Results for "Johnny St. Cyr"

Johnny St. Cyr

Born: April 17, 1890

Johnny St. Cyr is one of the masters of early blues-jazz. His recordings with Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Hot Seven feature some really impressive solo and rhythm player where St. Cyr explores the extended range of the guitar-banjo. St. Cyr used a special made banjo with an extra large pot for additional volume. St. Cyr had his own bands in New Orleans as far back as 1905. He played with A.J. Piron, the Superior, Olympia and Tuxedo bands, played on the riverboats with Fate Marable and was with King Oliver when he went north to Chicago in 1923. St. Cyr recorded with King Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton and with Louis Armstrong as a key member of the Hot Five and Hot Seven sessions

The Legacy of Lillian Hardin Armstrong

by Karl Ackermann
April 10, 2025

In 2020, I published A Map of Jazz: Crossroads of Music and Human Rights (WS Publishing), a book that looks at the culture of jazz on a timeline with cultures of the world. At more than 500 pages, the book is incomplete by necessity; there is no well-marked path, and the history is sometimes nebulous. However, ...

Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five

Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five were a pioneering jazz ensemble formed in 1925, often regarded as one of the most influential groups in the history of jazz. The band, led by Armstrong on cornet, featured notable musicians such as clarinetist Johnny Dodds, trombonist Kid Ory, and pianist Lil Hardin. The Hot Five's recordings, including iconic tracks like "West End Blues" and "Potato Head Blues," played a crucial role in shaping the development of early jazz, particularly in terms of improvisation, solo performance, and the role of the individual voices within the band.

French Gypsy Jazz

by Nick Catalano
July 1, 2019

At various times since its origin, jazz has had an interesting claimant. The French have long maintained that the various musics leading up to the development of jazz in the early years of the 20th century contain Gallic seedlings....Their claim is justifiable. Without parsing the complex origins of the music one can simply make reference to ...

Women in Jazz, Part 1: Early Innovators

by Karl Ackermann
February 4, 2019

"Lil Hardin [Armstrong]...often imagined herself standing...at the bottom of a ladder, holding it steady for Louis as he rose to stardom." (Stanford Archive of Recorded Sound, 2012). “The all-female band is an anomaly in music, one that must constantly prove itself as a 'band,' and not just 'girls playing music together.'" (Mary Ann Clawson, 1999). Everything ...

Blue Highways and Sweet Music: The Territory Bands, Part II

by Karl Ackermann
August 30, 2018

Part 1 | Part 2 Part 1 of Blue Highways and Sweet Music: The Territory Bands looked at the roots, drivers and challenges of the travelling groups who brought jazz music to the non-urban areas of the Southern Plains, through one-night-stands, in often impromptu venues. A black phenomenon, often misappropriated by white musicians, promoters, ...

Eccentric Genius Of Jelly Roll Morton This Week On Riverwalk Jazz

October 3, 2013

This week on Riverwalk Jazz, Vernel Bagneris joins The Jim Cullum Jazz Band for Wild Man Blues, a musical biography based on stories from the personal diaries of Jelly Roll Morton, compiled by the late William Russell, the first curator of the Hogan Jazz Archive at Tulane University in New Orleans, and published in the book ...

This Week On Riverwalk Jazz: Class Of '26: Soundtrack Of The Jazz Age

June 7, 2012

This week on Riverwalk Jazz, piano legend Dick Hyman, actor/playwright Vernel Bagneris, guitarist/singer/raconteur Marty Grosz, cornetist Bob Barnard and fiddler Andy Stein join The Jim Cullum Jazz Band to celebrate the Class of '26: The Soundtrack of the Jazz Age. The program is distributed in the US by Public Radio International, on Sirius/XM satellite radio and ...

Marcus Roberts: The Music of Jelly Roll Morton

by Nick Catalano
June 1, 2012

In the midst of Jazz at Lincoln Center's May celebration of New Orleans music, Marcus Roberts and his trio, accompanied by a choir of horns, constructed a tribute to Jelly Roll Morton. The concert featured classic Morton compositions performed with some enterprising improvisations.Morton's importance as a jazz pioneer cannot be overstated, and the extent ...

The Eccentric Genius of Jelly Roll Morton This Week on Riverwalk Jazz

October 6, 2011

This week on Riverwalk Jazz, actor Vernel Bagneris joins The Jim Cullum Jazz Band for “Wild Man Blues," a musical biography based on personal diaries of Jelly Roll Morton. The program is distributed in the US by Public Radio International, on Sirius/XM sattelite radio and can be streamed on- demand from the Riverwalk Jazz website. One ...