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JazzWorks ... Pass It On

Jazz Heritage: Dixieland

From Shirley Judkins, Originator of Jazz Works….Pass it On!

Dixieland: 1917 – 1920’s

Blues and Ragtime, rich local brass band traditions and many other influences, came together in late teens to early 1920’s in New Orleans to create a new type of music called Dixieland Jazz…also known as Traditional Jazz or New Orleans Jazz.  Jazz gained in popularity and spread north to Chicago, Kansas City, New York and across Midwest to California

Dixieland was most likely derived from the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, a New Orleans group who made the first publicly available recording of this style of  Jazz in 1917. This and other recordings made at Gennet Studios in Richmond, Indiana, gained international prominence.  

Common instruments in a Dixieland group included trumpet-cornet, clarinet, trombone, and maybe the saxophone.  The rhythm section may include banjo, piano, drums, string bass or tuba and usually performed without a vocalist.

      The music had a steady, often upbeat  tempo,  4/4 meter, and rhythms performed in an exaggerated triplet swing style.  The tuba or string bass plays on the 1st and 3rd beats of each measure, and the banjo or piano plays  chords on beats 2 and 4.  This is known as “two-beat” style and sounds similar to ragtime.  Other instruments of the ensemble play melodies and counter melodies simultaneously,  and sometimes trade “4’s” and “8’s”  while taking turns playing solos.

DIXIELAND MUSICIANS:  Louis Armstrong, trumpet, Jelly Roll Morton piano, Bix Beiderbecke,  Trumpet, Kid Ory, trombone, Sidney Bechet, Clarinet, King Oliver, bandleader and trumpeter

For Info:  Google Gennet Studios in Richmond, Indiana, and Starr Piano Co. , Louis Armstrong or Dixieland Jazz, Traditional Jazz or New Orleans Jazz

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