and was spread to Chicago and New York City essentially by New
Orleans bands by the 1910s. Early Dixieland jazz combined brass
band marches, French Quadrilles, ragtime and blues with collective,
polyphonic improvisation. It is considered a very happy music
although it is the music customarily played for marching funerals
closely associated with the South and especially New Orleans. The
instrumentation consists of a trumpet, that plays the main melody --
usually with a lot of bounce and flair; the trombone, which plays a
counter-melody; the clarinet usually plays in and out independent of
the melody; the piano played the chords; and, the tuba which is
frequently used in place of a bass but can also be used for solos, and it
keeps the rhythm along with the drums. It is usually a 2/4 rhythm or
"Ooom pah, Ooom pah". Sometimes, the early Dixieland groups
recorded with a banjo or guitar keeping rhythm but the drums were
often considered too overpowering for these instruments in live
performances. Well-known jazz standard songs from the Dixieland
era such as "Basin Street Blues" and "When the Saints Go Marching
In" are known even to non-jazz fans.
Hot Jazz
link between Dixieland and big band swing and lasted about the same
length of time as Prohibition (13 years). The combo's personnel
expanded and started using, for instance, 2 trumpet players. It is not
as polished as swing music. Many of the same musicians evolved from
playing in both Dixieland and ragtime bands. Ragtime served as the
roots for this category producing musical offshoots such as stride
piano, a more improvisational piano style popular in Harlem, New
York in the 1920s and 1930s and the finger picking guitar style later
referred to as Piedmont Blues. Ragtime infused with blues became hot
jazz. One of the great jazz pianists of all time, James P. Johnson was
the king of "stride" pianists in the 1920s. Stride piano was largely