Stride jazz piano, often shortened to stride, is a

jazz piano Jazz piano is a collective term for the techniques pianists use when playing jazz. The piano has been an integral part of the jazz idiom since its inception, in both solo and ensemble settings. Its role is multifaceted due largely to the instru ...

style that arose from ragtime players. Prominent stride pianists include James P. Johnson,

Willie "the Lion" Smith William Henry Joseph Bonaparte Bertholf Smith (November 23, 1893 – April 18, 1973), nicknamed "The Lion", was an American jazz and stride pianist. Early life William Henry Joseph Bonaparte Bertholf, known as Willie, was born in 1893 in Goshen ...

Fats Waller Thomas Wright "Fats" Waller (May 21, 1904 – December 15, 1943) was an American jazz pianist, organist, composer, violinist, singer, and comedic entertainer. His innovations in the Harlem stride style laid much of the basis for modern jazz pi ...

, Luckey Roberts, Mrs Mills and

Mary Lou Williams Mary Lou Williams (born Mary Elfrieda Scruggs; May 8, 1910 – May 28, 1981) was an American jazz pianist, arranger, and composer. She wrote hundreds of compositions and arrangements and recorded more than one hundred records (in 78, 45, an ...

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 In medicine, a pulse represents the tactile arterial palpation of the cardiac cycle (heartbeat) by trained fingertips. The pulse may be palpated in any place that allows an artery to be compressed near the surface of the body, such as at the n ...

with a single

bass note In music theory, the bass note of a chord or sonority is the lowest note played or notated. If there are multiple voices it is the note played or notated in the lowest voice (the note furthest in the bass.) Three situations are possible: # ...

octave In music, an octave ( la, octavus: eighth) or perfect octave (sometimes called the diapason) is the interval between one musical pitch and another with double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been refer ...

major seventh In music from Western culture, a seventh is a musical interval encompassing seven staff positions (see Interval number for more details), and the major seventh is one of two commonly occurring sevenths. It is qualified as ''major'' because it i ...

minor seventh In music theory, a minor seventh is one of two musical intervals that span seven staff positions. It is ''minor'' because it is the smaller of the two sevenths, spanning ten semitones. The major seventh spans eleven. For example, the interval fr ...

major tenth In music, the third factor of a chord is the note or pitch two scale degrees above the root or tonal center. When the third is the bass note, or lowest note, of the expressed triad, the chord is in first inversion. Use Conventionally, the ...

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 ' (styled in all caps) is an American music magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond", the last word indicating its expansion beyond the jazz realm which it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1934 in Ch ...

and bass notes on the upbeat. Unlike performers of the ragtime popularized by

Scott Joplin Scott Joplin ( 1868 – April 1, 1917) was an American composer and pianist. Because of the fame achieved for his ragtime compositions, he was dubbed the "King of Ragtime." During his career, he wrote over 40 original ragtime pieces, one ra ...

, stride players' left hands span greater distances on the keyboard. Stride piano is highly

rhythm Rhythm (from Greek , ''rhythmos'', "any regular recurring motion, symmetry") generally means a " movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions". This general meaning of regular re ...

ic because of the alternating bass note and chord action of the left hand. In the left hand, the pianist usually plays a single bass note, or a bass octave or tenth, followed by a chord triad toward the center of the keyboard, while the right hand plays

syncopated In music, syncopation is a variety of rhythms played together to make a piece of music, making part or all of a tune or piece of music off-beat. More simply, syncopation is "a disturbance or interruption of the regular flow of rhythm": a "plac ...

melody A melody (from Greek μελῳδία, ''melōidía'', "singing, chanting"), also tune, voice or line, is a linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most literal sense, a melody is a combina ...

lines with

harmonic A harmonic is a wave with a frequency that is a positive integer multiple of the ''fundamental frequency'', the frequency of the original periodic signal, such as a sinusoidal wave. The original signal is also called the ''1st harmonic'', t ...

and

riff A riff is a repeated chord progression or refrain in music (also known as an ostinato figure in classical music); it is a pattern, or melody, often played by the rhythm section instruments or solo instrument, that forms the basis or acc ...

embellishments and fill patterns. Proper playing of stride jazz involves a subtle rhythmic tension between the left hand which is close to the established tempo, and the right hand, which is often slightly anticipatory. Unlike ragtime pianists, stride pianists were not concerned with ragtime form and played

pop song Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form during the mid-1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom. The terms ''popular music'' and ''pop music'' are often used interchangeably, although the former describe ...

s of the day in the stride style. Ragtime was composed, but many stride pianists improvised. Some stride players didn't read music. Stride used tension and release and dynamics. Stride can be played at all tempos, slow or fast depending on the underlying

composition Composition or Compositions may refer to: Arts and literature *Composition (dance), practice and teaching of choreography *Composition (language), in literature and rhetoric, producing a work in spoken tradition and written discourse, to include v ...

and treatment the pianist is performing. On occasion a good stride jazz pianist might have the left hand shift into double time. Some younger pianists have transcribed display pieces note for note from early recordings."Piano Styles—Ragtime to Boogie-Woogie"
McGraw-Hill Higher Education. However, this practice only illustrates a small part of stride jazz musical adventures. James P. Johnson (1894–1955), known as the "Father of Stride", created this style of jazz piano along with fellow pianists

Willie "The Lion" Smith William Henry Joseph Bonaparte Bertholf Smith (November 23, 1893 – April 18, 1973), nicknamed "The Lion", was an American jazz and stride pianist. Early life William Henry Joseph Bonaparte Bertholf, known as Willie, was born in 1893 in Goshen ...

(1893–1973),

Thomas "Fats" Waller Thomas Wright "Fats" Waller (May 21, 1904 – December 15, 1943) was an American jazz pianist, organist, composer, violinist, singer, and comedic entertainer. His innovations in the Harlem stride style laid much of the basis for modern jazz pi ...

(1904–1943) and Luckey Roberts (1887–1968). One of Johnson's contributions was to recast the "straight" feeling of ragtime with a more modern, swinging beat, sophisticated harmonies and dynamics. He discovered and employed the tenth or "broken tenth" interval. The pianist could not only substitute tenths for single bass notes but could also play broken (staggered) tenths up and down the keyboard Stride pianist

Art Tatum Arthur Tatum Jr. (, October 13, 1909 – November 5, 1956) was an American jazz pianist who is widely regarded as one of the greatest in his field. From early in his career, Tatum's technical ability was regarded by fellow musicians as extraord ...

(1909–1956) (a fan of Fats Waller and

Lee Sims Lee Sims (April 30, 1898 - May 7, 1966) was an American pianist, composer, record maker, publisher and performer. Early life Lee Sims was born April 30, 1898 in Champaign, Illinois, under the full name Cleo Orville Sims. Cedar Rapids, Iowa was ...

, who was himself a fan of the European "

Impressionist Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passag ...

" pianists such as

Claude Debussy (Achille) Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionism in music, Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most infl ...

and

Erik Satie Eric Alfred Leslie Satie (, ; ; 17 May 18661 July 1925), who signed his name Erik Satie after 1884, was a French composer and pianist. He was the son of a French father and a British mother. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire, but was an und ...

, and hosted a radio program Tatum enjoyed) introduced more complex harmonies into his playing, and, like Fats Waller, would start songs with legato explorations of chordal intricacies before launching into swing. Tatum was given a posthumous Grammy Award in 1974. Stride pianists used devices such as

arpeggio A broken chord is a chord broken into a sequence of notes. A broken chord may repeat some of the notes from the chord and span one or more octaves. An arpeggio () is a type of broken chord, in which the notes that compose a chord are played ...

s, black note slide-offs, varying rhythmic accents, and tension and release. Stride pianists engaged in marathon

cutting contest 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 ''cu ...

s to show off their skills.

Practitioners

Other stride jazz pianists of the 20th century included

Clarence Profit Clarence Profit (June 26, 1912 – October 22, 1944) was a jazz pianist and composer associated with swing. Profit was born in New York, United States. He came from a musical family and began studying piano at the age of three, and he led a ten ...

Johnny Guarnieri John Albert Guarnieri (March 23, 1917 – January 7, 1985) was an American jazz and stride pianist, born in New York City. Career Guarnieri joined the George Hall orchestra in 1937. He is possibly best known for his big band stints with Ben ...

, Cliff Jackson, Hank Duncan, Pat Flowers, Don Ewell, Joe Turner,

Claude Hopkins Claude Driskett Hopkins (August 24, 1903 – February 19, 1984) was an American jazz stride pianist and bandleader. Biography Claude Hopkins was born in Alexandria, Virginia, United States. Historians differ in respect of the actual date of his ...

Ralph Sutton Ralph Earl Sutton (November 4, 1922 – December 30, 2001) was an American jazz pianist born in Hamburg, Missouri. He was a stride pianist in the tradition of James P. Johnson and Fats Waller. Biography Sutton was born in Hamburg, Missouri, ...

Dick Wellstood Richard MacQueen Wellstood (November 25, 1927 – July 24, 1987) was an American jazz pianist. Career He was born in Greenwich, Connecticut, United States. Wellstood's mother was a graduate of the Juilliard School who played church organ. Wellst ...

Dick Hyman Richard Hyman (born March 8, 1927) is an American jazz pianist and composer. Over a 70-year career, he has worked as a pianist, organist, arranger, music director, electronic musician, and composer. He was named a National Endowment for the Ar ...

, and

Judy Carmichael Judy Carmichael (born November 27, 1957) is a Grammy-nominated jazz pianist and vocalist who has been honored as a Steinway Artist.

. Others such as

Duke Ellington Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous jazz orchestra from 1923 through the rest of his life. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Ellington was bas ...

Thelonious Monk Thelonious Sphere Monk (, October 10, 1917 – February 17, 1982) was an American jazz pianist and composer. He had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including " 'Round Midnight", ...

, and

Jaki Byard John Arthur "Jaki" Byard (; June 15, 1922 – February 11, 1999) was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist, composer, and arranger. Mainly a pianist, he also played tenor and alto saxophones, among several other instruments. He was known for hi ...

developed the style for their own ends. Other prominent stride jazz pianists are

Butch Thompson Richard Enos "Butch" Thompson (November 28, 1943 – August 14, 2022) was an American jazz pianist and clarinetist best known for his ragtime and stride performances. Music career Thompson was born in Marine on St. Croix, Minnesota, began p ...

Mike Lipskin Mike Lipskin (born 1945) is a stride jazz pianist of the pre- bop jazz style. A protege of Willie "The Lion" Smith, Eubie Blake and Luckey Roberts, he has created his own special mode within the idiom. Career Lipskin is a piano instructor, record ...

, Bernd Lhotzky, Louis Mazetier, and Stephanie Trick, who perform internationally. Japanese pianist Hiromi Uehara's solo concerts often include stride-based pieces. Mrs Mills used a stride technique for her many sing-along and party tunes.That Week On TV: Let’s Have a Party! The Piano Genius of Mrs Mills, BBC4; Nigellissima, BBC2
Radio Times, 29 September 2012

Works

*By James Price Johnson **"Carolina Shout" (1918/1921), "Mule Walk," "Caprice Rag" *By

**" Handful of Keys" (1929), "Vipers Drag" (1934), "Alligator Crawl" (1934) *By

**"Finger Buster" (1931), "Echoes of Spring" (1939)

References

External links

Recordings of James P. Johnson online at the Library of Congress National Jukebox
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stride (Music) Musical techniques Jazz genres Piano Jazz terminology

Technique

Practitioners

Works

See also

References

External links