Unit 3: Tin Pan Alley, Sinatra, The Jazz Era, and Swing
Technology during the Jazz Age
1925 - Electric Microphone -Radio huge especially during depression -First radio broadcast 1906 - two musical selections and a poem - Massachusetts. By 1927, there were more than 1000 radio stations in US. Networks were broadcasts nationally - NBC, CBS, ABC, MBS. Disc Jockeys 1932's Make Believe Ballroom -First Film with Sound The Jazz Singer (1927) featuring blackface performer Al Jolson.
" Dippermouth Blues" (1923)
Baby Dodds - drums, Honore Dutrey on trombone, Bill Johnson on bass and banjo, Johnny Dodds on clarinet, Lil-Hardin on Piano, Louis Armstrong - 2nd Cornet -Oliver would give Armstrong first opportunity outside of New Orleans Oliver's playing style - expressive musical gestures, some verging on theatrical novelty effects and others deriving from African American vocal styles. Well know for his uses of mutes, plunger "wah-wah" effect compare Tiger Rag to Dippermouth.
Important Instrumentalists of Early Jazz.
Buddy Bolden, Frankie Trumbauer, Sidney Bechet, Joe Oliver, James "Bubber" Miley, "Tricky Sam" Nanton, Jelly Roll Morton, Kid Ory, Bix Beiderbecke, Baby Dodds
Big Business
By 1930's many of biggest Tin Pan Alley firms were bought out by Hollywood film companies. -Licensing and Copyright agencies (ASCAP) -1917 won Supreme court case forcing all business establishments to purchase license before they could play music performed by or owned by any ASCAP Member companies. By Mid 1930's $10 million in Licensing fees were paid annually. You could say period between two world wars established "big Business" of music industry. -Big companies controlled distribution and therefore had a huge impact on what music became popular and and what music would remain on the fringe.
Dance combined with Swing
Culture of swing era incorporates more elements of African American culture. Dances such as the Lindy Hop, developed first in nightclubs of Harlem such as Savoy, Cotton Club, and The Apollo. Much different than early swing dances, much smoother, more fluid movements. Included the 'breakaway' when dancers would split from their partners to show off. 'airsteps' that would involves much more acrobatic dancing. "Cotton Club" "Swing Time"(1936).
Jazz
Era
Original Dixieland Jazz Band
First Recording of "jazz " music was Original Dixieland Jazz band (ODJB) "Livery Stable Blues", March 1917. Biggest hit was 1918's "Tiger Rag" ODJB was led by cornet player, Nick LaRocca (1889-1961), all white band, claimed that white musicians in New Orleans had invented jazz.
George Gershwin (1898-1937)
Form of Tin Pan Alley Songs •Form 32 bar AABA •Different form other forms we have discussed •Examples? • •Strophic? •Strophic with refrain? Blues form? •Essentially it was a diminishing of the verse and a expansion of the refrain. •Verse was often reduced to a recitative introduction. •Result is song became a tighter, compact whole. •Formula was extremely important to Tin Pan Alley's Success.
American Culture (1935-1945)
Great Depression hits in 1930. "New Deal Politics" Hollywood movies and Radio still dominate leisure time. Prohibition ends in 1933 > alcohol is bought at store, music heard on radio, hurts club owners. Dance orchestras being to dominate in large cities. Sound modelled more closely to Paul Whiteman's sound than New Orleans "Hot Jazz" Radio Show "Your Hit Parade begins in 1935."
What is Jazz?
Improvisation, Syncopation, Western Harmonies, rhythm, soloist, coming out of African American tradition. Grove online: The term conveys different though related meanings: 1) a musical tradition rooted in performing conventions that were introduced and developed early in the 20th century by African Americans; 2) a set of attitudes and assumptions brought to music-making, chief among them the notion of performance as a fluid creative process involving improvisation; and 3) a style characterized by syncopation, melodic and harmonic elements derived from the blues, cyclical formal structures and a supple rhythmic approach to phrasing known as swing.
The Swing Style!
Innovated by Fletcher Henderson's band of the early 1930's Larger bands (13 typically) 5 brass instruments - 2 trumpets, 3 trombones 4 reed Instruments (Saxophones and Clarinets) Rhythm section - piano, bass, guitar, drums Smoother, fuller, sound, simple structure than New Orleans collective improvisation Comes more from Whiteman & J.R. Europe's mold Call and response between sections of band (reeds vs. brass) Rhythmic feel moved toward a more continuous and flowing. Bass moves from 2 "feel" to walking feel Drums move to 4 on the floor with ride cymbal Guitarist playing 4 on floor also Forms are either based off 12 bar blues or 32-bar AABA form from Tin Pan Alley songs.
Hot or Dixieland Setup
Instrumentation of early "hot" or "Dixieland" style bands "Frontline" - 3 wind instruments, cornet, clarinet, & trombone "Rhythm Section" - percussion, guitar or banjo, and bass or Tuba. Cornet carries main melody, with some embellishments, Clarinet plays active countermelody in and around cornet part. Trombone plays either simple counter melody or plays the bass notes of the chord, often employing "tailgate" technique of sliding or smearing from one note to the next. Horns provide lots of rhythmic activity against fairly straight rhythmic patterns of rhythm section. Other characteristics: Shout Chorus Stop-time Novelty sounds
Duke Ellington 1899-1974
Middle class background and received formal musical training from an early age. Began performing jazz and leading bands around D.C. areas in teens, relocated to NY and expanded band to form band for engagement at the Kentucky club. Later Moved to the Cotton Club where they would make a name for themselves via live radio broadcasts. Although Ellington was well-versed in the arranging techniques of his contemporaries, He also liked to experiment with different sounds and instrument techniques. Always wrote for specific band members, including trumpeter James "Bubber" Miley "East St. Louis Toodle-oo" 1927
Top Bands (1935-1945)
Racial divide White bandleaders - Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Jimmy Dorsey 292 top ten records - 65 #1's African American Bandleaders Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Jimmie Lunceford, Chick Webb 32 top ten hits - 3 #1's Core audience was College age adults and teenagers. Avid fans - studied dances, formed fan clubs, bought fan magazines, travelled to see their favorite bands Precursor to Rock'n'Roll mania fanatics.
Swing Orchestras on the Air
Swing Era Network radio was the most important means of promoting popular music. Some venues would have a "wire" that would pipe the live performance onto the radio. Most famously, "Pennsylvania Hotel" in NYC In 1935, Radio program began playing top selling recordings on program. "Your Hit Parade"
What was Tin Pan Alley?
Tin Pan Alley is where American music came into its own as a business through urbanization, nationalization and standardization, and certain definitive brand of racialization. •Tin pan Alley was organized by Jews in New York who figured out how to make the city the cultural heart of the nation, how to use the sounds of blackness as the basis for their own creations, and how to standardize all of this in an incredibly efficient popular culture enterprise. • Originally located near Union Square in Downtown Manhattan. Later moved up to West 28 the St. and by the 1920's had moved again to the West 40's.
Tin Pan Alley
is the name given to the collection of New York City-centered music publishers and songwriters who dominated the popular music of the United States in the late 1800's and early 1900's.
Music Business
Unprecedented profits for the music business, big music publishing firms and later Record companies With Sound films, Los Angeles began to compete with NY for the center of US Entertainment industry -1919 "Mary" written by George Stoddard and performed by Joseph C. Smith's Orchestra, Victor Company, First song to be popularized in recorded form before it was released as sheet music. -1921 Paul Whiteman and His Ambassador Orchestra - "Whispering" sold more than 2 million copies. By the mid-1920's total national sales of phonographs surpassed total sales of Sheet music.
Benny Goodman (1909- 1986) The King of Swing!
clarinetist of high caliber, improviser. Managed to retain authentic swing feel of music and appeal to large audience. First to have racially integrated bands Landmark performance at Palomar Ballroom L.A. in 1935 His band played Fletcher Henderson's arrangements Important band members: Fletcher Henderson, Teddy Wilson (piano), Charlie Christian (electric guitar), Vibrophonist Lionel Hampton, Cootie Williams (trumpet), Gene Krupa (drums).
How was the 1st generation Tin Pan Alley was different?
•1st generation Tin Pan Alley writers Charles K. Harris Paul Dresser, from outside of the city. • Songs of love and homesickness • Stories of people who came from the country and were corrupted by the lures of the city. • Dresser - On The Banks Of The Wabash, Far Away
Tin Pan Alley Composers in the 20 the Century
•2nd generation Tin Pan Alleys composers were mostly •Jews born and bred in New York and they took city life as a given not as a bad thing. Namely, George and Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Harold Arlen. •Evidence of this with sophisticated words usage. "embraceable You" (Judy garland), (Nat King Cole) Cole Porter's Let's Do it (Let's Fall in Love)" (Bing Crosby) (Surprise) described a well off, leisure minded attitude. •"Alexander's Ragtime Band" If you want to hear Swanee river as a ragtime, is essentially if you want to hear it in urban form.
Ain't Misbehaving vs. The Man I Love
•Armstrong "Ain't misbehaving" written by Fats Waller and Andy Razaf, Harry Brooks - African Americans. •Song was forthwright attempt to copy the opening phrase and part of the bridge of "the Man I love" (1924) by George and Ira Gershwin. •Listen for Armstrong's improvised line on trumpet. What do you hear? •Does Armstrong's nod to Gershwin validate Gershwin's music from an African American perspective.
Modernized versions of Minstrelsy?
•Interesting confounding of black American music through Jewish writers. •The musical work of Tin Pan Alley, resulted in a fascinating contradictions.. With it's reliance on black sounds, it situated African American Music at the heart of American Popular song even though the rewards went almost completely to white composers. Likewise the broad reach of Tin Pan Alley , utilizing the lowest street music and the higher forms of operetta and so on, upset some of the dominant ideas about hierarchy in American popular music. Yet still insisted that these white compositions were more significant than the black raw materials upon which they were built.
Why did this work?
•Love songs written in a more direct than had been employed previously in mainstream American song •Reactions "Blah, Blah, Blah" 1931, "Croon-Spoon" 1937
Organized business
•Process 1st: Consolidated its power as a music publishing business. Well thought out marketing and advertising, distribution. •When Hollywood arrived, they bought out all they could from Tin Pan Alley. •Made the shift to phonograph's especially Gershwin. •The Phonograph was organized as well, •Niche marketing: Race records, Hillbilly records, polkas to Polish Americans.