New Orleans Jazz (also referred to as hot/Dixieland Jazz)

Use of ‘standards’ to base improvisations on

Rarely played from sheet music
Frontline of trumpet/cornet, clarinet, trombone, saxophone (Chicago style)
rhythm section of drums, piano, banjo
Banjo and tuba used, later replaced by guitar and string bass in Chicago style.
Use of flat 4 in a bar, later replaced by lighter 2 beat feel (Chicago style)
Modern drum kit developed when New Orleans musicians consolidated the drum kit (bass, snare, cymbals)
Small ensemble
Based on 12 bar blues
Collective improvisation
polyphonic sound
combined earlier brass band marches and French Quadrilles with ragtime/blues
During the late 1920s, the depression hit the US and many performers moved to Chicago to continue their career,
thus the ‘Chicago’ style jazz scene developed
Composers included Louis Armstrong (Cornet/trumpet), Bix Beiderbecke (cornet), Jelly Roll Morton (piano), Sidney
Bechet (sop sax, clarinet), Earl ‘Fatha’ Hines (piano)

Sidewalk Blues

Three frontline instruments- trumpet, trombone, clarinet

Polyphony created through the improvisation (collective improv)
Rhythm section- piano, banjo, tuba/string bass
Brisk tempo, 4/4
Swing quavers/shuffle (long-short quavers)
Opens with melody instruments playing unaccompanied 2 bar phrases with short, stop chords on downbeat
Use of syncopation
Blue notes in melody
Repetition of opening 2 bar phrase with altered final note
Sequences
Displaced chords on beats 2 and 4 or bar
Chord substitutions

Black and Tan Fantasy

Based on 12 bar blues, much use of I, IV and V

Moves from tonic major to tonic minor (Bb)
New key- new mood- new instrument (saxophone)
Chromatic harmonies and circle of 5ths bar 59
Chord substitutions egg Gb7 instead of Fsharp 7
Altered chords
Bass ostinato
Parallel 6ths
Head arrangement- largely diatonic
Diminished chords
Falling sequences
Piano solo is ragtime-esque with syncopated walking bass, big leaps (stride)
Instrumentation- frontline- clarinet, sax, trumpet, trombone, rhythm section- piano, drums, double bass, banjo
Mutes used-growls, glissandos, pitch bend/portamento- European
Cross-phrasing- quaver patterns go across the bar against the time signature- creates syncopation
Crotchet accents
Rhythmically free and complex solos compared to fairly simple head tune
Use of triplets
Bent/blue notes
Based on a mode
Narrow instrument range in head
Skillful techniques used in solos
Style is Blues/New Orleans JUNGLE STYLE- heavy growling brass, dark saxophone textures
Larger ensemble meaning some parts notated
Structure based around 12 bar blues
Use of Chopin’s funeral march at end- suggestion of Black and Tan (white) outcome?
Performed in Cotton Club Harlem, illegal club for black/white people to mix
Based on a spiritual with words of hope and freedom.

West End Blues

The song refers to a weekend at a resort in New Orleans.

Mainly follows 12 bar blues pattern
Improvised cadenza in Minor pentatonic shows off Armstrong’s impressive skills
Intro followed by five choruses with the solo instruments each having a turn (trumpet/trombone/clarinet/piano/all)
4/4- marching band style
Clarinet uses chalumeau register (very low)
Scat singing in call and response style (antiphonal)
Classical influences on piano playing
Use of bock-a-de-bock milk bottle-type sound
Stride piano solo (ragtime/saloon style influence)
Blue notes
Comping (playing chords rhythmically to provide an accompaniment)