charleston

[stos]

hello,
I'm really new at playing jazz (I played mostly folk/gipsy music until now) and I'm really interrested in the 1920's jazz
the one played for making people dance charleston

can you tell me some specificities of this crazy music (bass playing, instruments interactions...)

and could you also advice me some recordings or band names

thanks a lot

[MarkMaleski]

I can’t imagine I’m the best person to answer your question, but no one else has responded yet, so here I go…

The word you’re looking for is “swing.” Swing dancing is comprised of 6-count or 8-count dance steps and swing dancers transition seamlessly between them numerous times in any given song. The Charleston is an 8-count dance step (rock-step-kick-step-kick-and-kick-step), and there are all kinds of Charleston variations (traveling Charleston, turning Charleston, front-to-back Charleston, etc). The 1920’s Charleston (the origin of all other variations) did not include a kick step and is rarely done in any contemporary dancing (I’ve never seen it done, and I’ve been to a lot of swing dances).

Swing dancing is done to…you guessed it, swing music. (though Rockabilly works too, as will Boogie Woogie, but these are not the traditional choices). Wikipedia will define swing music better than I could, but I tend to think of it as the jazz that came before bebop…and isn’t gypsy jazz. I’m sure many others will think this a vast oversimplification but it works for me. Some typical swing songs:
- In the Mood
- Take the A Train
- Just in Time
- It Don’t Mean a Think if it Ain’t Got That Swing
- Stompin’ at the Savoy

In an ideal setting, the dancers are reacting to/interpreting the music. For example, they’ll improv a dance step in reaction to a drum fill. If the musicians are paying attention to the dancers (and they should!) they’ll pick up on the reaction and lock in harder with the dancers. In this way the music and the dancing becomes interdependent, everyone’s feeding off of a common source of energy, and everyone ends up with a big grin on their faces. To me, the word “swing” encompasses all of that.

~Mark

[anonymous02282011]

Do yourself a favor and go get a CD collection called 'Ellington: The Blanton Webster years"

here's a link:

http://www.amazon.com/Blanton-Webste.../dp/B000003EO4

Besides being music of the genre you describe, it also emphasizes the playing of bassist Jimmy Blanton who's famous for bringing the role of the bass from accompanist to soloist. He was a virtuoso.

[Paul Warburton]

Whoa there boys....It's seems to me that stos is asking about the Charleston.... no? Not swing, not Duke amd not Glen Miller.
In racial terms, this old college type of crazyness came from young, white folks just being crazy. Not black jazz musicians that you describe. Especially not Blanton.....that was a whole other genre.
stos, do some research on Google under the Charleston and a youtube search under same to get some ideas about some questions about the role of different instruments and interactions including the bass. Then come back and ask away.
That's my take on your question as I read it.

[jtlownds]

I would not consider the "Charleston" to be swing style music. It's more a Dixieland style that predates the swing era of the 30's and 40's. Bass lines for this music would be very similar to the folk/gypsy music that you are all ready playing.

[anonymous02282011]

Originally Posted by Paul Warburton

Whoa there boys....It's seems to me that stos is asking about the Charleston.... no? Not swing, not Duke amd not Glen Miller.
In racial terms, this old college type of crazyness came from young, white folks just being crazy. Not black jazz musicians that you describe. Especially not Blanton.....that was a whole other genre.
stos, do some research on Google under the Charleston and a youtube search under same to get some ideas about some questions about the role of different instruments and interactions including the bass. Then come back and ask away.
That's my take on your question as I read it.

Yea, but wouldn't it be nice for a bassist to hear Blanton anyway?

Granted, "dancing the charleston" does not imply Duke Ellington, at all. Perhaps I was just pushing my own agenda for lack of clarity from the OP. Perhaps I was just plain old pushing my own agenda!

But now re-reading the OPs post, what band (s) are associated with dancing the charleston anyway? 1920s = louis armstrong King Creole Jazz Band era? Did they even have bass player? I imagine most of that stuff was done on tuba. Jazz historians, help!

[zeytoun]

Paul's right that most of the music you've been recommended would generally not cause people to dance the Charleston.

What you're asking about is right between "Historical Jazz" and "Swing" (which is what people have been recommending.) "Swing" didn't exist until circa-1930 or later. The CD of Duke Ellington is from after 1940 even....

What you want, was often called "Hot Jazz"

Some artists you might want to look up are:

Bix Beiderbecke
King Oliver
Early Louis Armstrong
Kid Ory
Jelly Roll Morton (1920s recordings)
Bessie Smith

Afterwards (late '20s, early '30s) Duke Ellington, Fletcher Henderson and others took this Hot Jazz into Big Band territory, and soon Swing emerged.

As far as instruments, Jazz had by then adopted string bass and drums, but the bands were still pretty small (5-8 people). Usually, Bass, Drums, Piano, and some mix of clarinet and horn. There was a lot of Dixieland and Blues numbers, being played, and a lot of really awful watered down crap ("five foot two, eyes of blue" bleccchhh!) that only people who didn't know any better listened to ;-)

[MarkMaleski]

Well, I wasn't around in the 1920's, see? And to my credit I did mention that the 1920s Charleston is different than what was later incorporated into swing (along with Lindy Hop). From my contemporary perspective, Charleston is definitively a component of swing dance. However, a closer read suggests that Paul is probably correct that the OP is interested in the 1920's (original) form of the Charleston with its white-folk origins. Alas, in that case I have nothing to contribute to the discussion.

[zeytoun]

Originally Posted by adbass

Yea, but wouldn't it be nice for a bassist to hear Blanton anyway?

Granted, "dancing the charleston" does not imply Duke Ellington, at all. Perhaps I was just pushing my own agenda for lack of clarity from the OP. Perhaps I was just plain old pushing my own agenda!

But now re-reading the OPs post, what band (s) are associated with dancing the charleston anyway? 1920s = louis armstrong King Creole Jazz Band era? Did they even have bass player? I imagine most of that stuff was done on tuba. Jazz historians, help!

Most of the Jazz groups had adopted double bass by then, but sure, you could still find groups using them for bass for quite a while (see Miles Davis, "Birth of the Cool", 1950).

[zeytoun]

Originally Posted by MarkMaleski

Well, I wasn't around in the 1920's, see? And to my credit I did mention that the 1920s Charleston is different than what was later incorporated into swing (along with Lindy Hop). From my contemporary perspective, Charleston is definitively a component of swing dance. However, a closer read suggests that Paul is probably correct that the OP is interested in the 1920's (original) form of the Charleston with its white-folk origins. Alas, in that case I have nothing to contribute to the discussion.

You had some correct points about the dance.

Although the Charleston did actually originate in the black community, it was quickly appropriated by the white-folk, where it became the silly flapper solo dance we're used to seeing. (the one theory is it started on plantations, moved to Harlem, and got picked up by flappers listening to Hot Jazz. However, I've never seen any evidence for the plantation part of the story, although there were some dances that used the ankle-twisting move of the Charleston.)

From a historical perspective, you could say that swing dancing was very derivative of a lot of Charleston elements (while they switch from an 8-beat step to a 6 beat one, like you mentioned, swing imitated the Charleston's innovation of the breakaway.

[Paul Warburton]

More better Z......and Mark, you most certainly are not implying that my old ass was around in the 20's are you? It's frightfully old, but not quite that old.

[MarkMaleski]

"Granted, 'dancing the charleston' does not imply Duke Ellington, at all."

Not to berate the point, but if you go today to any swing dance up and down the east coast US, you'll hear Duke Ellington music and see people doing a dance step they call 'The Charleston.' I suppose the way to think about this is that when discussing a type of dance, The Charleston = 1920s flapper-style dance. When discussing a dance step, The Charleston = an specific type of 8-count step within the category of Lindy Hop (aka swing) and a close derivative of the 1920s dance "The Charleston."

What, we're supposed to be discussing music, not dance? Well then, I'll add that this conversation has me curious about the distinction between hot (or Dixieland) jazz and swing. As I indicated in my first post, I tend to lump 'em both together. I have some research to do, I guess, but can't resist throwing out this quote I found: "I should say: 'Hot Music' shall last for ever. There'll probably be new names for it, that's all. There has been several names since I can remember way back to the good ol' days in New Orleans, Louisiana, when 'Hot Music' was called 'Rag Time music', 'Jazz Music', 'Gut Bucket music', 'Swing music' and now 'Hot Music'. So you see instead of dying out, it only gets new names." ~Louis Armstrong [best I can tell this quote dates to 1936]

Edit to add: I recently stumbled across the term 'moldy fig' for the first time. How cool to know that there've been jazz snobs just about as long as there's been jazz!

[MarkMaleski]

Originally Posted by Paul Warburton

More better Z......and Mark, you most certainly are not implying that my old ass was around in the 20's are you? It's frightfully old, but not quite that old.

Ha! Just pointing out that I was brought up on bebop and don't have a good frame of reference for anything prior to that.

[anonymous02282011]

Zeytoun,,

recommend me (us?) some good historical jazz references. books? internet pages? thanks!

ps -- my mothers family is from Zeytoun.

[zeytoun]

Mark,

I'm not dissing Ellington (and I don't think anyone else here was, either). And I'm not saying that Ellington didn't play Hot Jazz in the '20s, to which people danced the Charleston. But the specific songs recommended were from the '30s and '40s, and the CD recommended was from the '40s.

I'm also not being a moldy fig, and dissing any other type of jazz. I love swing (and bebop, gypsy jazz, dixieland, and latin jazz etc.) as long as it's played well...

So yes, in a lot of ways, swing was being played before they called it swing.

However, the differences between Dixieland/Hot Jazz and Swing aren't just semantic.

Here's a key difference: Polyphonic improvisation. Perfectly acceptable/expected at any point while backing up the head player in Dixieland and Hot Jazz. If you were in a big band playing swing, you best not improvise unless you are soloing.

[Paul Warburton]

Originally Posted by MarkMaleski

Edit to add: I recently stumbled across the term 'moldy fig' for the first time. How cool to know that there've been jazz snobs just about as long as there's been jazz!

My god....you guys ARE kids. I love it. Moldy fig became Square.....Hip became us young be boppers. We were very hip. Squares were Jive, as well as Un hip.
WE still use hip today....Bill Evans and Scott LaFaro are hip.
I'm pretty hip for an old guy and you guys are getting hip. You hip?

edit: Hip was originally spelled Hep....some cat thought that spelling was square, so it became Hip.

[zeytoun]

Alex,

I'm no jazz historian or expert. I'm sure many other people here could recommend something better.

Personally I have a hard time trying to read books on music history. Ted Gioia's "The History of Jazz", however, is worth it.

The soundtrack to Ken Burn's Jazz documentary is a pretty good listening. (the documentary itself is good for it's multimedia use, but often rather dubious historically)

Other than that, what I know has been picked up from just snippets of research online, or from listening to whatever anthologies I've been able to listen to (There was a Decca anthology of big band that was good, I'm currently listening to a Django Anthology).

(p.s. are you Lebanese/Armenian? My name's Oliver, so all my Arab friends nicknamed me Zeytoun (for non-Arabic speakers reading, zeytoun=olive).)

[jtlownds]

Originally Posted by Paul Warburton

edit: Hip was originally spelled Hep....some cat thought that spelling was square, so it became Hip.

Hence the term Hep Cat. Another phrase that these tykes have probably never heard. Give 'em a history lesson grandpaw Paul.

[MarkMaleski]

Paul, Zeytoun,
Thanks to both for your input on this thread. In my circle of friends I'm the knowledgable one wrt jazz (actually most of my friends would rather I not go on about it at all) but on this board I have alot to learn. Zeytoun, I wasn't implying you or anyone else was a moldy fig, and didn't think anyone had dissed Duke Ellington. In fact, I think you're all pretty hip, dig?

~Mark

[zeytoun]

Mark,

(I'm sure learning a lot here too. I'm just a know-it-all, after all )