
widely recorded until the mid 1920s, so we can only make an educated guess
as to how the music developed.
It
is safe to say that African American musicians in New Orleans between the
years 1890 and 1915 distilled jazz by combining the following elements: European
church and religious music filtered through an African American approach
to polyrhythm and harmony, brass marches, blues, Creole culture, European
orchestral music, and popular song.
The
particular hybrid culture of French Creoles and African Americans around
New Orleans was particularly crucial to the integration of European musical
structures with African attitudes concerning performance (i.e. the approach
of playing loosely, off the ground beat, and blue). Another influence on
the formation of jazz was the development of ragtime music, largely abetted
by the compositions of Scott Joplin (circa 1900-1910). Rags were very popular
and their syncopated approach to rhythm and melody became a big part of the
social scene in New Orleans. Blues, also in its early formative stage, played
a part.
All
these elements came together in the culturally diverse New Orleans. Early
jazz bands played at dances, festivals, and even funerals. The jazz musicians
in these early years influenced each other in person and jazz was relatively
confined to the New Orleans area. The bass section usually played a march
type melody lifted slightly off the ground beat, often some variation of
the blues. Trumpets, clarinets, trombones and tubas were common. Banjos,
pianos, and an occasional saxophone added additional tone colors. Booming
bass drums and partial kits were part of the band, but aren't in evidence
in recordings because the beat made the recording needle skip (in those early
days, the band would have to stand in front of a big horn-microphone and
the longest composition would have to clock in under four minutes.)
Dixieland
jazz, as it came to be known, flourished in the area. Various nameless, unrecorded
New Orleans musicians pioneered the approach to improvisation that would
shape jazz, playing it mainly at local events and dancehalls.
