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| The maniacal look is on- and off-brand. |
I didn’t dive too deep into stride piano - for instance, I didn’t even touch back to James P. Johnson, one of its originators - but I did take some notes on what typifies its sound. Most simply:
“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.”
Next, a little more on the technical side:
“The left hand characteristically plays a four-beat pulse with a single bass note, octave, major 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. Unlike performers of the ragtime popularized by Scott Joplin, stride players' left hands span greater distances on the keyboard.”
That last note matters because, like a lot of American popular music, stride piano borrowed defining elements from ragtime - e.g., syncopation - and it started as the original form faded out of popular music. It had its pioneers - someone dubbed James P. Johnson the “Father of Stride” - but one of his pupils would out-strip him. And by some distance.
“Fats was the most relaxed man I ever saw in a studio, and so he made everybody else relaxed. After a balance had been taken, we'd just need one take to make a side, unless it was a kind of difficult number.”
- Gene Sedric, clarinetist and long-time collaborator
“Larger than life with his sheer size and magnetic personality, [Fats] Waller was known to enjoy alcohol and female attention in abundance.”
- A Biography biography
“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.”
Next, a little more on the technical side:
“The left hand characteristically plays a four-beat pulse with a single bass note, octave, major 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. Unlike performers of the ragtime popularized by Scott Joplin, stride players' left hands span greater distances on the keyboard.”
That last note matters because, like a lot of American popular music, stride piano borrowed defining elements from ragtime - e.g., syncopation - and it started as the original form faded out of popular music. It had its pioneers - someone dubbed James P. Johnson the “Father of Stride” - but one of his pupils would out-strip him. And by some distance.
“Fats was the most relaxed man I ever saw in a studio, and so he made everybody else relaxed. After a balance had been taken, we'd just need one take to make a side, unless it was a kind of difficult number.”
- Gene Sedric, clarinetist and long-time collaborator
“Larger than life with his sheer size and magnetic personality, [Fats] Waller was known to enjoy alcohol and female attention in abundance.”
- A Biography biography
