-
Scott Joplin - 1900s
Ragtime music has inherent syncopation, where loud offbeats fall between the other beats. This man was known as the ragtime king. After the height of his prodigy career, he continued to compose ragtime tunes as well as operas and ballets, which were HUGELY influential in the 70s. Joplin's death in 1917 marked the beginning of the end of ragtime music's supremacy in the Americas -
Blues - 1910
This genre has been the most important role in the history of pop culture. It is a direct ancestor to different types of modern pop music we know today like the Beatles. The blues came from the trials the African American slaves faced during the turn of the 20th century. The earliest blues singers sympathized with their audience because they knew how slavery felt. This art form is still endured to this day -
Canada's First Radio Stations (1920s)
Canada's pop culture gave birth to the very first radio stations. This is important because it helped Canadian songwriters to show some of their well - known popular 20th century musical talents to the public. By 1923, there were approximately 34 national radio stations. Shortly after the Great Depression, Canadian music (a big part of it was adopted by the American culture) was as potent as ever -
Country - 1920s
Country music has gone through countless shifts, evolving with changing cultures and new styling branches. Over the decades, it has grown to encompass a variety of music styles and sub-styles. It became a well-driven commercial art form. The expansion and evolution of instrumental accompaniment (guitar, banjo, fiddle, string bass, steel guitar, dobro guitar, and drums) were major factors in the transition of country music from a folk to a pop form. -
Booze and Jazz - Prohibition (1920)
Jazz blends elements from varied traditions, including African and African American, religious, brass band, and blues styles. The Prohibition brings jazz into gangster-run clubs that served alcohol and hired black musicians. This allowed black and white people to mingle socially for the first time. This teaches that the need for diversity is important. Jazz wouldn’t have become so big if the different social classes and ethnic groups didn’t mingle -
New Orleans - 1920s
The call and response tradition of early West African music was retained in many Baptist churches of the South, especially New Orleans. Concepts of polyrhythm and improvisation within groups (qualities of African drumming) were kept in the Congo Square. This was an authorized place where slaves would come together to recreate old traditions like drumming. The techniques in African drumming ensembles affected the culture of New Orleans -
Guy Lombardo
Canada's first noteworthy jazz star. He performed with his siblings and friends as The Royal Canadians. He was described as "the only Canadian ever to create an American tradition." In 1923, the band left Ontario for Ohio to find success in the US, which they achieved. His band premiered at a New Years Eve party, which grew into the longest running annual special broadcast in radio history. This shows that it was a collaboration between Canada and the US that helped to drive the culture forward -
"Taking a scale and making it wail" (1928)
Louis's duet with Earl Hines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bN9HqaH-BQ. Louis Armstrong is one of the more noteworthy jazz musicians. Jazz is fundamentally about improvisation and the art of playing without premeditation. Like many, Louis was living in a society where jazz was not appreciated as much as it is now. One newspaper editorial even called it a "manifestation of a low streak in man's taste that has not yet come out in civilization's wash." -
"Taking a scale and making it wail" (PT 2)
Now, jazz is praised as one of the noblest forms of human expression, with a deep and direct connection to the soul. New Orleans helped with jazz's growth. It was a cultural melting pot where people of all nationalities lived side by side. Strains of melodies from the West Indies socialized with traces of African polyrhythms carried by slaves. To add, there was the sound of constant brass bands parading around the Crescent City at social events -
"Taking a scale and making it wail" (PT 3)
The Supreme Court changed the face of music by ruling institutionalized segregation between races. This forced classically trained Creoles (free light skinned descendants of French and Spanish colonists) into the black community, where they combined their technical fluency on different instruments -
Honky Tonk - 1930s
As America's national zeitgeist began to reflect dramatic social shifts like the industrial-age migration from country to city, country music, especially in unsettled, temporary WW2 era oil field, factory and shipyard settlements in Texas underwent some changes. The rise of honky tonk was a manifestation of that social upheaval. Today, it's heard in the music of contemporary stars (Alan Jackson) -
Doo Wop (1940s)
Doom Wop music comes from African American communities in large cities like New York. The name is derived from harmonious back vocals that provide its rhythm. The Doo Wop bandwagon made a huge impact. Many teenagers who bought the music were forming their own singing groups. Many new a cappella groups were discovered by record companies all over. The central city was New York, where African and Italian Americans harmonized on teen-oriented songs that conveyed the innocence of a now long-gone era -
Bebop - 1950s
Bebop is faster jazz music. As musicians worked with expanded music theory during the 1950s. Its adaptation by musicians who worked it into the basic dynamic approach would lead to the development of post-bop. Around that same time a move towards structural simplification of bebop occurred among musicians such as Horace Silver, leading to the movement known as hard bop. Development of jazz occurred through the interplay of bebop, cool, post-bop, and hard bop styles through the 1950s -
Jazz (1950)
With early racism, jazz was controversial 'cause its origins were of African tradition. It was said to be "The Devil's Music." Jazz was different 'cause it broke the rules musically and socially. Prior to jazz, music teachers said jazz would ruin the young's interest in classical music so they tried to silence jazz. In WW1, the demand for workers went up. Many African Americans went north, and so did jazz musicians. They wanted an audience. Chicago became the new centre of jazz right after -
Swing - 1930s
Swing had become as commercially viable and lucrative as rap music is today. By 1942, the first American efforts in the 2nd world war, the swing era had suffered some setbacks. Important musicians like Glenn Miller were enlisted, which made swing dormant. After the war, swing felt competition from Dixieland revival and bebop, creating a war that divided the jazz audience into parts
