Early Jazz resulted from the blending of several different musical cultures over a period of a few centuries. The music was first recognizable as jazz around the beginning of the twentieth century. Early jazz was closely related to ragtime, the blues, and march music of the beginning of the century. If you want to learn more about the history of early jazz see "1890-1922: Beginnings" in the Jazz History section. Early Jazz music usually involved six or seven instruments: the piano, the cornet-trumpet, the trombone, the clarinet, the drums, the string bass, and the tuba. Not all bands used a string bass and a tuba, but in the version of Sweet Georgia Brown that we have written there is a string bass and a tuba but there is no trombone. Also, the drum part is very simple as no one really knows what drummers played in early jazz pieces due to the inability of early recording equipment to record drums.
Early jazz piano styles more than likely evolved from
ragtime. Although ragtime was primarily a music based on prewritten music,
there was room for improvisation if the pianist was very skilled. A very powerful
style of early jazz piano was stride style. Stride piano uses percussive,
striding, left hand figures in which low bass notes alternate with mid-range
chords together with active right hand playing. One of the best known stride
pianists was Fats
Waller. In addition to stride style, early jazz piano also developed boogie-woogie.
Boogie woogie is characterized by the subdivision of each beat in the left-hand
figures so that there are actually eight pulses per measure. Another style
that was closely related to boogie woogie was honky tonk. Honky tonk often
indicates an early rock and roll style which was extremely simple and repetitious.
The piano part in our version of Sweet Georgia Brown is a good example of
stride piano.
In the early years of jazz, the cornet was much more
widely used than the trumpet. However, the trumpet and cornet are so similar
in their sound that most listeners can't tell them apart. The two also look
similar, with the only difference being that the cornet is usually a little
shorter looking. The most significant early jazz trumpeter was Louis
Armstrong. Armstrong was the first trumpeter to play with a "jazz
swing feeling." One of the bands Armstrong performed with was that of
Joe
"King" Oliver. Through melodic and rythmic innovations Amrstrong
influenced generations of musicians. The trumpet part in our version of Sweet
Georgia Brown differs from the later "swing style" that Armstrong
helped produce in that it doesn't swing persay, but does make use of syncopated
variations on the song's main melody.
The
clarinet was used more commonly than the saxaphone in early jazz. The clarinet
usually played countermelodies around the trumpet. In our version of Sweet
Georgia Brown this is certainly the case. Clarinet solos most often weren't
as dramatic as trumpet solos. Eventually clarinetists would escape from under
the shadow of trumpeters. Benny
Goodman is one very good example. The clarinet part was usually a third
or more above the trumpet part as is the case with our example. Clarinetists
also often played doubletime, and made use of triplet figures.
Early
jazz drummers are most often not heard on records because early recording
equipment couldn't record drums. Although no one really knows what early jazz
drummers sounded like we do know what they played. Early drum sets consisted
of a floor cymbal apparatus, a bass drum, and a snare drum with cymbal suspended
above the set. Most early drum parts, like our example were relatively simple
and mainly used the bass drum.
The
string bass and tuba parts along with the drums made up the Rythm section
in early jazz combos. They played on the first and third beat of every four
beats. This means that they played on only two beats per measure. This style
became known as "two-beat" rhythm. More complex bass and tuba parts
like the one's in our example use slightly more complex and melodic figures.
However, they still keep the basic "two-beat" rhythm.
