Trad jazz - short for "traditional jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

" - refers to the Dixieland

Dixieland

Dixieland music, sometimes referred to as Hot jazz, Early Jazz or New Orleans jazz, is a style of jazz music which developed in New Orleans at the start of the 20th century, and was spread to Chicago and New York City by New Orleans bands in the 1910s.Well-known jazz standard songs from the...

 and Ragtime

Ragtime

Ragtime is an original musical genre which enjoyed its peak popularity between 1897 and 1918. Its main characteristic trait is its syncopated, or "ragged," rhythm. It began as dance music in the red-light districts of American cities such as St. Louis and New Orleans years before being published...

 jazz styles of the early 20th century in contrast to any more modern style.

A Dixieland revival began on the west coast in the late 1930s as a backlash to the Chicago style, which was close to swing

Swing (genre)

Swing music, also known as swing jazz or simply swing, is a form of jazz music that developed in the early 1930s and became a distinctive style by 1935 in the United States...

. Lu Watters

Lu Watters

Lucius "Lu" Watters was a trumpeter and bandleader of the Yerba Buena Jazz Band in the "West Coast revival" of Dixieland music...

 and the Yerba Buena Jazz Band

Yerba Buena Jazz Band

Lu Watters & the Yerba Buena Jazz Band is the name of the Dixieland revival band founded by Lu Watters. Notable members include singer and banjoist Clancy Hayes ; clarinetist Bob Helm; trumpeter Bob Scobey; trombonist Turk Murphy; tubist/bassist Dick Lammi; and Watters himself. The band broke up in...

, and trombonist Turk Murphy

Turk Murphy

Melvin Edward Alton “Turk” Murphy was renowned as a trombonist who played traditional and dixieland jazz in San Francisco....

, adopted the repertoire of Joe "King" Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton

Jelly Roll Morton

Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe , known professionally as Jelly Roll Morton, was an American ragtime and early jazz pianist, bandleader and composer....

, Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....

 and W.C. Handy: bands included banjo and tuba in the rhythm sections. A New Orleans-based traditional revival began with the later recordings of Jelly-Roll Morton and the rediscovery of Bunk Johnson

Bunk Johnson

Willie Gary "Bunk" Johnson was a prominent early New Orleans jazz trumpet player in the early years of the 20th century who enjoyed a revived career in the 1940s....

 in 1942, leading to the founding of Preservation Hall

Preservation Hall

Preservation Hall is a noted jazz performance hall located at 726 St. Peter Street in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana. It hosts nightly concerts featuring a rotating roster of bands. The bands of Preservation Hall typically perform jazz in the New Orleans style.Despite the fame of the...

 in the French Quarter during the 1960s.

Early King Oliver pieces exemplify this style of hot jazz; however, as individual performers began stepping to the front as soloists, a new form of music emerged. Ironically, one of the ensemble players in King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, Louis Armstrong, was by far the most influential of the soloists, creating, in his wake, a demand for this "new" style of jazz, in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Other influential stylists who are still revered in traditional jazz circles today include Sidney Bechet

Sidney Bechet

Sidney Bechet was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer.He was one of the first important soloists in jazz , and was perhaps the first notable jazz saxophonist...

, Bix Beiderbecke

Bix Beiderbecke

Leon Bismark "Bix" Beiderbecke was an American jazz cornetist, jazz pianist, and composer.With Louis Armstrong, Beiderbecke was one of the most influential jazz soloists of the 1920s...

, Wingy Manone

Wingy Manone

Wingy Manone was an American jazz trumpeter, composer, singer, and bandleader. His major recordings included "Tar Paper Stomp", "Nickel in the Slot", "Downright Disgusted Blues", "There'll Come a Time ", and "Tailgate Ramble".- Biography :Manone was born Joseph Matthews Mannone in New Orleans,...

 and Muggsy Spanier

Muggsy Spanier

Francis Joseph Julian "Muggsy" Spanier was a prominent cornet player based in Chicago. He was renowned as the best trumpet/cornet in Chicago until Bix Beiderbecke entered the scene....

. Many artists of the Big Band

Big band

A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with jazz and the Swing Era typically consisting of rhythm, brass, and woodwind instruments totaling approximately twelve to twenty-five musicians...

 era, including Glenn Miller

Glenn Miller

Alton Glenn Miller was an American jazz musician , arranger, composer, and bandleader in the swing era. He was one of the best-selling recording artists from 1939 to 1943, leading one of the best known "Big Bands"...

, Gene Krupa

Gene Krupa

Gene Krupa was an American jazz and big band drummer and composer, known for his highly energetic and flamboyant style.-Biography:...

 and Benny Goodman

Benny Goodman

Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...

, had their beginnings in trad jazz.

Trad in Britain

In Britain, where boogie-woogie

Boogie-woogie

Boogie-woogie has the following meanings:*Boogie-woogie, a piano-based music style*Boogie-woogie , a swing dance or a dance that imitates the rock-n-roll dance of the 1950s*"Boogie Woogie" , a song by EuroGroove and Dannii Minogue...

, "stride" piano and jump blues

Jump blues

Jump blues is an up-tempo blues usually played by small groups and featuring horns. It was very popular in the 1940s, and the movement was a precursor to the arrival of rhythm and blues and rock and roll...

 were popular in the 1940s, the Humphrey Lyttelton

Humphrey Lyttelton

Humphrey Richard Adeane Lyttelton , also known as Humph, was an English jazz musician and broadcaster, and chairman of the BBC radio comedy programme I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue...

 band pioneered a trad revival just after the Second World War, and Ken Colyer

Ken Colyer

Kenneth Colyer was a British jazz trumpeter and cornetist, devoted totally to New Orleans jazz. His band was also known for skiffle interludes.-Biography:...

's Crane River band added a strong thread of New Orleans purism. During the 1950s and well into the 60s Chris Barber

Chris Barber

Donald Christopher 'Chris' Barber is best known as a jazz trombonist. As well as scoring a UK top twenty trad jazz hit he helped the careers of many musicians, notably the blues singer Ottilie Patterson, who was at one time his wife, and vocalist/banjoist Lonnie Donegan, whose appearances with...

, Terry Lightfoot

Terry Lightfoot

Terry Lightfoot is a British clarinettist and bandleader, and together with Chris Barber, Acker Bilk and Kenny Ball was one of the leading members of the trad jazz generation of British jazzmen.-Early life:Lightfoot started his musical career as a vocalist during school-life, singing popular songs...

, Acker Bilk, George Chisholm

George Chisholm (musician)

George Chisholm OBE was a Scottish jazz trombonist.Born in Glasgow to a family of musicians, Chisholm's musical career began in the Glasgow Playhouse orchestra. In the late 1930s he moved to London, where he played in dance bands led by Bert Ambrose and Teddy Joyce...

, Kenny Ball

Kenny Ball

Kenny Ball is an English jazz musician, best known as the lead trumpet player in Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen.-Career:...

, Mick Mulligan

Mick Mulligan

Peter Sidney "Mick" Mulligan was an English jazz trumpeter and bandleader, best known for his presence on the trad jazz scene....

 and Mike Cotton - who "went R'n'B". in 1963-4 - made regular appearances live, on the air and in the British charts, as did Louis Armstrong himself. More light-hearted versions were offered by The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band

Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band

The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band are a band created by a group of British art-school denizens of the 1960s...

, The Temperance Seven

The Temperance Seven

The Temperance Seven is a British band specializing in 1920s-style jazz music.- Career :The Temperance Seven were founded at Christmas 1955, although it has been alleged they first "saw the light" in the Pasadena Cocoa Rooms, Balls Pond Road, North London, in 1904...

 and The New Vaudeville Band

The New Vaudeville Band

The New Vaudeville Band was a group created by songwriter Geoff Stephens in 1966 to record his novelty composition "Winchester Cathedral", a song inspired by the dance bands of the 1920s and a Rudy Vallee megaphone style vocal...

. Dixieland stylings can be found here and there on records by The Rolling Stones

The Rolling Stones

The Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...

, The Beatles

The Beatles

The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...

, The Small Faces

The Small Faces

The Small Faces were an English rock and roll band from East London, heavily influenced by American rhythm and blues. The group was founded in 1965 by members Steve Marriott, Ronnie Lane, Kenney Jones, and Jimmy Winston, although by 1966 Winston was replaced by Ian McLagan as the band's...

 and The Kinks

The Kinks

The Kinks were an English rock band formed in Muswell Hill, North London, by brothers Ray and Dave Davies in 1964. Categorised in the United States as a British Invasion band, The Kinks are recognised as one of the most important and influential rock acts of the era. Their music was influenced by a...

, while The Who

The Who

The Who are an English rock band formed in 1964 by Roger Daltrey , Pete Townshend , John Entwistle and Keith Moon . They became known for energetic live performances which often included instrument destruction...

 actually performed trad jazz in their early days.

It was Chris Barber whose band performances gave a stage to Lonnie Donegan

Lonnie Donegan

Anthony James "Lonnie" Donegan MBE was a skiffle musician, with more than 20 UK Top 30 hits to his name. He is known as the "King of Skiffle" and is often cited as a large influence on the generation of British musicians who became famous in the 1960s...

 and Alexis Korner

Alexis Korner

Alexis Korner was a blues musician and radio broadcaster, who has sometimes been referred to as "a Founding Father of British Blues"...

, setting off the craze for skiffle

Skiffle

Skiffle is a type of popular music with jazz, blues, folk, roots and country influences, usually using homemade or improvised instruments. Originating as a term in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century, it became popular again in the UK in the 1950s, where it was mainly...

 and then British rhythm and blues

British rhythm and blues

British rhythm and blues developed as a major musical movement in the early 1960s in London and other urban centres in the UK as predominately young white male musicians attempted to emulate the style and recordings of African American rhythm and blues artists...

 that powered the Beat boom of the sixties.

Later revivals

Following a revival of interest in the late 1980s, a number of musicians such as Wynton Marsalis

Wynton Marsalis

Wynton Learson Marsalis is a trumpeter, composer, bandleader, music educator, and Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. Marsalis has promoted the appreciation of classical and jazz music often to young audiences...

began performing and recording not only original trad jazz tunes but new compositions in the style as well.