Texas and Jazz: A Breeding Ground For An American Sound (Feb 3, 2024)
by Scott Sosebee
My education into Texas music has been a lifelong affair. My early youth was mostly dominated by the country and early rock-and-roll sounds my parents enjoyed and passed to me, my rebellious teens saw hard guitar rock mixed into my repertoire, and my twenties found me discovering the unique stylings of troubadour/calypso poet-philosopher Jimmy Buffett. I thought my education was fairly complete with these popular stylings, but I received an advanced education when I entered graduate school in my thirties when I took a class titled “The History of Jazz.” Besides acquiring an appreciation for the genre, I learned that all those popular forms of American music, in many ways, came from a singular background—the innovation of the most American form of music, jazz. And, while jazz usually makes people think of New Orleans, Kansas City, Chicago, and New York City, Texans have been a strong part of the development of jazz as composers, arrangers, singers, and musicians. In fact, while Kansas City has rightfully received a reputation as the western edge of jazz development, a sizable number of those “Kansas City Jazzmen” were actually from the state of Texas.
Jazz, as a musical form, originated in African American cities in the South—predominantly New Orleans—and then spread “up the Mississippi.” By the 1920s, it had become a unique form, with its roots based on blues and “ragtime.” It is characterized by swing and blue notes, complex chords, and “call and response” stylings. As jazz developed, Texans from the beginning played prominent roles, beginning with the blues and ragtime in the earliest forms, and then when boogie-woogie was added in the early twentieth century. As jazz progressed through forms such as hot jazz in the 1920s, swing in the 1930s, bebop in the 1940s, free jazz in the 1950s, and the cool, hard, and funk-soul revolutions in the 1960s, Texans have contributed to its enlargement.
New Orleans is often spoken of as the birthplace of jazz as the form came from that city’s blues tradition, but a number of music historians have commented that Texas’ blues tradition likely outdates that of the Crescent City. Jazz had a long development, and included many influences, but it generally became a distinct form of music when there was a transition between the early forms of Black and White folk music and the blues in the 1920s. A strong representation of such a movement comes in the recordings of Texan Henry “Ragtime Texas” Thomas. His “Texas Easy Street Blues” has been called the “finest blues recording ever” by many, and his employment of minor thirds and sevenths would become key parts of the genre as it developed. Of course, Texan blues pioneers “Blind Lemon” Jefferson and Huddie “Leadbelly” Leadbetter became leading lights of the jazz progression. For example, Jefferson’s compositions contained the knit blues breaks that would eventually become standard in jazz music.
Men were not the only early Texan influences on jazz. Beulah “Sippie” Wallace, Victoria Spivey, and Hociel Thomas—all from Houston—along with Hillsboro’s Maggie Jones became known as some of the earliest vocalists on recordings of what would become known as “urban blues,” which would sound much like jazz to contemporary ears. All four of these women recorded with some of the earliest jazz greats, such as King Oliver and Fletcher Henderson, among others. Wallace also made notable records with the legendary Louis Armstrong in the mid-1920s, and Jones did the same. Later, Armstrong credited both women’s range and tenor with allowing him to “stretch out” his breaks, which became a signature part of his jazz style.
Blues was not the only early influence on jazz. Ragtime, a styling that peaked in the 1890s and got its name from its syncopated or “ragged” rhythm, became one of the most popular forms of music in the late nineteenth century and no ragtime composer was bigger or more influential than Texarkana’s Scott Joplin. Jazz historians will tell you that it was from Joplin’s innovative “Maple Leaf Rag,” recorded in 1899 that jazz inherited its vital formal structure and syncopated rhythms. When such a structure was combined with the free phrasing of the blues—and its spontaneity—you had a musical styling that could have both form and freedom, which is the hallmark of jazz music.
One of the final influential elements that combined to form jazz was boogie-woogie or barrelhouse-style piano. Boogie-woogie is a sort of hybrid form of blues and ragtime which actually originated in Texas, and specifically East Texas. According to many, its birthplace is Marshall, although its earliest beginnings were likely among piano players in the lumber camps and along the rail lines near the Harrison County city. Boogie-woogie’s unique twelve-bar structure was invented by George W. Thomas, who also happened to be Sippie Wallace’s older brother. His development, which was highly percussive and marked by a repeated left-hand bass played eight beats to the bar and accompanied by moving to the three blues-chord position (C, F, and G in the key of C), which allowed the right hand to improvise over the continuous bass figure became a fundamental component of jazz’s polyrhythmic and polymetric pattern. Boogie-woogie was further refined in the bars and musical dens of 1920s Chicago until it became integrated into almost every jazz recording and composition.
Jazz spread and became popular because of the skill of its practitioners, and while many of those musicians became famous playing in Kansas City, Chicago, and New York, they learned and honed their skills in their native Texas. Texas stylists such as Eddie Durham from San Marcos, Dallasites Budd, and Keg Johnson, as well as Dan Minor, Herschel Evans of Denton, and Marshall’s Carl Tatti Smith, along with countless others, were early jazz pioneers. Texans would go on to become some of the most celebrated sidemen with jazz legend bands such as the Count Basie Orchestra, Cab Calloway, and later the Benny Goodman’s trio. Even when jazz moved into its most mature years, Texans such as Ornette Coleman continued to be innovators and pioneers. Yes, the most American form of music would be less if it had to do without a talented group of Texans.
The East Texas Historical Association provides this column as a public service. Scott Sosebee is a Professor of History at Stephen F. Austin State University and the Executive Director of the Association. He can be contacted at sosebeem@sfasu.edu; www.easttexashistorical.org.