Jump blues

Origins#

Jump blues evolved from the music of big bands such as those of Lionel Hampton and Lucky Millinder in the early 1940s. The typical jump blues lineup consisted of between five and seven members, including sax, bass, drums and piano and/or guitar. The genre produced musicians including Louis Jordan, Earl Bostic, Arnett Cobb, Roy Brown, Amos Milburn, and Joe Liggins, as well as sax soloists Jack McVea, Big Jay McNeely, and Bull Moose Jackson. Jordan was the most popular of the jump blues stars. Hits included Jordan’s “Saturday Night Fish Fry”, Brown’s “Good Rockin’ Tonight” and McNeely’s “Deacon’s Hop”. One important stylistic prototype in the development of R&B was jump blues, pioneered by Louis Jordan, with … His Tympany Five … three horns and a rhythm section, while stylistically his music melded elements of swing and blues, incorporating the shuffle rhythm, boogie-woogie bass lines, and short horn patterns or riffs. The songs featured the use of African American vernacular language, humor, and vocal call-and-response sections between Jordan and the band. Jordan’s music appealed to both African American and white audiences, and he had broad success with hit songs like “Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby” (1944). Blues and jazz were part of the same musical world, with many musicians straddling both genres. Jump bands such as the Tympany Five, which came into being at the same time as the boogie-woogie revival, achieved maximum effect with an eight-to-the-bar boogie-woogie style. Jordan’s “raucous recordings” with the Tympany Five like “Saturday Night Fish Fry”, one of the first to feature a distorted electric guitar, “literally made its listeners jump to its pulsing beat”. At least two other Jordan records are viewed as jump blues: “Caldonia” and “Choo Choo Ch’Boogie”. Jordan’s jump blues combined good-natured novelty lyrics (some with suggestive double meanings); pushing the tempo; strengthening the beat; layering the sound with his bluesy saxophone and playful melodies. Lionel Hampton recorded the stomping big-band blues song “Flying Home” in 1942. Billboard described “Flying Home” as “an unusually swingy side…with a bright bounce in the medium tempo and a steady drive maintained, it’s a jumper that defies standing still”. Both Hampton and Jordan combined the popular boogie-woogie rhythm, a grittier version of swing-era saxophone styles as exemplified by Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster, and playful, humorous lyrics or verbal asides laced with jive talk. Jump groups, employed to play for jitterbug dances at a much lower cost than big bands, became popular with agents and ballroom owners. The saxophonist Art Chaney said " w e were insulted when an audience wouldn’t dance". Less frequently mentioned, Goree Carter also recorded some jump blues; his “Rock Awhile” is said by Robert Palmer to be an appropriate candidate for the title of first rock and roll record. By the mid-1950s, some jump blues songs had become core standards, with songs like “Train Kept a Rollin” later played by rock groups including the Rock and Roll Trio, the Yardbirds, Aerosmith, Motörhead, and Twisted Sister. “Five Guys Named Moe” was covered in the 1980s by the Honeydrippers. File:Louis Jordan, New York, N.Y., ca. July 1946 (William P. Gottlieb 04731).jpg Alto saxophonist Louis Jordan in New York, July 1946 File:Louis Jordan’s Typany Five, New York, N.Y., between 1946 and 1948 (William P. Gottlieb 04751).jpg Jordan with his Tympany Five File:Drummer-and-Vibrafonist-Lionel-Hampton-during-a-show-in-Stockholm-consert-hall-142452987990.jpg Lionel Hampton

See also#

• List of jump blues musicians

External links#

• Richie Unterberger: Jump Blues at AllMusic. .