A BRIEF HISTORY OF JAZZ
Simply put, the music of the Tri-State Jazz Society is jazz played in the style of
its originators and their disciples. Collectively, it is most commonly referred to
as “Dixieland Jazz” or, simply, “Dixieland.” You may also hear it referred to as
“Traditional Jazz”, or “Trad Jazz” or even “Trad” for short. Another term for the
music is “OKOM”, an acronym for “Our Kind Of Music.” Yet another designation for
this music is “New Orleans-style” jazz.
Jazz, America's original art form, began in New Orleans in the late 19th century.
Like its most famous culinary invention, the music of New Orleans at this time was
a “gumbo” of musical disciplines: Field hollers and work songs from the cotton fields
of the Deep South, African-American Sanctified Church music from uptown New Orleans,
European classical forms familiar to the French-Creole population of downtown New
Orleans (known today as the French Quarter), piano rags from the Midwest, blues from
the Mississippi delta, American military marches and more. All these elements were
stirred into a musical pot and served up as what soon became known as jazz. By the
turn of the 20th century, jazz could be heard all over still-segregated New Orleans,
performed by both black and white bands. By way of New Orleans musicians, hired to
perform on paddlewheel riverboat cruises on the Mississippi River and its tributaries,
it spread to Memphis, Saint Louis, Kansas City, and Chicago.
By way of phonograph records, the popularity of jazz became nation-wide, then spread
to Europe. The first recordings of jazz came, in 1917 in New York City, from a New
Orleans band, “The Original Dixieland Jass Band”, whose popularity in their time,
both in New York City and in London, England, would have rivaled that of the Beatles
some 50 years later.
Jazz’s very first hero, however, was the legendary and un-recorded Buddy Bolden,
whose powerful style had a deep impression on a very young trumpeter named Louis
Armstrong. Later, Armstrong, after an apprenticeship in King Oliver’s Creole Jazz
Band, would go on to become jazz’s first virtuoso and, ultimately, America’s “Ambassador
to the World.” Other early influential jazz musicians include its first composer
of note, Jelly Roll Morton, the fiery soprano saxophonist Sidney Bechet (both Creoles
from New Orleans) and the lyrically creative Bix Beiderbecke, a white cornetist from
Davenport, Iowa.
As jazz continued to evolve, through the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s, and especially with
the advent of what we now call “modern” jazz around 1945, it became common to distinguish
the older forms of jazz described above with the term “Dixieland.” Since this time,
there have been many great jazz musicians who have dedicated their careers to preserving
the older style as a part of American history and culture.
In the 1940s and ’50s, such musicians included Eddie Condon, Bobby Hackett, Wild
Bill Davison, Lu Watters and Turk Murphy. And, down in New Orleans, the music thrived
where it continued to be performed by colorful characters with colorful names like
Sharkey Bonano, Wingy Manone and the world-famous Al Hirt and Pete Fountain.
Today, the music continues to be preserved in the performances of musicians like
Connie Jones and Tim Laughlin in New Orleans; Vince Giordano, Dan Levinson and Jon-Erik
Kellso in New York; young cornetist Andy Schumm in Chicago, Jim Cullum’s Jazz Band
in San Antonio and California’s High Sierra Jazz Band. Right here in our own Tri-State
area, this music can be heard being played by the bands of great musicians like Joe
and Paul Midiri, Tex Wyndham, Jerry Rife, Steve Barbone, Al Harrison, Ed Wise and
many others.
Across the United States, local jazz societies such as the Tri-State Jazz Society
have been formed, dedicated to the preservation of this “traditional” jazz by sponsoring
concerts, student workshops and other events. Jazz-themed cruises occur regularly
and jazz festivals draw thousands almost every week around the country and in Europe.
Traditional jazz is exciting, fun, danceable and eminently accessible to listeners
of all generations, young and old. Tri-State Jazz Society extends its invitation
to all to “Try it ... you'll LIKE it!”
– Ed Wise
