Rhythm & Blues and Music in the 1950s

WCJC American Music

Rhythm and Blues

replaced race records in the 1940s and coined by Jerry Wexler 

genre featured jazz and blue-based songs with a heavy beat

Often about relationships

included vocals, saxophone, trumpet, gutair, string bass, piano and drums

speech-like singing/shouting

12 bar blues form

emphasis on 2 and 4 in quadruple meter

Layering of distinctly different rhythms

Backbeat

emphasis on 2 and 4 in quadruple meter

Polyrhytmic

Layering of distinctly different rhythms

Louis Jordan and The Tympany Five

a jump band that shaped R&B instrumentation

Jump band

a type of rhythm and blues group that played Jump Blues

had a rhythem section and small horn section

vocalist is the key figure

riffs over blues form

shuffle beat

shuffle beat

derived from eighth-note triplet rhythm, created by playing 1st and 3rd note of triplet; long-short divison of beat

Louis Jordan

1980-1975

band leader, singer, saxophone, clarinet, piano,

popularized jump blue

Jump Blues

up tempo blue featuring saxophone or bass

incorporates musical aspects of jazz and boogie woogie

boogie woogie

genre of music popular in African American communites in the 1920s

developed in the 1870s in northeat texas

typically played on the piano and meant for dancing

boogie woogie basline

technically a walking bassline, is a non-sycopates noted of equal value 

Ruth Brown

1928-2006

“Queen of R&B”

from Virgina and learned to sing at church

sang at uso clubs at night without her parents knowing

Eloped to JImmy Brown, who was already married

brought a pop style of siging to rhythm and blues

made the record company, Atlantic highly profitable

McKinley Morganfield

known as Muddy Waters

“Father of Modern Chicago Blues”

played his own version of electrified Delta Blues, was influenced by Robert Johnson and Son House

Electric Blues

delta blues+electric guitar+rhythm section

blues form

rough edged vocals

call and respones

shuffle beat