[Dixielandjazz] Duke and the Stride pianists?

[Marek Boym]

Antiquity?
We can only learn from written testimony, scientific findings (not really
applicable to the sounds of music, even if we find instruments) and, in our
music - recordings.


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.
>

Musicians from the south arrived in the "North-Eastern seaboard" before
Armstrong.  There is no evidence that Armstrong invented swing.

>
> 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?
>

I have no answer.  Perhaps band swing was something characteristic of New
Orleans and the south.  I was not Armstron alone.  Anyway, Duke Ellington
said he learnt from James P. Johnson's piano rolls, and those predate
1923.  And swing.

>
> 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 ....
>

The only one of the above, all of  whom I have heard  on records (Johnson
and Waller - also piano rolls, albeit transferred to LP), who perhaps did
not swing so much was Luckey Roberts.  And Jelly Roll Morton did swing in
theearly '20's - there is enouhg recorded evidence to prove it.

>
> 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?
>

Isn't thisa bit like asking how men behaved before they appeared on the
planet?  So far there is no scientific evidence of pianos in the Babylonian
empire.  Since the piano was reputedly invented around 1700, the existence
of pianists, stride or otherwise, prior thereto is rather unlikely.



> 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     ...?
>

Not enough evidence.

>
> Please, think before suggesting your limited experience of Fats Waller
> could somehow suggest things beyond substantiation.
>

I have Johnson piano rolls from 1921, and they swing.  As does my earliest
Waller piano roll, from 1924.  And there is written evidence.



>
>



>
> 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...
>

I've heard him doing both.

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

Cheers

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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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