Coleman Hawkins We have to remember that the clarinet dominated the reeds throughout the 1920s. Sidney Bechet made a stand with the soprano sax and Frankie Trumbauer celebrated the lightness of the C-melody sax. And then there was Coleman Hawkins. Our guest today is Jeff Decker – saxophonist, composer, educator and member of the jazz […]
jazz at 100
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Jazz at 100 Hour 11 – Kansas City and the Territory Bands (1927 – 1940)
Mary Lou Williams – “The Lady Who Swings the Band.” Outside of the Chicago – New York nexus, jazz thrived during the late 1920’s and 1930’s in Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas, with its center in Kansas City. Under the careful control of Boss Pendergast, Kansas City was a wide open town with a thriving night […]
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Jazz at 100 Hour 9: Up in Harlem – Duke Ellington (1927 – 1930)
Tags: Duke Ellington, jazz at 100Duke Ellington In previous programs in this series, we have listened to Stride pianists and jazz orchestras from New York. In this hour, we’ll return to Harlem to listen to maybe the most important band leader in jazz history and one of the most significant composers of the music – Duke Ellington. We are joined […]
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Jazz at 100 Hour 8: Bix and the Boys (1924 – 1928)
Bix Beiderbecke In the last hour we heard the most important jazz recordings of the 1920s – the Hot Fives and Hot Sevens led by cornetist Louis Armstrong. Perhaps the other most influential cornet player of the era was a young white player from Davenport Iowa, Bix Beiderbecke. In this hour we will listen to […]
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Jazz at 100 Hour 7: Louis Armstrong’s Hot Fives and Hot Sevens (1926 – 1929)
Tags: jazz at 100, Louis ArmstrongLouis Armstrong and his Hot Five In the past two hours, we’ve heard the music of the newly conceived jazz orchestras of New York and the Harlem-style or “Stride” pianists. We touched on Louis Armstrong’s contributions to the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra and the invention of the big band soloist. In this hour, we return with […]
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Jazz at 100 Hour 5: Up in Harlem – The Bands (1924 – 1929)
Fletcher Henderson & His Orchestra In the last hour, we explored the jazz of King Oliver’s Chicago in the 1920s, and heard from The New Orleans Rhythm Kings, clarinetists Jimmy Noone and Johnny Dodds, pianists Earl Hines and Lovie Austin, cornetist Freddie Keppard and trumpeter Jabbo Smith. Now we move to the other emerging center […]
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Jazz at 100 Hour 3: New Orleans Diaspora – Jelly Roll Morton & Sidney Bechet (1923 – 1928)
Jelly Roll Morton’s Red Hot Peppers As New Orleans lost its commercial position as a major port and blacks fled the oppression of the American south, the cream of NOLA musicians hit the road. In the last hour, we heard the music of trombonist Kid Ory, whose Ory’s Sunshine Orchestra was the first black jazz […]
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Jazz at 100: Celebrating 100 years of Recorded Jazz
On February 26, 1917, the Original Dixieland Jazz Band made the first jazz recording. Over the next 100 years, the music of jazz has brought forth transcendent leaps of creativity and staggering virtuosity. To celebrate this anniversary, WTJU is telling that story in its radio series – Jazz at 100. Jazz at 100 is the […]