Jazz And Pedal Steel

Lawrence Lupkin · Post by **Lawrence Lupkin** » 4 May 2004 6:58 am

I'm curious of the history of how Jazz and pedal steel evolved. At what time did this happen and who were the major players? I tried to do a forum search but came up empty. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Lawrence

Donny Hinson · Post by **Donny Hinson** » 4 May 2004 7:30 am

A good start is the Buddy Emmons album "Steel Guitar Jazz", released on the Mercury label in 1963.

That is the the benchmark, IMHO, and one of the landmark pedal steel albums of all time. Yes it's available on CD, too!

Tony Prior · Post by **Tony Prior** » 4 May 2004 7:40 am

Yes as Donny stated..very true..Buddy's "Steel Guitar Jazz" was monumental..as was Curly Chalkers presence anywhere..
t

[This message was edited by Tony Prior on 04 May 2004 at 08:42 AM.]

Larry Bell · Post by **Larry Bell** » 4 May 2004 7:42 am

Western swing is just big band music played on a haywagon, using strings instead of horns as the primary instruments (yeah, they had horns in the western swing bands, but the focus was more on fiddle, steel, and guitar).

THAT's where it came from, in my book. Guys like Spade Cooley, Tex Williams, Hank Thompson, Bob Wills played music that was melodically and harmonically very similar to what Bix and Benny and all the bigtime big bands were doing.

As jazz strayed further from swing -- into bop, cool bop, and more adventursome / less melodic forms, a few steel players got it, but many stuck with the music of the 30's and 40's. It's still the case. Many players who play 'jazz' on steel are still using tunes written 50 or more years ago as their staple. Buddy Emmons' exploration of the Pat Martino methodology and Paul Franklin's use of the Russell 'Lydian Chromatic' stuff are somewhat unusual among steel players. Dave Easley in N'yawlins and a few others are going in interesting directions, but most of us are still beating the Real book to death.

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Larry Bell - email: larry@larrybell.org - gigs - Home Page
2003 Fessenden S/D-12 8x8, 1969 Emmons S-12 6x6, 1971 Dobro, Standel and Peavey Amps

Bobby Lee · Post by **Bobby Lee** » 4 May 2004 7:42 am

While a lot of steel players played jazz, it was always recorded with western swing bands instead of jazz bands. Joaquin Murphey is a case in point. Technically, almost everything he played was jazz, but his recordings were with western swing bands, not in the jazz mainstream.

Buddy's classic "Steel Guitar Jazz" album is available on a reissue CD from the Forum catalog. Some additional tracks from the same era have been added, including "Four Wheel Drive". Order item #A-056-CD. $20.

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<img align=right src="http://b0b.com/Hotb0b.gif" width="96 height="96">Bobby Lee - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs, Open Hearts
Sierra Session 12 (E9), Williams 400X (Emaj9, D6), Sierra Olympic 12 (C6add9),
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Walter Stettner · Post by **Walter Stettner** » 4 May 2004 8:26 am

If Jazz and PSG is mentioned, don't forget about one of the all time greats - Doug Jernigan!

Kind Regards, Walter
www.austriansteelguitar.at.tf

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Jerry Clardy · Post by **Jerry Clardy** » 4 May 2004 8:47 am

If Alvino Rey's music is considered Jazz, his could be an early example.

Rick Schmidt · Post by **Rick Schmidt** » 4 May 2004 9:14 am

Jazz was just too big of an inspirational force for all the "big ears" in the early western swing bands to ignore. It was the pop music of the day. I seriously doubt if anybody in Bob Wills' band ever thought to themselves the old "I only play two kind of music...country AND western" cliche for even a minute. Louis Armstong, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Django etc. were heros for most "with it" players in the formative days of the steel guitar...and we all know that steel players were the hipsters of those bands.

I really agree with Larry. Just playing through the fake book changes,i.e. Playing the Head...solo over the book changes verbatim...then play the head again & out, is not what jazz is all about. IMO, It's about exploration and creating your own voice. I thank God that I got turned onto enough of the truly great stuff early on, before all the self-indulgent crap that some catagorize as "jazz" might've ruined it for me.
[This message was edited by Rick Schmidt on 04 May 2004 at 10:18 AM.]

Jeff Lampert · Post by **Jeff Lampert** » 4 May 2004 9:14 am

.[This message was edited by Jeff Lampert on 04 May 2004 at 10:17 AM.]

Jim Cohen · Post by **Jim Cohen** » 4 May 2004 9:51 am

Aw, c'mon, Jeff. I wanna know what you think! Don't hold back, man!

Brett Day · Post by **Brett Day** » 4 May 2004 10:26 am

Buddy Emmons liked the sound of jazz so much that he decided to play it on pedal steel. The Amazing Steel Guitar; Buddy Emmons Collection has a lot of steel guitar jazz on it. Brett, Emmons S-10, Morrell lapsteel

Rick Schmidt · Post by **Rick Schmidt** » 4 May 2004 11:22 am

Me too Jeff!

J D Sauser · Post by **J D Sauser** » 4 May 2004 11:25 am

I feel that most of what is being played labeled "jazz" on steel guitar shows, is not Jazz... it may be bad jazz at the best. Carl Dixon mentioned "jamming" in a recent post... It put's the word jamming in a whole new perspective... kind'a like the good ol' "paper jammed" message flashing on your copy machine, or jamming your finger in a door you were about to close, violently...

Most of the performed is unbearable after 10 minuts, even for steel nuts... so, imagine a uncautioned non-steel-addict inadvertedly walks in... 8(

Jazz can, in my opinion, not been thaught by the means of miracle scales ("... just play any note of this easy to learn scale and you will have a jazz sound"). However even some of our most respected pros seem to have fallen for the trick... compensating the lack of saying something with firery technique.

Buddy Emmons, Maurice Anderson, Curly Chalker and a few other are (dearly needed) exeptions (IMNSHO).

I remember a great steel guitarist, friend of mine, once telling me about the ol' times, and he said: "... and there was no pedals yet and then came Buddy and played jazz, I mean REAL JAZZ..."
I don't know if Buddy Emmons had all the theoretical knowledge about the scales and such back then, but he sertainly had (and still has) SOMETHING TO SAY (express) and that's Jazz.

... J-D.

CrowBear Schmitt · Post by **CrowBear Schmitt** » 4 May 2004 12:38 pm

i had understood from previous discussions here on the Fo' that during WWII since many horn players were off to the european and pacific fronts that the steel guitar had replaced them on the band stands

Bill Hatcher · Post by **Bill Hatcher** » 4 May 2004 1:10 pm

The evolution of jazz and steel guitar???

You got some things by A. Rey, some Murph stuff, a bit of BE, and a few good Chalker things.

The evolvment of jazz and the steel guitar seems to have hit a genetic drift snag these days.

Al Vescovo · Post by **Al Vescovo** » 4 May 2004 2:28 pm

Dr. Hugh Jeffreys was in Memphis playing Jazz in 1950. I mean bebop jazz, Stan Kenton Jazz, about every form you could imagine. He was my mentor and I have to give him the credit he deserves. He was also transcribing Stan Kenton arrangements for western swing bands. That's some history of steel guitar Jazz. Al

David L. Donald · Post by **David L. Donald** » 4 May 2004 3:08 pm

The earliest recording with what I would call jazz that I have heard is Sol Ho'o'pi'i.

By today's jazz standards it might be a proto-jazz,
but at the time it certainly was a form of jazz,
interwoven with Hawaiian music.

I have detected hints of Bix Beiderbeck, Satchmo, and Jelly Roll Morton in a cut or two.

Alvino comes 2nd to mind, but the 1st with anything like pedals or a big band format.

Andrew Kilinski · Post by **Andrew Kilinski** » 4 May 2004 5:10 pm

I've gotta add the live "Redneck Jazz Explosion" album to the list. I went through a geeky phase where jazz was all I listened to, but I had never heard it mixed with steel guitar, so it blew my mind to hear what Buddy/Danny did together on that record. (That was also the first time I heard of Buddy Emmons by the way)*

*But not the last time...

Dave Van Allen · Post by **Dave Van Allen** » 4 May 2004 5:13 pm

let's not forget ole Bob Dunn!

Nicholas Dedring · Post by **Nicholas Dedring** » 5 May 2004 8:25 am

Could one maybe make a case for the fact that there was slide playing on blues... which is instrumentally a steel guitar precursor, and musically a jazz precursor?

So, the stuff that was fundamental, and served to give birth to what we now define as the genre of "jazz", led to later steel playing designed to slot into that genre.

George Keoki Lake · Post by **George Keoki Lake** » 5 May 2004 8:44 am

Here in Canada, (the late) JACK MOONEY played jazz on "lap" during the forties, then became possibly this nations formost exponant of jazz when he converted to pedal in the mid-fifties. Not many years prior to his passing, he had a steady working jazz trio consisting of steel, bass and drums which brought out his great feeling for jazz on pedal.

Dave Van Allen · Post by **Dave Van Allen** » 5 May 2004 11:00 am

Could one maybe make a case for the fact that there was slide playing on blues... which is instrumentally a steel guitar precursor, and musically a jazz precursor?

except for the chronology which has Blues slide players trying to emulate the slidey sounds of HAWAIIAN STEEL GUITAR they heard either on radio or recordings... "the playing of guitar in the Hawaiian manner, with steel" came to the mainland with the Panama Pacific Exposition of 1915:

In 1915, the Hawaiian exhibit at the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco ... The Royal Hawaiian Quartet, a band that featured guitar, steel guitar, mandolin and the ukulele, played to an estimated 17 million people in a seven-month period. The Hawaiian exhibit was touted as one of the most popular at the exposition and the music was a tremendous success, launching the interest in Hawaiian music in the United States that lasted through World War II. Hawaiian records were so popular in 1916, that they outsold all other forms of music on the mainland.

(source:http://nfo.net/usa/ukehist.html)

The musical cross-pollenation that took place via recordings and radio in the 20's and 30's, coinciding with the development of Jazz and Swing, cannot be overestimated IMO.

The chronolgy of developments, as I understand it, would have been (quite loosely):

1.whatever ethnic instruments used a slidey thing on the strings in Asian cultures

2.(1890's-1930's))Acoustic Hawaiian Steel Guitar(Joe Kekuku, Sol Hoopii)
2.5 (1890's-1920's)Jazz develops

3.(1920's)Resophonic Instruments

4.(1920's-1950's)Delta Acoustic Blues Slide then a parallell development into 8.below

4.5 (1920's) Louis Armstrong defines the Jazz soloist's role

5.(1920's)Jimmy Rogers (with Hawaiian acoustic steel and Louis Armstrong on some recordings!)

5.5(1930's) Swing and Big band Jazzdevelops

6.(1930's)Western Swing (Acoustic) (Bob Dunn)

6.5 (1930's) Electronic amplification of instruments, among the first of which was steel guitar.

7.(1930's-50's)Electric Hawaiian Steel (Used in Hawaiian and Western Swing) including development of multiple neck instruments (Bob Dunn, Joaquin Murphy, Leon McA)

7.5.(1940's)Pedal Steel (Alvino Rey's way)

8.(1940's-50's) Electric Chicago Blues Slide styles (Elmore James, McKinley Morganfield)

9.(1953)Pedal Steel (Bud Isaacs' way)

10.(1950's-today)Pedal Steel (Buddy Emmon's ways-Country and Jazz)

there is parallel development of Jazz and Country uses of steel guitar, and the Blues slide players interpretation of the sliding sound of steel on strings. I'm trying to clarify a bit of the chronology as I understand it, having not lived through it.
America was a vast musical melting pot, and we are all richer for it. [This message was edited by Dave Van Allen on 05 May 2004 at 12:15 PM.]

Lawrence Lupkin · Post by **Lawrence Lupkin** » 5 May 2004 11:55 am

Hey Dave, is "slidey thing" a direct Chinese translation?

Donny Hinson · Post by **Donny Hinson** » 5 May 2004 5:49 pm

Though this thread is on "Jazz and pedal steel", I thought I'd add the following just for information.

To expand a little on what DVA has said, the introduction of the Hawaiian guitar to the U.S. is generally credited to Frank Ferrara (Ferara?), who came to the mainland from Hawaii in 1900. Shortly after, others (notably Joseph Kekuku) came here as well, and Hawaiian music grew steadily in popularity until the 1915 Exposition in San Francisco caused an explosion of Hawaiian music popularity, a craze that lasted for several years.

About 1922, Jimmie Tarlton met up with Frank in California, and learned the Hawaiian technique of playing with the guitar lying (horizontally) on the lap. It's thought that Jimmy transported this technique to the southern states (the Mississippi area), and it soon spread northward from there. Other countries had stringed instruments played with a slide occasionally, but playing with the instrument on the lap enabled players to easily play slant-chords, offering more chordal possibilities. (The "slant technique" is what generally separates steel guitar players from ordinary slide players.)

While Alvino Rey (and probably others) had played big band and pop music using pedals, I don't think that could really be classified as what we refer to today as "jazz". Buddy's album was the first to feature real jazz musicians, and it also features the requisite rhythms and improvisations that are key elements of jazz music.

Other pedal steelers soon became notable for jazz stylings, but none (that I know of) did real jazz recordings before Buddy.

Mylos Sonka · Post by **Mylos Sonka** » 6 May 2004 6:46 am

Brisbane Bop.