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91-397: Thomas Francis Dorsey Jr. (November 19, 1905 – November 26, 1956) was an American jazz trombonist , composer, conductor and bandleader of the big band era. He was known as the "Sentimental Gentleman of Swing" because of his smooth-toned trombone playing. His theme song was " I'm Getting Sentimental Over You ". His technical skill on the trombone gave him renown among other musicians. He was

182-626: A "special relationship to time defined as 'swing ' ". Jazz involves "a spontaneity and vitality of musical production in which improvisation plays a role" and contains a "sonority and manner of phrasing which mirror the individuality of the performing jazz musician". A broader definition that encompasses different eras of jazz has been proposed by Travis Jackson: "it is music that includes qualities such as swing, improvising, group interaction, developing an 'individual voice', and being open to different musical possibilities". Krin Gibbard argued that "jazz

273-593: A 21-acre (8.5 ha) estate in Bernardsville, New Jersey . They divorced in 1943 after Dorsey's affair with his former singer Edythe Wright . Dorsey's second wife was film actress Patricia Dane in 1943, and they were divorced in 1947, but not before he gained headlines for striking actor Jon Hall when Hall embraced her. Finally, Dorsey married Jane Carl New on March 27, 1948, in Atlanta, Georgia. She had been

364-775: A Sinatra vocal; it hit number one in January 1943, as did 'In the Blue of the Evening', another Dorsey record featuring Sinatra, in August, while a third Dorsey/Sinatra release, 'It's Always You,' hit the Top Five later in the year, and a fourth, 'I'll Be Seeing You', reached the Top Ten in 1944." It should be added that these 1943 and 1944 Sinatra hits were older recordings reissued because the 1942–44 musicians' strike prevented Sinatra, now

455-642: A dancer at the Copacabana nightclub in New York City. Tommy and Jane Dorsey had two children, Catherine Susan and Steve. Dorsey died on November 26, 1956, at his home in Greenwich, Connecticut , a week after his 51st birthday. He had begun taking sleeping pills regularly at this time, causing him to become heavily sedated; he choked to death in his sleep after eating a large meal. Jimmy Dorsey led his brother's band until his own death from throat cancer

546-473: A drum made by stretching skin over a flour-barrel. Lavish festivals with African-based dances to drums were organized on Sundays at Place Congo, or Congo Square, in New Orleans until 1843. There are historical accounts of other music and dance gatherings elsewhere in the southern United States. Robert Palmer said of percussive slave music: Usually such music was associated with annual festivals, when

637-561: A feature attraction. In 1953, the Dorseys focused their attention on television. On December 26, 1953, the brothers appeared with their orchestra on Jackie Gleason 's CBS television show, which was preserved on kinescope and later released on home video by Gleason. The brothers took the unit on tour and onto their own television show, Stage Show , from 1954 to 1956. In January 1956, The Dorseys made rock music history introducing Elvis Presley on his national television debut. Presley, then

728-456: A form of folk music which arose in part from the work songs and field hollers of African-American slaves on plantations. These work songs were commonly structured around a repetitive call-and-response pattern, but early blues was also improvisational. Classical music performance is evaluated more by its fidelity to the musical score , with less attention given to interpretation, ornamentation, and accompaniment. The classical performer's goal

819-410: A limited melodic range, sounding like a field holler, and the guitar accompaniment was slapped rather than strummed, like a small drum which responded in syncopated accents, functioning as another "voice". Handy and his band members were formally trained African-American musicians who had not grown up with the blues, yet he was able to adapt the blues to a larger band instrument format and arrange them in

910-460: A multi- strain ragtime march with four parts that feature recurring themes and a bass line with copious seventh chords . Its structure was the basis for many other rags, and the syncopations in the right hand, especially in the transition between the first and second strain, were novel at the time. The last four measures of Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag" (1899) are shown below. African-based rhythmic patterns such as tresillo and its variants,

1001-612: A percentage of Miller's income. When Miller balked at this, the angry Dorsey got even by sponsoring a new band led by Bob Chester , and hiring arrangers who deliberately copied Miller's style and sound. Dorsey branched out in the mid-1940s and owned two music publishing companies, Sun and Embassy. After opening at the Los Angeles ballroom, the Hollywood Palladium on the Palladium's first night, Dorsey's relations with

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1092-518: A pitch which he called a 'jazz ball' "because it wobbles and you simply can't do anything with it". The use of the word in a musical context was documented as early as 1915 in the Chicago Daily Tribune . Its first documented use in a musical context in New Orleans was in a November 14, 1916, Times-Picayune article about "jas bands". In an interview with National Public Radio , musician Eubie Blake offered his recollections of

1183-660: A popular music form. Handy wrote about his adopting of the blues: The primitive southern Negro, as he sang, was sure to bear down on the third and seventh tone of the scale, slurring between major and minor. Whether in the cotton field of the Delta or on the Levee up St. Louis way, it was always the same. Till then, however, I had never heard this slur used by a more sophisticated Negro, or by any white man. I tried to convey this effect ... by introducing flat thirds and sevenths (now called blue notes) into my song, although its prevailing key

1274-507: A popular singer, from recording new material. The website "Tommy Dorsey A Songwriter's Friend" says, "the orchestra had over 200 top twenty recordings including the No. 1 hits 'The Music Goes Round and Round' (1935), 'Alone' (1936) 'You' (1936), ' Marie ' (1937), 'Satan Takes a Holiday' (1937), 'The Big Apple' (1937), 'Once in a While' (1937), 'The Dipsy Doodle' (1937), 'Music, Maestro, Please' (1938), 'Our Love' (1939), 'Indian Summer' (1939), 'All

1365-549: A regional country singer, made six guest appearances on Stage Show promoting his first releases for RCA Victor several months before his more familiar visits to the Milton Berle , Steve Allen , and Ed Sullivan variety programs. Dorsey was married three times. His first wife was 16-year-old Mildred "Toots" Kraft, with whom he eloped in 1922, when he was 17. The couple had two children, Patricia and Thomas F. Dorsey III (nicknamed "Skipper"). In 1935, they moved to "Tall Oaks",

1456-503: A run of 286 Billboard chart hits. The Dorsey band had seventeen number-one hits with his orchestra in the 1930s and 1940s including: "On Treasure Island", "The Music Goes 'Round and Around", "You", "Marie" (written by Irving Berlin ), "Satan Takes a Holiday", "The Big Apple", "Once in a While", "The Dipsy Doodle", "Our Love", "All the Things You Are", "Indian Summer", and "Dolores". He had two more number one hits in 1935 when he

1547-454: Is a construct" which designates "a number of musics with enough in common to be understood as part of a coherent tradition". Duke Ellington , one of jazz's most famous figures, said, "It's all music." Although jazz is considered difficult to define, in part because it contains many subgenres, improvisation is one of its defining elements. The centrality of improvisation is attributed to the influence of earlier forms of music such as blues ,

1638-693: Is a fundamental rhythmic figure heard in many different slave musics of the Caribbean, as well as the Afro-Caribbean folk dances performed in New Orleans Congo Square and Gottschalk's compositions (for example "Souvenirs From Havana" (1859)). Tresillo (shown below) is the most basic and most prevalent duple-pulse rhythmic cell in sub-Saharan African music traditions and the music of the African Diaspora . Tresillo

1729-558: Is a reminder of "an oppressive and racist society and restrictions on their artistic visions". Amiri Baraka argues that there is a "white jazz" genre that expresses whiteness . White jazz musicians appeared in the Midwest and in other areas throughout the U.S. Papa Jack Laine , who ran the Reliance band in New Orleans in the 1910s, was called "the father of white jazz". The Original Dixieland Jazz Band , whose members were white, were

1820-493: Is heard prominently in New Orleans second line music and in other forms of popular music from that city from the turn of the 20th century to present. "By and large the simpler African rhythmic patterns survived in jazz ... because they could be adapted more readily to European rhythmic conceptions," jazz historian Gunther Schuller observed. "Some survived, others were discarded as the Europeanization progressed." In

1911-437: Is to play the composition as it was written. In contrast, jazz is often characterized by the product of interaction and collaboration, placing less value on the contribution of the composer, if there is one, and more on the performer. The jazz performer interprets a tune in individual ways, never playing the same composition twice. Depending on the performer's mood, experience, and interaction with band members or audience members,

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2002-625: The Atlantic slave trade had brought nearly 400,000 Africans to North America. The slaves came largely from West Africa and the greater Congo River basin and brought strong musical traditions with them. The African traditions primarily use a single-line melody and call-and-response pattern, and the rhythms have a counter-metric structure and reflect African speech patterns. An 1885 account says that they were making strange music (Creole) on an equally strange variety of 'instruments'—washboards, washtubs, jugs, boxes beaten with sticks or bones and

2093-528: The Billboard charts following the 1943 release. This recording also hit number ten on the Harlem Hit Parade chart. Sinatra later re-recorded it with Sy Oliver for his 1961 album I Remember Tommy , a tribute to Dorsey following the bandleader's death. But it was not included on the album for the original release, only being added in a 1993 reissue. Unlike the other songs on the album, it

2184-617: The Dixieland jazz revival of the 1940s, Black musicians rejected it as being shallow nostalgia entertainment for white audiences. On the other hand, traditional jazz enthusiasts have dismissed bebop, free jazz, and jazz fusion as forms of debasement and betrayal. An alternative view is that jazz can absorb and transform diverse musical styles. By avoiding the creation of norms, jazz allows avant-garde styles to emerge. For some African Americans, jazz has drawn attention to African-American contributions to culture and history. For others, jazz

2275-411: The 1920s Jazz Age , it has been recognized as a major form of musical expression in traditional and popular music . Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes , complex chords , call and response vocals , polyrhythms and improvisation . As jazz spread around the world, it drew on national, regional, and local musical cultures, which gave rise to different styles. New Orleans jazz began in

2366-451: The 1950s, many women jazz instrumentalists were prominent, some sustaining long careers. Some of the most distinctive improvisers, composers, and bandleaders in jazz have been women. Trombonist Melba Liston is acknowledged as the first female horn player to work in major bands and to make a real impact on jazz, not only as a musician but also as a respected composer and arranger, particularly through her collaborations with Randy Weston from

2457-476: The 21st century, such as Latin and Afro-Cuban jazz . The origin of the word jazz has resulted in considerable research, and its history is well documented. It is believed to be related to jasm , a slang term dating back to 1860 meaning ' pep, energy ' . The earliest written record of the word is in a 1912 article in the Los Angeles Times in which a minor league baseball pitcher described

2548-638: The Black middle-class. Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre, which originated in African-American communities of primarily the Deep South of the United States at the end of the 19th century from their spirituals , work songs , field hollers , shouts and chants and rhymed simple narrative ballads . The African use of pentatonic scales contributed to

2639-617: The Blue of Evening" was written by Al D'Artega and Tom Adair , and recorded by Frank Sinatra with the Tommy Dorsey Band. Recorded June 1942, it was released in 1943 as a double A side alongside " It's Always You ", another Sinatra and Dorsey recording, in Victor's regular pop series (catalog #27947) to celebrate the signing of Dorsey's band to the Victor Red Seal label. "In the Blue of Evening" reached number one in

2730-464: The Caribbean. African-based rhythmic patterns were retained in the United States in large part through "body rhythms" such as stomping, clapping, and patting juba dancing . In the opinion of jazz historian Ernest Borneman , what preceded New Orleans jazz before 1890 was "Afro-Latin music", similar to what was played in the Caribbean at the time. A three-stroke pattern known in Cuban music as tresillo

2821-664: The Dorsey Brothers band signed with Decca , having a hit with "I Believe in Miracles". Glenn Miller was a member of the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra in 1934 and 1935, composing " Annie's Cousin Fanny ", " Tomorrow's Another Day ", " Harlem Chapel Chimes ", and " Dese Dem Dose ", all recorded for Decca, for the band. Acrimony between the brothers led to Tommy Dorsey walking out to form his own band in 1935 as

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2912-464: The Dorsey band. Two of those eighty songs are " In the Blue of Evening " and " This Love of Mine ". Sinatra achieved his first great success as a vocalist in the Dorsey band and claimed he learned breath control from watching Dorsey play trombone. Sy Oliver and Sinatra did a posthumous tribute album to Dorsey on Sinatra's Reprise records. I Remember Tommy appeared in 1961. Dorsey said his trombone style

3003-584: The Pied Pipers , Dick Haymes , and Connie Haines . In 1944, Dorsey hired the Sentimentalists , name with which he renamed the already known vocal band The Clark Sisters asking them not to reveal their identity. They replaced the Pied Pipers. Dorsey also performed with singer Connee Boswell He hired ex-bandleader and drummer Gene Krupa after Krupa's arrest for marijuana possession in 1943. In 1942, Artie Shaw broke up his band, and Dorsey hired

3094-644: The Scranton Sirens, a territory band in the 1920s. Tommy and Jimmy worked in bands led by Tal Henry , Rudy Vallee , Vincent Lopez , and Nathaniel Shilkret . In 1923, Dorsey followed Jimmy to Detroit to play in Jean Goldkette 's band and returned to New York in 1925 to play with the California Ramblers . In 1927, he joined Paul Whiteman . In 1929, the Dorsey Brothers had their first hit with "Coquette" for OKeh Records . In 1934,

3185-526: The Shaw string section. As George T. Simon in Metronome magazine observed at the time: "They're used in the foreground and background (note some of the lovely obbligatos) for vocal effects and for Tommy's trombone." Dorsey made further business decisions in the music industry. He loaned money to Glenn Miller enabling him to launch his band of 1938, but Dorsey saw the loan as an investment, entitling him to

3276-665: The Starlight Roof at the famed Waldorf-Astoria Hotel . He entertained audiences with a light elegant musical style which remained popular with audiences for nearly three decades from the 1930s until the late 1950s. Jazz originated in the late-19th to early-20th century. It developed out of many forms of music, including blues , ragtime , European harmony , African rhythmic rituals, spirituals , hymns , marches , vaudeville song, and dance music . It also incorporated interpretations of American and European classical music, entwined with African and slave folk songs and

3367-558: The Things You Are' (1939), 'I'll Never Smile Again' (1940), 'Dolores' (1941), 'There are Such Things' (1942), and 'In the Blue of the Evening' (1943)." Written with Fred Norman In 1982, the 1940 Victor recording " I'll Never Smile Again " was the first of a trio of Tommy Dorsey recordings to be inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame . His theme song, " I'm Getting Sentimental Over You " was inducted in 1998, along with his recording of "Marie" written by Irving Berlin in 1928. In 1996,

3458-589: The U.S. Female jazz performers and composers have contributed to jazz throughout its history. Although Betty Carter , Ella Fitzgerald , Adelaide Hall , Billie Holiday , Peggy Lee , Abbey Lincoln , Anita O'Day , Dinah Washington , and Ethel Waters were recognized for their vocal talent, less familiar were bandleaders, composers, and instrumentalists such as pianist Lil Hardin Armstrong , trumpeter Valaida Snow , and songwriters Irene Higginbotham and Dorothy Fields . Women began playing instruments in jazz in

3549-430: The U.S. Postal Service issued a Tommy Dorsey and Jimmy Dorsey commemorative postage stamp. Tommy Dorsey was posthumously inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame , which is a special Grammy award established in 1973 to honor recordings that are at least 25 years old and that have "qualitative or historical significance". Tommy Dorsey appeared in the following movies and film shorts Tommy Dorsey and his Orchestra appear in

3640-514: The ballroom soured and he opened a competing ballroom, the Casino Gardens circa 1944. Dorsey also owned for a short time a trade magazine called The Bandstand . Tommy Dorsey disbanded his own orchestra at the end of 1946. Dorsey might have broken up his own band permanently following World War II , as many big bands did due to the shift in music economics following the war, but Tommy Dorsey's album for RCA Victor , "All Time Hits" placed in

3731-815: The band, tenor saxophonist Sam Donahue led it from 1961, continuing until 1966. Frank Sinatra Jr. made his professional singing debut with the band at Dallas Memorial Theater in Texas in 1963. Later, trombonist and bandleader Buddy Morrow led the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra from 1977 until his death on September 27, 2010. Jane Dorsey died of natural causes at the age of 79, in Miami, Florida, in 2003. Tommy and Jane Dorsey are interred together in Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York. Tommy Dorsey had

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3822-552: The blues are undocumented, though they can be seen as the secular counterpart of the spirituals. However, as Gerhard Kubik points out, whereas the spirituals are homophonic , rural blues and early jazz "was largely based on concepts of heterophony ". During the early 19th century an increasing number of black musicians learned to play European instruments, particularly the violin, which they used to parody European dance music in their own cakewalk dances. In turn, European American minstrel show performers in blackface popularized

3913-555: The development of blue notes in blues and jazz. As Kubik explains: Many of the rural blues of the Deep South are stylistically an extension and merger of basically two broad accompanied song-style traditions in the west central Sudanic belt: W. C. Handy became interested in folk blues of the Deep South while traveling through the Mississippi Delta. In this folk blues form, the singer would improvise freely within

4004-434: The early 1910s, combining earlier brass band marches, French quadrilles , biguine , ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation . However, jazz did not begin as a single musical tradition in New Orleans or elsewhere. In the 1930s, arranged dance-oriented swing big bands , Kansas City jazz (a hard-swinging, bluesy, improvisational style), and gypsy jazz (a style that emphasized musette waltzes) were

4095-509: The early 1920s, drawing particular recognition on piano. When male jazz musicians were drafted during World War II, many all-female bands replaced them. The International Sweethearts of Rhythm , which was founded in 1937, was a popular band that became the first all-female integrated band in the U.S. and the first to travel with the USO , touring Europe in 1945. Women were members of the big bands of Woody Herman and Gerald Wilson . Beginning in

4186-480: The education of freed African Americans. Although strict segregation limited employment opportunities for most blacks, many were able to find work in entertainment. Black musicians were able to provide entertainment in dances, minstrel shows , and in vaudeville , during which time many marching bands were formed. Black pianists played in bars, clubs, and brothels, as ragtime developed. Ragtime appeared as sheet music, popularized by African-American musicians such as

4277-556: The entertainer Ernest Hogan , whose hit songs appeared in 1895. Two years later, Vess Ossman recorded a medley of these songs as a banjo solo known as "Rag Time Medley". Also in 1897, the white composer William Krell published his " Mississippi Rag " as the first written piano instrumental ragtime piece, and Tom Turpin published his "Harlem Rag", the first rag published by an African-American. Classically trained pianist Scott Joplin produced his " Original Rags " in 1898 and, in 1899, had an international hit with " Maple Leaf Rag ",

4368-459: The first jazz group to record, and Bix Beiderbecke was one of the most prominent jazz soloists of the 1920s. The Chicago Style was developed by white musicians such as Eddie Condon , Bud Freeman , Jimmy McPartland , and Dave Tough . Others from Chicago such as Benny Goodman and Gene Krupa became leading members of swing during the 1930s. Many bands included both Black and white musicians. These musicians helped change attitudes toward race in

4459-415: The first written music which was rhythmically based on an African motif (1803). From the perspective of African-American music, the "habanera rhythm" (also known as "congo"), "tango-congo", or tango . can be thought of as a combination of tresillo and the backbeat . The habanera was the first of many Cuban music genres which enjoyed periods of popularity in the United States and reinforced and inspired

4550-483: The following films for Paramount, MGM, Samuel Goldwyn, Allied Artists, and United Artists: STEREO FILM RECORDINGS (1942–44) : ADDITIONAL LINKS Jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans , Louisiana , in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues , ragtime , European harmony , African rhythmic rituals, spirituals , hymns , marches , vaudeville song, and dance music . Since

4641-633: The following year. At that point, trombonist Warren Covington became leader of the band with Jane Dorsey's blessing as she owned the rights to her late husband's band and name. Billed as the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra Starring Warren Covington , they reached #7 on the Billboard charts and earned a gold record in the fall of 1958 with the hit single "Tea for Two Cha-Cha". The band was also fronted by Urbie Green after Dorsey's death in 1956. After Covington led

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4732-532: The habanera rhythm and cinquillo , are heard in the ragtime compositions of Joplin and Turpin. Joplin's " Solace " (1909) is generally considered to be in the habanera genre: both of the pianist's hands play in a syncopated fashion, completely abandoning any sense of a march rhythm. Ned Sublette postulates that the tresillo/habanera rhythm "found its way into ragtime and the cakewalk," whilst Roberts suggests that "the habanera influence may have been part of what freed black music from ragtime's European bass". In

4823-424: The influences of West African culture. Its composition and style have changed many times throughout the years with each performer's personal interpretation and improvisation, which is also one of the greatest appeals of the genre. By the 18th century, slaves in the New Orleans area gathered socially at a special market, in an area which later became known as Congo Square , famous for its African dances. By 1866,

4914-460: The instruments of jazz: brass, drums, and reeds tuned in the European 12-tone scale. Small bands contained a combination of self-taught and formally educated musicians, many from the funeral procession tradition. These bands traveled in black communities in the deep south. Beginning in 1914, Louisiana Creole and African-American musicians played in vaudeville shows which carried jazz to cities in

5005-468: The jazz era of one-nighters, the early days of radio in its infancy stages, and the onward march when both brothers ended up with Paul Whiteman before 1935 when The Dorsey Brothers' Orchestra split into two. In the early 1950s, Tommy Dorsey moved from RCA Victor back to Decca. He was promised $ 2,000 if he switched to their label. However, he was reported to have collected $ 2,500 instead. Jimmy Dorsey broke up his big band in 1953. Tommy invited him to join as

5096-578: The late 1950s into the 1990s. Jewish Americans played a significant role in jazz. As jazz spread, it developed to encompass many different cultures, and the work of Jewish composers in Tin Pan Alley helped shape the many different sounds that jazz came to incorporate. Jewish Americans were able to thrive in Jazz because of the probationary whiteness that they were allotted at the time. George Bornstein wrote that African Americans were sympathetic to

5187-539: The late 1950s, using the mode , or musical scale, as the basis of musical structure and improvisation, as did free jazz , which explored playing without regular meter, beat and formal structures. Jazz-rock fusion appeared in the late 1960s and early 1970s, combining jazz improvisation with rock music 's rhythms, electric instruments, and highly amplified stage sound. In the early 1980s, a commercial form of jazz fusion called smooth jazz became successful, garnering significant radio airplay. Other styles and genres abound in

5278-955: The many top players he employed, such as George Brunies , Sharkey Bonano , and future members of the Original Dixieland Jass Band . During the early 1900s, jazz was mostly performed in African-American and mulatto communities due to segregation laws. Storyville brought jazz to a wider audience through tourists who visited the port city of New Orleans. Many jazz musicians from African-American communities were hired to perform in bars and brothels. These included Buddy Bolden and Jelly Roll Morton in addition to those from other communities, such as Lorenzo Tio and Alcide Nunez . Louis Armstrong started his career in Storyville and found success in Chicago. Storyville

5369-413: The melody was stated briefly at the beginning and most of the piece was improvised. Modal jazz abandoned chord progressions to allow musicians to improvise even more. In many forms of jazz, a soloist is supported by a rhythm section of one or more chordal instruments (piano, guitar), double bass, and drums. The rhythm section plays chords and rhythms that outline the composition structure and complement

5460-697: The music internationally, combining syncopation with European harmonic accompaniment. In the mid-1800s the white New Orleans composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk adapted slave rhythms and melodies from Cuba and other Caribbean islands into piano salon music. New Orleans was the main nexus between the Afro-Caribbean and African American cultures. The Black Codes outlawed drumming by slaves, which meant that African drumming traditions were not preserved in North America, unlike in Cuba, Haiti, and elsewhere in

5551-583: The music of New Orleans with the music of Cuba, Wynton Marsalis observes that tresillo is the New Orleans "clavé", a Spanish word meaning "code" or "key", as in the key to a puzzle, or mystery. Although the pattern is only half a clave , Marsalis makes the point that the single-celled figure is the guide-pattern of New Orleans music. Jelly Roll Morton called the rhythmic figure the Spanish tinge and considered it an essential ingredient of jazz. The abolition of slavery in 1865 led to new opportunities for

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5642-404: The northeastern United States, a "hot" style of playing ragtime had developed, notably James Reese Europe 's symphonic Clef Club orchestra in New York City, which played a benefit concert at Carnegie Hall in 1912. The Baltimore rag style of Eubie Blake influenced James P. Johnson 's development of stride piano playing, in which the right hand plays the melody, while the left hand provides

5733-618: The northern and western parts of the U.S. Jazz became international in 1914, when the Creole Band with cornettist Freddie Keppard performed the first ever jazz concert outside the United States, at the Pantages Playhouse Theatre in Winnipeg , Canada. In New Orleans, a white bandleader named Papa Jack Laine integrated blacks and whites in his marching band. He was known as "the father of white jazz" because of

5824-478: The orchestra was having a hit with "Every Little Moment". Dorsey's orchestra was known primarily for its renderings of ballads at dance tempos, frequently with singers such as Jack Leonard and Frank Sinatra . In 2009, Buddy De Franco recalled recording "Opus One" with Dorsey in the 1940s, commenting on Dorsey's desire to be precise and exact. Expanding on De Franco's opinions about Dorsey, writer Peter Levinson said, "He wanted things to be done his way." The band

5915-470: The performer may change melodies, harmonies, and time signatures. In early Dixieland , a.k.a. New Orleans jazz, performers took turns playing melodies and improvising countermelodies . In the swing era of the 1920s–40s, big bands relied more on arrangements which were written or learned by ear and memorized. Soloists improvised within these arrangements. In the bebop era of the 1940s, big bands gave way to small groups and minimal arrangements in which

6006-500: The period 1820–1850. Some of the earliest [Mississippi] Delta settlers came from the vicinity of New Orleans, where drumming was never actively discouraged for very long and homemade drums were used to accompany public dancing until the outbreak of the Civil War. Another influence came from the harmonic style of hymns of the church, which black slaves had learned and incorporated into their own music as spirituals . The origins of

6097-458: The perspective of other musical traditions, such as European music history or African music. But critic Joachim-Ernst Berendt argues that its terms of reference and its definition should be broader, defining jazz as a "form of art music which originated in the United States through the confrontation of the Negro with European music" and arguing that it differs from European music in that jazz has

6188-494: The plight of the Jewish American and vice versa. As disenfranchised minorities themselves, Jewish composers of popular music saw themselves as natural allies with African Americans. The Jazz Singer with Al Jolson is one example of how Jewish Americans were able to bring jazz, music that African Americans developed, into popular culture. Benny Goodman was a vital Jewish American to the progression of Jazz. Goodman

6279-459: The post-Civil War period (after 1865), African Americans were able to obtain surplus military bass drums, snare drums and fifes, and an original African-American drum and fife music emerged, featuring tresillo and related syncopated rhythmic figures. This was a drumming tradition that was distinct from its Caribbean counterparts, expressing a uniquely African-American sensibility. "The snare and bass drummers played syncopated cross-rhythms ," observed

6370-676: The pre-jazz era and contributed to the codification of jazz through the publication of some of the first jazz sheet music. The music of New Orleans , Louisiana had a profound effect on the creation of early jazz. In New Orleans, slaves could practice elements of their culture such as voodoo and playing drums. Many early jazz musicians played in the bars and brothels of the red-light district around Basin Street called Storyville . In addition to dance bands, there were marching bands which played at lavish funerals (later called jazz funerals ). The instruments used by marching bands and dance bands became

6461-537: The prominent styles. Bebop emerged in the 1940s, shifting jazz from danceable popular music toward a more challenging "musician's music" which was played at faster tempos and used more chord-based improvisation. Cool jazz developed near the end of the 1940s, introducing calmer, smoother sounds and long, linear melodic lines. The mid-1950s saw the emergence of hard bop , which introduced influences from rhythm and blues , gospel , and blues to small groups and particularly to saxophone and piano. Modal jazz developed in

6552-657: The radio with comedian Jack Pearl, then became the host. By 1939, Dorsey was aware of criticism that his band lacked a jazz feeling. He hired arranger Sy Oliver away from the Jimmie Lunceford band. Sy Oliver's arrangements include " On the Sunny Side of the Street " and "T.D.'s Boogie Woogie"; Oliver also composed two of the new band's signature instrumentals, "Well, Git It" and " Opus One ". In 1940, Dorsey hired singer Frank Sinatra from bandleader Harry James . Sinatra made eighty recordings from 1940 to 1942 with

6643-410: The rhythm and bassline. In Ohio and elsewhere in the mid-west the major influence was ragtime, until about 1919. Around 1912, when the four-string banjo and saxophone came in, musicians began to improvise the melody line, but the harmony and rhythm remained unchanged. A contemporary account states that blues could only be heard in jazz in the gut-bucket cabarets, which were generally looked down upon by

6734-556: The slang connotations of the term, saying: "When Broadway picked it up, they called it 'J-A-Z-Z'. It wasn't called that. It was spelled 'J-A-S-S'. That was dirty, and if you knew what it was, you wouldn't say it in front of ladies." The American Dialect Society named it the Word of the 20th Century . Jazz is difficult to define because it encompasses a wide range of music spanning a period of over 100 years, from ragtime to rock -infused fusion . Attempts have been made to define jazz from

6825-444: The soloist. In avant-garde and free jazz , the separation of soloist and band is reduced, and there is license, or even a requirement, for the abandoning of chords, scales, and meters. Since the emergence of bebop, forms of jazz that are commercially oriented or influenced by popular music have been criticized. According to Bruce Johnson, there has always been a "tension between jazz as a commercial music and an art form". Regarding

6916-574: The top ten records in February 1947. In addition, " How Are Things in Glocca Morra? ", a single recorded by Dorsey, became a top-ten hit in March 1947. As a result, Dorsey was able to re-organize a big band in early 1947. The Dorsey brothers were also reconciling. The biographical film The Fabulous Dorseys (1947) describes sketchy details of how the brothers got their start from-the-bottom-up into

7007-455: The trombone solo by Dorsey was a "piece of superlative horn work". She recommended it "unhesitatingly", and said it was "summer music of the very best quality". In The Mason City Globe-Gazette review from 1943 following the release, it was described as the "epitome of all that the name Frank Sinatra means to his avid admirers and followers", while Dorsey was described as having "mastery of that lush trombone quality of which never fails to bring

7098-500: The twice-daily ferry between both cities to perform, and the habanera quickly took root in the musically fertile Crescent City. John Storm Roberts states that the musical genre habanera "reached the U.S. twenty years before the first rag was published." For the more than quarter-century in which the cakewalk , ragtime , and proto-jazz were forming and developing, the habanera was a consistent part of African-American popular music. Habaneras were widely available as sheet music and were

7189-575: The use of tresillo-based rhythms in African-American music. New Orleans native Louis Moreau Gottschalk 's piano piece "Ojos Criollos (Danse Cubaine)" (1860) was influenced by the composer's studies in Cuba: the habanera rhythm is clearly heard in the left hand. In Gottschalk's symphonic work "A Night in the Tropics" (1859), the tresillo variant cinquillo appears extensively. The figure was later used by Scott Joplin and other ragtime composers. Comparing

7280-498: The writer Robert Palmer, speculating that "this tradition must have dated back to the latter half of the nineteenth century, and it could have not have developed in the first place if there hadn't been a reservoir of polyrhythmic sophistication in the culture it nurtured." African-American music began incorporating Afro-Cuban rhythmic motifs in the 19th century when the habanera (Cuban contradanza ) gained international popularity. Musicians from Havana and New Orleans would take

7371-500: The year's crop was harvested and several days were set aside for celebration. As late as 1861, a traveler in North Carolina saw dancers dressed in costumes that included horned headdresses and cow tails and heard music provided by a sheepskin-covered "gumbo box", apparently a frame drum; triangles and jawbones furnished the auxiliary percussion. There are quite a few [accounts] from the southeastern states and Louisiana dating from

7462-572: The younger brother of bandleader Jimmy Dorsey . After Dorsey broke with his brother in the mid-1930s, he led an extremely successful band from the late 1930s into the 1950s. He is best remembered for standards such as " Opus One ", " This Love of Mine " (no. 3 in 1941) featuring Frank Sinatra on vocals, " Song of India ", "Marie", "On Treasure Island", and his biggest hit single, " I'll Never Smile Again " (no. 1 for 12 weeks in 1940). Born in Mahanoy Plane, Pennsylvania , Thomas Francis Dorsey Jr.

7553-710: Was Paul Weston . Bill Finegan , an arranger who left Glenn Miller's civilian band, arranged for the Tommy Dorsey band from 1942 to 1950. The band featured a number of instrumentalists, singers, and arrangers in the 1930s and '40s, including trumpeters Zeke Zarchy , Bunny Berigan , Ziggy Elman , Doc Severinsen , and Charlie Shavers , pianists Milt Raskin , Jess Stacy , clarinetists Buddy DeFranco , Johnny Mince , and Peanuts Hucko . Others who played with Dorsey were drummers Buddy Rich , Louie Bellson , Dave Tough saxophonist Tommy Reed , and singers Sinatra, Ken Curtis , Jack Leonard, Edythe Wright , Jo Stafford with

7644-479: Was a member of the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra: "Lullaby of Broadway" (written by Harry Warren ), number one for two weeks, and "Chasing Shadows", number one for three weeks. His biggest hit was "I'll Never Smile Again", featuring Frank Sinatra on vocals, which was number one for twelve weeks on the Billboard pop singles chart in 1940. "RCA Victor ... scored with 'There Are Such Things', which had

7735-458: Was heavily influenced by Jack Teagarden . Among Dorsey's staff of arrangers was Axel Stordahl who arranged for Sinatra in his Columbia and Capitol years. Another member of the Dorsey band was trombonist Nelson Riddle , who later had a partnership as one of Sinatra's arrangers and conductors in the 1950s and afterwards. Another noted Dorsey arranger, who, in the 1950s, married and was professionally associated with Dorsey veteran Jo Stafford ,

7826-433: Was major ... , and I carried this device into my melody as well. The publication of his " Memphis Blues " sheet music in 1912 introduced the 12-bar blues to the world (although Gunther Schuller argues that it is not really a blues, but "more like a cakewalk"). This composition, as well as his later " St. Louis Blues " and others, included the habanera rhythm, and would become jazz standards . Handy's music career began in

7917-436: Was popular almost from the moment it signed with RCA Victor for "On Treasure Island", the first of four hits in 1935. After his 1935 recording, however, Dorsey's manager dropped the "hot jazz" that Dorsey had mixed with his own lyrical style, and instead had Dorsey play pop and vocal tunes. Dorsey kept his Clambake Seven as a Dixieland group that played during performances. Dorsey became the co-host of The Raleigh-Kool Program on

8008-531: Was recorded with a 12-piece band and played in a manner similar to Dorsey; the other songs were all re-recorded with a 20-piece band. Replacing Dorsey, James Decker played the trombone solo at the start of the song. Janice Rhea, while writing for the Naugatuck Daily News after the initial recording in 1942, described "In the Blue of Evening" as a "thrilling, romantic song", which Sinatra performed in his "usual captivating fashion". She added that

8099-407: Was shut down by the U.S. government in 1917. Cornetist Buddy Bolden played in New Orleans from 1895 to 1906. No recordings by him exist. His band is credited with creating the big four: the first syncopated bass drum pattern to deviate from the standard on-the-beat march. As the example below shows, the second half of the big four pattern is the habanera rhythm. In the Blue of Evening "In

8190-536: Was the leader of a racially integrated band named King of Swing. His jazz concert in the Carnegie Hall in 1938 was the first ever to be played there. The concert was described by Bruce Eder as "the single most important jazz or popular music concert in history". Shep Fields also helped to popularize "Sweet" Jazz music through his appearances and Big band remote broadcasts from such landmark venues as Chicago's Palmer House , Broadway's Paramount Theater and

8281-423: Was the second of four children born to Thomas Francis Dorsey Sr., a bandleader, and Theresa (née Langton) Dorsey. He and Jimmy, his older brother by slightly less than two years, became known as the Dorsey Brothers. The two younger siblings were Mary and Edward, who died young. Tommy Dorsey studied the trumpet with his father but later switched to trombone. At age 15, Jimmy recommended Tommy to replace Russ Morgan in

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