Roots of Jazz and Blues with King Henry - Episode 1 - From Ragtime to Jazz

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Welcome, welcome, welcome to The Roots of Jazz and Blues with your host King Henry here on WAYO LP Rochester.

We are about to embark on a 50-year journey with jazz and blues from the earliest recordings through the 1950s.

We'll see how jazz and blues emerged from earlier kinds of music and how, over the decades, they changed and influenced each other.

Many of the records we will listen to were made over a hundred years ago, so if they sound kind of rough, just hope that you sound as good when you are their age.

Today we're starting with the origins of jazz. We'll see that jazz had several influences, but the main one was ragtime.

We will listen to the music of W.C. Handy and Wilbur Sweatman.

Now ragtime grew out of marching band music combined with polyrhythms from Africa that came over on the slave ships.

The most famous ragtime composer was Scott Joplin. In 1899, he wrote "The Maple Leaf Rag," a tune with which I expect you're familiar.

Let's listen now to a 1908 recording by Fred Van Epps of "The Maple Leaf Rag."

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That was Fred Van Epps playing "The Maple Leaf Rag," recorded in 1908.

So you may be wondering, why banjo music?

Well, the very earliest recording machines were not very good at recording loud sounds or low sounds or high sounds.

So the banjo was perfect, and hundreds of different banjo recordings were made in the earliest days.

We'll listen to another Fred Van Epps banjo piece, "Ragtime Picking."

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Okay, having set the context of "Ragtime," we're ready to dive into actual jazz.

The key figure for the creation of jazz, how jazz emerged from ragtime, was W.C. Handy.

Handy was born in Alabama to a highly religious family.

His grandfather was one of the first ordained ministers of the African Methodist Church, ordained before emancipation.

His father was also a minister, and the whole family was active in the church.

He grew up surrounded by gospel music.

The only hitch in his career initially was that the family feared that popular music could be a tool of the devil.

However, Handy didn't convince them to trust him, and they did.

They went on, he got music lessons, he learned at an early age to be a composer and a bandleader.

He became a teacher, even a professor at what is now Alabama A&M University, as well as an international star.

In 1902, Handy took a trip through the Mississippi Delta and listened to the popular music that was playing there.

So he heard early blues. Now this made a huge impact on him.

In particular, he was attracted to the kinds of chords they used and what are called blue chords and blue notes.

These are slightly flattened notes that when you use them in music, they add a lot of depth and soul.

So he transformed ragtime by introducing these blue notes.

He also reduced the emphasis on syncopation.

So the earliest recording of his music was by Prince's Band in 1914.

This is the Memphis Blues by Prince's Band, recorded by Columbia Records.

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That was the Memphis Blues, 1914 Prince's Band.

Harold Prince's Band was essentially the house band of Columbia Records.

He recorded music in every genre and there he was having a lot of fun with the very first jazz recording ever made.

Let's listen to another cover by Prince's Band. This time the song is "St. Louis Blues" from 1915.

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That was "St. Louis Blues" played by Prince's Band composed by W.C. Handy.

Another band that covered Handy was the original Dixieland Jazz Band, also called the original Dixieland Jazz Band, spelled with S's instead of Z's.

Well, here their version of the Livery Stable Blues.

And it's called the Livery Stable Blues because it uses a trombone to imitate the sound of horses winnings.

The original Dixieland Jazz Band had a smash hit. They really became famous with this song.

And if you look on Wikipedia, you'll often see the claim that this is the first jazz recording, even though it came three years after Prince's Band recording of the Memphis Blues.

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That was the original Dixieland Jazz Band with their version of Livery Stable Blues.

Now, I'm not a huge fan of this band. They were a group of white musicians, which is fine. They were very good technically.

But they went out of their way to claim that they invented jazz.

And they really gave no credit to W.C. Handy or the many black performers who came before them.

So let's go on and listen to Handy's orchestra's own version of the Livery Stable Blues.

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That was Handy's orchestra's own version of the Livery Stable Blues, also recorded in 1917, just a few months after the version by the original Dixieland Jazz Band.

I prefer Handy's version. I particularly like his playing of the trumpet.

And I thought it had a little bit more complexity, a little more depth.

Now, Handy wrote an autobiography, which he called "The Father of the Blues."

However, I think it should really have been called "The Father of Jazz."

He brought certain elements from the blues into jazz, but the music itself is very unlike what we think of as blues today.

Let's listen to two more songs by Handy's orchestra, both also from 1917, "A Bunch of Blues," followed by that jazz dance.

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By 1918, jazz was a certified world sensation, and many other bands started writing and recording their own jazz music.

Now, the next piece we're going to play, Earl Fuller's famous jazz band, Jazz Deluxe from 1918, is unusual for a couple of reasons.

First, it is on not an ordinary Victrola record, but on what is called an Edison Diamond Disc.

So Thomas Edison had his own version of records. They were incompatible with Victrolas, and they're quite unusual if you ever see one.

They're about a quarter inch thick, because the base of the record is a compost of plaster and sawdust, over which there's a thin layer of celluloid.

And Edison had the idea that, well, you would buy his proprietary record players, and you'll only buy his records.

And that went on for a few years, but of course in the end, that kind of exclusive, non-compatible way of doing things failed.

The other reason this is an unusual record is that it's jazz at all on an Edison Diamond Disc.

Edison really hated jazz. He preferred sentimental ballads, and so basically, for years, he blocked any jazz from being issued by his record label.

But eventually, economic forces forced him to go ahead and start issuing some jazz LPs.

So here we're going to hear Earl Fuller's famous jazz band playing Jazz Deluxe from 1918.

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That was Earl Fuller's famous jazz band, Jazz Deluxe.

Now I have to apologize for the fact that the sound was cutting in and out at several places.

This is due to the fact of this special recording medium.

In order to play back this record, which came from my own collection, I had to play it with a stereo cartridge and then run it through several stages of electronic processing in order to bring out the music.

We now turn to my own favorite early jazz composer and performer, Wilbur Sweatman.

Wilbur Sweatman was born in Alabama to, sorry, he was born in Missouri to a poor hard-working family.

His father left their family when he was young.

His mother ran a barber shop and took in boarders and everybody had to contribute to the family income.

He had no formal music lessons, but he learned piano from his sister and learned other instruments on his own.

And by the time he was a teenager, he was working in circus bands and contributing to the family fortune.

For a while, he was in W.C. Handy's band and his big break came in 1919 when he landed a contract with Columbia Records.

We'll now listen to two songs from this banner year of 1919, Wilbur Sweatman's Rainy Day Blues followed by Jada.

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So that was Wilbur Sweatman's Rainy Day Blues followed by Jada. That almost wraps it up here on the first episode of Roots of Jazz and Blues with King Henry.

Next week we're going to start exploring the Mississippi Delta to hear the origins of blues from spirituals and field chants and listen to some of the first recorded blues music.

Now you can read more about the show on our future episodes on wayofm.org. You can also stream past episodes as well as listening live at 104.3 FM or on the wayofm.org website.

So Wilbur Sweatman continued to have hit after hit in 1919. So we're going to end the show with two pieces from 1919. First is I Ain't Gonna Give Nobody None of This Jelly Roll.

Now I'm not sure what this means so if you do please go to our Facebook page Roots of Jazz and Blues with King Henry and post an explanation.

And then the second song is Kansas City Blues.

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