String Bands in Jazz
Artists began to combine and record string-band music in collaboration with other popular styles in the 1920s. Lonnie Johnson and his brother, James “Steady Roll” Johnson were both proficient at banjo, guitar, and violin, and recorded with various string bands in a blues style. Lonnie Johnson also recorded duets with Eddie Lang during the late 1920s, and set the precedent for string band jazz, which included Bull Frog Moan/A Handful of Riffs from 1929. As influential as the Johnson/Lang duets were those by Lang and Joe Venuti. These works, completed in 1926, emphasized the rhythm of a chordal guitar with the melody in the swung violin line.
Red McKenzie, who also recorded with Lang, recorded with an influential string band group during the 1930s, the Spirits of Rhythm. The group consisted of tiple, guitar, homemade percussion, double bass, and often involved scat singing. The particular form of scat that was eventually associated with string band music was based on Harlem slang, and can be heard in McKenzie’s recording My Old Man, from 1933. Another string band from the 1930s, Slim and Slam, continued this particular form of scat in their recording The Flat Foot Floogie.
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