Popular Music in 1900

1. Popular Music in 1900 Race and Romance

2. Minstrelsy • The Minstrel Show • Featured mainly white performers who artificially blackened their skin and carried out parodies of African American music, dance, dress, and dialect

3. Minstrelsy • From the 1840s through the 1880s, the predominant genre in the United States • An important influence on the mainstream of American popular song • Minstrel troupes toured the United States constantly, helping create a national popular culture.

4. The Birth of Tin Pan Alley • By the end of the nineteenth century, the American music publishing business had become centered in New York City. • After 1885, the established publishers were being challenged by smaller companies specializing in the more exciting popular songs performed in dance halls, beer gardens, and theaters.

5. The Birth of Tin Pan Alley • These new publishing firms—many of them founded by Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe—had offices in a section of lower Manhattan, a dense hive of small rooms with pianos where composers and “song pluggers” produced and promoted popular songs. • This stretch of 28th Street became known as Tin Pan Alley,a term that evoked the clanging sound of many pianos simultaneously playing songs in a variety of keys and tempos.

6. Vaudeville • Theatrical form descended from music hall shows and minstrelsy • By the turn of the century, it had become the most important medium for popularizing Tin Pan Alley songs. • Vaudeville shows typically consisted of a series of performances presented one after the other without any overarching story line.

7. The Birth of Tin Pan Alley • The 1890s saw the rise of the modern American music business. • Sheet music sold for between twenty-five and sixty cents. • The wholesale value of printed music in the United States more than tripled between 1890 and 1909.

8. “After the Ball” • Harris paid a well-known singer in a traveling theater production to incorporate “After the Ball” into his performance. • It soon became the most popular part of the play, and audiences requested that it be repeated several times during each performance. • Harris published the song himself and was soon clearing around twenty-five thousand dollars a month. • “After the Ball” was performed by John Philip Sousa’s band at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago (1893).

9. Ragtime Music • Emerged in the 1880s • Its popularity peaked in the decade after the turn of the century. • Ragtime initially was a piano music but gradually came to identify any syncopated music. • The term “ragtime” was used to describe any music that contained syncopation.

10. Ragtime Music • The word derives from the African American term “to rag,” meaning to enliven a piece of music by shifting melodic accents onto the offbeats (a technique known as syncopation). • It began as an obscure folk-dance music played up and down the Mississippi valley during last quarter of the nineteenth century. • Ragtime energized popular music in America by adding rhythmic vitality (syncopation) to the music.

11. The Banjo • A stringed instrument developed by slave musicians from African prototypes during the early colonial period. • The basic patterns of ragtime music were transferred from the banjo.

12. Ragtime Songs • Coon song • Popular among white audiences from the 1890s until World War I • Usually accompanied by a simplified version of the syncopated rhythms of ragtime piano music

13. “All Coons Look Alike to Me” • The first piece of sheet music to bear the term “rag” • Composed by the African American songwriter Ernest Hogan • Published (complete with racist caricatures on the cover) in 1896

14. Ragtime Songs • The growing market for ragtime songs at the turn of the century suggests a continuation of the white fascination with African American music first seen in minstrelsy. • Most popular ragtime songs were vigorous march-style songs with a few “irregular” rhythms added for effect.

15. Scott Joplin (1868–1917) • The most famous ragtime composer of the era • Best known for his piano rags • Born in Texas • Began to play piano around the town of Texarkana during his teens and received instruction in classical music theory from a German teacher • His first regular job as a pianist was in a cafe in St. Louis.

16. Scott Joplin (1868–1917) • Developed a “ragging” piano style, improvising around the themes of popular songs and marches in a syncopated style • Between 1895 and 1915, Joplin composed many of the classics of the ragtime repertoire • Helped popularize the style through his piano arrangements, published as sheet music

17. Scott Joplin (1868–1917) • Joplin’s rags were also widely heard on player pianos. • Player pianos were elaborate mechanical devices activated by piano rolls—spools of paper with punched holes that controlled the movement of the piano’s keys.

18. “Maple Leaf Rag” (1898) • Scott Joplin’s first successful piece • Named after the Maple Leaf social club in Sedalia, where he often played • The piece was published in 1899 and became a huge hit, spreading Joplin’s fame to Europe and beyond. • “Maple Leaf” started a nationwide craze for syncopated music.

19. The Golden Age of Tin Pan Alley Song • During the 1920s and 1930s, certain characteristic musical structures and styles of performance dominated popular song. • Professional tunesmiths wrote some of the most influential and commercially successful songs of the period. • The potential for fame and financial success on a previously unknown scale lured composers and lyricists with diverse skills and backgrounds.

20. Jewish Immigrants • From Central and Eastern Europe • Played a central role in the music business during the early twentieth century as composers, lyricists, performers, publishers, and promoters

21. Irving Berlin • Born Israel, or Isadore, Baline • The most productive, varied, and creative of the Tin Pan Alley songwriters • His professional songwriting career started before World War I and continued into the 1960s. • It has been said that Berlin often composed from three to seven songs a week. • In 1969, the catalog of Irving Berlin compositions still available in print included 899 songs.

22. Irving Berlin • His most famous songs include “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” “Blue Skies,” “Cheek to Cheek,” “There’s No Business Like Show Business,” “White Christmas,” and “God Bless America.”

23. George Gershwin (1898–1937) • His songs set new standards in excellence in terms of harmonic complexity and melodic flow. • More classically trained and ambitious than other songwriters • Sought and achieved success in the world of concert music and popular music • Influenced by jazz and blues

24. “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” • Published in 1911 • The song that first brought Berlin mass acclaim • Actually had little to do with ragtime as performed by the great black ragtime pianists of the day • Sold 1.5 million copies almost immediately

25. Broadway and Film • Berlin wrote songs for the Broadway stage and for sound film. • “Blue Skies,” performed by Al Jolson in the first talkie, The Jazz Singer • Wrote the entire score for the Marx Brothers’ debut movie, The Cocoanuts, in 1929 • The 1942 film Holiday Inn introduced “White Christmas.” • The 1946 Broadway musical Annie Get Your Gun • Berlin was the most prolific and consistent of Tin Pan Alley composers. • His songwriting career spanned almost sixty years.

26. Tin Pan Alley Song Form • Song forms inherited from the nineteenth century • The AABA structure • Verse-and-chorus form of “After the Ball” • Verse-refrain form, with an AABA refrain • Tin Pan Alley song form had two major sections: the verse and the refrain/chorus.

27. Listening: “My Blue Heaven,” performed by Gene Austin (1927) • Austin was one of the first “crooners” • Singers who mastered the intimate style of singing made possible with the electric microphone. • This recording was one of the bestselling records of the era. • Form: verse-refrain • Introduction • Verse: two sections of equal length with nearly identical music • Refrain: four sections, AABA—the “A” sections all end with the words “my blue heaven” • The “B” section, or “bridge” or “release,” provides variety.

28. Listening: “My Blue Heaven,” performed by Gene Austin (1927) • The song depicts the deepest aspirations of the Tin Pan Alley listening public. • The lyrics poetically reinforce a familiar and comfortable motif of the American dream: home and family. • Gene Austin’s performance reinforces the sentiments expressed in the lyrics: quiet intimacy and tranquility.

29. Listening: “April Showers,” performed by Al Jolson (1921) • This recording reveals the sound and style of the premicrophone period. • Jolson’s singing style reflects the performance techniques used on the vaudeville stage. • His vocal style was declamatory rather than lyrical. • Form: verse-refrain (ABAC structure)

30. What Are Tin Pan Alley Songs About? • Predominately aimed at white, urban middle- and upper-middle-class Americans • Said little in the way of social or political commentary • Were generally escapist • Privacy and romance

31. Tin Pan Alley and Broadway • Mutually beneficial relationship between Tin Pan Alley Songs and Broadway shows • Close proximity • Fruitful relationship in the 1920s and 1930s • The so-called Golden Age of Tin Pan Alley song

32. What Makes a Song a Standard? • Standards • Songs that remain an essential part of the repertoire of today’s jazz musicians and pop singers • Possess a continuing appeal that surpasses nostalgia • Tin Pan Alley composers produced many standards.

33. Rock ’n’ Roll • When rock ’n’ roll took over the pop charts in the later 1950s, the connection between Broadway and mainstream popular song had completely dissolved.

34. Conclusion • Popular song both reflected and helped shape the profound changes in American society during the 1920s and 1930s. • The intermixing of high and low cultures • The adoption of new technologies • The expansion of corporate music industry • The increasingly intimate interaction of white and black cultures during a period of strong racism • The emergence of a truly national popular culture

35. Conclusion • Tin Pan Alley and the singing style known as crooning were important influences on rhythm & blues and rock ’n’ roll during the 1950s and 1960s. • Many Tin Pan Alley songs are still used by contemporary jazz musicians as a basis for improvising.