How Did Louis Armstrong Influence Jazz Today
THE STYLE AND TECHNIQUE OF LOUIS ARMSTRONG
Louis Armstrong is widely known as a founding father of jazz. His abilities and inventive musical mind have given to music a style that still dominates jazz today. His innovations changed the face of jazz music and have influenced many, filtering down and contributing to rock and roll. In his instrumental music, Louis Armstrong revolutionized jazz. Prior to his arrival as a jazz performer, the emphasis was always with the band as a whole and not with an individual player. Musicians filled an expected role that was dependent on interactions with other instruments. Early jazz did include spontaneous counterpoint, but it did not use the rhythmic innovations that Louis Armstrong became renowned for. He was able to revolutionize jazz with solo lines. While playing with King Oliver and his Creole Jazz Band in Chicago, Armstrong played second coronets'. His position was to primarily provide harmonic lines to King Oliver's melodies which he did with expertise. His virtuosity made him stand out. His superiority and his original melodies set a path for the solo to emerge as a centerpiece for jazz music. Jazz writer Ted Gioia wrote, "because of Armstrong's presence, the King Oliver recordings from the early 1920's …show more content…
It is said that when his "Hot Five" band recorded Heebie Jeebies in 1926 he used scat signing for the first time on a record. He supposedly dropped the music sheet and instead of stopping the song midway, he improvised and chose to continue signing without actual words. He had done this before during instrumental breaks but never before on a record. He combined sounds of consonants and vowels with a skill, rhythm and phrasing that was able to convey a particular mood in the musical sequence. It was a new means to produce a musical sentence. Scat signing became one of Armstrong's greatest contributions to American
Louis Armstrong is widely known as a founding father of jazz. His abilities and inventive musical mind have given to music a style that still dominates jazz today. His innovations changed the face of jazz music and have influenced many, filtering down and contributing to rock and roll. In his instrumental music, Louis Armstrong revolutionized jazz. Prior to his arrival as a jazz performer, the emphasis was always with the band as a whole and not with an individual player. Musicians filled an expected role that was dependent on interactions with other instruments. Early jazz did include spontaneous counterpoint, but it did not use the rhythmic innovations that Louis Armstrong became renowned for. He was able to revolutionize jazz with solo lines. While playing with King Oliver and his Creole Jazz Band in Chicago, Armstrong played second coronets'. His position was to primarily provide harmonic lines to King Oliver's melodies which he did with expertise. His virtuosity made him stand out. His superiority and his original melodies set a path for the solo to emerge as a centerpiece for jazz music. Jazz writer Ted Gioia wrote, "because of Armstrong's presence, the King Oliver recordings from the early 1920's …show more content…
It is said that when his "Hot Five" band recorded Heebie Jeebies in 1926 he used scat signing for the first time on a record. He supposedly dropped the music sheet and instead of stopping the song midway, he improvised and chose to continue signing without actual words. He had done this before during instrumental breaks but never before on a record. He combined sounds of consonants and vowels with a skill, rhythm and phrasing that was able to convey a particular mood in the musical sequence. It was a new means to produce a musical sentence. Scat signing became one of Armstrong's greatest contributions to American