[Dixielandjazz] Greeks / New Orleans / Syncopated Music / Jazz Influence

[Steve barbone]

Charlie & List Mates:

Right on. There is NO QUESTION BLACKS HAVE BEEN AND STILL ARE THE MAJOR
INNOVATIVE FORCE IN "JAZZ".

This is a simple fact that many self described "unbiased" folks have yet to
come to grips with, for all sorts of self serving reasons that make no
sense. Perhaps a lack of personal self esteem?

LaRocca Sr. (ODJB) was simply a copy cat turned braggart. NORK, Rappolo et
al freely admitted they were trying to sound like black bands. They got
famous because the brought black music before white audiences. Something the
black bands could not do because of social taboos.

In my own perverse mind, the reason for starting the thread about "who
invented jazz" to poke fun at these folks through satire.

Italians, Greeks and Jews were brought into the fray because the same folks
who have a problem with Jazz as a Black Music are also usually somewhat less
than tolerant of those races and religions.

I'm with you, man. Jazz originated mostly as a black musical form. By the
same token it was influenced by Italians, Greeks, Jews and everybody else in
the world including American Aborigines, as well as Persians and Indians
from India, both of whom have had syncopated musical forms much further back
in history than Americans. And jazz would not have evolved as a musical form
without the Eur-Asian musical influence and instrumentation.

All of which does not diminish the overwhelming influence of James Reese
Europe, Sidney Bechet, Buddy Bolden, Louis Armstrong, Kid Ory, Lorenzo Tio,
Freddie Keppard, King Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton, Baby Dodds, et al. And in
later years, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, John Coltrane, Thelonious
Monk, et. al. Without them, there would certainly have been, no jazz.

Cheers,
Steve

on 2/11/05 12:20 AM, Charles Suhor at csuhor at zebra.net wrote:

> John Steve and all--
> 
> The rhythmic complexity in the development jazz isn't about unusual
> time signatures (which of course were conventional Western cut time,
> 2/4, and 4/4 in early jazz). The rhythmic kicks were in irregular
> accentuation, projection, and shape of the written and improvised
> lines. Pre-jazz ragtime did this markedly and was called vulgar as a
> result. Things got more and more varied as players upped the ante by
> manipulating time in other inventive ways,. e.g.,  laying phrases
> behind the beat, improvising in double time over ballads, moaning with
> bent notes over several bars, etc. African music set the stage for
> these contributions in ways that have been described by Schuller,
> Baraka, and others.
> 
> There was concurrent development of jazz along these lines in New
> Orleans by the LaRoccas and Rappollos and others. But cheez, does
> anyone really doubt that the rhythmic and other innovations were in
> fact advanced MAINLY by black musicians? or that Louis brought it all
> together in his Hot 5 and 7 ensemble playing, solos, and vocals?  The
> other ethnic influences were arguably present to some extent in the
> early jazz environments, but the blues elements, the
> reconceptualization of tone on each instrument, and the intense
> rhythmic explorations were mainly the work of black artists.