glossary

Style Sheets



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Armstrong Hot Five

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Jelly Roll Morton

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Armstrong & Teagarden

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Louis Armstrong

Early Jazz (Dixieland)

Time period: Cir. 1900-1928

Location: New Orleans

Instrumentation:
  1. Trumpet
  2. Clarinet
  3. Trombone
  4. Tuba
  5. Banjo
  6. Drums
  7. Piano
Roles of the instruments: Each instrument has an assigned role (carry-over from the brass band tradition)
  1. Trumpet - Melody
  2. Clarinet - Embellishes the melody
  3. Trombone - Chord roots with smears, slides, or slurs. Sometimes has the melody or afterbeats
  4. Tuba - Bass line
  5. Banjo - Provides harmony and rhythm
  6. Piano - Provides harmony and rhythm
  7. Drums - Time keeper and sets up the breaks. Military style drumming (drumset comes later)
Sources of tunes:
  1. Original tunes
  2. Ragtime
  3. Military music
  4. Religious music
  5. Overtures, operas, etc.
  6. Popular tunes of the day
  7. The blues
Style Characteristics and Performance Practices:
  1. Everybody plays all the time except for the solos, which come in the breaks (solos give the other players a chance to rest)
  2. Collective improvisation
  3. Mostly ensemble playing
  4. Pieces were played essentially the same way every time (finding out what works and then recreating that)
  5. Simple harmonies
  6. Improvisation is based on the melody
  7. Tunes usually learned by ear
  8. Used dramatic effects (mutes, slides, smears, trills, vibrato) that were influenced by the extant vocal tradition
Reasons for the Demise of the Style:
  1. Stylistically static
  2. Circus psychology
  3. Emergence of the solo artist (Louis Armstrong and others)
Important Figures of this Era:
  1. Louis Armstrong
  2. King Oliver
speakerspacer Jelly-Roll Blues - Jelly-Roll Morton
speakerspacer Livery Stable Blues - Original Dixieland Jazz Band
speakerspacer Working Man Blues - Louis Armstrong

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