Stride (music)
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Harlem Stride Piano, stride piano, commonly abbreviated to stride, is a jazz piano style that was developed in the large cities of the US East Coast, mainly New York City, during the 1920s and 1930s. The left hand characteristically plays a four-beat pulse with a single bass note, octave, seventh or tenth interval on the first and third beats, and a chord on the second and fourth beats. Occasionally this pattern is reversed by placing the chord on the downbeat and bass note(s) on the upbeat. Unlike performers of the ragtime popularized by Scott Joplin and unlike much early jazz, stride players' left hands often leapt greater distances on the keyboard, and they played in a wider range of tempos and with a greater emphasis on improvisation.
Notable works
- By James Price Johnson
- "Carolina Shout" (1918/1921), "Mule Walk," "Caprice Rag"
- By Thomas "Fats" Waller
- "Handful of Keys" (1929), "Vipers Drag" (1934), "Alligator Crawl" (1934)
- By Willie "The Lion" Smith
- "Finger Buster" (1931), "Echoes Of Spring" (1939)
See also
