A string band is an

old-time music Old-time music is a genre of North American folk music. It developed along with various North American folk dances, such as square dancing, contra dance, clogging, and buck dancing. It is played on acoustic instruments, generally centering ...

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...

ensemble made up mainly or solely of

string instruments In musical instrument classification, string instruments, or chordophones, are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer strums, plucks, strikes or sounds the strings in varying manners. Musicians play some ...

. String bands were popular in the 1920s and 1930s, and are among the forerunners of modern

country music Country (also called country and western) is a popular music, music genre originating in the southern regions of the United States, both the American South and American southwest, the Southwest. First produced in the 1920s, country music is p ...

and bluegrass. While being active countrywide, in

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

and its surrounding suburbs they are a huge part of its musical culture and traditions, appearing, among others, in the yearly

Mummers Parade The Mummers Parade is held each New Year's Day in Philadelphia. It started in 1901, and is the longest-running continuous folk parade in the United States. Local clubs, usually called "New Years Associations" or "New Years Brigades", compete i ...

History of African American old-time string band music

Although African American old-time string bands recorded history is that of the early 20th century, the beginnings of the music started much earlier. Many people once believed that the role

African Americans African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa ...

played in the upcoming of old-time string band music was either nonexistent or to interest the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

or medieval times. The genre of African American

folk music Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be ca ...

actually began with the use of

percussion instrument A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

s, which were used to create music in form of encouragement to keep the slaves exercising on

slave ship Slave ships were large cargo ships specially built or converted from the 17th to the 19th century for transporting Slavery, slaves. Such ships were also known as "Guineamen" because the trade involved human trafficking to and from the Guinea ( ...

s. Furthermore, that then sparked the usage of stringed instruments such as

banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and in modern forms is usually made of plastic, where early membranes were made of animal skin. ...

s and

violin The violin, sometimes referred to as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone, and is the smallest, and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in regular use in the violin family. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino picc ...

s that the slaves played as a way of entertainment.

Instruments in an old-time string band

Old-time string bands were mainly composed of stringed instruments. Those instruments being the

fiddle A fiddle is a Bow (music), bowed String instrument, string musical instrument, most often a violin or a bass. It is a colloquial term for the violin, used by players in all genres, including European classical music, classical music. Althou ...

, 5-string banjo, acoustic guitar, and an upright bass/cello. Depending on the type of genre the old-time music is being accompanied by, the stringed instruments may also be joined by other instruments including spoons, washboards, jugs,

harmonica The harmonica, also known as a French harp or mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used worldwide in many musical genres, notably in blues, American folk music, classical music, jazz, country, and rock. The many types of harmonica incl ...

harp The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various ways, standing or sitting, and in orchestras or ...

s and

piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...

String bands in old-time music

During the 19th and early 20th centuries, other stringed instruments began to be added to the fiddle-banjo duo that was essential to dance music of the early 19th century United States. These other instruments included the

guitar The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...

mandolin A mandolin (, ; literally "small mandola") is a Chordophone, stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally Plucked string instrument, plucked with a plectrum, pick. It most commonly has four Course (music), courses of doubled St ...

, and

double bass The double bass (), also known as the upright bass, the acoustic bass, the bull fiddle, or simply the bass, is the largest and lowest-pitched string instrument, chordophone in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding rare additions ...

(or

washtub bass The washtub bass, or gutbucket, is a stringed instrument used in American folk music that uses a metal washtub as a resonator. Although it is possible for a washtub bass to have four or more strings and tuning pegs, traditional washtub basses ha ...

), which provided chordal and bass line accompaniment (or occasionally melody also). Such an assemblage, of whatever instrumentation, became known simply as a "string band." In the 1870s African-American dance houses of Cincinnati had musicians who played violin, banjo, and bass fiddle. East of the

Mississippi Mississippi ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Alabama to the east, the Gulf of Mexico to the south, Louisiana to the s ...

, the genre gave way to

in the 1930s and

bluegrass music Bluegrass music is a genre of American roots music that developed in the 1940s in the Appalachian region of the United States. The genre derives its name from the band Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys. Bluegrass has roots in African America ...

in the 1940s. During the same period, west of the Mississippi, Western musicians retained the acoustic style of the bands while the big Western dance bands amplified their strings.

String bands in jazz

Artists began to combine and record string-band music in collaboration with other popular styles in the 1920s. Lonnie Johnson and his brother, James “Steady Roll” Johnson were both proficient at

, guitar, and

, and recorded with various string bands in a

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spiritual (music), spirituals, work songs, field hollers, Ring shout, shouts, cha ...

style. Lonnie Johnson also recorded duets with Eddie Lang during the late 1920s and set the precedent for string band jazz, which included ''Bull Frog Moan/A Handful of Riffs'' from 1929. As influential as the Johnson/Lang duets were those by Lang and Joe Venuti. These works, completed in 1926, emphasized the rhythm of a chordal guitar with the melody in the swung violin line. Red McKenzie, who also recorded with Lang, recorded with an influential string band group during the 1930s, the Spirits of Rhythm. The group consisted of tiple, guitar, homemade percussion, double bass, and often involved scat singing. The particular form of scat that was eventually associated with string band music was based on Harlem slang, and can be heard in McKenzie's recording ''My Old Man'', from 1933. Another string band from the 1930s, Slim and Slam, continued this particular form of scat in their recording ''The Flat Foot Floogie''.Shipton, Alyn. "String band in Oxford Music Online." String Band. Oxford Music Online. Web. Strings in jazz continued with the standout duet album, "Blues and Ballads," recorded in 1960 with Lonnie Johnson and guitarist Elmer Snowden, a renowned banjoist/guitarist from the 1920s.

References

{{reflist

External links

Stringband.com
featuring a list of string bands and a list of festivals where string bands perform
Examples of string band music, made available for public use by the State Archives of FloridaLibrary of Congress authority record
"String bands" cites the ''New Grove Dictionary of Jazz''. *"String Bands" i
MusicMatch Guide
American folk music Old-time music