Red Hot Jazz

The music called Jazz was born sometime around 1895 in New Orleans. It combined elements of Ragtime, marching band music and Blues. What differentiated Jazz from these earlier styles was the widespread use of improvisation, often by more than one player at a time. Jazz represented a break from Western musical traditions, where the composer wrote a piece of music on paper and the musicians then tried their best to play exactly what was in the score. In a Jazz piece, the song is often just a starting point or frame of reference for the musicians to improvise around.

King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band

The song might have been a popular ditty or blues that they didn't compose, but by the time they were finished with it they had composed a new piece that often bore little resemblance to the original song. Many of these virtuoso musicians were not good sight readers and some could not read music at all, nevertheless their playing thrilled audiences and the spontaneous music they created captured a joy and sense of adventure that was an exciting and radical departure from the music of that time.


Buddy Bolden's Band, New Orleans, c. 1895-1900.
From left to right: Jimmie Johnson, Buddy Bolden,
Brock Mumford, Willie Cornish, Frank Lewis, Willie Warner.

The first Jazz was played by African-American and Creole musicians in New Orleans. The cornet player, Buddy Bolden is generally considered to be the first real Jazz musician. Other early players included Freddie Keppard, Bunk Johnson and Clarence Williams. Although these musicians names are unknown to most people, then and now, their ideas are still being elaborated on to this day. Most of these men could not make a living with their music and were forced to work menial jobs to get by.


Jelly Roll Morton

The second wave of New Orleans Jazz musicians like Joe "King" Oliver, Kid Ory and Jelly Roll Morton formed small bands that took the music of these older men and increased the complexity and dynamic of their music, as well as gaining greater commercial success. This music became known as "Hot Jazz", because of the often breakneck speeds and amazing improvised polyphony that these bands produced.



A young virtuoso cornet player named Louis Armstrong was discovered in New Orleans by King Oliver. Armstrong soon grew to become the greatest Jazz musician of his era and eventually one of the biggest stars in the world. The impact of Armstrong and other Jazz musicians altered the course of both popular and Classical music.

African-American musical styles became the dominant force in 20th century music.

~Scott Alexander
The Red Hot Jazz Archive

As a lover of
"Hot Music"as well
as a player,
I have been asked
hundreds of times
if I thought
"Hot Music"
would die out.

I said no indeed.

~Louis Armstrong

The Big Broadcast
Rich Conaty hosts a musical spotlight on the classic sounds of the 1920s and '30s, Sunday nights from 8pm-Midnight.

LISTEN LIVE!

No matter how much
a person may like classical
music, they may like just as
much "Hot Music".

There's so many different
ways to play "Hot Music".


~Louis Armstrong

Man,
if you
have to
ask what
it is,
you'll
never
know."

~Louis Armstrong

...who taught me everything I
know about the early jazz greats.

Love you kid,

oxo
~annie