Influential Musicians in the 40’s`

Frank Sinatra

There are many great musicians in the world that have come and gone but some have a lasting effect.  John Birk Gillespie is one of them.  Also known as Dizzy Gillespie, he is a legend for the music industry in the 1940’s as both a performer and a composer.  Dizzy was born in 1917 and passed in 1993.  He was best known for his musical talents in jazz as a trumpeter.  He is considered as one of the best jazz trumpeters of all time.  In the 1940’s Dizzy joined Charlie Parker.  This combination leads to the first innovators in bebop and also modern day jazz.  Dizzy is responsible for teaching other lead trumpeters such as Fats Navarro.  Dizzy also performed at many famous jazz clubs such as Minton’s Playhouse and Monroe’s Uptown House.  During his career he also had some failures.  His first attempt to lead a big band himself was in 1945 and that attempt was very unsuccessful.  Later on in his career he put together his first big band.  With his first big band he tried to expose the style of bebop.  With this he then made himself a symbol of the new school jazz.  Dizzy also produced a musical film in 1946 named Jivin’  in Be-Bop. He is one of the most influential musicians in the 40’s.  Another Influential character in the 1940’s is Cab Calloway.  He and Dizzy were onstage partners until 1941 when a predicament occurred onstage.  Cab was reportedly hit with spit balls and accused Dizzy of doing so.  Sadly Dizzy was wrongly accused.  The musician strike in the 1940’s did not slow down Cab.  Right after the strike ended he continued to record music.  Cab was best known for his style which he would bend jazz.  He had a voice that no other musician had.  Frank Sinatra made his career happen in the 1940’s.  For artist like Sinatra the strike helped him and not hurt him.   Early in Sinatra’s career he worked Harry James and Tommy Dorsey.  Later on iin 1940 he made his first appearance with the Dorsey band.  In 1941 Sinatra was climbing the charts all the way to number one.  He was famous for the saying “Bobby Soxers.”  This term is referring to his female fans.  In 1942 he made his “legendary Opening” at the paramount theater in New York.  During the strike in 1942 Sinatra he rereleased a song named All or Nothing At All.  This song was recorded in 1939.  When originally released his name was not on the song and no one knew who released it until after the strike.  This then led to the song being on the bestselling list for 16 weeks.  This had launched his career.   

 

                                                                                                        Cab Calloway

History of Jazz in the 40's / Birth of Bebop

Jazz has so many uniquely different types’ beats and instruments. Jazz was born in the United States. The birth place of jazz is known to be New Orleans LA. It was said to be born around the 20th century from a bunch of different and diverse cultures. New Orleans was a major port city which brought many different ethnicities and cultures together. It brought European classical, blues, and southern American songs together. With this diverse group of music all being put together, it later was known as jazz. The expansion of jazz began in part to thanks of Louis Armstrong. He was a trumpet player from New Orleans and he is also considered the father of modern jazz. Jazz got exposed to the world via radio and became extremely popular in places such as Chicago, Kansas City, and New York. With the influence on other cities via the radio these cities began to have their own jazz bands in town. With the culture of jazz starting to explode it begins to take off with swing then bebop.

In the beginning of the 40's is when artist first started flirting with the jazz known as Bebop. Artist began sampling different rhythms and beats. Minton’s Playhouse is a jazz club in Harlem New York. This is considered the birth place of Bebop. Artist such as Dizzy Gillespie and Kenny Clarke were regular nightly performers at the club. This is where they began to experiment with different variations of rhythms and beats since the fall of big bands due to the war. Charlie parker and Dizzy Gillespie developed bebop. Bebop has a smaller band then the regular big bands and it focused more on soloists. The group members would take longer solo sessions to showcase their skills on their own personal instrument. Bebop gave the music industry a chance to grow. Bebop still had the traits of the swing jazz and but bebop added a much faster tempo to the music. The artist of bebop never concerned themselves with being a lyricist but more on the rhythm of their music. The more diverse the rhythm or the beat was the better. A rhythm section played a huge role in bebop. While an artist was performing their solo the rhythm section would interact with the soloist with their own sound to make the rhythm more diverse.  Jazz till this very day is still evolving and continually progressing in many different directions.  When I look at jazz overall I think to myself “What more can we say, we wouldn’t be here today if the old school didn’t pave the way.”

Musician Strike

On August 1^st, 1942 the American Federation of Musicians started a strike aimed at all major recording companies because of the disagreements about payments.  Starting from July 31^st at midnight, no musical artist could record for any record regarding the circumstances. This lead to no union musician was able to record during the strike.  During the strike, musicians were still able to perform live on radio shows, concerts, and clubs.  During the strike record companies made V- discs.  The distributed these V- discs to armed forces that were fighting in the war.  Keep in mind that this was not available to the general public.  The union would threaten to remove musicians from the radio network to crack down on network affiliates that were repeatedly showing the same broadcast of musicians.  The union thought it was unfair to display their music over and over again.  During the strike companies did release new music but after a while there stock pile was running empty they retreated to releasing deleted older records.  They even went back as far as the mid-twenties.  The strike was not all bad in some ways.  In the first year of the strike 127 million records were sold.  Two years after the strike 275 million records were sold.  This strike changed the music scene tremendously. 

With the beginning of world war two many of the musicians that are in big bands were sent off to war.  For the performers that remained in the states they had a difficult time traveling due to high taxes on gasoline also due to world war two.  Not only did the strike lead to the end of the big band era it also influenced a type of music known as bebop.  Since the strike did not allow musicians to record it influenced them to try and create music on there on and that started the creation on bebop.  Bebop is a style of jazz with a faster tempo in the music compared to regular “smoother” jazz.  The strike also hurt bebop in a way.  With the strike new artist in the bebop industry were not able to record their music.  It was harder as an artist to get themselves exposed to the general public.  The only way you would hear a new song by a bebop jazz artist is by listening to them performs live at a night club.  Some people say that bebop would have been a bigger hit if it got exposed more by being able to record their music early in that bebop era.

Big Band Era

The 1940's music scene was very complex. In the late 1930's the big band era was just about to take off and land in the 1940's.  Benny Goodman had his own big band.  The dance to the big bands was swing dance.  Benny Goodman was named “King of Swing.”  Benny Goodman’s band defined the term “big band.” He required his band to have many rehearsals.  This all paid off when his band got a spot on the late night radio show.  This radio station was a national radio station called Let’s Dance.  Goodman also had the best drummer in the land named Gene Krupa.  Krupa was known as the glue to the band.  Goodman set the tone for all future big bands and he set the standard high for upcoming artist.   The way they got the big band era name was because many of the bands had around ten or more people in the group thus giving it the big band era. People from the 1940's said "It don’t mean a thing, If it aint got that swing." The big bands of the 1940's consist of artist such as Duke Elllington, Cab Calloway, and Dizzy Gillipsie just to name a few. These big bands were composed of many different instruments such as saxophones, trumpets, trombones, piano, and the drums. This is not a full list of instruments but you can get an idea on how many sounds made up the music.  When America got involved in World War II which began in August 1st, 1942 many of the artists that were in big bands were sent off to war and this was the beginning of the fall for the big bands.  With some artist in the bands being sent off many off the bands then fell apart.  Big bands that traveled had a hard time performing because the tax on gasoline was very high, this is due in part of World War II.  The government made the tax on gas higher because they needed majority of it for the war.  This also played a huge part in the on the fall of the big bands.  A combination of this lead to the big bands being unpopular also and the demand for big bands were constantly declining.  With the fall for big bands, it created an opening for a new type of music known as Bebop.  Bebop would later explode on the music scene.  It also gave way to vocal artist such as Frank Sinatra. 

Big Band Performing

Swing Dance!!

Swing dancing was first created in the 1920’s and became extremely popular in the 1940’s with jazz music.   Later on with the development of jazz, they made swing jazz to compliment the dancing if swing dancing.  This is known as the swing era.  Some of the famous swing dance routines were the lindy hop.  The lindy hop is an American dance that revolutionized New York City.  The lindy hop is a fusion of dancing that came before it.  The components of the dance were tap dancing and the Charleston.  The Charleston was created in South Carolina.  It got its name the Charleston from the harbor city of Charleston South Carolina.  The Charleston has many different versions within its self.  It had a solo version, group version, and a two partner version.  The Charleston dance looked as if you were walking in place.  Every part of your body is in motion.  In the 40’s was most popular for a partner Charleston.  The partners were side by side and the dance had many different positions.  You would always be connected to your partner or standing next to your partner.  The origin of the Charleston came from an African American Dance called Juba.  Some of the moves were twisting of the feet, forward and backwards kicking of the feet, and tap dancing. Swing dance is a type of dancing that was influenced by mainly black people.  The main character of swing dance is mostly up beat and joyful.  In East coast swing dance, the dance consists mainly of circular motions.  The dance is based off of a six count beat basic.  In the west coast swing dance it’s a little more complicated.  They go to an eight count beat instead of a six.  It also varies in style.  For the west coast dance they are a couple doing the dance.  In each move them and there partner each turn 180 degrees pretty much trading places.  The dance could be considered as smooth and sexy.  Swing dance mainly occurred in night clubs with music of the genre of jazz.  A popular place for swing dancing was Harlem New York.  Mainly in the southern United States is where wing dancing was really booming and popular.  Swing dancing made a major impact in the music industry mainly because artist tried to make music around swing dancing.  Swing dancing led to many different types of jazz that still has an influence today.