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Overview

African American music-including work songs, spirituals, the blues, and ragtime-are drenched in improvisation and syncopation, those ancient African pillars of music. Improvisation and syncopation therefore remain a constant presence in the creative genius of an oppressed people-an expression "born out of a million American negotiations"(Burns 2001). Jazz music, as we'll discover in this lesson, is next in this chain of connection.

Be ready to:

Outline the significance of Congo Square and Storyville to the African American community of New Orleans.

Trace the lineage of jazz, while connecting to earlier African American music genres.

Describe the unique demographics of New Orleans during the early to late nineteenth century.

List the socio-political events that contributed to the birth of jazz.

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References

Convergence of Ragtime and the Blues 1

Ferdinand "Jelly Roll" Morton

African American and Creole musicians in New Orleans created a new kind of music by mixing ragtime syncopations with the soulful feeling of the blues. Among these Creole musicians, Ferdinand "Jelly Roll" Morton (1890-1941), composer, pianist, and bandleader, is considered one of the first great jazz musicians. While few take seriously his claim-made in later years-that he "invented" jazz, he was undoubtedly among the first to draw together ragtime piano and blues elements in a new rhythmic manner that suggested swing eighth notes-the essence of the "stride style." "Jungle Blues"♫ by Morton is a good example of the swing eighth notes (and stride piano).

Developed by early jazz pianists, Morton was a notable contributor to this new way of playing. Growing up in a well-to-do Black Creole family, by his early teens, Morton was among the elite New Orleans pianists who played in the high-class bordellos of New Orleans that catered to White patrons. "The sporting houses needed professors," recalled Morton of his work at the piano.

Storyville, known as "The District" by the locals, was a sector of New Orleans near the French Quarter where prostitution was legal between 1897 and 1917. Morton's early performances in The District-which he tried unsuccessfully to hide from his family-set him on a career path as an itinerant musician, his travels eventually taking him to both coasts, as well as points in between.

Storyville, the Red-Light District of New Orleans

Red Hot Peppers

Jelly Roll Morton is considered the first great jazz composer and arranger. His compositions contributed significantly to the jazz repertoire, and his arrangements and recordings proved influential in the evolution of jazz into a soloist's art. Even amid the collective improvisation that still pervades his style, one begins to hear the emergence of the soloist improviser.

Listen, for example, to Morton's Red Hot Peppers perform his "Black Bottom Stomp"♫ , recorded in Chicago in 1926. Clarinet, trumpet, trombone, piano, and banjo each enjoy moments of our attention, emerging as distinct passages during the ensemble performance.

Piano rolls -a music storage medium used to operate a player piano or pianola-document the earliest examples of Morton's stride piano. The term, stride, is indicative of the piano rhythmically emulating a brisk walk or strut.

Pianola with Piano Roll

Louis Armstrong

Very few of the men whose names have become great in the early pioneering of jazz and of swing were trained in music at all. They were born musicians: they felt their music and played by ear and memory. That was the way it was with the great Dixieland Five.

Wynton Marsalis

Jazz music is the power of now. There is no script. It's conversation. The emotion is given to you by musicians as they make split-second decisions to fulfil what they feel the moment requires.