JUMP BLUES
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| LOUIS JORDAN |
En aquellos años el sonido del blues se fue urbanizando en una mezcla de blues clásico con letras humorísticas y ritmos heredados del boogie-woogie.
Louis Jordan y su banda se consideran los pioneros de este estilo, el cual tuvo mucha aceptación y al que llamaron jump blues.
Breve historia
Estas bandas grababan desde blues más clásicos hasta baladas y piezas de música popular. En general, la guitarra eléctrica perdió su relevancia en favor de una mayor importancia del piano o del saxofón. Se trata de una música más bailable que el blues, podría decirse que más profunda que el swing y más intensa que el jazz.
Este estilo se popularizó sobre todo durante los años 40 y es un precursor del rock and roll.
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Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson (nacido como Edward L. Vinson Jr. Houston, 18 de diciembre de 1917-Los Ángeles, 2 de julio de 1988) fue un saxofonista alto de jump blues, jazz, bebop y R&B y cantante de blues (blues shouter)nota 1 estadounidense.1 Se le apodó «Cleanhead» por un incidente en el que perdió su pelo accidentalmente por la lejía contenida en un producto para alisar el cabello.2 El crítico musical Robert Christgau calificó a Vinson como «una de las voces de blues más limpias —y más desagradables— que jamás se hayan escuchado»
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Jordan in New York, July 1946
Jump blues evolved from the music of big bands such as those of Lionel Hampton and Lucky Millinder. These bands of the early 1940s produced musicians such as Louis Jordan, Jack McVea, Earl Bostic, and Arnett Cobb.Louis Jordan "was by far the most popular of the jump blues stars", according to a 1993 news item which mentions other artists who played this genre: Roy Brown, Amos Millburn and Joe Liggins as well as "sax soloists like Jack McVea, Big Jay McNeely, and Bullmoose Jackson". The most exciting singles, according to this source, were Jordan's "Saturday Night Fish Fry", Roy Brown's "Good Rockin' Tonight", and Big Jay McNeely's "Deacon's Hop".
Louis Jordan's Tympany Five
One publication of the Smithsonian Institution provided this summary of Jordan's music.
One important stylistic prototype in the development of R&B was jump blues, pioneered by Louis Jordan, with ... His Tympany Five ... three horns and a rhythm section, while stylistically his music melded elements of swing and blues, incorporating the shuffle rhythm, boogie-woogie bass lines, and short horn patterns or riffs. The songs featured the use of African American vernacular language, humor, and vocal call-and-response sections between Jordan and the band. Jordan’s music appealed to both African American and white audiences, and he had broad success with hit songs like "Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby" (1944).
Blues and jazz were part of the same musical world, with many accomplished musicians straddling both genres.Jump bands such as the Tympany Five, which came into being at the same time as the boogie-woogie revival, achieved maximum effect with an eight-to-the-bar boogie-woogie style.
Jordan's "raucous recordings" with Tympany Five included "Saturday Night Fish Fry", one of the first "to feature a distorted electric guitar".Many sources describe this recording as jump blues, because "it literally made its listeners jump to its pulsing beat", according to NPR. Another source describes Jordan's jump blues style as combining "good-natured novelty lyrics (some with suggestive double meanings); [pushing] the tempo; [strengthening] the beat; [layering] the sound with his bluesy saxophone and playful melodies."
Lionel Hampton
Lionel Hampton recorded the stomping big-band blues song "Flying Home" in 1942. Featuring a choked, screaming tenor sax performance by Illinois Jacquet, the song was a hit in the "race" category. One source states that this recording was "the best example of where big band jazz set the stage for jump blues".
When released, however, Billboard described "Flying Home" as "an unusually swingy side...with a bright bounce in the medium tempo and a steady drive maintained, it's a jumper that defies standing still". Billboard also noted that Benny Goodman had a hand in writing the tune "back in the old Goodman Sextet Days". Billboard went on to state that "apart from the fact that it is Lionel Hampton's theme, 'Flying Home' is a sure-fire to make the youngsters shed their nickels—and gladly."Five years later Billboard noted the inclusion of "Flying Home" in a show that was "strictly for hepsters who go for swing and boogie, and beats in loud, hot unrelenting style a la Lionel Hampton....The Hampton band gave with everything, practically wearing itself out with such numbers as 'Hey Bop a Re Bop', 'Hamp Boogie' and 'Flying Home'"
Both Hampton and Jordan combined the popular boogie-woogie rhythm, a grittier version of swing-era saxophone styles as exemplified by Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster, and playful, humorous lyrics or verbal asides laced with jive talk.
As this urban, jazz-based music became more popular, musicians who wanted to "play for the people" began favoring a heavy, insistent beat. which appealed to black listeners who no longer wished to be identified with "life down home."
Jump groups, employed to play for jitterbugs at a much lower cost than big bands, became popular with agents and ballroom owners. The saxophonist Art Chaney said "[w]e were insulted when an audience wouldn't dance".
Jump was especially popular in the late 1940s and early 1950s, through artists such as Louis Jordan, Big Joe Turner, Roy Brown, Charles Brown, Helen Humes, T-Bone Walker, Roy Milton, Billy Wright, Wynonie Harris, Louis Prima, and Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee.According to the Blues Hall of Fame, Big Joe Turner was particularly important; he "was a king of the jump blues genre".
The term "rock and roll" had a strong sexual connotation in jump blues and R&B, but by the time DJ Alan Freed referred to rock and roll in the mid 50s, "the sexual component had been dialled down enough that it simply became an acceptable term for dancing".
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| BIG JOE TURNER |
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