New Orleans: The Birthplace of Jazz [Part III] |
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The "Crescent City" -- so called because it was built along a bend in the river -- was also home to Choctaw and Natchez Indians. It would was or would be people from the Balkans: Dalmatians, Serbs,Montenegrins, Greeks, Albanians. Spanish-speaking Filipinos came and stayed, too, alongside Chinese and Malays. After 1850, large numbers of German and Irish and Silician immigrants would be added to the mix. By 1860, 40 percent of the people of New Orleans were foreign-born. New Orleans had been the center of the southern slave trade with two dozen slave auction houses and, several times a year, the spacious ballrooms of its two grandest hotels doubled as showrooms for human merchandise. These slaves, however, had no rights whatsoever and until the Emancipation Proclamation following the Civil War, their children and their children's children had no avenue to be anything but property to another unless they escaped to the North, the swamps of Florida or New Orleans. New Orleans Louisiana or NOLA was also home to the most prosperous community of free people of color in the South. Many were the descendants of French colonists and their African- and Native-American wives and mistresses. They called themselves "Creoles of Color" and spoke French or a distinctive patois that white Americans called "nigger French." A wealthy few sent their children to Paris to school. Creoles controlled cigar making and bricklaying, carpentry and shoemaking in the city. Many lived south of Canal Street in the original, most fashionable section, called "Downtown and dominated the music local thriving music industry.
The earliest blues singers -- wandering guitarists who played for pennies along the southern roads -- followed no strict musical form. But as first New Orleans musicians and then others around the country began to try to play the blues on their instruments and songwriters started to see commercial possibilities in them, an agreed-upon form was developed: stripped to the essentials, blues came to be built on just three chords most often arranged in 12-bar sequences that somehow allowed for an infinite number of variations and were capable of expressing an infinite number of emotions. The blues could be about anything -- a beautiful woman, a mean boss, the devil himself -- but they were always intensely personal, meant to make the listener feel better, not worse -- and each performer was expected to tell a story.
In the late 1800's New Orleans was two
cities; uptown, or American Section, West of Canal Street, and the
downtown, or French Section, East of Canal Street. Over the last decade of the 19th century, non reading musicians playing more improvised music drew larger audiences for dances and parades. For example, between 1895 and 1900 uptown cornet player Charles "Buddy" Bolden began incorporating improvised blues and increasing the tempo of familiar dance tunes. Bolden was credited by many early jazzmen as the first musician to have a distinctive new style. The increasing popularity of this more "ratty" music brought many trained and untrained musicians into the improvising bands. Also, repressive segregation laws passed in the 1890s (as a backlash to Reconstruction) increased discrimination toward anyone with African blood and eliminated the special status previously afforded Creoles of color. These changes ultimately united black and Creole of color musicians, thus strengthening early jazz by combing the uptown improvisational style with the more disciplined Creole approach.
The instrumentation and section playing of the brass bands increasingly influenced the dance bands, which changed in orientation from string to brass instruments. What ultimately became the standard front line of a New Orleans jazz band was cornet, clarinet, and trombone. These horns collectively improvising or "faking" ragtime yielded the characteristic polyphonic sound of New Orleans jazz. New Orleans jazz began to spread to other cities as the city's musicians joined riverboat bands and vaudeville, minstrel, and other show tours. Jelly Roll Morton, an innovative piano stylist and composer, began his odyssey outside of New Orleans as early as 1907. The Original Creole Orchestra, featuring Freddie Keppard, was an important early group that left New Orleans, moving to Los Angeles in 1912 and then touring the Orpheum Theater circuit, with gigs in Chicago and New York. In fact, Chicago and New York became the main markets for New Orleans jazz. Tom Brown's Band from Dixieland left New Orleans for Chicago in 1915, and Nick LaRocca and other members of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band headed there in 1916
In 1917 the Original Dixieland Jazz Band
cut the first commercial jazz recording while playing in New York City,
where they were enthusiastically received. The Victor release was an
unexpected hit. Suddenly, jazz New Orleans style was a national craze.
From 1919 Kid Ory's Original Creole
Jazz Band of musicians from New Orleans played in San Francisco and
Los Angeles where in 1922 they became the first black jazz band of New
Orleans origin to make recordings. Prohibition in the United States (from 1920 to 1933) banned the sale of alcoholic drinks, resulting in illicit speakeasies becoming lively venues of the "Jazz Age", an era when popular music included current dance songs, novelty songs, and show tunes. Jazz started to get a reputation as being immoral and many members of the older generations saw it as threatening the old values in culture and promoting the new decadent values of the Roaring 20s. Bix Beiderbecke formed The Wolverines in 1924. Also in 1924 Louis Armstrong joined the Fletcher Henderson dance band as featured soloist for a year, then formed his virtuosic Hot Five band, also popularising scat singing. Jelly Roll Morton recorded with the New Orleans Rhythm Kings in an early mixed-race collaboration, then in 1926 formed his Red Hot Peppers.
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Link Directory |
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New Orleans & Frommers Google Map by travel.nytimes.com http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Tamony Mission District historian http://psmortensen.com/ dedicated to music, and more specifically to the blues, which has a great place in my heart http://www.basinstreet.com Your Online Source for Historical Jazz
30 greatest jazz trumpet
players of all-time @ waer.org/30trumpets.html
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New Orleans gave birth to an indigenous music: jazz. Soon brass bands formed, gaining popular attraction that still holds today. The city's music was later significantly influenced by Acadiana, home of Cajun and Zydeco music, and Delta blues.
The history of the marching band in New Orleans is a rich one,
Much later in its musical development, New Orleans was home to a distinctive brand of rhythm and blues that contributed greatly to the growth of rock and roll. An example of New Orleans' sound in the 1960s is the #1 US hit "Chapel of Love" by the Dixie Cups, a song which knocked The Beatles out of the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100.
Marching Bands
French Quarter Festival, which
comes around again next month.
But the fetes begin this week on a bookish note, not entirely quiet, with the celebration of Southern literature and a former resident. The Tennessee Williams-New Orleans Literary Festival, a gathering of scholars, authors, performing artists and others, pays homage to the writer who called New Orleans "one of the last frontiers of Bohemia." |
six-mile-long Magazine Street, the city's most interesting shopping-and-dining avenue |
Top Ten Attractions |
head out into the wild. The Audubon Nature Institute offers a whole host of activities, from museums to parks, that are familyfriendly. Take the kids to the Audubon Zoo, Insectarium or Aquarium of the Americas, or just stroll through Audubon Park. |
A walking tour of the Garden District takes visitors through a neighborhood of antebellum mansions and distinguished homes. |
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BRASS BANDS & Second Lines:
The tradition of the brass
instruments used in jazz came primarily from Germany, Italy, and
Ireland, where brass marching parades had long been celebrating
feast days. The repertoire of brass bands has shown a determined flexibility, absorbing new currents of popular song, while holding the traditional sound solidly in place. Brass marching bands first became all the rage in the late 1880s with brass bands cropping up all across America. New Orleans music was also impacted by this popular musical forms that proliferated throughout the United States following the Civil War.
In the 1880s New Orleans brass bands, such as the Excelsior and Onward, typically consisted of formally trained musicians reading complex scores for concerts, parades, and dances. The roots of jazz were largely
nourished in the African-American community but became a broader
phenomenon that drew from many communities and ethnic groups in
New Orleans. "Papa" Jack Laine's Reliance Brass Bands, for
instance, were integrated before segregation pressures
increased. Laine's bands, which were active around 1890 to 1913,
became the most well known of the white ragtime bands. Laine was
a promoter of the first generation of white jazzmen.
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JAZZ
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There was also a growing national interest in syncopated musical styles influenced by African-American traditions, such as cakewalks and minstrel tunes. By the 1890s syncopated piano compositions called ragtime created a popular music sensation, and brass bands began supplementing the standard march repertoire with ragtime pieces. |
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The contemporary New Orleans Brass Band styles, such as the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, The Primate Fiasco, the Hot Tamale Brass Band and the Rebirth Brass Band have combined traditional New Orleans brass band jazz with such influences as contemporary jazz, funk, hip hop, and rap.
The "New Orleans Traditional" revival movement began with the rediscovery of Bunk Johnson in 1942 and was extended by the founding of Preservation Hall in the French Quarter during the 1960s. Bands playing in this style use string bass and banjo in the rhythm section playing 4-to-the-bar and feature popular tunes and Gospel hymns that were played in New Orleans since the early 20th century such as "Ice Cream," "You Tell Me Your Dream," "Just a Closer Walk With Thee" and some tunes from the New Orleans brass band literature.
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joined the ranks of others like Harry Connick Jr., Irvin Mayfield and Nicholas Payton.
History of the Blues http://www.history-of-rock.com/blues.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blues
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Bessie Smith, singer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessie_Smith
Robert Johnson, guitarist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Johnson_%28musician%29
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Jazz Funerals by the Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs |
Rejoice When You Die |
The tradition arises from African
spiritual practices, French and Spanish martial musical traditions, and
uniquely African-American cultural influences. The tradition was
widespread among New Orleanians across ethnic boundaries at the start of
the 20th century. As the common brass band music became wilder in the
years before World War I, some "white" New Orleanians considered the hot
music disrespectful, and such musical funerals became rare among the
city's caucasians. For much of the mid-20th century, the Catholic Church
officially frowned on secular music at funerals, so for generations the
tradition was largely confined to African American Protestant New
Orleanians. After the 1960s it gradually started being practiced across
ethnic and religious boundaries. Most commonly such musical funerals are
done for individuals who are musicians themselves, connected to the
music industry, or members of various social aid & pleasure clubs or
Carnival krewes who make a point of arranging for such funerals for
members. Before Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans African-American social aid and pleasure clubs numbered in the forties, and a different club “rolled” just about every Sunday except during the summer. While the parades were rarely advertised or well publicized, second line devotees would know the time and location of the route. Social aid and pleasure clubs are now struggling, but some are still parading. Those who love the tradition come out and bring a handkerchief to wipe away tears and to wave aloft. Club dues normally cost hundreds of dollars a year along with additional expenses for the sharp suits, shoes, and general finery that members wear.
the two main aspects of the traditional jazz funeral: the Somber journey to the gravesite and the exuberant return from it In a traditional jazz funeral,
the band meets at the church or funeral parlor where the dismissal
services are being conducted. After the service, the band leads the
procession slowly through the neighborhood. In a recent film, Jazz
Funeral: From the Inside, Milton Batiste, the lead trumpeter in DeJean's
Olympia Brass Band, observed that "as the procession heads through the
neighborhood, you might see a black wreath hanging on the door where the
deceased lived or worked." The mood is, generally somber, and the
musical selections are taken from Christian hymns, such as "Free as a
Bird" or "Just a Closer Walk With Thee," commonly sung in black
Protestant churches. While playing the hymn(s), the musicians indulge in
virtually no improvisation.
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"jazz
funerals".
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FUNK R&B
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Rhythm and blues (also
known as R&B, R'n'B or RnB) is the name given to a wide-ranging genre of popular
music first created by African Americans in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The
term was originally used by record companies to refer to recordings bought
predominantly by African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based
music with a heavy, insistent beat" was becoming more popular.
In the 1956 film Rock, Rock, Rock, Alan Freed, as himself, tells the audience that "Rock and roll is a river of music that has absorbed many streams: rhythm and blues, jazz, rag time, cowboy songs, country songs, folk songs. All have contributed to the big beat."
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Origins of the name rock and rollThe first coupling of the words "rock" and "roll" on record came in 1916, in a recording of a spiritual, "The Camp Meeting Jubilee", by an unnamed vocal "quartette" issued by Little Wonder Records. The lyrics include "We've been rocking and rolling in your arms / Rocking and rolling in your arms / In the arms of Moses". In 1922, blues singer Trixie Smith recorded "My Man Rocks Me (with One Steady Roll)", first featuring the two words in a secular context. Twelve years later, The Boswell Sisters had a hit with "Rock and Roll" (1934). However, for many years and probably centuries previously, the term "rocking and rolling" had been used as a nautical term to denote the side-to-side and forward-and-backward motion of ships on the ocean. This meaning was used metaphorically in such records as Buddy Jones' "Rockin' Rollin' Mama" (1939) - "Waves on the ocean, waves in the sea/ But that gal of mine rolls just right for me/ Rockin' rollin' mama, I love the way you rock and roll". Rocking was a term also used by gospel singers in the American South to mean something akin to spiritual rapture. A double, ironic, meaning came to popular awareness in 1947 in blues artist Roy Brown's song "Good Rocking Tonight" (also covered the next year by Wynonie Harris in an even wilder version), in which "rocking" was ostensibly about dancing but was in fact a thinly-veiled allusion to sex
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pianist Professor Longhair joined Allen Toussaint,
the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, or the Rebirth Brass Band led by trumpeter Kermit Ruffins.
Art Neville, the Neville Brothers.
The Original Meters, Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue and Dr. John.
New Orleans became a hotbed for funk music in the 1960s and 70s, and by the late 1980s it had developed its own localized variant of hip hop producing Lil Wayne, Master P, Birdman, Juvenile,
POP
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The first pop version of a Mardi Gras Indian song, which was played in a
mambo / R&B style. One of the biggest Mardi Gras hits is "Mardi Gras
Mambo" by the Hawketts. Art Neville could never have imagined that this
record he made as a teenager would still be played to death more than 50
years later--it's New Orleans doing mambo.
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Britney Spears. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circus_(Britney_Spears_album) Morning America that her concert tour would begin in New Orleans on March 3, 2009. .
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Cajun
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Creole music applies to two genres of music from south Louisiana: Creole folk and black Creole.. Along with Cajun music, black Creole music played a role in early development of la-la, zydeco, and swamp pop.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cajun_music
Drawing on elements of the earlier Traditional, Texas Swing, and Dancehall periods, the Cajun "Renaissance" also incorporates more modern elements of Folk, blues, jazz and swamp pop, and bluegrass styles. The fiddle players relax, involving a more legato feel to the solos. The quick fiddle action and double stops are missing, replaced by dominant blues chords and jazz slides.
Pioneers such as Beausoleil with Michael Doucet, Zachary Richard, Jambalaya Cajun Band, Bruce Daigrepont, and others broke new ground, while other musicians such as Eddie LeJeune, Robert Jardell, Les Frères Michot, and others brought energy to older, more traditional forms.
This style involves Cajun music with a heavy influence of rock, R&B, blues, soul, and zydeco, producing a less traditional, more contemporary sound. Although led by the accordion, you can find the electric guitar, Washboard, and keyboard present in this form. Since the 1980s, musicians such as Wayne Toups, Roddie Romero and the Hub City Allstars, Lee Benoit, Damon Troy, Hunter Hayes, Kevin Naquin, and Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys have popularized this modern form of Cajun music
In the mid-1950s, the popularity of Clifton Chenier brought zydeco to the fringes of the American mainstream. In the mid-1980s, Rockin' Sidney brought international attention to zydeco music with his hit tune "My Toot Toot." Clifton Chenier, Rockin' Sidney and Queen Ida, Recently, zydeco Achieved a separate category in the Grammy awards. The Grammy Award for Best Zydeco or Cajun Music Album category was created for 2007.[1]
Link Directory & other Sources |
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:New_Orleans_jazz_musicians
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Musicians_of_New_Orleans
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:People_from_New_Orleans,_Louisiana
http://www.redhotjazz.com/musicians.html http://www.redhotjazz.com/bands.html http://www.redhotjazz.com/films.html Best of New Orleans - Gambit Weekly Jean Lafitte National Historic Park and Preserve
http://profile.myspace.com-my creole
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---Ned Sublette, 2009 |
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New Orleans Music News |
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wwoz.org/programs/live+events WWOZ Live broadcasts take you to local festivals, clubs, churches and into the very streets of New Orleans. Check out the last 6 months in the archives as well. |
Mardi Gras Indians (Pelican Publishing Company, 1994), by Michael P. Smith |
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