The Melody Web what each genre heard, and what it passed on

heard passed on Click or tap a node to recenter. Use a connecting line, or Influence, for the story.

Heard

Blues genre · 1860–

Chicago small-band jazz keeps blues as a chorus form and pitch language on the South Side: 12-bar vehicles, inflected thirds and sevenths, and a cabaret blues book.

Influence
New Orleans jazz style · 1890–1930

Chicago jazz is New Orleans jazz moved and recoded: same blues/rag vehicles and front-line habit, then longer solos, saxophone, and guitar in a Northern club and record economy.

Influence
Stride piano style · 1919–

Chicago jazz piano hears Harlem stride, then recodes the jumping left hand as a horn-like right-hand line: Hines’s “trumpet style” with Armstrong.

Influence

Chicago jazz

style · 1922–1930

Also called Chicago style, Chicago style jazz

Kind of Jazz

1920s Chicago recoding of New Orleans jazz: more solo space, saxophone and guitar in the small band, and a two-beat or tense four that is not Storyville parade polyphony (Armstrong’s Chicago records, Noone, the Austin High / Condon circle, Beiderbecke). It hears Blues for South Side 12-bar vehicles and Stride piano for Hines’s trumpet-style keyboard. It already gives Swing the soloist-and-rhythm-section job. Not a second origin of New Orleans jazz. White campus “Chicago style” leftover as a marketing wing, not a second system. Tin Pan Alley leftover as repertory (the songbook hop sits on Jazz). Electric Chicago blues leftover as a later neighbor, not a child. Dixieland revival leftover on New Orleans jazz.

Listen

  1. Singin' the Blues Frankie Trumbauer / Bix Beiderbecke (1927) YouTube · Spotify
  2. Nobody's Sweetheart McKenzie and Condon's Chicagoans (1927) YouTube · Spotify
  3. Apex Blues Jimmie Noone (1929) YouTube · Spotify
  4. There'll Be Some Changes Made Chicago Rhythm Kings (1928) YouTube · Spotify
  5. For No Reason at All in C Bix Beiderbecke / Frankie Trumbauer (1927) YouTube · Spotify

Passed on

Swing style · 1928–1946

Swing takes the Chicago featured solo — Armstrong’s Chicago rhetoric, a rhythm section that can walk four, sax as a lead voice — and writes it into section charts.

Influence

Blues → Chicago jazz

harmonymelodyform and structureperformance practicestrength: highscholarly consensus1918–1928oralrecordingmigration

Mechanism

Chicago small-band jazz keeps blues as a chorus form and pitch language on the South Side: 12-bar vehicles, inflected thirds and sevenths, and a cabaret blues book. Strength high. blues jazz is the umbrella grammar; blues new orleans jazz is the first-style hop; this edge is the 1920s Chicago crystallization (Oliver, Armstrong’s Hot Five/Seven).

Evidence

Oliver’s Lincoln Gardens blues; Armstrong’s Chicago blues sides including West End Blues; Schuller on blues paraphrase as the solo job in that city.

Debate

Whether this is already carried by New Orleans migrants. The migrants bring the language; Chicago’s record and cabaret economy makes blues the local small-band default. Electric Chicago blues is a later neighbor, not this hop.

Mediators

artist: King Oliver; artist: Louis Armstrong; community: South Side Chicago cabarets

New Orleans jazz → Chicago jazz

performance practiceinstrumentationform and structuremelodystrength: highscholarly consensus1918–1928migrationoralrecording

Mechanism

Chicago jazz is New Orleans jazz moved and recoded: same blues/rag vehicles and front-line habit, then longer solos, saxophone, and guitar in a Northern club and record economy. Strength high. It is not a second origin of New Orleans jazz. Oliver, Armstrong, and Noone are the dated carriers.

Evidence

Oliver’s Lincoln Gardens band; Armstrong’s Chicago Hot Five/Seven dates; Noone’s Apex Club records; Schuller on Chicago as the recorded recoding of the New Orleans language.

Debate

Whether “Chicago style” only names white campus bands. Those are a marketing wing. The hop is the South Side and the New Orleans migrants; Condon/Austin High copy the same recoding.

Mediators

artist: King Oliver; artist: Louis Armstrong; artist: Jimmie Noone

Stride piano → Chicago jazz

performance practicephrase and lickinstrumentationstrength: mediumscholarly consensus1926–1928oralrecording

Mechanism

Chicago jazz piano hears Harlem stride, then recodes the jumping left hand as a horn-like right-hand line: Hines’s “trumpet style” with Armstrong. Strength medium. stride piano swing is the later band-chair hop; this edge is the 1920s Chicago small-band hinge.

Evidence

Hines with Armstrong in Chicago; Weather Bird (1928); Schuller on Hines as the piano recoding of that city’s solo language.

Debate

Whether Hines invents a piano school outside stride. The left-hand job is still stride-derived; the Chicago contribution is the linear right hand beside a featured horn.

Mediators

artist: Earl Hines; artist: Louis Armstrong

Chicago jazz → Swing

performance practicemelodyinstrumentationstrength: mediumscholarly consensus1925–1935oralrecordingmigration

Mechanism

Swing takes the Chicago featured solo — Armstrong’s Chicago rhetoric, a rhythm section that can walk four, sax as a lead voice — and writes it into section charts. Strength medium. new orleans jazz swing remains the deeper language hop; this edge is the 1920s solo-and-combo recoding Henderson and Goodman actually heard on records.

Evidence

Armstrong after Chicago inside arranged bands; Goodman’s Chicago youth copying Austin High/Condon records; Schuller on the soloist as the thing swing arranges around.

Debate

Whether this is already the New Orleans→swing hop. Collective polyphony is the New Orleans parent; the solo-centered combo is the Chicago recoding swing quotes.

Mediators

artist: Louis Armstrong; artist: Benny Goodman