MUSC 309 History of Rock Lecture 4: Ragtime, Jazz, Blues, and Tin Pan Alley
I. Ragtime
A. In late 1880s, type of music starts to become popular in saloons, brothels, and other
non-savory locales
1. Played by African-American pianists
2. Named for the “ragged” sound of the melody line
B. Characteristics
1. Emphasis on cross- rhythms
a. Left hand establishes steady beat
i. “walking” bass
aa. rhythmic motion predominantly in one note value,
usually quarter or eighths = pulse
bb. Characteristically stepwise motion
cc. pitch repetition avoided
ii. “Stride” bass
aa. single tone or 8ve on beats 1 and 3,
bb. full chord on beats 2 and 4
b. Right hand lays highly syncopated & complex melody line over the
“ragged” line
2. Melody composed of 2 and 4 bar figures
3. Repeated and varied to build 16 bar strain, or section of the piece
C. Form
1. Generally 4 strains, but not absolute
2. Each repeated
D. Primarily written style - not generally improvised
E. Major performers
1. James P. Johnson
2. Eubie Blake
3. Scott Joplin (1868-1917)
a. Don’t know much about his early life
b. Emerges as a performer in and around St. Louis c. 1885
c. His Maple Leaf Rag was the 1st really famous published rag piece
i. Sold over a million copies shortly after publication in 1899
ii. Defined form for many
F. Maple Leaf Rag
1. AA BB A CC DD form
2. Predominantly stride accompaniment
G. Ragtime spreads from piano to instrumental ensembles
1. Rhythms particularly good for dancing
a. Spawns a number of dance crazes, like the monkey, turkey trot, and
other animal-imitation dances
b. And later, the fox trot
2. To accommodate dancers, most dance orchestras start to play in ragtime style
3. Fine line between instrumental ragtime and early jazz
4. Ex. Copenhagen - Fletcher Henderson
a. Banjo and tuba alternate between bass note and backbeat – two-beat
style beat
b. Such music establishes backbeat as important feature of any music that
aspires to popularity
c. Also riff-based
d. Extensive syncopation
II. “New Orleans style” jazz
A. Starts among black musicians playing for dances
B. Differences from ragtime
1. Blue notes
a. Typical inflections in sung blues
b. Lowering of certain pitches by quarter tone or half tone for
emotional effect
c. Particularly 3rd, 7th, or 5th degree of the scale
d. May be influenced by African music
2. Solid beat (not staccato & “raggy”)
3. Four beat style beat
C. Collective improvisation
1. All musicians improvising
a. Making up parts
b. Based on mutually agreed characteristics like form, key
2. Role of each musician in ensemble clearly defined - either:
a. Melody instrument
b. Rhythm section
i. piano (not if outdoors)
ii. banjo or guitar
iii. percussion
iv. tuba
D. Featured solos, with accompaniment from rest of ensemble
E. Ex. – Dippermouth Blues - King Oliver and his Creole Jazz Band
1. 12-bar blues form
2. Collective improvisation
3. Four beat style beat
4. King Oliver solo using wah-wah mute
5. Second cornet player - Louis Armstrong
F. Louis Armstrong (c.1900-1971)
1. Far and away finest and most inventive soloist in early jazz
2. Known for fluid rhythms
a. Realized that the rhythm section was hitting the accents
b. soloist didn’t really need to be doing it too
3. Most influential jazz trumpeter, but also great impact as a singer
a. Most credit with inventing “scat” singing - vocalizing on nonsense
syllables
b. Adds instrumental quality to jazz singing
i. Phrases those he’d play on trumpet
ii. Same rhythmic qualities too
II. Swing jazz
A. Gradually, groups playing jazz start enlarging their bands
1. Changing needs require larger ensembles
2. Large cities = need for show bands, dance orchestras
B. The music played by these new ensembles comes to be called “swing”
1. Based in ensemble virtuosity, rather than individual soloists
2. Largely riff-based
3. Frequently fast tempos
4. Swings
a. Four-beat style beat
b. Subdivided by “shuffle” rhythm, or uneven division of beat
c. Example: "In the Mood" - Glenn Miller Orchestra
i. Tap foot to establish tempo
ii. Clap even eighth notes
iii. Notice: Subdivisions are uneven
aa. First note of each pair a little longer
bb. Second shortened
5. Rhythm becomes steadier, more fluid
C. Important change in composition of rhythm sections
1. String bass replacing tuba
2. Guitar replacing banjo
D. One of most popular bands that of Count Basie (1904-1984)
1. Of big bands, most retained sound of New Orleans jazz
2. At his best, rollicking, driving beat than swings like nothing else
3. Ex. Jumpin’ at the Woodside
a. four-beat style beat
b. Syncopation
c. Complex texture – riffs over steady groove
d. Simple harmonies
II. The Blues
A. By late 19th century, African American folk styles had coalesced into a new kind of
music - the blues
B. Recordings and important element
1. Earliest mass distribution of blues
a. Songs by African American female pop singers
b. Who adopted the blues style
2. See video
B. The Classic Blues
a. Definition
i. More tame in subject matter than most blues performed in the south
ii. Composed sheet music
iii. Accompaniment by small jazz combo or jazz pianist
b. Example: Bessie Smith, Back Water Blues (1927)
i. Bessie, Empress of the Blues
ii. Most successful, and esteemed, of female blues singers
iii. Here, very “down home” blues
aa. Topical subject – 1927 flood of Mississippi river
bb. Tells story
iv. But – accompanied by jazz piano
v. 12 bar blues, stanzas in aab form
v. Brief instrumental introduction
vi. 1st stanza
aa. Short instrumental breaks at the end of every line
bb. Typical of blues:
cc. Like call and response with instrument
vii. Note also:
aa. Complex, “gritty” vocal tone
bb. Blue notes
cc. “conversational phrasing”
dd. narrow melodic range
C. Eventually, recording of blues expanded to include more “folksy” Southern blues
1. For lack of anything better to call it, termed “country” blues
a. Today thought of as “Delta blues”
b. As many early performers from region of the Mississippi delta
2. Quite different than “Classic” blues
3. Mainly solo performer accompanying self on guitar
a. Almost exclusively male
b. Subjects: hardships, women, sex, booze, studliness of performer
c. Purposes:
i. Panhandling
ii. Dancing!
d. Improvised, not composed
4. Guitar style
a. Slide guitar
i. Played with bottle or piece of cane
ii. Glissando created “notes between the notes”, or blues notes
b. Bent notes
c. Harsh tone compared to Classical guitar
d. Emerges largely from so-called Mississippi Delta in 1920s
5. Example: Come On In My Kitchen
a. 12-bar blues verse/chorus form
b. Singing –
i. Number of spoken phrases, vocalizations, dropped or slurred
words
ii. Done for effect
iii. Like too emotional to say the words
iv. Very conversational
c. Guitar playing very influential
i. Playing both melody and harmony
ii. Melodic playing mirrors vocal line
iii. Some slide guitar
aa. Metal tube or bottle neck worn on pinkie
bb. Creates glissandos, or sliding, between notes
iv. Robert Johnson model for most later rhythm and blues
guitarists, and number of English rock artists from 60s
(Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, Jimmy Page, Jimmy
Hendrix)
E. Eventually, “country” blues carried north by Blacks migrants
1. Like jazz, certain style changes
2. coalesces into several more urban-oriented styles
a. Chicago blues
b. Boogie-Woogie
c. R&B
d. Hokum blues
3. Hokum
a. Novelty blues
b. Bluesy delivery, but not as emotional as country blues or best of
Classic blues singers
c. Some of the jazz “bounce”
d. Singer with piano or guitar accompaniment (or both)
i. Sometimes larger group - drums, bass, harmonica as well
ii. Much more regular - almost all 12-bar blues or verse/refrain
songs
e. Lyrics silly or, more frequently, double entendres of varying degrees of
subtlety
f. Biggest seller, and one of least subtle, Tight Like That – Tampa Red and
Georgia Tom (Thomas A. Dorsey)
i. Verse and refrain, with weight on the refrain
ii. “Naughty good humor”
iii. Infectious little groove established through
aa. Stop time
bb. “Walking” guitar riffs
cc. Hear Rock around the Clock in there?
5. Boogie Woogie
a. Piano blues
b. Ragtime at the next level
c. Shuffle rhythm in left hand, which plays stride bass or walking bass
d. Riffs in right hand build up melody
e. Ex. Pine Top’s Boogie Woogie
6. Boogie Woogie at fast tempos = rock rhythms
a. Shuffle kind of melts into rock beat
b. Ex. Roll ‘Em Pete – Pete Johnson and Big Joe Turner
III. Tin Pan Alley
A. New York center of music publishing business, beginning in 1880s
1.Professional songwriters employed in "factories" (publishing firms) to turn out
songs
a. Concentrated on 28th street, near theatres
b. Song pluggers -- musicians who could sing and play new works for
prospective
customers--employed by each firm
c. Made such a racket that soon nicknamed Tin-Pan alley
2. At first, writing songs in same mold as Stephen Foster (Camptown Races, Old
Folks at Home)
a. But incorporate whatever styles rise to popularity
3. Through vaudeville, minstrel shows, medicine shows, Broadway
reviews, etc.
4. Hence, after ragtime becomes popular, lots of songs that incorporate
light syncopation and had word "rag" in title
5. Ditto after W. C. Handy's "St. Louis Blues" sells a million copies
B. In general
1. Gently flowing melodies
2. Texture: homophonic - melody + accompaniment
3. Clear sense of the beat, even when there is syncopation as well
4. Clear, uncomplicated forms
5. Influence of dance rhythms
6. Ex. Hot-Diggity