Cutting contests were a form of musical battles between various stride piano players between the 1920s and 1940s, and to a lesser extent in improvisatory competition on other jazz instruments during the swing era. The practice exists in some vestigial form in the "trading" of segments of a tune in jazz improvising up to the present time.

Up to the present time, the expression cutting in jazz sometimes is used, somewhat facetiously, to claim the technical mastery or superiority of a new musician. That an emerging player cuts Herbie Hancock

Herbie Hancock

Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock is an American pianist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet," Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound...

 or Oscar Peterson

Oscar Peterson

Oscar Emmanuel Peterson was a Canadian jazz pianist and composer. He was called the "Maharaja of the keyboard" by Duke Ellington, "O.P." by his friends. He released over 200 recordings, won seven Grammy Awards, and received other numerous awards and honours over the course of his career...

 suggests that he is either unusually facile, or promises to be highly influential.

Cutting contests first had a more earnest meaning only among pianists, and later existed for their own sake. In the beginning, to "cut" another piano player meant to replace him at his job by outperforming him. This more serious rivalry ended by the 1920s, because pianists began to acquire more stable engagements, and basic ragtime and "fast shout" piano evolved into improvised stride. The word "stride" piano began to be used in the 1920s.

With time, cutting came to mean victory at a pre-arranged contest. The contests were usually held at "rent parties

Rent party

A rent party is a social occasion where tenants hire a musician or band to play and pass the hat to raise money to pay their rent, originating in Harlem during the 1920s. The rent party played a major role in the development of jazz and blues music...

" in the homes of locals of Harlem

Harlem

Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...

, in which entrance money was used to pay off the rent. In this they have much in common with the later emerging rap battles.

Famous contestants include James P. Johnson

James P. Johnson

James P. Johnson was an American pianist and composer...

 and his greatest rival Willie "The Lion" Smith. Johnson and Smith actually had so much respect for each other that their contests usually ended in a draw, and neither usually "cut" into the other's play.

The cutting contests continued into the 1940s, when stride pianist Art Tatum

Art Tatum

Arthur "Art" Tatum, Jr. was an American jazz pianist and virtuoso who played with phenomenal facility despite being nearly blind.Tatum is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time...

 would usually win, beating out such notable pianists as Fats Waller

Fats Waller

Fats Waller , born Thomas Wright Waller, was a jazz pianist, organist, composer, singer, and comedic entertainer...

, Teddy Wilson

Teddy Wilson

Theodore Shaw "Teddy" Wilson was an American jazz pianist whose sophisticated and elegant style was featured on the records of many of the biggest names in jazz, including Louis Armstrong, Lena Horne, Benny Goodman, Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald.-Biography:Wilson was born in Austin, Texas in...

, Count Basie

Count Basie

William "Count" Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. Basie led his jazz orchestra almost continuously for nearly 50 years...

, Earl "Fatha" Hines

Earl Hines

Earl Kenneth Hines, universally known as Earl "Fatha" Hines, was an American jazz pianist. Hines was one of the most influential figures in the development of modern jazz piano and, according to one source, is "one of a small number of pianists whose playing shaped the history of jazz".-Early...

, Albert Ammons

Albert Ammons

Albert Ammons was an American pianist. Ammons was a player of boogie-woogie, a bluesy jazz style popular from the late 1930s into the mid 1940s.-Life and career:...

, Harry Gibson

Harry Gibson

Harry "The Hipster" Gibson was a jazz pianist, singer and songwriter.Gibson played New York style Stride piano and boogie woogie while singing in a wild, unrestrained style. His music career began in the late 1920s, when as the young Harry Raab, his birth name, he played stride piano in Dixieland...

, Pete Johnson

Pete Johnson

Pete Johnson was an American boogie-woogie and jazz pianist.Journalist Tony Russell stated in his book The Blues - From Robert Johnson to Robert Cray, that "Johnson shared with the other members of the 'Boogie Woogie Trio' the technical virtuosity and melodic fertility that can make this the most...

, Marlowe

Marlowe

- People :Given name* Marlowe Gardiner-Heslin , Canadian actor* Marlowe Morris , American jazz musicianSurname* Andrew W...

, Clarence Prophet, and Claude Hopkins

Claude Hopkins

Claude Driskett Hopkins was an American jazz stride pianist and bandleader.-Biography:Claude Hopkins was born in Alexandria, Virginia in 1903. Historians differ in respect of the actual date of his birth. His parents were on the faculty of Howard University...

.