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[ Some Black Brass Bands ] Listings
[ Some White Brass Bands ] Listings
[ Barrelhouse Piano ] Listings
[ Some Lady Blues Singers (and some Male) ] Listings

[ Names of Some Black Bands ]
   =================
One should have a mental picture of these little bands, resplendent in their uniforms, marching in a parade down Canal Street. Or, maybe in the back of a horse drawn wagon with the tailgate down, the band playing, and advertising a dance, or other activity.
Due to the lack of technology, we have no recordings of any of these groups. In fact, only 6 black New Orleans' bands recorded in the '20's:
Jones and Collins Astoria Hot Eight
Oscar Celestin's Orig. Tuxedo Jazz Orchestra
Sam Morgan's Jazz Band
Armond Piron's New Orleans Orchestra
Fate Marable's Society Syncopaters
Louis Dumaines's Jazzola Eight.
[ Names of Some White Bands ]
   =================
As mentioned above, there were a great many "white" bands in New Orleans. Perhaps "Papa Jack" Laine's was the best known. Alumni from his band, including his son Albert, went on to form their own bands. The most famous alumnus was Nick La Rocca, whose "Original Dixieland Jazz Band" achieved world-wide fame, as well as introducing 'Jazz' to New York and London, England.

But, it should be remembered that there were a huge number of 'white' marching brass bands throughout the south and midwest, many of which marched by day, and played the cabarets and saloons at night.

This completes our overview of old New Orleans marching bands, for the 1890's to approximately the start of WW1. That war, like all wars, alters the fabric of a nation's life.

The 1920's - A Golden Age Of Jazz
======================
On Nov. 12, 1917 - Storyville closed down on War and Navy Department orders, America had entered WW1. A general, slow movement of musicians starts up-river to Chicago, and it's surrounds. Some others go west to Kansas City and to California, while many 'drift' up to St. Louis, and Detroit.

Chicago was a good home for several reasons:

        Easy to get to. It was straight up the river.
        There was a growing Negro population
            (Good paying stockyard and outlying steel mill jobs.)
        With Prohibition, Chicago became the homebase of bootleggers,
            and thus a center of a flourishing night life.

In the smaller clubs, (playing for black audiences) there were small 3 or 4 man groups playing (still with a kazoo or washboard) much the same kind of music they played back home in New Orleans. An easy going - sort of unwinding - style of true dixieland.

King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band had, after touring in California, came to Chicago, and it's first great success. Joe Oliver did much recording that was faithful to the N.O. Tradition of ensemble playing - that is, no solos. Slowly, in Chicago, the music started to change. In the larger clubs and vaudeville theatres, a smoother musical style developed, with larger bands and increasing use of arrangements

Today, all that remains of New Orleans Jazz is that which was played in Chicago. (N.O. had no recording companies. But Chicago, did.) So, basically, what we know of New Orleans Jazz is what we have heard from the Chicago bands. But there are recordings which do show the differences between the two styles.

Jazz was changing. In New Orleans, the music was played in ensemble style. But in Chicago a method of playing developed that emphasized the solos of the band members. This era was the start of such Solo virtuosi as Bix; Benny Goodman; The Dorseys; Eddie Condon; Bud Freeman; Satchmo; Earl "Fatha" Hines'; Jimmy Noone et al.

Barrelhouse, and boogie woogie piano styles.
============================
The name "Barrelhouse" refers to that type of low saloon where liquor was served straight out of a wooden barrel perched on top of the 'Bar'.

Barrelhouse Piano
============
"Barrelhouse" piano has a rather dim history. It was played before the advent of N.O. Jazz style. It's also called "Fast Western" to denote the fact that it came from the West side of the Mississippi river, from Kansas City and elsewhere. This fast style of piano playing may have originated in the crude saloons of the west and midwest, that catered to the workers in the early Tupentine and Mining camps It probably then traveled to the low saloons of the bigger western cities. It was a 'staple' of San Francisco's Barbary Coast.

Boogie Woogie
==========
It is probable that Boogie Woogie was derived from the earlier Barrelhouse stlye of piano playing. In more modern times, it is also related to the Kansas City style of piano playing called "The Kansas City Walking Base". This is a very slow "Boogie" (ostinato) left hand played to a "walking man's" beat. Curiously, many musicians felt that a 'fast' walking man's beat (Boogie) was analogous to a fast moving train.
Boogie Woogie was a national fad in the early 40's. But soon subsided. It was played at the Rent Parties of Chicago Blacks in the 20's and the early 30's depression years. The 'Eight beats to the bar' piano was well established in Chicago by 1920, but the name "boogie woogie" didn't come into wide use till the end of the 20's, when it was used in a recording title by the Black pianist, Pine Top Smith. In Chicago, boogie woogie was played in speakeasies and at rent parties by such Black pianists as Pine Top Smith; Cripple Clarence Lofton; Speckled Red, Cow Cow Davenport and Jimmy Yancey. Also the younger Meade Lux Lewis (Louisville, KY); who had recorded "Honky Tonk Train Blues" for Paramount in 1929; Albert Ammons (Chicagoan) who had his own band in Chicago in 1936 and in '34-'38 in NYC., and Pete Johnson (Kansas City)

THE BLUES TRADITIONS (12 Bar)
====================
The origins of "The Blues" is obscure, probably dating back to the end of the Civil War. The negros had been freed physically, but not financially. Ill equipped to enter the 'free' world, they could only moan or sing of their problems with love, money, and life, - and usually without any instruments. In time, a definitive pattern emerged. We now call that pattern, - the 12 bar blues. Here, the words are placed into three 3 line stanzas, four meassures to a stanza. The first stanza states the particular problem, the second stanza repeats the problem, and the final stanza carries the thought to a conclusion. (Musically speaking, the whole operation takes 12 bars.)

     example of a traditional 12 bar blues lyric:
          (Lyricist: Murray Pfeffer, you have my permission to use.) :)

        My man's gone
        and left me.
        I think I'm gonna cry.

        My Man's gone
        and left me.
        I think I'm gonna cry.

        If he don't
        come back soon,
        I think I'm gonna die.

This pattern became rigid and unchanging and is still in wide use today. (Please see our Melody Lane, link of the BigBands Database for an interesting note on 12 bar blues.)

Perhaps the first blues singers were poor blacks wandering the streets, singing in cheap saloons, using verses that they would make up on the spot. The best known example of this would be Blind Lemon Jefferson. We know of him through his Chicago recordings, but we know absolutely nothing of his life.

The next phase of the blues is provided by the black women who recorded in Chicago in the early 20's. These ladies were performers in Vaudeville, Minstrel, traveling tent shows, and such.

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