Essay on the Development of the Piano in the Jazz Era

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Essay on Development of the Piano in the Jazz Era

Around the beginning of the 20th century, the earliest Jazz piano style emerged, centred in New Orleans. Ragtime music came directly from the jazz styles of the early 20th century. Jelly Roll Morton, was one of the most prolific jazz pianists and was one of the founders of ragtime jazz music.

He wrote many compositions himself and always insisted that the other musicians in his band played the music exactly as written, this was a sign of very little freedom in ragtime music. Although, Morton’s piano music was all essentially ragtime music, it allowed for more than the norm in terms of freedom for improvisation. Over the years the piano was used very differently and even moved sections within the bands of the 20th century which played jazz music. It went from being a melodic instrument to being a part of the rhythm section along with the drums, bass and guitar.

The development of the piano is very evident progressively through the jazz era. The use of chords such as major, minor, augmented etc are all found in the harmony of the piano part, these are all chords taken from western music.  The development although is that now, they have been varied in ways to give different effects. Compound chords, added 7ths, 9ths, etc all give richer chords which leave the melody instruments with more scope for the theme above the accompaniment.

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Early jazz music, in the 1920’s was made up of the frontline and the rhythm instruments. The piano always fell under rhythm in this case as it was simply used as a chordal instrument, played possibly in ostinato’s which would give the rhythmic drive that was necessary.

Seeing as jazz began in the New Orlean’s area of the USA, this early style became known as ‘New Orlean’s jazz’. This style was created and initially dominated by the pianist Joseph Ferdinand La Menthe, better known as "Jelly Roll Morton" (1885-1941). Morton was a combination of ragtime pianist, composer, blues and Jazzman ...

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