Jazz
In the turn from the century about 1920, numerous artists made their mark by playing in the discreet underground nightclubs called “Speakeasies” which are high class, “Blind pig” lower class or “Smokeasy” for tobacco users. The United States once prohibited the sale of alcoholic drinks and smoking tobacco in clubs as a constitutional amendment. One could typically find an underground nightclub by the thresholds without an indication to indicate that there was such as establishment inside. Those dives also had a secret doorway that lead out to a passageway or alley just in case the police came to investigate. The police had the power to arrest everybody in the position attributable to the fact that they were broke the law by being there.
Although, thing were beginning to seek out for Jazz Music once the creation of the record player or phonograph was designed to play jazz albums. In addition, radio stations helped promote Jazz music, and made it favorite among the populace. Jazz Music became a music of class that earned the era a nick name called the “Jazz age”. The band leaders who became famous as Jazz musicians were Paul Whiteman, Ted Lewis, Harry Reser, Leo Reisman, Abe Lyman, Nat Shilkret, Earl Burnett, Ben Bernie, George Olson, Bob Haring, Vincent Lopez, Ben Salvin and a good many more. Paul Whiteman stated to be the king of Jazz music as a result of his popularity. He earned the title when he hired some white Jazz musicians with Bix Beiderbecke included to combine jazz with larger orchestrations.
Jazz guitar player Mel Bay was born on February 25, 1913 in the small Ozark Mountain town of Bunker, Missouri. He bought a Sears guitar at the age of 13 and several weeks later played his first “gig.” He recalled playing right up until his fingers were raw! Mel took up the tenor banjo shortly thereafter and continued to master both instruments. Throughout his teen years Mel played with a wild assortment of bands and characters in rural Missouri. Perhaps no “gig” was as unusual as the job he landed with, in Mel’s own words, “a snake oil salesman.” This flamboyant peddler would pull his ostentatious Pierce Arrow automobile, complete with steer horns installed on the grill, into the center of a small, rural town. Mel would sit on the car and play up a storm on the tenor banjo. Soon after a crowd gathered, the peddler took over and started extolling the miracles of his “wonder elixer.”
In 1933 Mel Bay moved to St. Louis and commenced his professional career. He performed with a lot of local and traveling bands. Additionally, he landed staff guitar employment on various radio stations. Mel fronted his own trio (piano, bass, guitar) and played steadily for 25 years! He was equally adept on most fretted instruments and played mandolin, uke, Hawaiian guitar, tenor and plectrum banjo professionally.
Herb Ellis like many other leading American jazz guitarists (including Charlie Christian, Eddie Durham, and Oscar Moore) was born in the southwestern part of the USA. The blues, with a touch of country music, are a distinctive feature of his jazz guitar music sound and his guitar playing technique. This is most certainly due to the environment in which Ellis was brought up. Herb Ellis first played the banjo, although it is claimed he played the harmonica at the age of four, and took up the guitar at the age of ten. While he was at high school he played alto horn in the school band. Ellis studied at the North Texas State College and helped start a jazz guitar music program there. He met and befriended many now well known jazz musicians while at this college including Jimmy Giuffre, Gene Roland, and Harry Babasin.
When I took up guitar as a high school kid in 1968, rock music had entered it’s golden age. Certainly the influence of Chicago-style blues was huge, and had been for several years [particularly in Great Britain], but rock musicians were searching for ideas and inspiration from other genres as well, including classical [The Moody Blues, Procol Harum] country/western [The Byrds], Afro/Cuban [Santana] and Indian [experiments by The Beatles and others]. But, the blues notwithstanding, it was the influence of jazz that made the biggest impression on the music and musicians of the late ’60′s and early ’70′s.
Instrumental performance became a focus of interest for many during this period. The virtuosity of players such as Eric Clapton, Mitch Mitchell, Jimi Hendrix, and Jack Casady was being recognized and applauded by audiences, and rock musicians began finding and listening to new heroes among jazz’s elite players. Long, improvised instrumental jams became the norm during live rock shows. Jazz tunes were being covered by rock bands [Tito Puente's Oye Como Va by Santana, Roland Kirk's Serenade to a Cuckoo by Jethro Tull]. The IIm7-V7 chord progression, the backbone of jazz harmony, began appearing in pop tunes. Brass rock bands Chicago Transit Authority [soon to be Chicago] and Blood, Sweat and Tears were writing jazz-rock songs, i.e. rock tunes but arranging them in a jazz fashion, replete with bop solos, odd time signatures, sophisticated chord changes and swing grooves.