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Jazz & Blues: 1920s-30s

"But jazz to me is one of the inherent expressions of Negro life in America;
the eternal tom-tom beating in the Negro soul--the tom-tom of revolt against
against weariness in a white world, a world of subway trains, and work, work,
work; the tom-tom of joy and laughter, and pain swallowed in a smile."

--Langston Hughes, "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain" (1926)

"Jazz is a good barometer of freedom.  In its beginnings, the United States
 spawned certain ideals of freedom and independence through which,
 eventually, jazz was evolved, and the music is so free that many people say
it is the only unhampered, unhindered expression of complete freedom
yet produced in this country."

--Duke Ellington

Students should be aware that the quality of some of these early recordings is not up to today's technological standards.  However, you can still get the flavor and spirit of these Jazz Age classics, so kick back and enjoy.

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To increase your understanding of the music you will hear on this page, review these basics: What Is Ragtime, Stride, and Novelty Piano? and Jazz Listening Tips and Improvisation.

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Index

• Hot Jazzers/Hits
• Blues Queens
• Louis Armstrong
• Duke Ellington
• Ella Fitzgerald
• Gershwin's Symphonic Jazz

King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band

Hot Jazz and Other Jazz Hits

•  I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate (1922). Armond J. Piron, composer.  Recorded in 1939 by Mugsy Spanier and His Ragtime Band.  The "shimmy" was a dance step.
  
  
•  Charleston (1925). James P. Johnson, composer.  Recorded by Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra.  The unofficial anthem of the "Flaming Youth" of the '20s.  The "charleston" was a popular dance.
  
  
•  Doctor Jazz (1926). Joe "King" Oliver, composer; Walter Melrose, lyric. Recorded by King Oliver's Dixie Syncopators; Jelly Roll Morton on piano.  Excellent example of Oliver's "hot jazz.
  
  
•   Jazzbo Brown from Memphis Town (1926). George Brooks, composer. Recorded by Bessie Smith.
  
  
•  Deadman Blues (1926). Jelly Roll Morton, composer; Anita Gonzales, lyrics.  Recorded by Jelly Roll Morton's Red Hot Peppers.
  
  
•  Black Bottom (1926). Ray Henderson, composer; Bud G. DeSylva/Lew Brown, lyrics.  Recorded by Johnny Hamp's Kentucky Serenaders.  The "Black Bottom" was a popular dance.
  
  
•  Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (1927). Recorded by Ma Rainey, with Fletcher Henderson.  Vocal by Ma Rainey.  See August Wilson's play Ma Rainey's Black Bottom.  (NOTE:  Poor quality recording)
  
  
•  Minnie The Moocher (1930). Irving Mills/Cab Calloway/Clarence Gaskill, composers.  Vocal by Cab Calloway.

Read about this song: Minnie the Moocher. Watch three Betty Boop cartoons featuring Cab Calloway and his music: Minnie the Moocher;  The Old Man of the Mountain;   and Snow White.

Biographies: Joe King Oliver; Bessie Smith; Gertrude Pridgett ("Ma") Rainey; Cab Calloway;  James P. Johnson; Jelly Roll Morton.

Bessie Smith

The Queens of the Blues

•  St. Louis Blues (1914). W. C. Handy, composer.  Recorded in 1929 by Louis Armstrong's Orchestra.   Vocal by Bessie Smith and cornet by Louis Armstrong (an example of "call and response").  Considered the most famous blues song in the world.  (NOTE:  Poor quality recording.)

St. Louis Blues

I hate to see that evening sun go down,

I hate to see that evening sun go down,

'Cause my lovin' baby done left this town.

If I feel tomorrow, like I feel today,

If I feel tomorrow, like I feel today,

I'm gonna pack my trunk and make my getaway.

Interlude: Oh, that St. Louis woman, with her diamond rings,

She pulls my man around by her apron strings.

And if it wasn't for powder and her store-bought hair,

Oh, that man of mine wouldn't go nowhere.

I got those St. Louis blues, just as blue as I can be,

Oh, my man's got a heart like a rock cast in the sea,

Or else he wouldn't have gone so far from me.

I love my man like a schoolboy loves his pie,

Like a Kentucky colonel loves his rocker and rye

I'll love my man until the day I die, Lord, Lord.

•  A Good Man Is Hard to Find (1919).   Eddie Green, composer.  Vocal by Bessie Smith.  Here is Marion Harris' version:  A Good Man is Hard to Find. See Flannery O'Connor's short story "A Good Man Is Hard to Find."

Listen also to Ethel Water's humorously naughty response, composed by Andy Razaf (1928): My Handy Man.

•  Downhearted Blues (1922). Lovie Austin, composer; Alberta Hunter, lyrics. Recorded by Alberta Hunter in 1939, but first recorded in 1923 by Bessie Smith--her first big hit.
  
  
•  Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out (1923).  Online sources aren't clear about the composer--either Jimmy Cox, or Ida Cox and B. Feldman.  Recorded in 1929 by Bessie Smith.
  
  
•  Wild Women Don't Have the Blues (1924). Ida Cox, lyrics.  Vocal by Ida Cox.   Here is a short "wild" excerpt by contemporary singer Francine Reed: Wild Women

Wild Women Don't Have The Blues

I hear these women raving 'bout their monkey men

About their trifling husbands and their no good friends

These poor women sit around all day and moan

Wondering why their wandering papa's don't come home

But wild women don't worry, wild women don't have no blues

Now when you've got a man, don't never be on the square

'Cause if you do he'll have a woman everywhere

I never was known to treat no one man right

I keep 'em working hard both day and night

'Cause wild women don't worry, wild women don't have their blues

I've got a sweet disposition and a way of my own

When my man starts kicking I let him find another home

I get full of good liquor, walk the streets all night

Go home and put my man out if he don't act right

Wild women don't worry, wild women don't have their blues

You never get nothing by being an angel child

You better change your ways and get real wild

I wanna tell you something, I wouldn't tell you a lie

Wild women are the only kind that really get by

'Cause wild women don't worry, wild women don't have their blues

•  Chain Gang Blues (1925). Charles J. Parker and Thomas A. Dorsey, composers. Recorded by Ma Rainey and her Georgia Jazz Band.

•  Back Water Blues (1927). Bessie Smith, composer.  Recorded by Bessie Smith.  Classic blues structure: three-line verse with first line repeated and a new third line added.

See information on The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927.

Back Water Blues

When it rained five days and the sky turned dark as night

When it rained five days and the sky turned dark as night

Then trouble's taking place in the lowlands at night.

I woke up this morning, can't even get out of my door

I woke up this morning, can't even get out of my door

There is enough trouble to make a poor girl wonder where she want to go.

I went and stood up on a high old lonesome hill

I went and stood up on a high old lonesome hill

I did all I could to look down on the house where I used to live.

It thundered and lightenin'd and the wind began to blow

It thundered and lightenin'd and the wind began to blow

There were thousands of poor people didn't have no place to go.

•  Gimme a Pigfoot (and a Bottle of Beer) (1933). "Sid" Wesley "Sox" Wilson, composer.  Recorded and vocal by Bessie Smith.  One of Bessie Smith's signature numbers.

Read more about "Gimme a Pigfoot": Where Are the Blues.

•  Strange Fruit (1939)-- Lewis Allen, lyrics; Danny Mendlson and Sonny White, composers.  Vocals by Billie Holliday. Named "Song of the Century" by TIME magazine, and a British magazine dubbed it "one of the 10 songs that changed the world. Here is a somewhat different arrangement of Billie Holliday singing Strange Fruit.

Read commentary about "Strange Fruit":  Strange Fruit or All about Jazz Review.

Strange Fruit

Southern trees bear a strange fruit,

Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,

Black body swinging in the Southern breeze,

Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant south,

The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,

Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh,

And the sudden smell of burning flesh!

Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck,

For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,

For the sun to rot, for a tree to drop,

Here is a strange and bitter crop.

Biographies:  Alberta Hunter; Bessie Smith; Gertrude Pridgett ("Ma") Rainey; W.C. Handy; Ida Cox; Billie Holiday

Louis Armstrong

Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong

•  West End Blues (1928). Clarence Williams/Joe "King" Oliver, composers.  Recorded in 1929 and 1939 by Louis Armstrong.  Trumpet by Louis Armstrong.  The opening bars made jazz history.
  
  
•  Ain't Misbehavin' (1929). Thomas "Fats" Waller/Harry Brooks, composers; Andy Razaf, lyrics.  Recorded by Louis Armstrong in 1938; vocal and trumpet, Louis Armstrong. From the musical show Connie's Hot Chocolates.
  
  
•  (What Did I Do To Be So) Black and Blue (1929). Thomas "Fats" Waller,  composer; Harry Brooks/Andy Razaf, lyrics.  Recorded by Louis Armstrong in 1929; vocal and trumpet by Louis Armstrong.  See discussion in Ralph Ellison's novel Invisible Man.

Read also this commentary:  Take One on Black and Blue and Take Two: The Editor.