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The following tape recorded program is a presentation of the National Association of educational broadcasters. This is the 12th in a series of programs on the roots of jazz in the United States. In this program we discuss the piano in jazz from ragtime to boogie. Who knows when the effects of Negro life were first felt in the entertainment world of the
United States. There is little doubt but what those first gropings were of an entertainment nature they were not. The negro did not call forth kindness no sympathy no understanding. He was looked upon as a barbarous tragicomic and childish figure. These are the words of music critic writing in a critique looks at jazz in 1946. In its first stage which might be dated from the time of the Stamp Act the negro was treated mainly as a barbarous comic and somewhat childish figure. The second stage began around 1787 when the abolitionist movement started to
question slavery moral status. Almost immediately the minstrel stage turned to the negro with a new attitude of pity and compassion. With the victory of Plattsburgh a third stage of development begins the negro ceases to exist as a figure of fun or compassion and begins to emerge as a patriotic character. The fourth stage minstrelsy a proper starting in 1799 with a gay negro boy may be considered as a summary of all preceding tendencies. It is characterized however by a further advance in social and political awareness which is reflected in the use of actual folk song music. Both African and European in origin. Possum up a gum tree in eight hundred twenty two Jim Crow in 1830 zip coon in 1834 and Old Dan Tucker in one thousand forty three represent four significant steps in the development which in 1862 led to Lucy McCann was white magazine letter and thus to the first recognition
of Afro-American music as an autonomous form of American folk music. But whereas the earliest appearance of the Negro on the American stage was but an appearance of burnt cork on a white performers face. The actual substance of minstrelsy as it developed into a mature art was contributed by the negro himself and not by his black face imitators ragtime music was a part of minstrelsy long before it was known by that name. In 1893 the song ragtime baby was published and at that time the wood caught on Turkey in the straw published in 1896 was called a ragtime fantasy but ragtime music is piano music. It was played by pianists. It was written by pianists ragtime did not begin in New Orleans. It preceded jazz and it developed most prolifically in and around St. Louis Missouri. It came from the club and saloon elements of the cities it spread. At first
much as folk music travels. It was copied and played in other places ragtime was first published in the late 1890s went to open wrote Harlem rag rag nightmare and St. Louis rag. And when his people Scott Joplin wrote original rags and two years later the most famous Maple Leaf right by the time Maple Leaf Rag was published Jelly Roll Morton was 14 years of age and he wrote and played rags with the best of them. Piano music was played all over the South the Midwest and the Southwest.
Itinerant musicians who played for their keep and for delicate men who had little or no musical training but who sat down at a piano and worked out a style figured out which finger would play which note men who became so conversant with the sound of each white and black key that playing them was like whistling or humming to anyone else. The piano is a percussion instrument. The strings are hit by mallets and the
more the music sounds like notes being hit the more pianistic is the music. The true nature of the piano was discovered by these I tenor and musicians because they had no formal musical training to misguide them. The subtle uses of the instrument were not obvious and they were not used. The second condition surrounding an early piano music in this country was the fact that the bars and clubs where the musicians played were noisy places and the piano man had to overcome this noise with his music. These clubs were called barrel houses because they dispensed their liquid refreshments from a barrel. And these piano players were called barrel house piano musicians. And here is one of them Frank Melrose. You will detect briefly just the beginnings of a boogie woogie style. These pianists moved to the cities Kansas City St. Louis
and Chicago. They were absorbed into the negro sections and most of them found other jobs. They still played the piano but mostly for pleasure in private house parties and in social clubs during the day time they worked as taxi drivers as custodians and all the other jobs to which the Negro was restricted. They were lost to the general public for many years. Out of touch with the developments of jazz piano and music in general City
negroes developed styles of their own hero the woods of William Russell in the book Jasmine. Jim Yancey developed a style so pianistic that it could not be imagined on any other instrument. And yet it shows not the slightest resemblance to the piano music of the 19th century Europeans in creating his style Yancey had apparently never listened to a conventional piano classics. He tried to get out of a piano. Just what was in it. And not to give an imitation of an orchestra a trumpet a voice or a hurdy gurdy and he succeeded most admirably. The piano is after all a percussion instrument and one capable of producing more than one rhythm at a time. Although it takes considerable ingenuity to accomplish this not an instrument for intoning legato melodies of long sustain sonorities the piano was well suited to Yancy style and this style some forty years in the making was called Boogie Woogie
the the. The origin of a book is elusive as the men who play it. And any
attempt to select one man as its inventor must be futile. One thing is certain boogie woogie grew out of the blues. The Folk Song of the American Negro. Almost all the performances are blues employing the typical 12 bar blues chorus with its simple basic harmonies. Boogie Woogie was probably an outgrowth of the barrel house blues which self-taught pianists all over the South played chiefly as an accompaniment for blues singing. But the Blues are played or song most often in slow or moderate time and in simple rhythms boogie woogie applies the same basic form to fast sometimes furious tempo. And it is a far more complex rhythmically than any ragtime or jazz piano style. Perhaps the defining characteristic of boogie woogie is that it is dance music fast rhythmic with pronounced swing. It may provide a thrilling accompaniment for blues singing but primarily it is a solo piano style on the foundation of the blues. It builds tense intricate counter rhythms with an
indomitable and exultant drive. Those are the words of Eugene Williams. Here is what Dave Dexter Jr. says about the first book The Pianist to record the music. Clarence Pine Top Smith was the first man to give boogie woogie a name prior to his coining a title. This was a nameless form of the blues. Perfect party piano ideally suited for dancing. Smith pioneered developed the richly rhythmic eight to a bar manner of playing and recorded some of the greatest examples in history. Pine Top made only eight sides in his long career as a showman and entertainer. And here is his now famous pine tops boogie woogie. Never.
Did. Get what I'm talking about. I went and got go. Get it. Not to me.
When are. You going to. You know what I make. Boogie Woogie P.A. came from everywhere and most of them have never gained notoriety. Chicago in the 20s was the breeding ground of most of them. But Pete Johnson came from Kansas City Pine Top from Alabama along with Davenport and others came from Detroit Memphis St. Louis and New York's Harlem. The Chicago group included Romeo Nelson speckled
red whose real name was Rufus Perelman made luxe Louis Albert Ammons Clarence loft and Willie's old Charlie spanned and Jimmy Yancey. There were many others but these other few who became known to various degrees. The important point to remember is that just like ragtime and the blues and jazz band music Boogie did not begin at a specific time and place nor was one man responsible W.C. Handy did not create the blues. Scott Joplin did not create ragtime Jelly Roll Morton may have discovered jazz in a personal sense but he did not create it all by himself. All of these forms of musical expression were gradual outgrowth of a folk nature Boogie was being played all through the nineteen hundreds up to the present. It underwent changes and development but it was there in rudimentary form 30 years before we first heard it on records.
This is Jelly Roll Morton and his fat man fat meat and greens. This is Pete Johnson and his boogie woogie.
This is Romeo Nelson and his head rag hop. Need Lux Lewis.
This is Davenport. Blind Willie Blake playing the guitar.
Like. Speckled red. Let's boogie woogie it's a form of piano playing that has been fully developed and the
only difference between one rendition and the next is the difference in the ideas possessed by the musician. In the words of Rex Harris speaking simply Booky Wook it consists of piano versions of the 12 bar blues where the left hand plays a percussive walking bass while the right explores variations of the 12 bar chords in a rhythmic manner. The whole effect being to create an exciting music full of cross rhythms. It is essentially a piano style and the many attempts to convert it into a big band style have resulted in a hybrid product filled with Swing riffs and boredom. This musical expression on keyboards of upright piano has reached its first flowering in the years from one hundred twenty seven to 1930. It went underground and emerged again in the late 1930s when enterprising jazz of files searched Chicago's South Side for the men who played boogie. They found them still playing mostly for their own pleasure. They played as they had always done
for house rent parties where the guests would put money in the kitty to help some family pay their rent. They played at social gatherings club meetings recreation halls and dives. Bogey has always been a lady evening and early morning music has always been the piano man playin the blues. The piano in jazz up to 1920 was almost entirely a solo instrument. From 1920 on. We find it playing in bands mostly as an adjunct to the rhythm section from about 1930
on the piano became a voice in the jazz band and that's where we'll pick up the tread the thread of Piano Jazz on a later program. This has been the 12th in a series on the roots of jazz in the United States. And the next program we discuss the beginnings of swaying. The roots of jazz is written and produced by Norman Cleary Nick Vogel is the sound technician Ray Gazey is the reader. And this is Norman Cleary speaking. This is the end E.B. Radio Network.
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Series
Roots of jazz
Episode
Piano: Ragtime to Boogie
Producing Organization
Iowa State University
WOI (Radio station : Ames, Iowa)
Contributing Organization
University of Maryland (College Park, Maryland)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/500-k06x1t80
If you have more information about this item than what is given here, or if you have concerns about this record, we want to know! Contact us, indicating the AAPB ID (cpb-aacip/500-k06x1t80).
Description
Episode Description
This program traces part of the evolution of piano playing in jazz.
Series Description
Music-documentary series in 26 parts, covering various aspects of jazz.
Broadcast Date
1956-09-16
Topics
Music
Subjects
Piano--Performance.
Media type
Sound
Duration
00:29:37
Credits
Director: Cleary, Norman
Engineer: Vogel, Dick
Host: Clark, Kenneth Bancroft, 1914-2005
Producing Organization: Iowa State University
Producing Organization: WOI (Radio station : Ames, Iowa)
Speaker: Geesy, Ray
Writer: Cleary, Norman
AAPB Contributor Holdings
University of Maryland
Identifier: 56-24-12 (National Association of Educational Broadcasters)
Format: 1/4 inch audio tape
Duration: 00:29:22
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Citations
Chicago: “Roots of jazz; Piano: Ragtime to Boogie,” 1956-09-16, University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed March 29, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-k06x1t80.
MLA: “Roots of jazz; Piano: Ragtime to Boogie.” 1956-09-16. University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. March 29, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-k06x1t80>.
APA: Roots of jazz; Piano: Ragtime to Boogie. Boston, MA: University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-k06x1t80