Jazz Pianist Jelly Roll Morton
Photo Hogan Jazz Archives
Brass bands had become enormously popular in New Orleans as well as the rest of the country. In the 1880s New Orleans brass bands, such as the Excelsior and Onward, typically consisted of formally trained musicians reading complex scores for concerts, parades, and dances.
The roots of jazz were largely nourished in the African-American community but became a broader phenomenon that drew from many communities and ethnic groups in New Orleans. "Papa" Jack Laine's Reliance Brass Bands, for instance, were integrated before segregation pressures increased. Laine's bands, which were active around 1890 to 1913, became the most well known of the white ragtime bands. Laine was a promoter of the first generation of white jazzmen.
A special collaborative relationship developed between brass bands in New Orleans and mutual aid and benevolent societies. Mutual aid and benevolent societies were common among many ethnic groups in urban areas in the 19th century. After the Civil War such organizations took on special meaning for emancipated African-Americans who had limited economic resources. The purposes of such societies were to "help the sick and bury the dead" - important functions because blacks were generally prohibited from getting commercial health and life insurance and other services.
While many organizations in New Orleans used brass bands in parades, concerts, political rallies, and funerals, African-American mutual aid and benevolent societies had their own expressive approach to funeral processions and parades, which continues to the present. At their events, community celebrants would join in the exuberant dancing procession. The phenomena of community participation in parades became known as "the second line," second, that is, to the official society members and their contracted band.
Other community organizations also used New Orleans-style "ragtime" brass bands. Mardi Gras walking clubs, notably the Jefferson City Buzzards and the Cornet Carnival Club (still in existence), were employers of the music.
By the turn of the century New Orleans was thriving not only as a major sea and river port but also as a major entertainment center. Legitimate theater, vaudeville, and music publishing houses and instrument stores employed musicians in the central business district. Less legitimate entertainment establishments flourished in and around the officially sanctioned red-light district near Canal and Rampart streets. Out on the shores of Lake Ponchartrain bands competed for audiences at amusement parks and resorts. Street parades were common in the neighborhood, and community social halls and corner saloons held dances almost nightly.
New Orleanians never lost their penchant for dancing, and most of the city's brass band members doubled as dance band players. The Superior Brass Band, for instance, had overlapping personnel with its sister group, The Superior Orchestra. Dance bands and orchestras softened the brass sound with stringed instruments, including violin, guitar, and string bass. At the turn of the century string dance bands were popular in more polite settings, and "dirty" music, as the more genteel dances were known, was the staple of many downtown Creole of color bands such as John Robichaux's Orchestra.
But earthier vernacular dance styles were also increasing in popularity in New Orleans. Over the last decade of the 19th century, non reading musicians playing more improvised music drew larger audiences for dances and parades. For example, between 1895 and 1900 uptown cornet player Charles "Buddy" Bolden began incorporating improvised blues and increasing the tempo of familiar dance tunes. Bolden was credited by many early jazzmen as the first musician to have a distinctive new style. The increasing popularity of this more "ratty" music brought many trained and untrained musicians into the improvising bands. Also, repressive segregation laws passed in the 1890s (as a backlash to Reconstruction) increased discrimination toward anyone with African blood and eliminated the special status previously afforded Creoles of color. These changes ultimately united black and Creole of color musicians, thus strengthening early jazz by combing the uptown improvisational style with the more disciplined Creole approach.
The instrumentation and section playing of the brass bands increasingly influenced the dance bands, which changed in orientation from string to brass instruments. What ultimately became the standard front line of a New Orleans jazz band was cornet, clarinet, and trombone. These horns collectively improvising or "faking" ragtime yielded the characteristic polyphonic sound of New Orleans jazz.
Most New Orleans events were accompanied by music, and there were many opportunities for musicians to work. In addition to parades and dances, bands played at picnics, fish fries, political rallies, store openings, lawn parties, athletic events, church festivals, weddings, and funerals. Neighborhood social halls, some operated by mutual aid and benevolent societies or other civic organizations, were frequently the sites of banquets and dances. Early jazz was found in neighborhoods all over and around New Orleans - it was a normal part of community life.
Sometime before 1900, African-American neighborhood organizations known as social aid and pleasure clubs also began to spring up in the city. Similar in their neighborhood orientation to the mutual aid and benevolent societies, the purposes of social and pleasure clubs were to provide a social outlet for its members, provide community service, and parade as an expression of community pride. This parading provided dependable work for musicians and became an important training ground for young musical talent.
New Orleans jazz began to spread to other cities as the city's musicians joined riverboat bands and vaudeville, minstrel, and other show tours. Jelly Roll Morton, an innovative piano stylist and composer, began his odyssey outside of New Orleans as early as 1907. The Original Creole Orchestra, featuring Freddie Keppard, was an important early group that left New Orleans, moving to Los Angeles in 1912 and then touring the Orpheum Theater circuit, with gigs in Chicago and New York. In fact, Chicago and New York became the main markets for New Orleans jazz. Tom Brown's Band from Dixieland left New Orleans for Chicago in 1915, and Nick LaRocca and other members of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band headed there in 1916.
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Lesson 1 |
Minor scale |
A diatonic, seven-note scale that progresses in whole (W) and half (H) steps according to the W W H W W W H pattern is known as: |
Major scale |
What musical term is used to describe the speed of the beat? |
Tempo |
The function of the clef is to indicate the range of pitches to be played. |
True |
What fundamental element of music may be defined as "the succession of articulated durations"? |
Rhythm |
The span of eight letter-name notes is called: |
Octave |
Piano music is typically notated using the _________ staff. |
Grand |
According to the text, the most common clefs are: |
Treble and bass |
The distance between any two adjacent keys on the piano is called a: |
Semitone |
The placement of the notes on the staff indicates their duration. |
False |
Lesson 2 |
Tonality |
Which of the following is a distinctive characteristic of blues music? |
Pitch Bending |
What is the interval between C and E? |
Third |
A blue note is produced by: |
Pitch bending |
A pitch that doesn’t quite fit in the traditional 12-note scale. |
Blue note |
An accent on an unexpected part of the measure, that strengthens weak beats and undermines the strong ones produces: |
Syncopation |
Three or more notes sounding together. |
Chord |
A chord in which each note is separated from the next by a third is known as a: |
Triad |
A single repetition of the chord progression used to organize music in an improvisation. |
Chorus |
Several different rhythms sounding at the same time. |
Polyrhythm |
A 12-bar blues chorus normally consists of what formal scheme? |
A A B |
There is general consensus that jazz is characterized by three essential features. These three essential features are: |
Improvisation, swing feeling, bluesy flavor |
Lesson 3 |
Walking bass |
In jazz, the general label for any wind instrument is |
horn |
What musical feature distinguishes ragtime melodies from the ones used in the marches of brass bands? |
Almost constant syncopation |
While seemingly very dissimilar, ragtime piano and the marches played by brass bands actually shared much in common. Only one characteristic below is unique to ragtime piano. Which one is it? |
Abundant syncopation in the melody above the steady duple background is unique to ragtime piano. |
Early (or rural) blues may be readily distinguished from classic (or urban) blues in several ways. Which statement below is NOT accurate? |
Even in early (or rural) blues, the 12-bar form was firmly established. |
Which of the following refers to the rhythmic, improvised accompaniment on piano? |
Comping |
Which of the following was NOT influential to the origins of jazz? |
Avant-garde European art music |
Which of the following was NOT the first Mississippi Delta Blues singer, but arguably the most influential? |
Robert Johnson |
Which of the following refers to the method of playing string instruments by plucking instead of bowing? |
Pizzicato |
According to the text, which of the following is a characteristic that ragtime shares with the marches of brass bands? |
Duple meter |
Which of the following genres of music primarily featured female perspectives and musicians? |
Classic blues |
Which of the following is a synonym for "urban blues"? |
Classic blues |
What music genre would he following excerpt best fit in? |
Ragtime |
In America, the African call-and-response tradition may be traced from early African-American music through the blues and into jazz. What distinctive characteristic do we hear in call-and-response in jazz music? |
A new call begins before the previous response has finished, thereby overlapping it. |
Which one of the following is NOT true of jazz? |
The music reflects the experience of the New Orleans upper class, who had the leisure time to create it |
Lesson 4 Which musician fits the following description? An early important white trumpeter, his improvisations conveyed an advanced harmonic conception. |
Bix Beiderbecke |
Which of the following best describes "Dixieland Jazz"? |
A term for New Orleans-style jazz played by white bands |
Which musician fits the following description? |
Buddy Bolden |
The group of jazz musicians known as the Austin High Gang was affiliated with which city’s jazz scene? |
Chicago, IL |
New York jazz musicians of the 1920s were known for their exceptional skill on brass instruments due to the high concentration of classically-trained brass players in the city. |
False |
Which of the following describes a characteristic feature of New Orleans jazz in which multiple instrumentalists improvise together, creating a distinctive polyphony? |
collective improvisation |
Which of the following describes a point in the music, normally at the turnaround, when all the instrumentalists except one stop playing, allowing that one performer to begin or end a solo improvisation with a virtuosic flourish? |
Break |
In New Orleans jazz, a second melody (or counter-melody) played on clarinet, subordinate to the principal melody played on cornet, is known as: |
Obbligato melody |
Which of the following describes a style of jazz piano derived from ragtime? (Hint: New Orleans and Harlem were both important in its development.) |
Stride piano |
Which musician fits the following description? An early important white saxophonist, he played the distinctive C-melody saxophone and had a linear approach to improvisation. |
Frankie Trumbauer |
The banjo plays a solo during the first 30 seconds of Jelly Roll Morton’s "Black Bottom Stomp." |
False |
Which musician fits the following description? A cornetist, trumpeter, and band leader, he was one of the great early New Orleans jazz musicians and the first great jazz solo improviser, known for spontaneous, swinging melodies. |
Louis Armstrong |
Composer, pianist, and band leader, he was one of the great early New Orleans jazz musicians and one of the first musicians to bring together elements of ragtime piano and blues in a rhythmic manner that suggested swing eighth notes. |
Jelly Roll Morton |
Which of the following best describes "scat singing"? |
Singing nonsense syllables while improvising a melodic vocal solo |
Which musician fits the following description? A clarinetist and soprano saxophonist, he was one of the great early New Orleans jazz musicians, known for his blues-infused improvisations. |
Sidney Bechet |
Which musician fits the following description? A pianist and composer, he was known as the "father of stride piano." "The Charleston" was one of his popular pieces. |
James P. Johnson |
Lesson 5 The first great tenor saxophonist, he developed a warm, full sound that was emulated by many who came after him. |
Coleman Hawkins |
A pioneer in the emerging swing style of jazz; his charts featured a call-and-response that would pit the reeds against the brass, which became a model for most of the swing bands that followed; "Wrappin’ It Up" was one of his band’s notable pieces |
Fletcher Henderson |
Which of the following is not a component of Fletcher Henderson’s charts? |
Percussion |
Which of the following musicians was known for his growl style? |
Cootie Williams |
A pioneer in the emerging swing style of jazz; his charts featured a call-and-response that would pit the reeds against the brass, which became a model for most of the swing bands that followed; "Wrappin’ It Up" was one of his band’s notable pieces: |
Fletcher Henderson |
Which musician fits the following description? The greatest composer of the swing era; pianist, composer, arranger, and band leader; he had an extraordinary knack for utilizing the distinctive sounds of his sidemen in his charts. |
Duke Ellington |
Which musician fits the following description? A French gypsy guitarist, he is considered the first great European jazz musician. |
Django Reinhardt |
Which musician fits the following description? A star trumpeter who developed a "growl style" of playing that lent the trumpet a more vocal quality; featured soloist on East St. Louis Toodle-Oo. |
Bubber Miley |
One of the great jazz pianists coming out of the stride tradition, he possessed extraordinary facility, combining dazzling technique with a marvelous feel for the blues; he is noted for his chord substitutions, and is reputed to have never lost a cutting contest: |
Art Tatum |
Which musician fits the following description? Tenor saxophonist, he joined Ellington’s band in 1940; his "airy" ballad style solos were so tuneful that they often sounded as though they could have been the original song: |
Ben Webster |
The first 50 seconds of "East St. Louis Toodle-oo" feature a "wa-wa" solo by Joe Nanton on the trombone |
False |
Which musician fits the following description? Alto saxophonist, the most celebrated soloist in Ellington’s orchestra; his sultry, ballad style of playing is featured on a number of tunes, notably "Warm Valley." |
Johnny Hodges |
One of Fletcher Henderson’s major contributions to the Swing style was the way he structured his band. Which statement accurately describes this organization? |
The band would be divided into three sections: reeds, brass, and rhythm. |
The use of the growl style gave the brass a more vocal quality, and contributed to: |
The "Ellington Effect" |
Lesson 6 |
Young’s tone was heavier than Hawkins’, with more vibrato |
Count Basie pared down the role of piano in the rhythm section and pioneered the spontaneous, off-the-beat style of playing known as |
comping |
One of the first masters of the walking bass, his association with Basie goes back to the 1920s. He possessed a superb sense of timing that helped promote the bass to its role as principal timekeeper in the band. |
Walter Page |
Which piece played by the Count Basie band features a series of alternating solos between the tenor saxophonist and the pianist-—even to the point of "trading fours" in the fourth chorus? |
"Lester Leaps In" |
"A-tisket, A-tasket" was Ella Fitzgerald’s big first hit after the Chick Webb Orchestra disbanded in 1942. |
False |
Count Basie’s band first came to prominence in which city? |
Kansas City |
Which of the following musicians fits this description? |
Ella Fitzgerald |
The Benny Goodman Sextet’s "I Found a New Baby" features one of the first electric guitar solos in jazz. Which of the following musicians plays the electric guitar in that recording? |
Charlie Christian |
Which of the following is considered one of the greatest jazz vocalists of all time? |
Billie Holliday |
Which of the following musicians fits this description? The most outstanding soloist in Count Basie’s band, he was a tenor saxophonist noted for a linear style of playing that conveyed progressive harmonic implications. He was nicknamed "Pres." |
Lester Young |
The first great electric guitarist in jazz was: |
Charlie Christian |
Which of the following musicians fits this description? He played acoustic guitar in count Basie’s orchestra. His approach added a buoyancy to the Basie rhythm section that no other big band had. |
Freddie Green |
Which of the following musicians fits this description? One of the first vibraphonists, he established own orchestra after a sideman stint with Benny Goodman. |
Lionel Hampton |
Which of the following musicians fits this description? Pianist and band leader, he developed a more relaxed, swinging style of jazz. |
Count Basie |
Which of the following denotes a short, catchy melodic gesture? |
Riff |
Which of the following musicians fits this description? He was one of the earliest drummers to play the ride rhythm on the hi-hat as it was opening and closing, producing a smoother, more sustained rhythm. |
Jo Jones |
Which of the following musicians fits this description? The leader of one of the few white bands regarded as "hot" by black jazz musicians, he popularized swing for the broader American population. In a racially segregated America, he crossed the color line by hiring African Americans to play in his combos. |
Benny Goodman |
Which of the following musicians fits this description? Nicknamed "Lady Day," she is considered by many the most expressive and deeply moving jazz vocalist of any era. |
Billie Holiday |