Misplaced Pages

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Stride" music – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (July 2008) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Stride jazz piano, often shortened to stride, is a jazz piano style that arose from ragtime players. Prominent stride pianists include James P. Johnson, Willie "the Lion" Smith, Fats Waller, Luckey Roberts, and Mary Lou Williams.

Technique

Stride employed left hand techniques from ragtime, wider use of the piano's range, and quick tempos. Compositions were written but were also intended to be improvised.

The term "stride" comes from the idea of the pianist's left hand leaping, or "striding", across the piano. The left hand characteristically plays a four-beat pulse with a single bass note (or an octave, major seventh, minor seventh or major tenth interval) on the first and third beats, and a chord on the second and fourth beats. Occasionally this pattern is reversed by placing the chord on the downbeat and bass notes on the upbeat. Compared to the ragtime style popularized by Scott Joplin, stride players' left hands travel greater distances on the keyboard.

Stride piano is highly rhythmic because of the alternating bass note and chord action of the left hand. In the left hand, the pianist usually plays a single bass note, or a bass octave or tenth, followed by a chord triad toward the center of the keyboard, while the right hand plays syncopated melody lines with harmonic and riff embellishments and fill patterns. Proper playing of stride jazz involves a subtle rhythmic tension between the left hand which is close to the established tempo, and the right hand, which is often slightly anticipatory.

Unlike ragtime pianists, stride pianists were not concerned with ragtime form and played pop songs of the day in the stride style. Ragtime was composed, but many stride pianists improvised. Some stride players didn't read music. Stride used tension and release and dynamics. Stride can be played at all tempos, slow or fast depending on the underlying composition and treatment the pianist is performing. On occasion a stride jazz pianist might have the left hand shift into double time.

Some pianists have transcribed display pieces note for note from early recordings. However, this practice only illustrates a small part of stride jazz musical adventures.

James P. Johnson (1894–1955), known as the "Father of Stride", created this style of jazz piano along with fellow pianists Willie "The Lion" Smith (1893–1973), Thomas "Fats" Waller (1904–1943) and Luckey Roberts (1887–1968). One of Johnson's contributions was to recast the "straight" feeling of ragtime with a more modern, swinging beat, sophisticated harmonies and dynamics. He discovered and employed the tenth or "broken tenth" interval. The pianist could not only substitute tenths for single bass notes but could also play broken (staggered) tenths up and down the keyboard

Stride pianist Art Tatum (1909–1956) (a fan of Fats Waller and Lee Sims, who was himself a fan of the European "Impressionist" pianists such as Claude Debussy and Erik Satie, and hosted a radio program Tatum enjoyed) introduced more complex harmonies into his playing, and, like Fats Waller, would start songs with legato explorations of chordal intricacies before launching into swing. Tatum was given a posthumous Grammy Award in 1974.

Stride pianists used devices such as arpeggios, black note slide-offs, varying rhythmic accents, and tension and release.

Stride pianists engaged in marathon cutting contests to show off their skills.

Practitioners

Other stride jazz pianists of the 20th century included Clarence Profit, Johnny Guarnieri, Mary Lou Williams, Cliff Jackson, Hank Duncan, Pat Flowers, Don Ewell, Joe Turner, Claude Hopkins, Ralph Sutton, Dick Wellstood, Dick Hyman, and Judy Carmichael. Others such as Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, and Jaki Byard developed the style for their own ends.

Other prominent stride jazz pianists are Butch Thompson, Mike Lipskin, Bernd Lhotzky, Louis Mazetier, and Stephanie Trick, who perform internationally. Japanese pianist Hiromi Uehara's solo concerts often include stride-based pieces.

Mrs Mills used a stride technique for her many sing-along and party tunes.

Works

• By James Price Johnson
  • "Carolina Shout" (1918/1921), "Mule Walk," "Caprice Rag"
• By Thomas "Fats" Waller
  • "Handful of Keys" (1929), "Vipers Drag" (1934), "Alligator Crawl" (1934)
• By Willie "The Lion" Smith
  • "Finger Buster" (1931), "Echoes of Spring" (1939)

See also

• Ragtime
• Jazz piano
• Novelty piano
• Swing music

References

1. ^ Rye, Howard (2002). Kernfeld, Barry (ed.). The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz. Vol. 3 (2 ed.). New York: Grove's Dictionaries. pp. 281–282. ISBN 1-56159-284-6.
2. Evans, Lee. "Hitting That Stride". Jazzed. Retrieved 20 December 2019.
3. Morrison, Nick (12 April 2010). "Stride Piano: Bottom-End Jazz". NPR Music. Retrieved 26 November 2017.
4. ^ "Piano Styles—Ragtime to Boogie-Woogie", McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
5. Schuller, Gunther (1986). Early Jazz: Its Roots and Musical Development. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 216& 221. ISBN 9780195040432.
6. Scivales, Riccardo (1990). Harlem Stride Piano Solos. Ekay Music. pp. 06, 34: About Harlem Stride Piano, Carolina Shout. ISBN 0-943748-43-7.
7. Ken Burns (director) (2001). "The Gift" (part 2 of Jazz) (Documentary). PBS.
8. Ken Dryden, review of Bernd Lhotzky, Piano Portrait (CD, 2006), AllMusic
9. That Week On TV: Let's Have a Party! The Piano Genius of Mrs Mills, BBC4; Nigellissima, BBC2, Radio Times, 29 September 2012

External links

• Recordings of James P. Johnson online at the Library of Congress National Jukebox

v t e Jazz
General topics	Outline of jazz Jazz (word) Jazz band Big band Improvisation Jazz Jam session Scat singing Swing performance Jazz bass Jazz drumming Jazz guitar French horn in jazz Jazz piano Jazz trombone Jazz violin Vocal jazz Women in jazz
Genres	Avant-garde jazz Bebop Hard bop Neo-bop Post-bop Cape jazz Chamber jazz Cool jazz Dixieland Flamenco jazz Folk jazz Free jazz Free funk Free improvisation Punk jazz Gypsy jazz Jazz-funk Jazz fusion Jazz rap Latin jazz Afro-Cuban jazz M-Base Mainstream jazz Marabi Modal jazz Nu jazz Orchestral jazz Organ trio Progressive jazz Ska jazz Smooth jazz Soul jazz Spiritual jazz Sacred jazz Stride Swing Swing revival Third stream Trad jazz
Musicians	Bassists Clarinetists Drummers Guitarists Organists Percussionists Pianists Saxophonists Trombonists Trumpeters Vibraphonists Violinists Vocalists
Musicians by genre	Bebop Chamber jazz Cool jazz and West Coast jazz Hard bop Jazz fusion Scat Smooth jazz Soul jazz Swing
Standards	Pre-1920 1920s 1930s 1940s post-1950
Discographies	Bethlehem Blue Note BYG Cobblestone Contemporary CTI ECM ESP-Disk Flying Dutchman Freedom Groove Merchant Impulse! India Navigation JMT Landmark Mainstream Milestone MPS Records MPS Muse Prestige Riverside Strata-East Verve Winter & Winter
Festivals	Beaches (Toronto) Cape Town Chicago Copenhagen Jakarta Monterey Montreal Montreux New Orleans Newport North Sea Pori Saint Lucia
Culture	Contrafacts Institutions and organizations Jazz funeral Jazz poetry Jazz royalty Jazz theory See Template: Jazz theory Rare groove Second line Venues
Regional scenes	African Ethiopia Malawian South African Cape jazz Marabi Zimbabwean Asian Armenian Azerbaijani Jazz mugham Chinese Indian Indo jazz Sitar Iranian Japanese European Balkan Bulgarian Belgian British British dance band Continental European Czech and Slovak Danish Dutch European free jazz French German Italian Polish Yass Spanish Flamenco jazz Swedish North American Canadian Haitian Latin American Cuban American Baltimore jazz Chicago Kansas City New Orleans New York City Washington, D.C. West Coast Oceanian Australian South American Brazilian Latin American Worldwide Ethno jazz
History	Bibliography of jazz Blues British dance band Ragtime Jazz Age Continental jazz Straight-ahead jazz Pre-1920 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 2020 2021 2022
Related	Acid jazz Afrobeat Contradanza Blues Jump blues New Orleans blues Brass band Exotica Plugg Quiet storm Ragtime Novelty ragtime Sophisti-pop West African music Western swing
Media	Album covers of Blue Note Records Bird Jazz (miniseries) The Jazz Singer Round Midnight Straight, No Chaser
Jazz portal

• Musical techniques
• Jazz genres
• Piano
• Stride pianists
• Jazz terminology