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Jazz’s Continuing Evolution
Ragtime, Minstrels and Blues
From 1890 to 1917, ragtime was popular. Ragtime was music for banjo, and later piano, played in theatres and concert venues. Scott Joplin’s Maple Leaf Rag and J P Johnson’s Harlem Strut are examples. Composers could make a small living selling their notated music. Many ragtime composers would go from theatre to theatre offering their handwritten scores to owners and orchestra leaders, mainly to be featured in minstrel shows, although some were expanded into orchestral works.
In many theatres at the time, minstrel shows featured singers and actors, either black or in black face (black makeup worn by white musicians to imitate black people), who would perform songs and short musical plays, often lampooning the powers that be. The accompanying music had sophisticated rhythmic patterns, usually played by the right hand, with the left hand carrying a steady rhythm.
Alongside ragtime, there was also blues music. Jazz and blues share characteristics like the use of grace or ‘blue’ notes and flattened intervals. The use of the major seventh is prevalent in what became ‘free’ jazz, creating clashing, jarring harmonics. It is worth noting that many groups performed without notated music, because literacy was still something of a rarity among poorer populations where the music was popular, but groups would…
