the term "stride" is often used in a general sense to describe all jazz piano prior to

the mid 1940's. Other early piano styles which influenced jazz include boogie-woogie,
rural blues and gospel. Ragtime is considered by some to be a prejazz music, while
others consider it to be the earliest jazz style. From the pianist's point of view it
seems more logical to view it as the earliest jazz piano style. there are at least two
good reasons to support this view. First, ragtime was the earliest piano style to
combine the march or "stride" left hand (bass notes on beats one and three, middle
register chords on beats two and four) with a heavily syncopated melodic line in the
right hand. This approach is almost identical to that of early jazz pianistes James P.
Johnson and Willie "The Lion" Smith, except that these pianists added blue notes to
the melodies and favored faster tempos than those dictated by conservative ragtime
tradition . Second, later jazz pianists continued to use classic ragtime compositions
as vehicles for improvisation and also used variations of ragtime formal schemes as
the basis for many of their compositions.
Ragtime became popular as a piano style toward the end of the nineteenth centry.
Many of the musical elements of ragtime came from minstrel shows, vaudeville and
other forms of black folk music. The formal schemes, often similar to that of the
military march, were more European in origin. There were also ragtime orchestras in
the early 1900's. The fact that ragtime worked so well as solo piano music, however,
undoubtedly gelped assure its popularization. Tens of thousands of American families
owned pianos by the turn of the century and a large percentage of the general public
played the piano for personal enjoyment and family or neighborhood entertainment.
Scott Joplin was the most prolific and influential of the ragtime pianist/composers
although James Scott, Tom Turpin, Louis Chauvin, Will Marion Cook and the legendary
" Jack the Bear" were also among the many important pianists of the late 1800's.
Improvisation, particulary in the form of ornamentation, was an important element of
the ragtime tradition. As the social climate become more emotionally. Charged during
the late teens and early 1920's the feeling of the music followed suit. The "official"
stride or "Harlem piano" style as embodied in the great pianists Eubie Blake, Lucky
Rroberts, James P.Johnson , Willie "the Lion" Smith and Thomas "Fats* Waller utilized
much faster tempos, and friendly bud heated competions known as "cutting
contests" were a basic part of the pianists everyday routine. Even in this hotter style,
however, the actual improvising was often limited to the simple ornamentation of the
original melodies and rhythms, often combined with changes of texture and octave
displacement.
One of the most daring and interesting improvisers of the early 1900's was
pianist/composer Ferdinand"Jelly Roll" Mordon. Morton not only recorded hundreds of
piano solos on piano rolls and early disc recordings, but also played piano in
hundreds of recordings of his compositions made by his studio band, which was
known as the "Red Hot Peppers." It is amazing to hear how much Morton's
impovisations differ on alternate takes of the same composition. Even his short
twelve or sixteen measure solos on the Red Hot Peppers recordings are usually
completely different on alternate takes. while those of his sidemen are often nearly
identical. Morton's