New Orleans

From around 1900 Jazz emerged in New Orleans. Urban city life was a mix of all sorts of music and all sorts of folk, thrown together, not even liking one another but having to deal or die ...  

A stream of rural Blues songs from the Plantations and the Church , together with the banjo from Minstrelsy and the piano music of popular Ragtime, fused within Black and Creole Dance and Parade Bands to produce jazz.

The 'black' dirty blues and African rhythm, the 'white' Creole instrumental virtuosity and European harmony blended into the rich diverse New Orleans musical sub cultures of the 'hot' bands.

Buddy Bolden (1877 - 1931) - at 17 in 1894 Buddy learned to play the cornet, he hoped to find work with the local dance bands.

A typical dance band of the time was the ‘sweet’ string dance and picnic bands of Robichaux. There was an established Creole tradition of conservatory trained professional dance band performance and brass bands were popular for outdoor gatherings and parades. There were also 'sophisticated' dance halls playing arrangements for waltzes, quadrilles, lancers, schottisches and later around 1900 a little ragtime. 
Lots of the dance halls were built by Creole Friendly Societies and some of the low dives and barrelhouses were built for the black immigrants from the plantation belt but for sure jazz started in dance halls as 'ratty' music.

Dance band had begun to mix string ensembles with brass and woodwind - 'tin bands' - Robichaux 1896 - 2 violins, 2 cornets, clarinet, slide trombone, string bass, trap drums.

1895 Bolden began to change things by introducing characteristic improvisation and syncopation - syncopation started in the street bands and Creole singing groups, spasm and skiffle bands. He took over guitarist Charlie Galloway's band with a violin, string bass, trap drums, guitar, clarinet, cornet and valve trombone and played the music they loved for dancing and parades - cornet lead line and guitar chord sequence for a few simple tunes
he fused the ‘sweet’ string dance bands of John Robichaux with the low down dirty blues for dancing.

He gathered all the elements - spirituals and shouts from the holy roller church, the blues from the street bands, and maybe (work songs, minstrel songs, folk ragtime and parade band music) and ad-lib something different which the punters loved.

Main characteristics -

paraphrasing the melody which keep going all the time and 'passed round' from player to player

raggin' the tune, inserting 2 or 3 notes replacing one, 'noodling', getting off the beat

blue notes and smears

The popular dances (Marches, Quadrilles, Waltzes, Schottisches, Gavottes, Overtures, Lancers, Mazurkas, Polkas, Onesteps, Twosteps ...) were played before midnight but after midnight it was the 'slow drag', the 'jump ups' and the low down gut bucket blues ... in the hot Funky Butt Dance Hall every Saturday night.

He slowed down the blues with a big noise lead, dirty, moaning and emphatic, plenty of space, with breaks to allow others to demonstrate their virtuosity, individual started having a competitive musical dialogue within the band but all within the framework of the song.

It was risky as the lines were embellished, the melody changed and 'ragged', the sidemen challenged with new lines spontaneously, if it worked they smiled and used it again, the 'big four beat' where the off beat 'kicked' into the down beat giving a lifting lilt to the dancers.

Johnny St Cyr, Pops Foster and Baby Dodds all left clear cut accounts of the early jazz two beat rhythm. Dodds told how the four beat rhythm appeared on the Streckfuss line boats around 1920 as a response to the needs of dancers, probably with the foxtrot that appeared after 1917. He said it came 'down the river with Davey Jones'. They called it Memphis time.

Jack Stewart has shown that the four beat style appeared with the ODJB (1917) in Chicago and quotes Virgil Thompson calling it the 'monotonous foxtrot rhythm'.

Experiments playing Bolden repertoire show the importance of the written rhythms of contemporary pop songs, especially the songs played for dances like the two step, (originally performed to 6/8 but in Bolden's time to ragtime 2/4 tunes). Unfortunately there's not much information about the slow drag. Joplin's own performances of the Real Slow Drag are ragtimey as you might expect. Ragtime publications were later 1896

The repertoire - Pops: 'Any Rags', 'Don't Go Way Nobody', 'Emancipation Day', 'Home Sweet Home', 'Ida', 'Idaho', 'If the Man in the Moon were a Coon', 'Lazy Moon', 'Mr Johnson', 'Shoo Skeeter Shoo', 'Under the Bamboo Tree', 'Wait Till the Sun Shines Nellie' - Jump Ups / Dance Songs: 'All the Whores Like the Way I Ride', 'Funky Butt', 'Get Out of Here', 'If You Don't Shake', 'Makin Runs', 'Bucket's Got a Hole in It', 'The Old Cow Died' - Blues: 'Careless Love', 'Get Your Big Fat leg Off Me', 'If You Don't Like my Potatoes', 'Pallet on the Floor','Salty Dog', '2/19 Blues' - Spirituals: 'Go Down Moses', 'Ride On King Jesus', 'Run Nigger Run' Ragtime: 'Bowery Buck', 'Frog Legs Rag', 'Maple Leaf Rag', 'Palm Leaf Rag', 'Panama Rag' Traditional Dances: 'La Praline' (quadrille), 'Moonwinks' (mazurka), 'Over the Waves' (waltz), 'Sweet Adeline' (schottische), 'High Society' (march) ... 

1900-1909 - The blues becomes a standard feature on honky tonks and dance halls. Horn players begin to experiment with their sounds by imitating the human voice with growls and mutes. At the end of the Spanish-American War there is an abundance of used military band instruments, especially in New Orleans. The New Orleans players play a mix of everything from blues, brass band music, and ragtime, to marches, pop songs, and dances. Soon these musicians start to add their own frills and improvised solos to the pop music. At the same time, many people are migrating north to cities such as Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Detroit. The music travels with them. Also during this time the phonograph is drastically improved. This allows the music to spread even easier as more and more people are buying phonographs and records. In 1908, Columbia produces the first two-sided disc.

1910-1919 - In 1910 the old Ragtime music is still popular, but sadly its popularity is on a decline. The dance craze starts. Dances like the Foxtrot become popular. In 1914 W. C. Handy writes "St. Louis Blues". This becomes a tremendous hit as the Blues is also going full tilt. Also between 1910 and 1920 is a Europeanisation of the Blues. Up till then the standard Blues form varied from 13 1/2 measures to 15 depending on the lyrics or the mood of the performer. Eventually the 12 bar form with based on the 1-4-5 chord progression becomes standard in order to make it easier to understand, notate, and play the Blues along with establishing a form and harmonies the players can work with. In 1916 Daniel Louis Armstrong begins playing the Blues for $1.25 in bars in Storyville. In 1918 he is hired by Kid Ory to replace Joe "King" Oliver on cornet.

Blacks and Creoles eking out a living playing together at all the social gatherings in New Orleans. They called it Ragtime but it was the start of Jazz - 

1901 Manuel Perez leads 'The Imperial Orchestra'

1902 Jelly Roll Morton started 'inventing' jazz on the piano, playing and writing it. It spread throughout Storyville. 

1907 Fate Marable starts on the riverboats.

1906 Freddy Keppard forms 'The Olympia Orchestra'

1909 Bill Johnson plays the string bass and takes the music to California.

1910 Oscar Celestin leads 'The Tuxedo Band'

1912 Kid Ory moves to New Orleans to play

1915 Freddie Keppard and his 'Original Creole Orchestra' refuse to record 

1915 Bill Johnson and his 'Original Creole Orchestra' takes jazz to New York

Papa Jack Laine and his ' Reliance Band' played with fire and energy for 40 years.

Joe Oliver playes at Pete Lala's place. 

Sidney Bechet.

The Louisiana 5. The Memphis 5. New Orleans Rhythm Kings. The Original New Orleans Jazz Band of Jimmy Durante.

Then in 1917 The Original Dixieland Jass Band and 'Livery Stable Blues' and 'Original Dixieland Onestep' and Jazz overtook ragtime as America's music. It was new nothing like classical music, nor sweet dance, nor Sousa's marches, nor piano ragtime. It began to spread round the world!

Dancing - 

Congo Square and dancing = quadrille, Scottise, slow drag waltz, polka, cakewalk, mazurka, lancer, bamboula, rumba, tango ex habanera = Latin rhythms, Jelly's 'Spanish tinge'.

Gatherings -

Funerals, weddings, christenings, picnics, lawn parties, dances, candy stews, clambakes, fish fries, beer drinks, corn shuckings, riverboat excursions, camp meetings, secret societies, hoedowns and meatouts, soirees.

Venues -

Congo Square (Louis Armstrong Park), Funky Butt Hall, Lincoln Park, Storyville (1897 Sidney Storey), Pete Lala’s Cabaret, Mahogany Hall, Lulu White's, Tom Anderson’s, Preservation Hall bars, honky tonks, barrel houses, gin mills, saloons, dance halls, bandwagons, gambling joints, crap houses, speakeasies, sporting houses, clip joints, bordellos, cabarets, whore houses, brothels ...

Vaudeville tradition = spasm bands, harmonicas, fiddles, cowbells, plungers with brass, drums, whistles, homemade … joke bands with novelty sounds.

Joe Oliver, ODJB, NORK 

The same principles applied to ALL the stylistic developments from New Orleans to date -

Uptown New Orleans Americans = George Lewis

Downtown New Orleans Creoles = King Oliver & gut bucket blues.

Orchestrated 'compositions' = Jelly Roll Morton

Hot dance bands ...

Some songs -

Buddy Bolden's toons - 'Make Me a Pallet on the Floor', 'If you don't Shake it you don't get No Cake', 'Moose March', 'Funky Butt', 'Oh Didn't he Ramble', 'Careless Love' ... 

Chris Kelly from the Magnolia sugar plantation and the Eclipse band - 'Careless Love'

Freddie Keppard - 'Salty Dog'

An ex quadrille called 'praline', also called 'Jack Carey' by the Carey band & 'Nigger No.2' by the ODJB!!! - Tiger Rag

An ex French toon with 'flavour' by Kid Ory popularised in 1926 - 'Muskrat Ramble'

Artie Mathews - 'Weary Blues' (shake it or break it)

Armand J. Piron and the Olympia Brass Band with Clarence Williams published it, but did the young Louis write it? Used for SOL / Gully Low Blues and East St. Louis Toodle-oo. 1st recording was by Bessie Smith in 1921 - -Sister Kate'

French patois of the Creoles - 'eh, la bas'

1912 (standard 12 bar) by Hart A. Wand - 'Dallas Blues'

New Orleans Bands recorded during the 1920's -

Dave Jones and Lee Collins's Astoria Hot Eight.

Sam Morgan's Jazz Band.

Armand J Piron's New Orleans Orchestra.

Oscar 'Papa' Celestine's Original Tuxedo Jazz Orchestra.

Fate Marable's Society Syncopators.

Louis Dumaine's Jazzola Eight.

 Jazz was born in New Orleans. But the 'The Jazz Age' matured in Chicago as the best musicians left for lucrative jobs in the 'Windy City' after Storyville closed in 1917.

Noo Orl'ins chronology -
1718 Founded - Jean Baptise Le Moyne
1718 Charter - John Law, Duc d'Orleans
1755 7 years war ended French influence
1762 Ceded to Spain, cathedral built, Treaty of Madrid gives American access to the port
1763 Acadians escaping the British from Nova Socia. Cajuns
1800 Napoleon forced Spain to give up sovereignty
1803 Louisiana purchase. 10,000 citizens 50% black
Much immigration, Creoles (ex French & Spanish) downtown. Yankees Uptown
1815 Battle of New Orleans. British threaten capture
1817 Dancing in Congo Square legalised
1861 Secession
1865 Civil war ends & white back lash. Creoles suffer. Congo Square activities banned & Lincoln Park prospers
1897 Sin 'confined' to 'Storyville', named after Alderman Joseph Story
1898 Spanish / American war ends & military bands disband & instruments for Africa
1900 - 1917 Storyville fusion  

 

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