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Cutting Contests
A cutting contest was a musical battle between various stride piano players from the 1920s to the 1940s, and to a lesser extent in improvisation contests on other jazz instruments during the swing era. Up to the present time, the expression ''cutting'' in jazz is sometimes used, sometimes facetiously, to claim a new musician's technical superiority over another. Cutting contests first had a more earnest meaning only among pianists, and later existed for their own sake. Originally, to "cut" another piano player meant to replace them at their job by outperforming them. This serious form of rivalry ended by the 1920s when pianists began acquiring more stable engagements, and basic ragtime and "fast shout" piano evolved into the more improvised stride style (a term that began to be used in the 1920s). "Cutting" came to mean victory at a pre-arranged contest. These contests were usually held at Harlem home " rent parties", where an entrance fee helped residents pay their rent. In the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stride (music)
Stride jazz piano, often shortened to stride, is a jazz piano style that arose from ragtime players. Prominent stride pianists include James P. Johnson, Willie "the Lion" Smith, Fats Waller, Luckey Roberts, Mrs Mills and Mary Lou Williams. Technique Stride employed left hand techniques from ragtime, wider use of the piano's range, and quick tempos. Compositions were written but were also intended to be improvised. The term "stride" comes from the idea of the pianist's left hand leaping, or "striding", across the piano. The left hand characteristically plays a four-beat pulse with a single bass note, octave, major seventh, minor seventh or major tenth interval on the first and third beats, and a chord on the second and fourth beats. Occasionally this pattern is reversed by placing the chord on the downbeat and bass notes on the upbeat. Unlike performers of the ragtime popularized by Scott Joplin, stride players' left hands span greater distances on the keyboard. Stride ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harry Gibson
Harry "The Hipster" Gibson (June 27, 1915 – May 3, 1991), born Harry Raab, was an American jazz pianist, singer, and songwriter. He played New York style stride piano and boogie woogie while singing in a wild, unrestrained style. His music career began in the late 1920s, when, under his real name, he played stride piano in Dixieland jazz bands in Harlem. He continued to perform there throughout the 1930s, adding the barrelhouse boogie of the time to his repertoire. Early life Gibson was Jewish. He came from a musical family that operated a player piano repair shop. He began playing piano in the 1920s as a child, in the Bronx and Harlem. His first professional piano gig was at age 13 with his uncle's orchestra. He began playing boogie woogie and talking in a jive style. He was invited into black speakeasies in Harlem to play piano while still a teenager. Career In the 1930s, after Prohibition ended, Gibson played regularly in Harlem nightclubs. He punctuated his piano styling ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jazz (documentary)
''Jazz'' is a 2001 television documentary miniseries directed by Ken Burns. It was broadcast on PBS in 2001 and was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series. Its chronological and thematic episodes provided a history of jazz, emphasizing innovative composers and musicians and American history. Swing musicians Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington are the central figures.Mark GilbertAmazon.co.ukreview Several episodes discussed the later contributions of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie to bebop, and of Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, and John Coltrane to free and cool jazz. Of this 10-part documentary surveying jazz in the years from 1917 to 2001, all but the last episode are devoted to music pre-1961. The series was produced by Florentine Films in cooperation with the BBC and in association with WETA-TV, Washington. Overview The documentary concerned the history of jazz music in the United States, from its origins at the turn of the 20th centur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ken Burns
Kenneth Lauren Burns (born July 29, 1953) is an American filmmaker known for his documentary film, documentary films and television series, many of which chronicle United States, American History of the United States, history and Culture of the United States, culture. His work is often produced in association with WETA-TV and/or the National Endowment for the Humanities and distributed by PBS. His widely known documentary series include ''The Civil War (miniseries), The Civil War'' (1990), ''Baseball (TV series), Baseball'' (1994), ''Jazz (TV series), Jazz'' (2001), ''The War (miniseries), The War'' (2007), ''The National Parks: America's Best Idea'' (2009), ''Prohibition (miniseries), Prohibition'' (2011), ''The Roosevelts (miniseries), The Roosevelts'' (2014), ''The Vietnam War (TV series), The Vietnam War'' (2017), and ''Country Music (miniseries), Country Music'' (2019). He was also executive producer of both ''The West (miniseries), The West'' (1996), and ''Cancer (film), C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guitar Battle
A guitar battle (or ''guitar duel'') is where two or more guitar players take turns soloing, either with or without a rhythm section. The purpose of the guitar battle is to determine who among each of the guitar players present is the most proficient on the instrument. Often, it begins with the guitarists trading licks and phrases, while gradually increasing the complexity of the technique used. A guitar battle can be said to be over when one guitarist outplays (either through skill, endurance, or the other guitarist(s) acknowledging that they cannot win) all the other guitar players present. This is also known among guitarists as a ''head-cutting'' duel or simply as ''cutting heads''. Examples The song Dueling Banjos is an example which was made famous by the 1972 film Deliverance. Near the end of the 1986 film ''Crossroads'', Eugene Martone (played by Ralph Macchio) has a guitar battle with Jack Butler (played by Steve Vai). Macchio's guitar work was actually done by Stev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rap Battle
Battle rap (also known as rap battling)Edwards, Paul, 2009, p. 25. is a type of rapping performed between two or more performers that incorporates boasts, insults and wordplay. Battle rap is often performed or freestyled spontaneously in live battles, "where MCs will perform on the same stage to see who has the better verses", although it can also appear on studio albums.Edwards, Paul, 2009, p. 27. Although never a battler himself, battle rap was loosely described by 40 Cal, previously a member of American hip hop collective The Diplomats, in the book ''How to Rap'' (2009) as an "extracurricular" display of skill, comparing it to the dunk contest in the NBA. Battle rap has since developed into highly organized league events drawing in significant revenue and attention, with events for battles usually being "sold out." Mainstream artists such as Diddy, Busta Rhymes, Drake, Joe Budden and Cassidy have attended or participated in battles to help increase their popularity. Rap ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tap Dance
Tap dance is a form of dance characterized by using the sounds of tap shoes striking the floor as a form of percussion. Two major variations on tap dance exist: rhythm (jazz) tap and Broadway tap. Broadway tap focuses on dance; it is widely performed in musical theater. Rhythm tap focuses on musicality, and practitioners consider themselves to be a part of the jazz tradition. The sound is made by shoes that have a metal "tap" on the heel and toe. There are different brands of shoes which sometimes differ in the way they sound. Ok History The fusion of several ethnic percussive dances, such as West African step dances and Welsh, Irish, and Scottish clog dancing, hornpipes, and jigs, tap dance is believed to have begun in the mid-1800s during the rise of minstrel shows. As minstrel shows began to decline in popularity, tap dance moved to the increasingly popular Vaudeville stage. Due to Vaudeville's unspoken "two-colored rule", which forbade blacks to perform solo, many Vaudevi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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