Jazz Piano Through The Years

OLDUDE

New member
Hi Gord, thanks for that unexpectably good piano solo from Bix.
It never fails to amaze me how many great jazz instrumentalists also play
really enjoyable piano.
 

Mat

Sr. Regulator
Staff member
Sr. Regulator
Regulator
^^ Cheers for that, Mike.

Okay, gentlemen. It's been a while since my last post but here I am again. Let's move on to the next style.

Stride Piano

Piano playing has transformed. Jazz migrated from New Orleans to Chicago and New York, the capital of ragtime. Ragtime was out! Blues was in!
A new period started in the history of jazz piano music.
It seemed as they play all the weird and ugly notes and it still sounded so great.
Playing piano that way sounded loud and intense. It was plain "Stride piano" playing.
The most successful players of stride playing were Eubie Black from Baltimore (from 1906), Luckey Roberts from Philadelphia, Willie "The Lion" Smith , James Johnson (1914) from New York and Thomas "Fats" Waller (1920).

They came to Atlantic City before World war one in order to entertain the guests in the red-light district. When the summer season was over, most of these pianists would move to Harlem, the black ghetto of New York, where they played in the night-clubs for black people.

In the 1920s, When blues became so popular white tourists has started to come to Harlem to get a bit more of this exciting music. So now black piano players could play also in white parties. This could help them pay their rent and therefore were called "rent parties". These parties became very popular after World War 2 and gave stride playing a respected place in the history of jazz piano music.

Handful of Keys by Fats Waller


Carolina Shout by James P. Johnson


Feel free to add some more videos in the style of stride piano. Please try to avoid linking to websites that require an account (last.fm, Spotify, etc.).


Disclaimer can be found in the opening post of this thread.
 
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Mat

Sr. Regulator
Staff member
Sr. Regulator
Regulator
Definitely, Teddy.

I'm waiting for the other guys to throw in a few more vids and then I'm going to move on to yet another style.
Otherwise I'm never gonna wrap this up... :cheers:
 
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