This is Jazz

The Jazz we hear most of the time in Old Time Radio is Swing Jazz. Swing is closely related to Dance Jazz and Big Band Music, the differences, if there are any, are subtle enough that scholars are about the only ones who can tell the difference. Since it is played as dance music, Swing tends to be carefully arranged and directed. Too much improvisation could make the music less danceable, and ruin the mood.

Swing was a progression of New Orleans Jazz, but it would be hard for the casual listener to connect the two. The New Orleans style, also called Riverboat Jazz, Dixieland, or sometimes Early Jazz, is filled with improvisation. Swing Jazz is the music of dance halls and nightclubs, New Orleans Jazz is the music for parties.

The roots of New Orleans Jazz go back to the end of the Spanish-American War. Many of the units organized for the conflict demobilized in New Orleans. If the outfit had a band (and many of them did), they were likely to abandon their instruments in their hurry to get home. The uneducated musicians who took advantage of this musical windfall developed the unique style we can Dixieland.

The party style of New Orleans Jazz was a good fit for the prohibition era with its boisterous beats and improvisational style. After Prohibition, the speakeasy clubs became nightclubs and the change in atmosphere demanded a change in music. By the 1930’s, Swing was the thing, and many Dixieland musicians were forced into retirement.

Jazz critic Rudi Blesh came from Oklahoma and studied at Dartmouth College. He wrote about jazz for The New York Tribune and The San Francisco Chronicle. Some critics held that his 1946 book, Shining Trumpets, was a flawed and biased history of Jazz, but it gave him enough authority that the next year, WOR New York and the Mutual Network tapped him to host This Is Jazz. The program was to be "radio’s only live, improvised, authentic New Orleans Jazz". As a scholar, it is natural that Blesh got in a few musical history lessons, but mostly the show is about hot, pure Jazz.

Modern Jazz scholars still refer to recordings of This Is Jazz. Along with comments from Rudi Blesh, the show regularly featured Wild Bill Davidson, Art Hodes, Jimmy Archey, and Pops Foster. Later in the run, the band got their "official" name, "Rudi Blesh’s All-Star Stompers". Guests included Jazz greats like Louis Armstrong, Leadbelly, Sidney Bechet, Bertha Chippie Hill, Canada Lee, Blue Lou Lee, Mama Alberta Price, and sixteen-year-old Johnny Glazel.

Blesh is also credited with recording and reigniting the careers of Jazz greats like Jelly Roll Morton, Dizzy Gillespie, Joseph Lamb, James P. Johnson, and Eubie Blake. In 1976, Blesh received a Grammy Nomination for the line notes he wrote for Dick Hyman’s Joplin: The Complete Works of Scott Joplin.