Jump Blues Rock
tagStarted 1945Peak 1946-1951Last big hit 1951From United States
Located in 1 route
The uptempo, horn-powered precursor to rock: small-combo swing stripped to a hard shuffle, with honking, squealing tenor sax, boogie bass lines, walking grooves and comic, hollered vocals. Built for jukebox dancing, it trades big-band lushness for tight riffs and showmanship, planting the rhythmic and saxophone vocabulary rock would inherit.
History
Spun off mid-1940s big-band swing as players scaled down to economical combos. Louis Jordan's Tympany Five defined it with novelty shuffles 'Caldonia' (1945) and 'Choo Choo Ch'Boogie' (1946), topping the R&B charts. The honking-sax, blues-shouter blueprint of Jordan, Wynonie Harris, Roy Brown and Big Jay McNeely fed straight into R&B and the rock and roll explosion, the style fading by the mid-1950s.
Defining artists
Essential listening
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caldonia
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Rocking_Tonight
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_Shack_Boogie
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_Kept_A-Rollin'