Boogie-woogie is a genre of blues music that became popular during the late 1920s, developed in African-American communities since the 1870s. It was eventually extended from piano to piano duo and trio, guitar, big band , country and western music , and gospel . While standard blues traditionally expresses a variety of emotions, boogie-woogie is mainly dance music (although not usually played for the competitive dance known as boogie-woogie (dance) , a term of convenience in that sport). The genre had a significant influence on rhythm and blues and rock and roll .
127-560: Mary Lou Williams (born Mary Elfrieda Scruggs ; May 8, 1910 – May 28, 1981) was an American jazz pianist, arranger, and composer. She wrote hundreds of compositions and arrangements and recorded more than one hundred records (in 78, 45, and LP versions). Williams wrote and arranged for Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman , and she was friend, mentor, and teacher to Thelonious Monk , Charlie Parker , Miles Davis , Tadd Dameron , Bud Powell , and Dizzy Gillespie . She has been noted for her 1954 conversion to Catholicism , which led to
254-500: A blues song for his band. The result was "Roll 'Em", a boogie-woogie piece based on the blues, which followed her successful "Camel Hop", named for Goodman's radio show sponsor, Camel cigarettes . Goodman tried to put Williams under contract to write for him exclusively, but she refused, preferring to freelance instead. In 1942, Williams, who had divorced her husband, left the Twelve Clouds of Joy, returning again to Pittsburgh. She
381-491: A medley encompassing spirituals , ragtime , blues and swing . Other highlights include Williams's reworkings of " Tea for Two ", " Honeysuckle Rose ", and her two compositions "Little Joe from Chicago", and "What's Your Story Morning Glory". Other tracks include "Medley: The Lord Is Heavy", "Old Fashion Blues", " Over the Rainbow ", "Offertory Meditation", "Concerto Alone at Montreux", and " The Man I Love ". In 1980, she founded
508-621: A "special relationship to time defined as 'swing ' ". Jazz involves "a spontaneity and vitality of musical production in which improvisation plays a role" and contains a "sonority and manner of phrasing which mirror the individuality of the performing jazz musician". A broader definition that encompasses different eras of jazz has been proposed by Travis Jackson: "it is music that includes qualities such as swing, improvising, group interaction, developing an 'individual voice', and being open to different musical possibilities". Krin Gibbard argued that "jazz
635-548: A command of piano blues and boogie-woogie, which he had absorbed at first hand in the 1940s from Albert Ammons and Pete Johnson. The trickle of what was initially called hillbilly boogie, or Okie boogie (later to be renamed country boogie), became a flood beginning around late 1945. One notable country boogie song from this period was the Delmore Brothers' "Freight Train Boogie". More representative examples can be found in some of
762-467: A drum made by stretching skin over a flour-barrel. Lavish festivals with African-based dances to drums were organized on Sundays at Place Congo, or Congo Square, in New Orleans until 1843. There are historical accounts of other music and dance gatherings elsewhere in the southern United States. Robert Palmer said of percussive slave music: Usually such music was associated with annual festivals, when
889-485: A few stories, jumping off the train, getting into another logging camp, and playing again for eight hours, barrel house. In this way the music got around—all through Texas—and eventually, of course, out of Texas. Now when this new form of piano music came from Texas, it moved out towards Louisiana. It was brought by people like George W. Thomas , an early pianist who was already living in New Orleans by about 1910 and writing New Orleans Hop Scop Blues", which really has some of
1016-456: A form of folk music which arose in part from the work songs and field hollers of African-American slaves on plantations. These work songs were commonly structured around a repetitive call-and-response pattern, but early blues was also improvisational. Classical music performance is evaluated more by its fidelity to the musical score , with less attention given to interpretation, ornamentation, and accompaniment. The classical performer's goal
1143-566: A halfway house for the poor as well as musicians who were grappling with addiction; she also made money over a longer period of time for the halfway house by way of a thrift store in Harlem. Her hiatus may have been triggered by the death of her long-time friend and student Charlie Parker in 1955 who also struggled with addiction for the majority of his life. Father John Crowley and Father Anthony aided in persuading Williams to return to playing music. They told her that she could continue to serve God and
1270-410: A limited melodic range, sounding like a field holler, and the guitar accompaniment was slapped rather than strummed, like a small drum which responded in syncopated accents, functioning as another "voice". Handy and his band members were formally trained African-American musicians who had not grown up with the blues, yet he was able to adapt the blues to a larger band instrument format and arrange them in
1397-460: A multi- strain ragtime march with four parts that feature recurring themes and a bass line with copious seventh chords . Its structure was the basis for many other rags, and the syncopations in the right hand, especially in the transition between the first and second strain, were novel at the time. The last four measures of Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag" (1899) are shown below. African-based rhythmic patterns such as tresillo and its variants,
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#17328556840361524-541: A musical hiatus and a later transformation in the nature of her music. She continued to perform and work as a philanthropist , educator, and youth mentor until her death from bladder cancer in 1981. The second of eleven children, Williams was born in Atlanta , Georgia, and grew up in the East Liberty neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania . A musical prodigy , at the age of two she was able to pick out simple tunes and by
1651-602: A number of these left hand bass lines for Tennison in 1986. From the primitive to the complex, those identifications indicate that the most primitive form of the music was associated with Marshall, Texas—and that the left-hand bass lines grew more complex as the distance from Marshall increased. The most primitive of these left hand bass lines is the one that was called "the Marshall". It is a simple, four-beats-to-the-bar figure. The second-most primitive bass-line, called "the Jefferson",
1778-509: A pitch which he called a 'jazz ball' "because it wobbles and you simply can't do anything with it". The use of the word in a musical context was documented as early as 1915 in the Chicago Daily Tribune . Its first documented use in a musical context in New Orleans was in a November 14, 1916, Times-Picayune article about "jas bands". In an interview with National Public Radio , musician Eubie Blake offered his recollections of
1905-652: A popular music form. Handy wrote about his adopting of the blues: The primitive southern Negro, as he sang, was sure to bear down on the third and seventh tone of the scale, slurring between major and minor. Whether in the cotton field of the Delta or on the Levee up St. Louis way, it was always the same. Till then, however, I had never heard this slur used by a more sophisticated Negro, or by any white man. I tried to convey this effect ... by introducing flat thirds and sevenths (now called blue notes) into my song, although its prevailing key
2032-642: A professional musician at the age of 15, citing Lovie Austin as her greatest influence. She married jazz saxophonist John Overton Williams in November 1926. In 1922, at the age of 12, Williams went on the Orpheum Circuit of theaters. During the following year she played with Duke Ellington and his early small band, the Washingtonians. One morning at three o'clock, she was playing with McKinney's Cotton Pickers at Harlem's Rhythm Club. Louis Armstrong entered
2159-472: A song whose lyrics contain dance instructions to "boogie-woogie". The earliest documented inquiries into the geographical origin of boogie-woogie occurred in the late 1930s when oral histories from the oldest living Americans of both African and European descent revealed a broad consensus that boogie-woogie piano was first played in Texas in the early 1870s. Additional citations place the origins of boogie-woogie in
2286-571: A time when no more than two clubs in Manhattan offered jazz full-time. In addition to club work, she played at colleges, formed her own record label and publishing companies, founded the Pittsburgh Jazz Festival (with the bishop's help), and made television appearances. Bishop Wright let her teach at Seton High School on the city's North Side. It was there that she wrote her first Mass, called The Pittsburgh Mass . Williams eventually became
2413-541: A year she had left Baker and the group and returned to New York. Williams accepted a job at the Café Society Downtown, started a weekly radio show called Mary Lou Williams's Piano Workshop on WNEW and began mentoring and collaborating with younger bebop musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk . In 1945, she composed the bebop hit "In the Land of Oo-Bla-Dee" for Gillespie. "During this period Monk and
2540-454: Is a construct" which designates "a number of musics with enough in common to be understood as part of a coherent tradition". Duke Ellington , one of jazz's most famous figures, said, "It's all music." Although jazz is considered difficult to define, in part because it contains many subgenres, improvisation is one of its defining elements. The centrality of improvisation is attributed to the influence of earlier forms of music such as blues ,
2667-663: Is a fundamental rhythmic figure heard in many different slave musics of the Caribbean, as well as the Afro-Caribbean folk dances performed in New Orleans Congo Square and Gottschalk's compositions (for example "Souvenirs From Havana" (1859)). Tresillo (shown below) is the most basic and most prevalent duple-pulse rhythmic cell in sub-Saharan African music traditions and the music of the African Diaspora . Tresillo
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#17328556840362794-548: Is a reminder of "an oppressive and racist society and restrictions on their artistic visions". Amiri Baraka argues that there is a "white jazz" genre that expresses whiteness . White jazz musicians appeared in the Midwest and in other areas throughout the U.S. Papa Jack Laine , who ran the Reliance band in New Orleans in the 1910s, was called "the father of white jazz". The Original Dixieland Jazz Band , whose members were white, were
2921-631: Is also four-beats-to-the-bar, but goes down in pitch on the last note in each four-note cycle. It has been suggested that this downturn in pitch reveals a possible New Orleans influence. Jefferson, Texas , about 17 miles north of Marshall, was the westernmost port of a steamboat route that connected to New Orleans via Caddo Lake, the Red River, and the Mississippi River. The remaining bass lines rise in complexity with distance from Marshall, Texas as one would expect variations and innovations would occur as
3048-581: Is characterized by a regular left-hand bass figure , which is transposed following the chord changes. Boogie-woogie is not strictly a solo piano style; it can accompany singers and be featured in orchestras and small combos. It is sometimes called "eight to the bar ", as much of it is written in common time ( 4 ) time using eighth notes ( quavers ) (see time signature ). The chord progressions are typically based on I – IV – V – I (with many formal variations of it, such as I / i – IV / iv – v / I , as well as chords that lead into these ones). For
3175-486: Is heard prominently in New Orleans second line music and in other forms of popular music from that city from the turn of the 20th century to present. "By and large the simpler African rhythmic patterns survived in jazz ... because they could be adapted more readily to European rhythmic conceptions," jazz historian Gunther Schuller observed. "Some survived, others were discarded as the Europeanization progressed." In
3302-520: Is most probable that boogie-woogie spread from Northeast to Southeast Texas, rather than from Southeast to Northeast Texas, or by having developed diffusely with an even density over all of the Piney Woods of East Texas. It would not be surprising if there was as yet undiscovered evidence of the earliest boogie-woogie performances buried (metaphorically or literally) in Northeast Texas. On May 13, 2010,
3429-574: Is now considered to be an early rock and roll song. These three pianists, with Turner, took up residence in the Café Society night club in New York City where they were popular with the sophisticated set. They often played in combinations of two and even three pianos, creating a richly textured piano performance. After the Carnegie Hall concert, it was only natural for swing bands to incorporate
3556-437: Is to play the composition as it was written. In contrast, jazz is often characterized by the product of interaction and collaboration, placing less value on the contribution of the composer, if there is one, and more on the performer. The jazz performer interprets a tune in individual ways, never playing the same composition twice. Depending on the performer's mood, experience, and interaction with band members or audience members,
3683-620: The Atlantic slave trade had brought nearly 400,000 Africans to North America. The slaves came largely from West Africa and the greater Congo River basin and brought strong musical traditions with them. The African traditions primarily use a single-line melody and call-and-response pattern, and the rhythms have a counter-metric structure and reflect African speech patterns. An 1885 account says that they were making strange music (Creole) on an equally strange variety of 'instruments'—washboards, washtubs, jugs, boxes beaten with sticks or bones and
3810-612: The Dixieland jazz revival of the 1940s, Black musicians rejected it as being shallow nostalgia entertainment for white audiences. On the other hand, traditional jazz enthusiasts have dismissed bebop, free jazz, and jazz fusion as forms of debasement and betrayal. An alternative view is that jazz can absorb and transform diverse musical styles. By avoiding the creation of norms, jazz allows avant-garde styles to emerge. For some African Americans, jazz has drawn attention to African-American contributions to culture and history. For others, jazz
3937-700: The Monterey Jazz Festival in 1965, with a jazz festival group. Throughout the 1970s, Williams' career flourished. She released numerous albums, including as solo pianist and commentator on the recorded The History of Jazz . She returned to the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1971. She could also be seen playing nightly in Greenwich Village at The Cookery, a new club run by her former boss from the Café Society, Barney Josephson . That engagement too,
Mary Lou Williams - Misplaced Pages Continue
4064-513: The Piney Woods of northeast Texas. The first Negroes who played what is called boogie-woogie, or house-rent music, and attracted attention in city slums where other Negroes held jam sessions, were from Texas. And all the Old-time Texans, black or white, are agreed that boogie piano players were first heard in the lumber and turpentine camps, where nobody was at home at all. The style dates from
4191-515: The 'slow blues' of New Orleans and St. Louis . At these gatherings the ragtime and blues boys could easily tell from what section of the country a man came, even going so far as to name the town, by his interpretation of a piece." According to Tennison, when he interviewed Lee Ree Sullivan in Texarkana in 1986, Sullivan told him that he was familiar with "Fast Western" and "Fast Texas" as terms to refer to boogie-woogie in general, but not to denote
4318-411: The 1920s Jazz Age , it has been recognized as a major form of musical expression in traditional and popular music . Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes , complex chords , call and response vocals , polyrhythms and improvisation . As jazz spread around the world, it drew on national, regional, and local musical cultures, which gave rise to different styles. New Orleans jazz began in
4445-552: The 1930s, but enjoyed a resurgence and its greatest acclaim in the 1940s, reaching audiences around the world. Among its most famous acts was the "Boogie Woogie Trio" of Pete Johnson , Albert Ammons , and Meade "Lux" Lewis . Other famous boogie woogie pianists of this peak era were Maurice Rocco and Freddie Slack . There were also many very notable women boogie woogie pianists during this time, including Hadda Brooks , Winifred Atwell , Martha Davis , and Hazel Scott , as well as in later years, such as Katie Webster . Boogie-woogie
4572-451: The 1950s, many women jazz instrumentalists were prominent, some sustaining long careers. Some of the most distinctive improvisers, composers, and bandleaders in jazz have been women. Trombonist Melba Liston is acknowledged as the first female horn player to work in major bands and to make a real impact on jazz, not only as a musician but also as a respected composer and arranger, particularly through her collaborations with Randy Weston from
4699-468: The 21st century, such as Latin and Afro-Cuban jazz . The origin of the word jazz has resulted in considerable research, and its history is well documented. It is believed to be related to jasm , a slang term dating back to 1860 meaning ' pep, energy ' . The earliest written record of the word is in a 1912 article in the Los Angeles Times in which a minor league baseball pitcher described
4826-531: The African-American origin of the music. In sheet music literature prior to 1900, there are at least three examples of the word "boogie" in music titles in the archives of the Library of Congress . In 1901, "Hoogie Boogie" appeared in the title of published sheet music, the first known instance where a redoubling of the word "Boogie" occurs in the title of published music. (In 1880, "The Boogie Man" had occurred as
4953-613: The Black middle-class. Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre, which originated in African-American communities of primarily the Deep South of the United States at the end of the 19th century from their spirituals , work songs , field hollers , shouts and chants and rhymed simple narrative ballads . The African use of pentatonic scales contributed to
5080-460: The Caribbean. African-based rhythmic patterns were retained in the United States in large part through "body rhythms" such as stomping, clapping, and patting juba dancing . In the opinion of jazz historian Ernest Borneman , what preceded New Orleans jazz before 1890 was "Afro-Latin music", similar to what was played in the Caribbean at the time. A three-stroke pattern known in Cuban music as tresillo
5207-438: The Carnegie Hall concert meant work for many of the fellow boogie players and also led to the adaptation of boogie-woogie sounds to many other forms of music. Tommy Dorsey 's band had a hit with "T.D.'s Boogie Woogie" as arranged by Sy Oliver , and soon there were boogie-woogie songs, recorded and printed, of many different stripes. These included most famously, in the big-band genre, the ubiquitous "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy", which
Mary Lou Williams - Misplaced Pages Continue
5334-487: The Catholic Church by utilizing her exceptional gift of creating music. Moreover, Gillespie convinced her to return to playing, which she did at the 1957 Newport Jazz Festival with Gillespie's band. Father Peter O'Brien, a Catholic priest , became her close friend and manager in the 1960s. Gillespie also introduced her to Pittsburgh's Bishop John Wright . O'Brien helped her establish new venues for jazz performance at
5461-462: The Fannin Street district of Shreveport, Louisiana . Some of the players he heard were Dave Alexander, who recorded for Decca in 1937 as " Black Ivory King ", and a piano player called Pine Top (not Pine Top Smith, who was not born until 1904, but possibly Pine Top Williams or Pine Top Hill). Lead Belly was among the first guitar-players to adapt the rolling bass of boogie-woogie piano. Texas, as
5588-697: The History of Jazz with Father O'Brien and directing the Duke Jazz Ensemble . With a light teaching schedule, she also made many concert and festival appearances, conducted clinics with youth, and in 1978 performed at the White House for President Jimmy Carter and his guests. She participated in Benny Goodman's 40th-anniversary Carnegie Hall concert in 1978. Williams' final recording, Solo Recital (Montreux Jazz Festival, 1978), three years before her death, had
5715-468: The Marshall City Commission enacted an official declaration naming Marshall as the "birthplace" of boogie-woogie music, and embarked on a program to encourage additional historical research and to stimulate interest in and appreciation for the early African-American culture in northeast Texas that played a vital role in creating boogie-woogie music. "Birthplace of Boogie Woogie" was registered by
5842-682: The Marshall Convention and Visitors on June 21, 2011. A song titled " Tin Roof Blues " was published in 1923 by the Clarence Williams Publishing Company. Compositional credit is given to Richard M. Jones . The Jones composition uses a boogie bass in the introduction with some variation throughout. In February 1923, Joseph Samuels ' Tampa Blue Jazz Band recorded the George W. Thomas number "The Fives" for Okeh Records , considered
5969-701: The Mary Lou Williams Foundation. In 1981, Mary Lou Williams died of bladder cancer in Durham , North Carolina at the age of 71. Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, and Andy Kirk attended her funeral at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola . She was buried in the Calvary Catholic Cemetery in Pittsburgh. Looking back at the end of her life, Mary Lou Williams said: "I did it, didn't I? Through muck and mud." She
6096-759: The Memphis band when her husband accepted an invitation to join Andy Kirk 's band in Oklahoma City. Williams joined her husband in Oklahoma City but did not play with the band. The group, Andy Kirk's Twelve Clouds of Joy, moved to Tulsa , Oklahoma, where Williams, when she wasn't working as a musician, was employed transporting bodies for an undertaker . When the Clouds of Joy accepted a longstanding engagement in Kansas City, Missouri , Williams joined her husband and began sitting in with
6223-658: The Starlight Roof at the famed Waldorf-Astoria Hotel . He entertained audiences with a light elegant musical style which remained popular with audiences for nearly three decades from the 1930s until the late 1950s. Jazz originated in the late-19th to early-20th century. It developed out of many forms of music, including blues , ragtime , European harmony , African rhythmic rituals, spirituals , hymns , marches , vaudeville song, and dance music . It also incorporated interpretations of American and European classical music, entwined with African and slave folk songs and
6350-467: The Texas and Pacific Railway Company. Although the neighboring states of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Missouri would also produce boogie-woogie players and their boogie-woogie tunes, and despite the fact that Chicago would become known as the center for this music through such pianists as Jimmy Yancey , Albert Ammons , and Meade "Lux" Lewis , Texas was home to an environment that fostered creation of boogie-style:
6477-584: The U.S. Female jazz performers and composers have contributed to jazz throughout its history. Although Betty Carter , Ella Fitzgerald , Adelaide Hall , Billie Holiday , Peggy Lee , Abbey Lincoln , Anita O'Day , Dinah Washington , and Ethel Waters were recognized for their vocal talent, less familiar were bandleaders, composers, and instrumentalists such as pianist Lil Hardin Armstrong , trumpeter Valaida Snow , and songwriters Irene Higginbotham and Dorothy Fields . Women began playing instruments in jazz in
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#17328556840366604-677: The account of Elliot Paul, and given that Lead Belly witnessed boogie-woogie in 1899 in the Arklatex; and given the North to South migration of the Thomas family; and given the Texas & Pacific headquarters in Marshall in the early 1870s; and given that Harrison County had the largest slave population in the state of Texas; and given the fact that the best-documented and largest-scale turpentine camps in Texas did not occur until after 1900 in Southeast Texas, it
6731-459: The age of three, she was taught piano by her mother. Mary Lou Williams played piano out of necessity at a very young age; her white neighbors were throwing bricks into her house until Williams began playing the piano in their homes. At the age of six, she supported her ten half-brothers and sisters by playing at parties. She began performing publicly at the age of seven when she became known admiringly in Pittsburgh as "The Little Piano Girl". She became
6858-461: The band, as well as serving as its arranger and composer. She provided Kirk with such songs as "Froggy Bottom", "Walkin' and Swingin ' ", "Little Joe from Chicago", "Roll 'Em", and "Mary's Idea". Williams was the arranger and pianist for recordings in Kansas City (1929) Chicago (1930), and New York City (1930). During a trip to Chicago, she recorded "Drag 'Em" and "Night Life" as piano solos. She used
6985-544: The basis for George Thomas's "Hop Scop Blues". Brothers George Thomas and Hersal Thomas migrated from Texas to Chicago and brought boogie-woogie with them, influencing a number of pianists, including Jimmy Yancey, Meade Lux Lewis, and Albert Ammons. Many elements now recognized as foundational elements of boogie-woogie are present in their 1922 song "The Fives". Early generation boogie-woogie players recognized basic boogie-woogie bass lines by geographical locations with which they associated them. Lee Ree Sullivan identified
7112-552: The blues are undocumented, though they can be seen as the secular counterpart of the spirituals. However, as Gerhard Kubik points out, whereas the spirituals are homophonic , rural blues and early jazz "was largely based on concepts of heterophony ". During the early 19th century an increasing number of black musicians learned to play European instruments, particularly the violin, which they used to parody European dance music in their own cakewalk dances. In turn, European American minstrel show performers in blackface popularized
7239-447: The boogie-woogie beat into some of their music. Tommy Dorsey 's band recorded an updated version of " Pine Top's Boogie Woogie " in 1938, which (as "Boogie Woogie") became a hit in 1943 and 1945, and was to become the swing era 's second best seller, only second to Glenn Miller 's " In the Mood ". In 1939, at the suggestion of Columbia Records producer John Hammond , Harry James recorded
7366-484: The characteristics of the music that we came to know as Boogie. Paul Oliver also wrote that George W. Thomas "composed the theme of the New Orleans Hop Scop Blues—in spite of its title—based on the blues he had heard played by the pianists of East Texas." On February 12, 2007, Oliver confirmed to John Tennison that it was Sippie Wallace who told Oliver that performances by East Texas pianists had formed
7493-576: The church. She opened a charitable organization and opened thrift stores in Harlem , directing the proceeds, along with ten percent of her own earnings, to musicians in need. As a 1964 Time article explained, "Mary Lou thinks of herself as a ' soul ' player — a way of saying that she never strays far from melody and the blues, but deals sparingly in gospel harmony and rhythm. 'I am praying through my fingers when I play,' she says. 'I get that good "soul sound", and I try to touch people's spirits.'" She performed at
7620-541: The development of blue notes in blues and jazz. As Kubik explains: Many of the rural blues of the Deep South are stylistically an extension and merger of basically two broad accompanied song-style traditions in the west central Sudanic belt: W. C. Handy became interested in folk blues of the Deep South while traveling through the Mississippi Delta. In this folk blues form, the singer would improvise freely within
7747-499: The early 1870s. Max Harrison (in the book Jazz edited by Hentoff and McCarthy in 1959) and Mack McCormick (in the liner notes to his Treasury of Field Recordings, Vol. 2) concluded that "Fast Western" was the first term by which boogie-woogie was known. He stated that "in Houston , Dallas , and Galveston —all Negro piano players played that way. This style was often referred to as a 'fast western' or 'fast blues' as differentiated from
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#17328556840367874-434: The early 1910s, combining earlier brass band marches, French quadrilles , biguine , ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation . However, jazz did not begin as a single musical tradition in New Orleans or elsewhere. In the 1930s, arranged dance-oriented swing big bands , Kansas City jazz (a hard-swinging, bluesy, improvisational style), and gypsy jazz (a style that emphasized musette waltzes) were
8001-506: The early 1920s, drawing particular recognition on piano. When male jazz musicians were drafted during World War II, many all-female bands replaced them. The International Sweethearts of Rhythm , which was founded in 1937, was a popular band that became the first all-female integrated band in the U.S. and the first to travel with the USO , touring Europe in 1945. Women were members of the big bands of Woody Herman and Gerald Wilson . Beginning in
8128-480: The education of freed African Americans. Although strict segregation limited employment opportunities for most blacks, many were able to find work in entertainment. Black musicians were able to provide entertainment in dances, minstrel shows , and in vaudeville , during which time many marching bands were formed. Black pianists played in bars, clubs, and brothels, as ragtime developed. Ragtime appeared as sheet music, popularized by African-American musicians such as
8255-513: The end of the 20th century. The Charlie Daniels Band (whose earlier tune "The South's Gonna Do It Again" uses boogie-woogie influences) released "Boogie Woogie Fiddle Country Blues" in 1988, and three years later in 1991 Brooks & Dunn had a huge hit with " Boot Scootin' Boogie ". In addition, some tradition-minded country artists, such as Asleep at the Wheel , Merle Haggard , and George Strait , incorporated boogie-woogie in their recordings. In
8382-556: The entertainer Ernest Hogan , whose hit songs appeared in 1895. Two years later, Vess Ossman recorded a medley of these songs as a banjo solo known as "Rag Time Medley". Also in 1897, the white composer William Krell published his " Mississippi Rag " as the first written piano instrumental ragtime piece, and Tom Turpin published his "Harlem Rag", the first rag published by an African-American. Classically trained pianist Scott Joplin produced his " Original Rags " in 1898 and, in 1899, had an international hit with " Maple Leaf Rag ",
8509-424: The first example of jazz band boogie-woogie. Jimmy Blythe 's recording of "Chicago Stomps" from April 1924 is sometimes called the first complete boogie-woogie piano solo record. The first boogie-woogie hit was "Pinetop's Boogie Woogie" by Pinetop Smith , recorded in 1928 and first released in 1929. Smith's record was the first boogie-woogie recording to be a commercial hit, and helped establish "boogie-woogie" as
8636-676: The first jazz composer commissioned by the church to compose liturgical music in the jazz idiom. Following her hiatus, Willams' first piece of music was a Mass she wrote and performed named Black Christ of the Andes , based around a hymn in honor of the Peruvian saint Martin de Porres , and two other short works, Anima Christi and Praise the Lord . It was first performed in November 1962 at St. Francis Xavier Church in Manhattan. She recorded it in October of
8763-459: The first jazz group to record, and Bix Beiderbecke was one of the most prominent jazz soloists of the 1920s. The Chicago Style was developed by white musicians such as Eddie Condon , Bud Freeman , Jimmy McPartland , and Dave Tough . Others from Chicago such as Benny Goodman and Gene Krupa became leading members of swing during the 1930s. Many bands included both Black and white musicians. These musicians helped change attitudes toward race in
8890-415: The first written music which was rhythmically based on an African motif (1803). From the perspective of African-American music, the "habanera rhythm" (also known as "congo"), "tango-congo", or tango . can be thought of as a combination of tresillo and the backbeat . The habanera was the first of many Cuban music genres which enjoyed periods of popularity in the United States and reinforced and inspired
9017-441: The geographical area in which boogie-woogie originated is understanding the relationship of boogie-woogie music with the steam railroad, both in the sense of how the music might have been influenced by sounds associated with the arrival of steam locomotives as well as the cultural impact the sudden emergence of the railroad might have had. The railroad did not arrive in northeast Texas as an extension of track from existing lines from
9144-532: The habanera rhythm and cinquillo , are heard in the ragtime compositions of Joplin and Turpin. Joplin's " Solace " (1909) is generally considered to be in the habanera genre: both of the pianist's hands play in a syncopated fashion, completely abandoning any sense of a march rhythm. Ned Sublette postulates that the tresillo/habanera rhythm "found its way into ragtime and the cakewalk," whilst Roberts suggests that "the habanera influence may have been part of what freed black music from ragtime's European bass". In
9271-424: The influences of West African culture. Its composition and style have changed many times throughout the years with each performer's personal interpretation and improvisation, which is also one of the greatest appeals of the genre. By the 18th century, slaves in the New Orleans area gathered socially at a special market, in an area which later became known as Congo Square , famous for its African dances. By 1866,
9398-455: The instruments of jazz: brass, drums, and reeds tuned in the European 12-tone scale. Small bands contained a combination of self-taught and formally educated musicians, many from the funeral procession tradition. These bands traveled in black communities in the deep south. Beginning in 1914, Louisiana Creole and African-American musicians played in vaudeville shows which carried jazz to cities in
9525-584: The kids would come to my apartment every morning around four or pick me up at the Café after I'd finished my last show, and we'd play and swap ideas until noon or later", Williams recalled in Melody Maker . In 1945, Williams composed the classically-influenced Zodiac Suite , in which each of the twelve parts corresponded to a sign of the zodiac , and were accordingly dedicated to several of her musical colleagues, including Billie Holiday , and Art Tatum . She recorded
9652-567: The late 1950s into the 1990s. Jewish Americans played a significant role in jazz. As jazz spread, it developed to encompass many different cultures, and the work of Jewish composers in Tin Pan Alley helped shape the many different sounds that jazz came to incorporate. Jewish Americans were able to thrive in Jazz because of the probationary whiteness that they were allotted at the time. George Bornstein wrote that African Americans were sympathetic to
9779-539: The late 1950s, using the mode , or musical scale, as the basis of musical structure and improvisation, as did free jazz , which explored playing without regular meter, beat and formal structures. Jazz-rock fusion appeared in the late 1960s and early 1970s, combining jazz improvisation with rock music 's rhythms, electric instruments, and highly amplified stage sound. In the early 1980s, a commercial form of jazz fusion called smooth jazz became successful, garnering significant radio airplay. Other styles and genres abound in
9906-467: The latter taking both his name and signature tune from Pinetop Smith. In Western classical music , the composer Conlon Nancarrow was also deeply influenced by boogie-woogie, as many of his early works for player piano demonstrate. "A Wonderful Time Up There" is a boogie-woogie gospel song. In 1943, Morton Gould composed "Boogie-Woogie Etude" for classical pianist José Iturbi , who premiered and recorded it that year. Povel Ramel 's first hit in 1944
10033-508: The lumber, cattle, turpentine, and oil industries, all served by an expanding railway system from the northern corner of East Texas to the Gulf Coast and from the Louisiana border to Dallas and West Texas. Alan Lomax wrote: Anonymous black musicians, longing to grab a train and ride away from their troubles, incorporated the rhythms of the steam locomotive and the moan of their whistles into
10160-404: The many styles of blues, especially Chicago blues and (more recently) West Coast blues , some pianists and guitarists were influenced by, and employed, the traditional boogie-woogie styles. Some of the earliest and most influential were Big Maceo Merriweather and Sunnyland Slim . Otis Spann and Pinetop Perkins , two of the best-known blues pianists, are heavily boogie-woogie influenced, with
10287-865: The many top players he employed, such as George Brunies , Sharkey Bonano , and future members of the Original Dixieland Jass Band . During the early 1900s, jazz was mostly performed in African-American and mulatto communities due to segregation laws. Storyville brought jazz to a wider audience through tourists who visited the port city of New Orleans. Many jazz musicians from African-American communities were hired to perform in bars and brothels. These included Buddy Bolden and Jelly Roll Morton in addition to those from other communities, such as Lorenzo Tio and Alcide Nunez . Louis Armstrong started his career in Storyville and found success in Chicago. Storyville
10414-413: The melody was stated briefly at the beginning and most of the piece was improvised. Modal jazz abandoned chord progressions to allow musicians to improvise even more. In many forms of jazz, a soloist is supported by a rhythm section of one or more chordal instruments (piano, guitar), double bass, and drums. The rhythm section plays chords and rhythms that outline the composition structure and complement
10541-403: The most part, boogie-woogie tunes are twelve-bar blues , although the style has been applied to popular songs such as " Swanee River " and hymns such as " Just a Closer Walk with Thee ". Typical boogie-woogie bassline: Several African terms have been suggested as having some interesting linguistic precursors to "boogie": Among them are the: The African origin of these terms is consistent with
10668-679: The music internationally, combining syncopation with European harmonic accompaniment. In the mid-1800s the white New Orleans composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk adapted slave rhythms and melodies from Cuba and other Caribbean islands into piano salon music. New Orleans was the main nexus between the Afro-Caribbean and African American cultures. The Black Codes outlawed drumming by slaves, which meant that African drumming traditions were not preserved in North America, unlike in Cuba, Haiti, and elsewhere in
10795-578: The music of New Orleans with the music of Cuba, Wynton Marsalis observes that tresillo is the New Orleans "clavé", a Spanish word meaning "code" or "key", as in the key to a puzzle, or mystery. Although the pattern is only half a clave , Marsalis makes the point that the single-celled figure is the guide-pattern of New Orleans music. Jelly Roll Morton called the rhythmic figure the Spanish tinge and considered it an essential ingredient of jazz. The abolition of slavery in 1865 led to new opportunities for
10922-462: The musical elements that would identify them as boogie-woogie. The 1919 recordings (two takes) of " Weary Blues " by the Louisiana Five contained the same boogie-woogie bass figure as appears in the 1915 "Weary Blues" sheet music by Artie Matthews . Tennison has recognized these 1919 recordings as the earliest sound recordings which contain a boogie-woogie bass figure. Blind Lemon Jefferson used
11049-502: The name "Mary Lou" at the suggestion of Jack Kapp at Brunswick Records . The records sold quickly, raising Williams to national prominence. Soon after the recording session she became Kirk's permanent second pianist, playing solo gigs and working as a freelance arranger for Earl Hines , Benny Goodman , and Tommy Dorsey . In 1937, she produced In the Groove (Brunswick), a collaboration with Dick Wilson , and Benny Goodman asked her to write
11176-919: The name of the style. It was closely followed by another example of pure boogie-woogie, " Honky Tonk Train Blues " by Meade Lux Lewis, recorded by Paramount Records (1927), first released in March 1930. The performance emulated a railroad trip, perhaps lending credence to the "train theory". Boogie-woogie gained further public attention in 1938, thanks to the From Spirituals to Swing concert in Carnegie Hall promoted by record producer John Hammond . The concert featured Big Joe Turner and Pete Johnson performing Turner's tribute to Johnson, " Roll 'Em Pete ", as well as Meade Lux Lewis performing "Honky Tonk Train Blues" and Albert Ammons playing "Swanee River Boogie". "Roll 'Em Pete"
11303-428: The new dance music they were playing in jukes and dance halls. Boogie-woogie forever changed piano playing, as ham-handed black piano players transformed the instrument into a polyrhythmic railroad train. In the 1986 television broadcast of Britain's The South Bank Show about boogie-woogie, music historian Paul Oliver noted: Now the conductors were used to the logging camp pianists clamoring aboard, telling them
11430-632: The next year. Throughout the 1960s, Williams' composing concentrated on sacred music, hymns, and Masses. One of the Masses, Music for Peace, was choreographed by Alvin Ailey and performed by the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater as Mary Lou's Mass in 1971 . About the work, Ailey commented, "If there can be a Bernstein Mass , a Mozart Mass , a Bach Mass , why can't there be Mary Lou's Mass ?" Williams performed
11557-671: The north or the east. Rather, the first railroad locomotives and iron rails were brought to northeast Texas via steamboats from New Orleans via the Mississippi and Red Rivers and Caddo Lake to Swanson's Landing, located on the Louisiana–Texas state line. Beginning with the formation of the Texas Western Railroad Company in Marshall, Texas, through the subsequent establishment in 1871 of the Texas and Pacific Railway company, which located its headquarters and shops there, Marshall
11684-460: The northeastern United States, a "hot" style of playing ragtime had developed, notably James Reese Europe 's symphonic Clef Club orchestra in New York City, which played a benefit concert at Carnegie Hall in 1912. The Baltimore rag style of Eubie Blake influenced James P. Johnson 's development of stride piano playing, in which the right hand plays the melody, while the left hand provides
11811-596: The northern and western parts of the U.S. Jazz became international in 1914, when the Creole Band with cornettist Freddie Keppard performed the first ever jazz concert outside the United States, at the Pantages Playhouse Theatre in Winnipeg , Canada. In New Orleans, a white bandleader named Papa Jack Laine integrated blacks and whites in his marching band. He was known as "the father of white jazz" because of
11938-470: The performer may change melodies, harmonies, and time signatures. In early Dixieland , a.k.a. New Orleans jazz, performers took turns playing melodies and improvising countermelodies . In the swing era of the 1920s–40s, big bands relied more on arrangements which were written or learned by ear and memorized. Soloists improvised within these arrangements. In the bebop era of the 1940s, big bands gave way to small groups and minimal arrangements in which
12065-495: The period 1820–1850. Some of the earliest [Mississippi] Delta settlers came from the vicinity of New Orleans, where drumming was never actively discouraged for very long and homemade drums were used to accompany public dancing until the outbreak of the Civil War. Another influence came from the harmonic style of hymns of the church, which black slaves had learned and incorporated into their own music as spirituals . The origins of
12192-454: The perspective of other musical traditions, such as European music history or African music. But critic Joachim-Ernst Berendt argues that its terms of reference and its definition should be broader, defining jazz as a "form of art music which originated in the United States through the confrontation of the Negro with European music" and arguing that it differs from European music in that jazz has
12319-570: The piano during a performance in Paris in 1954. She returned to the United States, converting to Catholicism in 1954 alongside Dizzy Gillespie 's wife Lorraine. In addition to spending several hours at Mass , her energies were then devoted mainly to the Bel Canto Foundation , an effort she initiated using her savings as well as help from friends to turn her apartment in Hamilton Heights into
12446-487: The plight of the Jewish American and vice versa. As disenfranchised minorities themselves, Jewish composers of popular music saw themselves as natural allies with African Americans. The Jazz Singer with Al Jolson is one example of how Jewish Americans were able to bring jazz, music that African Americans developed, into popular culture. Benny Goodman was a vital Jewish American to the progression of Jazz. Goodman
12573-459: The post-Civil War period (after 1865), African Americans were able to obtain surplus military bass drums, snare drums and fifes, and an original African-American drum and fife music emerged, featuring tresillo and related syncopated rhythmic figures. This was a drumming tradition that was distinct from its Caribbean counterparts, expressing a uniquely African-American sensibility. "The snare and bass drummers played syncopated cross-rhythms ," observed
12700-672: The pre-jazz era and contributed to the codification of jazz through the publication of some of the first jazz sheet music. The music of New Orleans , Louisiana had a profound effect on the creation of early jazz. In New Orleans, slaves could practice elements of their culture such as voodoo and playing drums. Many early jazz musicians played in the bars and brothels of the red-light district around Basin Street called Storyville . In addition to dance bands, there were marching bands which played at lavish funerals (later called jazz funerals ). The instruments used by marching bands and dance bands became
12827-537: The prominent styles. Bebop emerged in the 1940s, shifting jazz from danceable popular music toward a more challenging "musician's music" which was played at faster tempos and used more chord-based improvisation. Cool jazz developed near the end of the 1940s, introducing calmer, smoother sounds and long, linear melodic lines. The mid-1950s saw the emergence of hard bop , which introduced influences from rhythm and blues , gospel , and blues to small groups and particularly to saxophone and piano. Modal jazz developed in
12954-473: The revision of Mary Lou's Mass, her most acclaimed work, on The Dick Cavett Show in 1971. She also made a guest appearance on Sesame Street in 1975. Williams put much effort into working with youth choirs to perform her works, including "Mary Lou's Mass" at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City in April 1975 before a gathering of over three thousand. It marked the first time a jazz musician had played at
13081-410: The rhythm and bassline. In Ohio and elsewhere in the mid-west the major influence was ragtime, until about 1919. Around 1912, when the four-string banjo and saxophone came in, musicians began to improvise the melody line, but the harmony and rhythm remained unchanged. A contemporary account states that blues could only be heard in jazz in the gut-bucket cabarets, which were generally looked down upon by
13208-530: The room and paused to listen to her. Williams shyly told what happened: "Louis picked me up and kissed me." In 1927, Williams married saxophonist John Overton Williams . She met him at a performance in Cleveland where he was leading his group, the Syncopators, and moved with him to Memphis, Tennessee. He assembled a band in Memphis, which included Williams on piano. In 1929, 19-year-old Williams assumed leadership of
13335-546: The singles Boo-Woo and Woo-Woo with Pete Johnson and Albert Ammons . Also from 1939, the Will Bradley orchestra had a string of boogie hits such as the original versions of " Beat Me Daddy (Eight To The Bar) " and " Down the Road a Piece ", both 1940, and "Scrub Me Mamma with a Boogie Beat", in 1941. That same year, The Andrews Sisters had a top 10 hit single with their recording of "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy". The popularity of
13462-552: The slang connotations of the term, saying: "When Broadway picked it up, they called it 'J-A-Z-Z'. It wasn't called that. It was spelled 'J-A-S-S'. That was dirty, and if you knew what it was, you wouldn't say it in front of ladies." The American Dialect Society named it the Word of the 20th Century . Jazz is difficult to define because it encompasses a wide range of music spanning a period of over 100 years, from ragtime to rock -infused fusion . Attempts have been made to define jazz from
13589-444: The soloist. In avant-garde and free jazz , the separation of soloist and band is reduced, and there is license, or even a requirement, for the abandoning of chords, scales, and meters. Since the emergence of bebop, forms of jazz that are commercially oriented or influenced by popular music have been criticized. According to Bruce Johnson, there has always been a "tension between jazz as a commercial music and an art form". Regarding
13716-500: The songs of Western swing pioneer Bob Wills . The hillbilly boogie period lasted into the 1950s, the last recordings of this era were made by Tennessee Ernie Ford with Cliffie Stone and his orchestra with the guitar duo Jimmy Bryant and Speedy West . Bill Haley and the Saddlemen recorded "Sundown Boogie" in 1952, which once again featured the guitar playing the boogie-woogie rhythm. Boogie-woogie continued in country music through
13843-414: The state of origin, became reinforced by Jelly Roll Morton , who said he heard the boogie piano style there early in the 20th century, as did Leadbelly and Bunk Johnson , according to Rosetta Reitz . The first time the modern-day spelling of "boogie-woogie" was used in a title of a published audio recording of music appears to be Pine Top Smith's December 1928 recording titled "Pine Top's Boogie Woogie",
13970-538: The suite with Jack Parker and Al Lucas and performed it December 31, 1945, at The Town Hall in New York City with an orchestra and tenor saxophonist Ben Webster . In 1952, Williams accepted an offer to perform in England and ended up staying in Europe for two years. By this time, her musical career had left Williams mentally and physically drained. A three-year hiatus from performing began when she suddenly backed away from
14097-670: The term "Booga Rooga" to refer to a guitar bass figure that he used in "Match Box Blues". Jefferson may have heard the term from Huddie "Lead Belly" Ledbetter , who played frequently with Jefferson. Lead Belly, who was born in Mooringsport , La., and grew up in Harrison County, Texas , in the community of Leigh, said he first heard boogie-woogie piano in the Caddo Lake area of northeast Texas in 1899. He said it influenced his guitar-playing. Lead Belly also said he heard boogie-woogie piano in
14224-438: The territory in which the music has been introduced expands. In January 2010, John Tennison summarized his research into the origins of boogie-woogie with the conclusion that Marshall, Texas is "the municipality whose boundaries are most likely to encompass or be closest to the point on the map which is the geographic center of gravity for all instances of Boogie Woogie performance between 1870 and 1880". Tennison states: Given
14351-512: The title of published music.) The first use of "Boogie" in a recording title appears to be a "blue cylinder" recording made by Edison of the "American Quartet" performing "That Syncopated Boogie Boo" in 1913. The Oxford English Dictionary states that the word is a reduplication of boogie , which was used for " rent parties " as early as 1913. "Boogie" next occurs in the title of Wilbur Sweatman 's April 1917 recording of "Boogie Rag". None of these sheet music or audio recording examples contain
14478-500: The twice-daily ferry between both cities to perform, and the habanera quickly took root in the musically fertile Crescent City. John Storm Roberts states that the musical genre habanera "reached the U.S. twenty years before the first rag was published." For the more than quarter-century in which the cakewalk , ragtime , and proto-jazz were forming and developing, the habanera was a consistent part of African-American popular music. Habaneras were widely available as sheet music and were
14605-421: The use of any specific bass figure used in boogie-woogie. Sullivan said that "Fast Western" and "Fast Texas" were terms that derived from the Texas Western Railroad Company of Harrison County. The company was chartered on February 16, 1852, and changed its name to "Southern Pacific" in 1856. It built its first track from Marshall, Texas Swanson's Landing at Caddo Lake in 1857. (This Texas-based "Southern Pacific"
14732-566: The use of tresillo-based rhythms in African-American music. New Orleans native Louis Moreau Gottschalk 's piano piece "Ojos Criollos (Danse Cubaine)" (1860) was influenced by the composer's studies in Cuba: the habanera rhythm is clearly heard in the left hand. In Gottschalk's symphonic work "A Night in the Tropics" (1859), the tresillo variant cinquillo appears extensively. The figure was later used by Scott Joplin and other ragtime composers. Comparing
14859-498: The writer Robert Palmer, speculating that "this tradition must have dated back to the latter half of the nineteenth century, and it could have not have developed in the first place if there hadn't been a reservoir of polyrhythmic sophistication in the culture it nurtured." African-American music began incorporating Afro-Cuban rhythmic motifs in the 19th century when the habanera (Cuban contradanza ) gained international popularity. Musicians from Havana and New Orleans would take
14986-493: The year's crop was harvested and several days were set aside for celebration. As late as 1861, a traveler in North Carolina saw dancers dressed in costumes that included horned headdresses and cow tails and heard music provided by a sheepskin-covered "gumbo box", apparently a frame drum; triangles and jawbones furnished the auxiliary percussion. There are quite a few [accounts] from the southeastern states and Louisiana dating from
15113-596: Was joined there by bandmate Harold "Shorty" Baker , with whom she formed a six-piece ensemble that included Art Blakey on drums. After an engagement in Cleveland, Baker left to join Duke Ellington 's orchestra. Williams joined the band in New York City , then traveled to Baltimore, where she and Baker were married. She traveled with Ellington and arranged several tunes for him, including "Trumpet No End" (1946), her version of " Blue Skies " by Irving Berlin . She also sold Ellington on performing "Walkin' and Swingin'". Within
15240-588: Was known as "the first lady of the jazz keyboard". Williams was one of the first women to be successful in jazz. Her final work for wind symphony, History... , reconstructed and recomposed by Duke faculty member Anthony Kelley, was premiered in 2024. Jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans , Louisiana , in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues , ragtime , European harmony , African rhythmic rituals, spirituals , hymns , marches , vaudeville song, and dance music . Since
15367-433: Was major ... , and I carried this device into my melody as well. The publication of his " Memphis Blues " sheet music in 1912 introduced the 12-bar blues to the world (although Gunther Schuller argues that it is not really a blues, but "more like a cakewalk"). This composition, as well as his later " St. Louis Blues " and others, included the habanera rhythm, and would become jazz standards . Handy's music career began in
15494-467: Was not connected to the more well known Southern Pacific originating in San Francisco, California.) The Southern Pacific of Texas was bought by the newly formed Texas and Pacific Railway on March 21, 1872. Although the Texas Western Railroad Company changed its name to Southern Pacific, Sullivan said the name "Texas Western" stuck among the slaves who constructed the railroad. A key to identifying
15621-405: Was recorded. Williams had a two-piano performance with avant-garde pianist Cecil Taylor at Carnegie Hall on April 17, 1977. Despite onstage tensions between Williams and Taylor, their performance was released on an live album titled Embraced . Williams instructed school children on jazz. She then accepted an appointment at Duke University as artist-in-residence (from 1977 to 1981), teaching
15748-519: Was revamped by Christina Aguilera as her 2006 hit, " Candyman ". The boogie-woogie fad lasted from the late 1930s into the early 1950s, and made a major contribution to the development of jump blues and ultimately to rock and roll, epitomized by Fats Domino , Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis . Louis Jordan is a famous jump blues musician. Boogie-woogie is still to be heard in clubs and on records throughout Europe and North America. Big Joe Duskin displayed on his 1979 album, Cincinnati Stomp ,
15875-431: Was shut down by the U.S. government in 1917. Cornetist Buddy Bolden played in New Orleans from 1895 to 1906. No recordings by him exist. His band is credited with creating the big four: the first syncopated bass drum pattern to deviate from the standard on-the-beat march. As the example below shows, the second half of the big four pattern is the habanera rhythm. Boogie-woogie Boogie-woogie waned in popularity in
16002-474: Was the leader of a racially integrated band named King of Swing. His jazz concert in the Carnegie Hall in 1938 was the first ever to be played there. The concert was described by Bruce Eder as "the single most important jazz or popular music concert in history". Shep Fields also helped to popularize "Sweet" Jazz music through his appearances and Big band remote broadcasts from such landmark venues as Chicago's Palmer House , Broadway's Paramount Theater and
16129-424: Was the only railroad hub in the Piney Woods of northeast Texas at the time the music developed. The sudden appearance of steam locomotives and the building of mainline tracks and tap lines to serve logging operations was pivotal to the creation of the music in terms of its sound and rhythm. It was also crucial to the rapid migration of the musical style from the rural barrel house camps to the cities and towns served by
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