Jazz and Tin Pan Alley

This week we listened to and read about Jazz and Tin Pan Alley Music.  Before both Jazz and Tin Pan Alley music gained popularity, traditional English Ballads were popular.  Traditional English Ballads followed a simple form of AABA.  Around the turn of the century, African Americans influenced the traditional ballads and from them, we got Jazz and Tin Pan Alley music.

Tin Pan Alley music such as "April Showers," recorded many times by Al Jolson, "My Blue Heaven" recorded by Gene Austin, "How Deep is the Ocean" recorded by Bing Crosby, and "I Got Rhythm" recorded by Ethel Merman follow the same patterns at the traditional ballads.  The two most commons forms of Tin Pan Alley songs both begin with a verse that usually sets the tone and hooks the audience.  The verse is followed then by the refrain.  The refrain follows one of the two patterns: the traditional AABA of the ballads that came before or ABAC.  "April Showers" and "How Deep is the Ocean" both utitlize the ABAC form.  "April Showers" repeats the refrain 3 times in a row and "How Deep is the Ocean" only repeats the refrain twice.

Tin Pan Alley composers created what we can "standards" that have stood the test of time and are still popular even today.  "I Got Rhythm" was first recorded by Ethel Meman in 1930 when she was only 21 years old and follows the AABA form.  It was recorded again in 1947 and it was just as popular during the second recording as it was during the first recording.  Most songs gained popularity for a small amount of time and were then forgotten.  "I Got Rhythm" has remained a "classic" or a "standard" since the first recording in 1930.

In addition to Tin Pan Alley music, Jazz music began to rise during the early 1900s.  Jazz music stemmed from African American music traditions.  Very few African Americans were allowed to "record" music.  In 1913, the first black group to sign a contract with the recording company was James Reese Europe's "Society Orchestra" and they recorded "Castle House Rag" in 1914.  Rag music led to jazz music and included "violins, cellos, banjos, brass and wind instruments, and percussion (snare drum, cymbals, and orchestral bells) (Starr and Waterman pg. 84).

However, the first "jazz" recording was actually recorded by Nick LaRocca's "Original Dixieland Jazz Band" (ODJB) and was an all-white group.  Their most popular piece, "Tiger Rag" was recorded in 1918 and was a very "watered down" version of traditional New Orleans Jazz.  In 1923, King Joe Oliver's "Creole Jazz Band" was the first all-black jazz band to record a piece of music.  They recorded "Dipper Mouth Blues" and the difference in style from their "jazz" music to the ODJB's "jazz" music is vast.  "Dipper Mouth Blues" utilizes much more syncopation and allows for improvisation throughout the piece whereas "Tiger Rag" was very rehearsed and had only some syncopation stuck in the piece.  Duke Ellington and Bubber Miley wrote a piece titled, "East St. Louis Toodle-oo" and it was recorded by Duke Ellington and his Washintonians in 1927, just four years after the first "all-black" jazz band recorded a piece of music.  Duke Ellington took jazz even further and experimented with the different sounds of the instruments in his band in order to gain new and exciting effects that would hook his audiences which shows that jazz music kept evolving over time.