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JAZZ |
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and contributed to native New Orleans life well before Storeyville, and even up to the present day.
When the marching bands eventually moved indoors to replace the customary German bands and the string trios, their instrumentation changed with the new circumstances. Bass drum, snares, and the oddments of the street "rhythm section" merged to form the forerunner of the familiar modern drum-kit. The tuba soon gave way to the slapped string bass. The banjo came in as an early substitute for the piano (which was added much later.) The front line, because of obvious restrictions in both space and sound, was simplified to three or four instruments. The trumpet or cornet led on tenor voice, the trombone (or, sometimes, lower-ranged reeds) acted as the baritone-cum-bass voice, and the clarinet (again sometimes assisted or alternated by other high-pitched reed instruments) played the descant. These bands came directly out of the original negro marching groups and began a new era in jazz music. George Lewis is but one who has succeeded in carrying on the great tradition almost unchanged from those far-off days until now. The original music was, of course, never captured by mechanical means, and so we must turn to Lewis's restatements made as recently as the '40s (Vogue LDE 081). It is possible to hear earlier recordings made by "field units" sent out by the record companies to the South—rare items by Louis Dumaine's Jazzola Eight from the mid-'20s are available on HMV 7EG 8119 and |
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