[Dixielandjazz] Duke and the Stride pianists?

[ROBERT R. CALDER]

I had not thought Marek of quite such antiquity as to be able to report what James P. Johnson's music was like prior to for instance 1923 or when Louis Armstrong and other musicians from outwith the North-Eastern seaboard of the USA began to be heard in those parts.

How come Fletcher Henderson never learned to swing before a certain date, and Duke's earliest recordings show small evidence of Swinging --  and there really is a dearth of evidence of SWING on recordings from the New York area before Louis was about?  


There really is no evidence that SWING as such was a general characteristic of the piano music of James P. Johnson or Luckey Roberts or Willie the Lion Smith or indeed Fats Waller before other influences arrived.  Had Fats Waller no ability to learn, such as would account for an increasing capacity to swing following his experience of James P. and whatever else ....  


I am afraid that Marek's statement was a little too broad.  Stride Pianists ALWAYS swung? During the Babylonian Captivity?  Before in 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue?  

Ernesto Nazareth and before him Louis Moreau Gottschalk and others produced remarkable intricate rhythmic effects, and there have been fascinating speculations linking ragtime with Hispanic Caribbean rhythms ----
but if a pre-Roy-Eldridge  little David swung on his harp     ...?

Please, think before suggesting your limited experience of Fats Waller could somehow suggest things beyond substantiation.  Naturally enough I pay no heed to the assertion I read once that the legendary Claence Profit never played things Monk and others were famous for having played, since one does have testimony from Joe Turner and other reliable people who heard Profit...  
Dammit there have even been queries regarding whether Eubie Blake swung or played jazz rather than playing ragtime...  or ragtime rather than anything worth calling Jazz... 

Of course some music which does not swing is far from meaningless...  

Robert R. Calder



 



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>>Duke Ellington's models were "the stride pianists who swung like Hell"?
>>Which stride pianists and when,
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