More commonly, swing refers to what we call “big band” Jazz of the sass’s- music performed by groups which generally featured several of each instrument and playing a steady but still wild beat that was great for dancing. Music of the sass’s, a positive influence through the depression By Rick Dietrich Goodman small bands. The great swing band included those of Louis Russell, Earl Hines, Jimmy Langford, Andy Kirk, Harlan Leonard, Claude Hopkins, Chick Webb, Don Redden, Benny Carter, Bunny Bengal, Charlie Barnett, Harry James, Woody Herman, Lionel Hampton, and the great Count Basis.
Count Basis started out his young career as a Jazz musician playing to silent movies. Then in 1928 he Joined Walter Page’s Blue Devils, starting a 20 year long association with the Bassist. When the Blue Devils broke up Basis Joined Bernie Motet’s band, and then in 1935 darted his own band, the Reno Club and quickly went to the top. In 1938, the band recorded the classic track “Jumping At the Woodside” with three of the most accomplished musicians of the time, featuring solos by, Earl Warren and Herschel Evans as well as Young and Clayton.
One of the people who made the biggest impact on the sass’s music was the trumpet player, Louis Armstrong. He was the true soloist of Jazz. Armstrong was a great improviser, technically, emotionally, and intellectually (The Simon and Schuster Listener Guide to Jazz, 28). He changed the format of Jazz by bringing the soloist to the forefront, and his recording roofs, the Hot Five and the Hot Seven, showed people that Jazz improvisation could go for beyond simply ornamenting the melody; he created new melodies based on chords of the initial tune (Microsoft, Incarnate). Hanged the words and melodies of songs, but also by improvising without words, by using instruments in place of words (The Simon and Schuster Listener guide to Jazz, 27). The most innovative pianist of the sass’s , comparable to Armstrong, was Earl “Faith” Hines, a Chicago born musical wizard considered to have a wild, unpredictable imagination (Microsoft Music). His style influenced pianist of the next generation. One of the most popular ways of playing the piano in the sass’s was called the boogie-woozier, a form of blues and swing mixed together.
It consists of a short, sharply accented bass pattern played over and over by the left hand while the right hand plays freely, using a variety of rhythms (Microsoft Incarnate). Leading boogie-woozier pianists included Made Lug Lewis, Albert Monsoon, Pete Johnson, and Pine Top Smith. The great efforts of Armstrong, Elongating, Henderson, and others made Jazz a dominant influence on American music during the sass’s and sass’s. Popular musicians such as the band leader Paul Whitman seed some of the most common beats and rhythm of Jazz, although with less freedom and skill than were displayed in the music of the great Jazz players.
Attempting to combine Jazz with light classical music, Whitman orchestra also played Jazzy pieces by American composers I believe that these artists I have talked about were some of the most important people during the Depression. When people were sad and nothing was going right they always had their radio to turn on. Without the good times Jazz brought to them, who knows how the Depression would have turned out without the music of the sass’s.
