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Chapter 10: Stardust

Early jazz, big-band and ragtime

As the 20th century began, Americans grew obsessed with new rhythms (not for the last time), grooving to the ‘ragged time’ piano stomps of Scott Joplin and Jelly Roll Morton. These early jazz & ragtime standards are now more likely to inspire creaky nostalgia than wild abandon, but the ghostly imprint of that energy is unmistakable. You’ll hear it in Hobart Smith’s clambering piano, and in one of the first ever recorded solos, on Louis Armstrong’s “When The Saints Go Marching in.”
1. Scott Joplin

The Entertainer

2. Art Tatum

Tiger Rag

3. Hoagy Carmichael

Stardust

4. Hobart Smith

Dixie

5. Charlie Barnet

Harlem Speaks

6. Gene Krupa Big Band

Wire Brush Stomp

7. Sidney Bechet

Petite Fleur

8. Jelly Roll Morton

King Porter Stomp

9. Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra

When the Saints Go Marching In

10. Duke Ellington

Reflections in D