Teach Yourself Jazz - online guidebook

For the beginning player, with sheet music samples

Home Main Menu Singing & Playing Order & Order Info Support Search Voucher Codes



Share page  Visit Us On FB

Previous Contents Next
68
JAZZ
Clarence Tine Top' Smith, Charlie 'Cow Cow' Davenport, Meade 'Lux' Lewis, Albert Ammons, Jimmy Yancey and Pete Johnson.
Ragtime
Piano ragtime is built on a left hand that provides the rhythm and harmony by alternating bass notes and chords:
Example 18
while the right hand plays the melody in syncopated time against the steady bass. The melody appears either in octaves with thick chording, or broken up into brilliant figurations. This is essentially the type of bass foundation used by Scott Joplin, Tom Turpin and other pioneers of ragtime. It develops a more subtle character in the piano of Ferdinand 'Jelly Roll' Morton (see page 34) who often lightened the regular beat to introduce subtle 'breathing spaces' into the rhythm.
Piano ragtime was further developed in the style of James P. Johnson and his pupil Thomas 'Fats' Waller. Here a fuller sound was achieved by the use of tenths in the left hand:
Example 19