Classic Banjo and Jazz

[Byron Thomas]

I've been sitting on this question for a while but now feels like a good time to ask. The Youtube algorithm saw that I like banjos so naturally it put a Fred Vans Eps video on the side bar. It's a video of the Van Eps Trio playing The Love Nest, Japenese Sandman, Whispering, and Swanee. It's nice to hear the banjo alongside the saxophone. Then there were recent postings by Joel of "Jazz" A La Carte and Mind the Paint. After looking through some of the first song I could see some chords that would be used in jazz such as major and minor 6th, 7th, diminished (not to say that these aren't found in other music types) and the rhythms are close to earlier jazz recordings. Mind the Paint is really what brings this together. I was reading the biography of Tarrant Bailey Jr. on the last page and ran across this statement: "Mind the Paint was recorded by Tarrant in February of 1931. In a review, the magazine Rhythm noted that Mind the Paint, with its accompaniment of a jazz orchestra, was "a decided step in the modernization of finger banjo playing.""
Does anyone have any knowledge or speculation as to why fingerstyle banjo didn't widely adopt Jazz into the language of classic as it did ragtime? It's curious to me as I'm now running across bits and pieces of its use but not its continuation. According to the biography, the use of the banjo with the jazz orchestra was well received. It also seems like the people who were great classic banjoist had a mastery of the fingerboard. Also, jazz was prominent during the heyday of many of the classic banjo greats so I'm assuming they were aware of jazz. I just don't understand the lack of adoption into continuation considering the fact that the music was so widespread.

[Joel Hooks]

I'll bite and take a guess.

Theory 1) "classic banjo" had run its course. The music was "old fashioned" and the kids wanted to play the hot new dance music. There was a new form of banjo (well, two new forms) with no baggage.  The 5 string was strongly associated with minstrelsy and (by the 1920s) the Ralph Peer "barn dance" music.  Players of the regular banjo were ageing out.  While George Lansing, Thomas Armstrong, FVE, etc tried to stay relevant, they were becoming the old men that the kids would not follow.   

Many regular banjoists possibly did what most folks do... stop at their music.  A cycle that repeats over and over.  Your music is the best and your kid's music is trashy noise. (I offer the FVE interview as an example.  He starts explaining that his father did not want him to play banjo and he ends saying that the hits on the current radio were "noise".  This is the cycle.)

Theory 2) The plectrum banjo seemed easier.  Learn 4 chord shapes and whack away. 

Theory 3) Tenor and plectrum banjo marketing skewed heavily into the "get rich quick" scheme.  Advertising claimed, buy a tenor banjo, spend a few moments studying their chord chart method, obtain large cartoon bags of glowing gold coins.  These "buy a tenor banjo, become rich with no effort) ads were relentless.  With such easy money at stake, why get a regular banjo that you had to learn and stuff.

Theory 4) (US Only) A notation to C notation.  Confusing mess. No thank you, I'll play tenor banjo. 

Theory 5) times (and things) change. 

[Jody Stecher]

I was going to reply but Joel has made most of the points I would have made.

One more point: soft strings played with bare fingers were not loud enough to be heard in a band with horns and drums. It could be made to work in recording, but not in live performance.

[Ethan Schwartz]

To add to the points already made...

While fingerstyle banjo didn't fully embrace jazz, it was also the case that jazz (which was much bigger than arranged charts for orchestra) didn't embrace fingerstyle banjo. It went both directions. There weren't many (any?) prominent jazz players championing the 5-string, and so it was never part of the black idiom that white jazz orchestras were attempting to imitate. Plectrum/tenor banjos put out a lot of volume with minimal effort and are also relatively key-neutral in a way that 5-string is not. 

[Russ Chandler]

There is a reference in one of the BMG's (sorry, don't have time to find it - might be in the commentary for Hot Frets) where Frank Lawes talks about the demand for "hot tunes" which I presume does imply that folks did want jazz tunes to play.

[Joel Hooks]

A (very) quick look at transitional (fingers to pick) methods (late teens+) has fingerstyle sticking to music we consider "classic banjo" and the plectrum pieces basically the same but arranged to be struck with a pick (or lots of pick tremolo).

Some of the pick sections will have "orchestra playing" sections that attempt to teach strumming patterns for improvised accompaniment (some even call it "jazz strokes" or similar).  So it is pretty clear that our banjo was not generally considered a solo instrument for jazz.  It also seems, from my very ignorant standpoint, that "jazz" was pretty much exclusively "orchestral" in the minds of banjoists. 

[Byron Thomas]

Thanks for all of these quick responses!

When it comes to classic fingerstyle banjo having run its course, I'm trying to understand from the standpoint of the banjo's adaptability. At one point ragtime was the hot new dance music and had to be added to the repertoire of playable banjo music. Now, I understand the importance that recording and sheet sales also had on this popularity. I also understand the replacement of the five-string banjo for the tenor and plectrum versions plus the greater deletion from the jazz orchestra that were caused by people like Charlie Christian and Eddie Lang plus the electric guitar. 

FVE was about 44 when he recorded "A Bit of Jazz" in 1921. I can see him as becoming an older icon since he had been recording for about two decades. But ten years later in the England, you have Tarrant Bailey Jr. record Mind the Paint at age 24.

"Mind the Paint was recorded by Tarrant in February of 1931. In a review, the magazine Rhythm noted that Mind the Paint, with its accompaniment of a jazz orchestra, was "a decided step in the modernization of finger banjo playing."

This statement along with seeing these other splashes of early jazz in fingerstyle banjo are what gives me questions. Tarrant Bailey Jr was still young in 1931. It's interesting that people were able to experience this type of playing from him, but it didn't spawn any imitators so far as I can tell. But this was a recorded performance so I can't exactly say if he also gave a concert containing the material.  If he were playing soft strings with bare fingers, the banjo would be hard to hear with brass band in the rear. On that note it's interesting that we don't have more examples of what FVE did and have a small piece band (not that he had the only one). The banjo would definitely be able to ring clear in such a setting. 

[Ethan Schwartz]

Re: FVE and TBJ, it should be considered that fingerstyle banjo and the BMG club scene retained some relevance for longer in England than in the US. It likewise took time for American jazz to become more mainstream in British society (we see the same thing after WWII with the folk revival and bluegrass). 

Another part of all this is that people at the time did not necessarily embrace jazz in the way they embraced ragtime a generation prior. It was contentious music. 

[Sam Harris]

FVE's trio/quartet recorded lots of fox-trots and pop songs advertised as "for dancing" in the late teens. There are some records were he takes something of a secondary role to the saxophone and xylophone, probably one of  the closest things to classic banjo in a jazz band.

Byron Thomas said:

Thanks for all of these quick responses!

When it comes to classic fingerstyle banjo having run its course, I'm trying to understand from the standpoint of the banjo's adaptability. At one point ragtime was the hot new dance music and had to be added to the repertoire of playable banjo music. Now, I understand the importance that recording and sheet sales also had on this popularity. I also understand the replacement of the five-string banjo for the tenor and plectrum versions plus the greater deletion from the jazz orchestra that were caused by people like Charlie Christian and Eddie Lang plus the electric guitar. 

FVE was about 44 when he recorded "A Bit of Jazz" in 1921. I can see him as becoming an older icon since he had been recording for about two decades. But ten years later in the England, you have Tarrant Bailey Jr. record Mind the Paint at age 24.

"Mind the Paint was recorded by Tarrant in February of 1931. In a review, the magazine Rhythm noted that Mind the Paint, with its accompaniment of a jazz orchestra, was "a decided step in the modernization of finger banjo playing."

This statement along with seeing these other splashes of early jazz in fingerstyle banjo are what gives me questions. Tarrant Bailey Jr was still young in 1931. It's interesting that people were able to experience this type of playing from him, but it didn't spawn any imitators so far as I can tell. But this was a recorded performance so I can't exactly say if he also gave a concert containing the material.  If he were playing soft strings with bare fingers, the banjo would be hard to hear with brass band in the rear. On that note it's interesting that we don't have more examples of what FVE did and have a small piece band (not that he had the only one). The banjo would definitely be able to ring clear in such a setting. 

[Joel Hooks]

My brain is telling me that I have heard Van Eps Orchestra recordings (or recording) that did not have banjo at all.  But it was a rather forgettable novelty record. 

[Trapdoor2]

Y'know, FVE's son, George, dropped the banjo as a kid (after hearing Eddie Lang on guitar) and went straight to Jazz. He is considered one of the greats of Jazz guitar. I suspect he simply recognized the guitar as a new and different sound from that nasty old banjo his Dad made him play. Kids tend to move on, be rebellious, etc. I think the same story runs for Django Reinhart.

The recording industry was also moving on in the 20s. Electric amplification meant softer-voiced instruments (like the guitar, piano) suddenly recorded well and projected well over the radio (also a new innovation). The banjo had devolved into a rhythm instrument (for the most part) by the late teens and record producers were recognizing that novelty records often outsold the same old genre stuff. Producers forced bands to play loosely and raucously to pander to the kids. Drum kits started to become part of the small dance-bands...and then big bands. It really is all about the money. Players needed to play whatever paid the bills.

Jazz was very much in the Novelty arena initially. Race-records, etc. It evolved thru Swing and Bebop...I think it lost its way in the 1950s. I can't listen to the modern stuff (much like Rock 'n' Roll).

[Joel Hooks]

Nick Lucas and Eddie Lang are pretty much the reason guitars are played with plectrums today (esp Lucas).  As a side note, there is a pretty cringy myth that has entered into the internet echo chamber that D'andrea accidentally invented the modern celluloid guitar plectrum by bumbling into some compact dies.  I love a good self promoting company history story, even if it is a lie (and Savarez invented nylon instrument strings while we are at it).

George Van Eps, as the story goes, got sick and was bedridden. His Father shows back up (he had been out of the picture and had run off with Flossie, leaving his first wife and kids on their own) and tells George that if he is going to learn banjo. Well, that is what I have heard anyway.

There is a magazine interview where George sets the record straight that his father had no influence over him musically as FVE was not even in his life. I don't remember the exact phrasing on that.  I'll see if I can turn it up. 

[Joel Hooks]

Found it: 

https://tedgreene.com/images/pdf/TedGreene_GeorgeVanEps_Interview.pdf