Social Dance, Jazz, and Tin Pan Alley Songs

            As we moved along in this week’s listening assignments, we started with a recording of “Castle House Rag” performed by the James Reese Europe’s Society Orchestra. At first, this recording was hard for me to listen to for the quality is very poor. However, it has a historical relevance being that it was recorded in 1914. The quality of the recording is almost as important at the music itself. “While the sound quality of this recording is primitive by today’s standards, it nonetheless gives us a sense of the style of Europe’s band and some of its musical influences, including ragtime and marching band music” (Starr & Waterman, 2014, p. 84).  “Tiger Rag”, written by Nick LaRocca, was a ragtime piece that still had the quality recording you would expect from that time era, but better intonation and aesthetic quality. I enjoy that there is no strongly defined melody with much of the music. “This means that the listener’s attention is focused on other aspects of the music, including the ensemble interaction, the variations played by individual instruments, and the rhythmic drive of the performance” (Starr & Waterman, 2014, p. 87).  See the following video for a recording of this piece:

            Moving on to dance music, we come to “East St. Louis Toodle-oo”, written by Duke Ellington and Bubber Miley. Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington was a very well known musician and had an important influence in the jazz world. You can hear his creativity in music such as “East St. Louis Toodle-oo”, where we get that feel of the dance band. You get a full sense of the arranging abilities of Duke Ellington by the rich textures and timbres heard in his orchestra.

            One of my favorite pieces to listen to this week was “My Blue Heaven,” written by Walter Donaldson and George Whiting. This music is simple and beautiful and very care-free sounding. The solo Cello really gives this piece warmth, and sounds great with the piano and the voice in harmony. You can hear the early “crooner” influence that was about to take over. Gene Austin has a very smooth voice that complements this song very well. See the following recording of Gene Austin singing “My Blue Heaven”:

            Next, we had two recording of “April Showers,” written by Louis Silvers and Buddy DeSylva and performed by Al Jolson. This song can be identified as that Tin Pan Alley songwriting with a very campy time of singing. Even though this song is considered a ballad, it still has an upbeat feel that keeps the attention of the listener. “Where with Austin (singing “My Blue Heaven”) everything is quiet and intimate, Jolson’s dominating, larger-than-life approach turns this gentile song into a grand statement” (Starr & Waterman, 2014, p. 113). I personally enjoyed the singing of Austin better than Jolson, for the overdramatic singing seems to take away from the music. However, this is an important historical moment to teach about, because of what was popular at that time.

Resource:
Starr, L., Waterman, C. (2014). American popular music: From minstrelsy to MP3. New York: Oxford University Press.