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 rolled into one. He began playing professionally in the "Redlight District" of New Orleans called Storyville in 1902 when he was seventeen. Morton is also regarded as the first true Jazz composer. The development over the coming years was to be huge as the style and uses of the piano differentiated throughout the twentieth century. The piano was playing chords in a rhythmic fashion; this was known as comping and was a form of rhythmic improvisation as the pianist had freedom to perform this as they wanted.
In Louis Armstrong’s West End Blues, the trumpet takes the frontline whilst the piano accompanies with comping of the chords. Later it then becomes more complex as the piano answers the trumpet part playing more complicated melodic lines. The texture is mainly melody and accompaniment, later on the development shows that frontline instruments play polyphonic melodic lines against one another.
Count Basie, based In Kansas City was one of the world renowned jazz pianists of his time. He was influenced greatly by Fat’s Waller and incorporated his ‘stride’ style of playing into his music. This was based on a blues orientated piano style of playing, the piano started to become more prominent in the likes of Count Basie’s band rather than just being a member of the rhythm section. The piano parts are clearly heard in the likes of Lester Leaps In and Taxi War Dance as individual melodic lines. The piano has developed from simple comping and has allowed for the walking bass line to be played by the brass, freeing the left hand in the piano part.
Duke Ellington was influenced by both stride playing and ragtime music. He built up his band in New York, they built a style developing from blues which gave a swing beat driving the music forwards. Ragtime piano music had fast memorable passages and therefore could be virtuosic in ways, the piano part in the likes of Ko-ko were evidently being played by an accomplished pianist.
Bebop was still based on the principle of improvisation over a chord progression, but the tempos were faster, the rhythms extremely syncopated, the phrases longer and more complex with exciting new tone colours and dissonant harmonies. The main thing to look out for when analysing bebop music was the flattened 5th, it was very common in this particular style as it became one of the ‘blues’ notes.
Thelonius Monk one of the revolutionary pianists of the Bebop era, he began to introduce more angular music rather than worrying about it being pleasant or tuneful to the ear. Polychords like those mentioned previously where also in full use at this point. Compound chords and added notes along with the basic triads became very common.
Monk’s work also used high levels of dissonance in comparison to other composers/arrangers pieces. The basic chords became more complex and his melody lines also became much more interesting which resulted in the adventurous piano parts we later heard in the likes of Straight No Chaser and some of the work of Gil Evans.
In ‘So What’ by Miles Davis, the harmonic structure consisted of two different chords played in the same pattern throughout the piece. The piano was in control of this and although simple, it was a vital part as it gave scope for the improvising solo instrument parts playing above the accompaniment. Dminor7 and EflatMinor7 are the two chords that were used in this piece.