A Concise History of Jazz

[Lord Larehip]

As America entered the 1910s, jazz went in geared up. W. C. Handy’s “Memphis Blues” from 1912 was an example of jazz from this early period. The recording is 1917 or later. The ragtime elements are very strong, so much so that many jazz purists feel this is more properly a ragtime band than true jazz and there is some merit to this speculation. It sounds very much like many of the military bands of that time which began incorporating rags (including Sousa and his protégé Arthur Pryor who was actually the first to do it). The left hand of the piano in ragtime plays in 2/4 time and many scholars believe that this was descended from a marching cadence:

[video=youtube;ZGqBmlZR3dc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGqBmlZR3dc[/video]