Between the World

Wars
THE JAZZ AGE, BLUES, AND SWING

MUS266
Setting the stage for discussion:

• Dates (WWI 1914-1918, WWII 1939-1945)

• Music in the United States

• Focus on the popular and commercial music of the interwar era

The Great Migration
• Between WWI (1918) and the Great Depression (1929), many African Americans
moved from the rural South to urban areas in the Northeast and Midwest

• Lured by higher paying jobs and an escape from the discriminatory laws of
southern states

• Helped to create vibrant jazz and blues traditions in cities such as New York,
Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, Indianapolis, and Kansas City
Innovations in recording technology

COMMERCIAL RECORDING RISE OF ENTERTAINMENT RADIO DIFFUSION OF MUSIC- NOW

BECOMES CHEAPER, HIGHER AVAILABLE TO EVERYONE
QUALITY, AND MORE ACCESSIBLE
The Jazz Age (1920s)

• Increasing opportunities for African American musicians

• Many artist were classically trained in their youth, but pursued a career in popular
music (Scott Joplin, Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis)
 • African American vocal genre
based on repetitive formulae
and distinctive style of
performance

The Blues • Origin is unclear, potentially

stemming from rural work
songs and other oral traditions

• Lyrics typically speak of

disappoints and troubles,
tinged with humor
Blues performance style

• Use of non-Western musical techniques (slides, rasping, growls)

• Blue notes- altered Western scale with flattened 3rds, 5ths, and 7ths

• Blues performance not about having the blues, but conquering the blues
Jazz/Blues conventions and definitions
• Chorus- 1 time through the musical form of a piece
• Changes- shorthand for chord changes, or the underlying harmonic language of a
tune
• How to understand jazz chord notation
• Rhythm Section
• Scat singing
• Contrafact- new melody composed over existing changes (harmonic framework)
 • Classic Blues and Delta Blues

Two distinct
• Classic blues is the urban form,
and was the first to be recorded

blues traditions
• Delta blues, also called country
blues, is regarded as the older
style
Delta Blues
• Comes from the delta
region of Mississippi

• Generally associated male

African American singers
and guitarists
Classic Blues
• Urban form

• Primarily performed by African

American women accompanied by
piano or small ensemble

• Artists such as Ma Rainey and Bessie

Smith

• Songs often deal with sexuality and

feminist themes
Blues form exercise- Back Water Blues
• 3 types of chords in a basic blues form

• Listen to a blues, and match the chord

• I – C in the key of C (hands down)

• IV- F in the key of C (raise 1 hand)
• V- G in the key of C (raise both hands)
Bessie Smith Back Water Blues
NAWM191
• 12 bar blues form
• Solo voice with piano accompaniment (James P. Johnson)
• Recorded in 1927 in New York City
• Lyrics associated with the Great Mississippi Flood of 1926-27
Simple Blues form
Blues exercise continued
• The blues form makes up a large part of the repertoire of later African American musical traditions such as
Rhythm and Blues (R&B) and bebop.

• I – C in the key of C (hands down)

• IV- F in the key of C (raise 1 hand)
• V- G in the key of C (raise both hands)
Blues for Alice-
bebop blues form
Jazz in the 1920s

• Jazz was already an established genre in the 1910s

• Leading jazz style at the end of WWI was New Orleans Jazz
• Style focused on group variation on a tune
 King Oliver and
Louis Armstrong
• Oliver moves to Chicago in
1918, invites Armstrong to join
him in 1922

• Armstrong later starts his own

band, and makes recordings
under the names "Hot 5" and
"Hot 7"
West End Blues
(NAWM192 a and b)

• Written by King Oliver, recorded by Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five (1928)

• Blues form with an elaborate introductory cadenza by Armstrong on trumpet

• Scat singing (by Armstrong) can be heard accompanying the clarinet

1920s Dance- The Charleston
Music written by James P. Johnson
Big Bands and Swing
• Big Band is a large jazz ensemble

• Pieces were written down and arranged

• Swing- a genre of jazz originating in the 1930s, meant for dancing

• Swing begins to break down the racial barriers with African American music
o Benny Goodman is credited as being one of the first "white" bands to bring in African
American musicians in 1934 by partnering with vibraphonist Lionel Hampton (Some African
American bands had been integrated years before this)
Swing repertoire
• Many major works of the jazz canon, known as jazz standards, are written and
start to become extremely popular during the rise of swing

• "I Got Rhythm" written by George Gershwin in 1930 for the musical Girl Crazy

• The changes (chords) become a popular framework for writing contrafacts

I Got
Rhythm
(NAWM190)

Written 1930
Cottontail
(NAWM193)

Written 1940
Conclusion
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