18 News - Historic Brass Society

Vic Hobson, University of East Anglia, U.K.
It is widely accepted that the blues developed in the rural southern
states as a vocal form that, over time, became accompanied by guitar.
a form of popular entertainment in the South around the turn of the
century to accompany rural dances. As it was based in work songs,
to Ross Russell acquired musical accompaniment: “The transition
from vocal to instrumental blues was gradual and natural. Most of the
blues singers accompanied themselves on guitar and, if they did not,
worked with a guitarist or a small string group;[…]”
If this is true, then the brass bands of New Orleans must have come
into contact with this music and converted it into a brass band form,
no later than the early years of the twentieth century. New Orleans
there were three types of bands playing in New Orleans. You had bands
that played ragtime, ones that played sweet music, and the ones that
The earliest published sheet music with a 12 bar strain was, “I Got
the Blues,” published in New Orleans [Cable Piano Company, Canal
Street] in 1908 and “Respectfully Dedicated to all those Who have the
circuit; according to David Evans: “Although a few male blues singerpianists
became well known on the vaudeville circuit prior to 1920,
solo performers with guitar are virtually unreported in this setting.”
My paper will question the accepted wisdom that the blues developed
as a vocal and guitar rural form. I will show how the testimony of the
early New Orleans musicians supports the view that the blues was
being played in New Orleans circa 1900and that this is the earliest
consistent, reliable evidence of the blues form.
I will suggest that aspects of blues harmony may be related to dance
and what Gerhard Kubik describes as movement patterns. In African
musical practice the connection between dance and music is well
researched. Research into a possible relationship between dance and
have implications for the understanding of African American musical
forms in general.
What is beyond doubt is that by the time the New Orleans jazz bands
came to record, the blues was a substantial part of their repertoire, along
will consider the relationship between these musical forms and suggest
that the contribution of the uptown brass bands to the jazz repertoire
was the blues, a musical form that may have developed in the brass
bands of New Orleans.
Joel Rubin, Cornell University
This paper will trace the contribution of brass instruments to the development
of the Jewish instrumental klezmer ensembles in Europe
and, especially, the United States from the mid-19th century to the
late 1940s. While the contributions of the violin and the clarinet have
been reasonably well documented, the introduction of brass instruments
and a brass band aesthetic into the klezmer ensemble from the
Joel Rubin (photo Ed Berger)
mid-19th century on has been little documented or analyzed. Based
upon my own ethnographic interviews with klezmer musicians born
during the period 1910-1940 and a review of secondary sources such
as the work of Moshe Beregovski and Joachim Stutschewsky, in
conjunction with commercial recordings made during the period 1905-
evolution of the klezmer tradition. At the same time, I will investigate
some of the connections between American klezmer music and early
jazz, vaudeville and other American vernacular forms. I will examine
possible reasons why klezmer music has so often been considered a
form of «Jewish jazz,» looking at both European and American racial
Robert Murray, University of Northern Colorado
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activities of many celebrated composers both French and non-French.
Notables included Les Six and Stravinsky as well as others such as
Paris in those times.
A notable composer of Czech nationality and a cosmopolitan in his own
right is the subject whose work will be looked at in this presentation.
Bohuslav Martinu, who came to Paris in 1923, embraced the city and
the musical variety that was available to him. He took up study with
Albert Roussel, rejecting impressionism for more popular styles. He
particularly embraced the jazz idioms that were popular then, and as a
Written in 1927, the suite is scored for a sextet of clarinet, bassoon,
trumpet, violin, cello, and piano. It is apparent from listening to the
work and examining the score that the trumpet has a prominent role in
those elements which are clearly associated with early jazz.
In this presentation, it will be asserted that there are three characteristic
ways in which the trumpet illuminates those early jazz elements in “La
Revue de Cuisine.” These will be investigated under the headings of
stylistic considerations, rhythmic freedom, and improvisatory characterizations.
These three characteristics will be used to demonstrate
discussion, it will become apparent that the trumpet plays a lead role
to render these elements in a comprehensible written form. Given the
relatively low numbers of European players that would have been
HISTORIC BRASS SOCIETY NEWSLETTER - WINTER 2005 | 15