History of Jazz

History of Jazz - Ragtime, Spiritual, Jubilee, Gospel, Big Band, Swing, Boogie Woogie, Jazz

Established in 1995, the Hamilton College Jazz Archive holds a collection of videotaped interviews, currently numbering 300+ entries, with jazz musicians, arrangers, writers and critics. The collection generally focuses on artists associated with mainstream jazz and the swing era. Former members of bands led by Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Woody Herman, Benny Goodman, Stan Kenton and the Dorsey brothers are well represented. Significant soloists and arrangers from small ensembles dating from the 1930s have also been interviewed.

My Movie "Standing In The Shadows of Motown"

Funk Brothers Jazz This excellent film depicts Motown's back story, the tales of the talented jazz-bred musicians who created the intricate, rhythm-heavy Motown sound surrounding the voices of stars such as Diana Ross, Marvin Gaye, the Temptations, Stevie Wonder and many others.
The significance of these particular musicians was that they were a collection of virtuosos, very highly skilled, not just rock and R&B musicians, but these were highly skilled jazz musicians in addition. So they brought a lot more to the table. That's the reason Motown music sounds so effortless. It was almost technically beneath them because it was so easy to play.

The sound would barely register with Joe Messina, a middle-aged jazz fan, who had little time for the fripperies of pop, past or present. Yet, Joe had played on every one of the songs pumping out of the radio. 'They tell me I played on more Motown sessions than anyone else,' he says. 'I was there from the start to the finish, and I must have played on well over 100 songs, easy. I'd just go down there, do the session in a couple of hours. Same as the rest of the guys. Money jobs, we'd call 'em. They supplemented what I earned playing jazz in clubs like the Twenty Grand or The Chit-Chat.'

My cousin David Goldenberg collected the earliest jazz ever recorded!! Mr. Goldenberg began collecting as a 14-year-old after hearing early jazz and popular music on the radio in the Upper Darby home of his father, a cantor at a local synagogue. The boy collector spent a nickel for each record. He blithely ignored friends and family members who pointed out that he did not own a phonograph.

My research helped uncover the origin of the word JAZZ
with American Book Award Winner Professer Dan Cassidy with research on Scholar Peter Tamony.
Ellis makes the research available to you in PDF files showing The Etymology of Jazz and many other words that originally come from Irish American Vernacular English providing citations and references.
"Daniel Cassidy knows the sanas of the pizzazz of jazz. Which is to say, the secret etymology."

How the Irish Invented Slang.
Subtitle: The Secret Language of the Crossroads - unknown culture makers. Crossroads Irish-American Festival 2006 March 1 - 11, 2006, San Francisco
An entire country of Irish people / journalists / musicians, and athletes speaking Irish to each other have no problem with the etymology of jazz being Irish. Irish Language Speakers know how TEAS is pronounced and what it means. We will not tolerate word robbery that fosters obscurity and oblivion of the very words that keep the threads "knowing", a people's identity, and culture intact. The very words that cut back through the fog of time and our the culture's memory.

Cowboy Poetry Explained An essay by Hal Cannon, Founding Director of the Western Folklife Center - Watch the Video - An amazing amalgam of language, style and code which forever would identify Americans. It was a jazz of Irish storytelling and lore, Scottish seafaring and cattle tending, Moorish and Spanish Horsemanship, European Cavalry, African improvisation, and a reluctant observation of Native American survival that can be heard and seen in this way of life, even today.

Ruff, 71, a renowned jazz musician
who played with Duke Ellington and Dizzy Gillespie, is convinced the Florida congregation's method of praise - called 'presenting the line', in which the psalms are called out and the congregation sings a response - came from the Hebrides. Ruff explained: "They had always assumed that this form of worship had come from Africa, and why not?
"I said to him I had found evidence that it was Scottish people who brought this to the New World, but he just would not believe it. I asked him what his name was. He said McRae, and I just replied: 'There you go'."

April is Jazz Appreciation Month

Allan Lomax
Without him the world of music and jazz would be much impoverished. His library of Congress recordings of Jelly Roll Morton alone establish his importance and his writings and discoveries make up a large part of the treasury and tradition we can now cherish."

In bluegrass, as in some forms of jazz,
one or more instruments each takes its turn playing the melody and improvising around it, while the others perform accompaniment; this is especially typified in tunes called breakdowns. This is in contrast to old-time music, in which all instruments play the melody together or one instrument carries the lead throughout while the others provide accompaniment.

What does bebop sound like? How did Jazz Evolve?
Learn about Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, and others. See ideas for celebrating jazz appreciation month and for studying jazz in U.S. history or music class.

Late 1920's Lord Buckley enters show business with performances in medicine shows and tent shows.
Starts working speakeasies in Chicago as Dick Buckley. 1932-1938 Dick Buckley, and Red Skelton, are the leading MC's for Dance Marathons and Walkathons, popular Depression era entertainments. He continues his club work, becoming increasingly involved with the jazz scene.

Gypsy Jazz in the 20's with Django Reinhardt see Jazz Guitarist Doug Martin for videos.

Art Law: Copyrights do not protect ideas, procedures, processes, systems, methods of operation, concepts, principles, or discoveries.

Boogie-Woogie Piano
According to Clarence Williams, the style was started by Texas pianist George W. Thomas (born 1885, Houston, Texas - died, according to differing sources, in March, 1930, Chicago, Illinois or 1936 Washington, DC). Thomas was a United States blues and jazz pianist and songwriter and head of an important Texas blues clan. He made The Rocks in 1923 (as Clay Custer), a solo which contains the earliest recording of a walking bass. Thomas published one of the earliest pieces of sheet music with the boogie-woogie bassline, "New Orleans Hop Scop Blues" in 1916, although Williams recalled hearing him play the number before 1911.

Cold War music, our favorite radioactive hits THE ATOMIC PLATTERS
Cold War Music from the Golden Age of Homeland Security. The ultimate Atomic Platter, Slim Gaillard's unforgettable jazz vocal composition celebrates, with impeccable cool, the wonders of a radioactive cordial (“the drink you don't pour”).

From Crypto to Jazz
To the uninitiated, modern jazz can sound like a secret language, full of unpredictable melodies and unexpected rhythms. For alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa, however, the idea of jazz as code is more than just a metaphor.
Mahanthappa is best known for combining avant-garde jazz with Indian classical music. But for his latest release, Codebook [1], from Pi Recordings, the artist looked instead to cryptography and number theory for inspiration. (The album's title pays homage to The Code Book, a history of cryptography by the British science writer Simon Singh.)

Roots of Rap
The flyters were typically poets. Cf. with the old-time "cutting contests" of Jazz musicians and the recent lyricized rap rivalries.