by Ted Onulak

Created on: June 11, 2009

Since the days of its murky inception in some smoke-filled backroom, woven from slave work songs, Christian Church music and syncopated African drum beats; Jazz has been a constantly evolving musical form. Though critics and the public alike were behind the curve, when jazz would recreate itself, the innovations took hold as the musicians embraced them and flocked to play the New Thing.

Both the clarinet and saxophone have a strong presence in the history of jazz, but their relative popularity was largely determined by style.

The early Dixieland or New Orleans hot jazz combos featured trumpet or cornet paired with clarinet with various rhythm section combinations of piano, banjo, bass and drums. Traditionally, the trumpet would take the melody and the clarinet would play the improvised back fill melodies, in classical terms called obbligato. Saxophones were virtually non-existent in early jazz.

This call and response element in early jazz is a direct result of the Field or work songs and music of the Black Church. Perhaps jazz music is so rich and diverse because it incorporates the music from the totality of a unique culture, found nowhere else in the world. As immigrants came to the United States with little psychological baggage of slave ownership, they were captivated by the infectious music of Black Americans, and would even contribute to its evolution.

For years, hot jazz exerted its influence on American popular music, but most White Americans craved sweet dance band music until the 1920's Prohibition era drove drinking alcohol and hot music underground and made it synonymous with the Roaring Twenties life-style.

In these heady times, the leaders of the Swing Era bands were learning their craft. They were determined to create a new kind of big band music with hot jazz at its core. Brass and clarinet were still it's main components, with saxophones making inroads as a kind of string section with their soft airy sounds.

Only Frankie Trumbauer and Sidney Bechet were saxophonists of any note in the late Twenties. Sidney Bechet, whose legendary bad temper and run-ins with the law, caused him to spend much of his time in Europe. Bechet was still firmly in the Hot Jazz tradition, playing the straight clarinet look-alike Soprano saxophone, but played it as the lead instrument.

Trumbauer played a light, airy alto saxophone with remarkable dexterity and may have been a key factor in advancing the alto saxophone

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