Forms of Jazz
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Blues, work songs, ragtime, spirituals, and minstrel songs were, in their own ways, all part of the great "Africanization of American music" that was originated by enslaved Africans in the southern United States (Gioia 3). But the greatest of the musical forms developed in this process was jazz--one of the major American contributions to world culture. Each of these forms of music made essential contributions to the development of jazz itself but each, more or less, retained its own integrity and none could be said to have been transformed into jazz. Ragtime, for example, referred both to a specific type of musical composition and a specific style of instrumental performance and, even though there are strong connections between its forms and execution and those of early jazz, "it is inaccurate to call ragtime an early form of jazz" (Bolcom 23). The earliest form of African American music that can be called jazz is referred to either as Dixieland or New Orleans jazz. Dixieland was "the brash, marching style of jazz that emerged in New Orleans around the turn of the century" and it was "essentially a black jazz," although white musicians made many contributions in its early days (Gammond 157). Both ragtime and Dixieland made their first significant impact from 1890 to 1910. But ragtime was usually a written form of dance music (called the cakewalk) and, at a time when sheet music was the primary means of gaining attention for new styles, its suitability to piano perfor
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rell's Mississippi Rag was not of this form, instead following a more common structure for band music of the time.
The music publisher John Stark was a great fan of this form and occasionally penned his own rags. Classic Piano Ragtime--ragtime as art music--was the focus of his musical printing. One Stark and Son ad read:
As Pike's Peak to a mole hill, so are our rag classics to the sluch that fills the jobber's bulletins.
As the language of the college graduate in thought and expression to the gibberage of the alley Toot, so are the Stark Rags to the Molly crawl-bottom stuff that is posing under rag names.
This old world rolled around on its axis many long, long years before people learned that it was not flat. Then they wanted to kill the man that discovered it.
...The brightest minds of all civilized countries ... are now grading many of the Stark Rags with the finest musical creations of all time.
They cannot be interpreted at sight. They must be studied and practised slowly, and never played fast at any time.
They are stimulating, and when the player begins to get the notes freely the temptation to increase the tempo is almost irresistible. This must be kept in mind continuously. Slow march time or 100 quarter notes
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Buddy Bolden, Scott Joplin, Civil War, Schuller Jazz, Krell's Orchestra, Duke Ellington, Cakewalk Couples, Latin American, Jerome Wolbert, Schuller Rags, scott joplin, band *, jazz band, orch *, jazz ragtime, rights reserved, brass bands, orchestra *, styles jazz, ragtime jazz, styles jazz ragtime, jelly roll morton, suggestions welcomed email, john stark son, comments suggestions welcomed,
Approximate Word count = 8532
Approximate Pages = 34 (250 words per page)
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