Where did the 'skip-note' in Jazz come from?

K.Howden

Senior Member
Hey! How are we all?

I've been learning and playing Jazz since September 2009 and something that's always intruiged me is the skip-note in the Jazz ride cymbal pattern.
Of course as we all know, you can swing a band just by playing quarter notes so I was wondering out of sheer curiosity a) when the early Jazz players started adding in the skip notes after beats two and four? and b) why they chose to do this?

Hope everyone is keeping well,

Kev

Edit: I'm sure Stan will be along soon to provide some illumination on this!
 
Thanks for posting that Todd, a fascinating read :) I've rarely heard Kenny's name mentioned...I've heard plenty of about Papa Jo but reading that it's such a shame that Kenny isn't revered in the highest regard or known about by every drummer today (younger or older) as it seems to me had he not persisted with doing something different, non of us would be playing the drum set the way we do today.

Hope you're well,

Kev
 
This Kenny Clarke interview talks about the origins of the ride pattern. He doesn't address the "skip" note specifically, but the relationship to the old way of playing time- on the snare drum, rolling on two and four- seems pretty clear.
I hate to seem like I'm criticizing Clarke, and I certainly wasn't around at the time, but there are instances of the standard swing cymbal pattern, on cymbals, long before the late 30s. For example, check out something like Bix Biederbecke's "Clarinet Marmalade" from 1927 (I'm not sure who the drummer is on it, unfortunately). I'm sure there are earlier examples of it than that, though--Biederbecke was just the first earlier artist I checked, actually.

The general consensus is that that rhythm is rooted in the 2:3 hemiola which is common in African music (as are other polyrhythms, but that one is the simplest). It got into jazz by way of African American folk music in the 19th century, which had a strong influence on ragtime, which is generally considered the start of jazz. Drummers are keeping time, obviously, and that is one of the core components of jazz time because of the historical roots. It's probably played on cymbal so that it's not too overpowering, and one important factor with that in the teens and twenties would have been recording technology limitations--booming drums weren't the easiest thing to make sound good in a band context with early recording technology. A lighter sound was needed.
 
I hate to seem like I'm criticizing Clarke, and I certainly wasn't around at the time, but there are instances of the standard swing cymbal pattern, on cymbals, long before the late 30s. For example, check out something like Bix Biederbecke's "Clarinet Marmalade" from 1927 (I'm not sure who the drummer is on it, unfortunately). I'm sure there are earlier examples of it than that, though--Biederbecke was just the first earlier artist I checked, actually.

Im not hearing it. Listening to the recording for the first time, maybe were not talkin about the same track. I wanna know what this is. Hes not saying he invented the ride cymbal pattern, Papa Jo had been "diggin" coal on the hi hats, Clarke just gave beautiful reason why he decided to really focus on the ride cymbal. THats how I see it, it started with the bass drum, time moved to the hats, and then finally to the ride cymbal. Ive never heard something that was pre-Clarke on which someone was not only consistently putting focus on the ride cymbal and not just a choked crash cymbal, or where the quality of the recording was good enough to really make a secure judgement. However, Clarke is more than recognized as one of the fathers of jazz time playing.
 
Im not hearing it. Listening to the recording for the first time, maybe were not talkin about the same track. I wanna know what this is. Hes not saying he invented the ride cymbal pattern, Papa Jo had been "diggin" coal on the hi hats, Clarke just gave beautiful reason why he decided to really focus on the ride cymbal. THats how I see it, it started with the bass drum, time moved to the hats, and then finally to the ride cymbal. Ive never heard something that was pre-Clarke on which someone was not only consistently putting focus on the ride cymbal and not just a choked crash cymbal, or where the quality of the recording was good enough to really make a secure judgement. However, Clarke is more than recognized as one of the fathers of jazz time playing.
This is an excerpt from the Modern Drummer interview:
ET: After you got to New York, and you were playing with swing bands more, I imagine it was acceptable to be playing that ride rhythm on the cymbal, right?

KC: No, not in a big, organized band. They didn't go for it even up to 1937 or 38. When I went to Europe with Edgar Hayes, I was playing a mixture.

ET: But it was still mostly on the snare drum?

KC: Yeah, and I'd say, "Oh man, I gotta do something to drive out the monotony." Some guys would say, "Yeah man, pretty hip." I'd say, "Look man, I can't dig coal all night. I gotta do something." So I'd play the figures with the brass, but then I'd have to start diggin' that coal again. I was always trying to get away from that.

ET: Those press rolls?

KC: Yeah. You see, we didn't really have a ride rhythm. I was trying to perfect that. I figured if I could perfect it, it would be a feather in my cap.
 
I For example, check out something like Bix Biederbecke's "Clarinet Marmalade" from 1927 (I'm not sure who the drummer is on it, unfortunately). I'm sure there are earlier examples of it than that, though--Biederbecke was just the first earlier artist I checked, actually.
That Clarinet Marmalade recording /Chauncey Morehouse is the drummer Btw/ is two beat all the way as was almost all the Chicago recordings of the 1920s. I'm not sure you could call any of that an acknowledged ride pattern, although a 4 measure episode section around the 40 second mark might give a brief hint of the future when Morehouse essentially plays 2 measures of a 4/4 pattern over what is really 4 measures in 2/4.

Kenny Clarke correctly infers that the ride pattern became the one we all know and love in the late 30s, although there were earlier inferences. The dominance of the ride cymbal was the result of this gigantic dancer's conversion from 2 beat stuff to the standard 4/4 stuff that's on everything now. Another result of the stronger ride pattern was a deemphasis of the bass drum, which was fine because amplification had just improved enough to eliminate tuba players and begin the relationship between drummers and bass players.

Swing is a 4/4 art form and I think Clarke was right to say that many drummers were not quick to convert their old 2/4 styles to a modernized swing style for many reasons, including force of habit, not trusting the new modern stuff, not wanting to look wrong etc. In other words all the stuff that accompanies reasons for why drummers are sometimes loathe to change styles now for whatever reasons good or bad.
 
First off, nothing is "really in 2/4" versus 4/4. It just depends on how you want to write whatever it is. For that matter, you could write it in 8/4, 2/2, 4/8, 1/4--whatever you like. Next, the groove for the whole song is on cymbal. I'm not sure if it's primarily a choked crash or a hi-hat--either could sound the same way--but there are plenty of times in the song where he's playing quarter, dotted-eighth, sixteenth for a few bars at a time. That is the infamous swing ride cymbal pattern, it's just not on a ride cymbal.
The dominance of the ride cymbal
I didn't say anything about ride cymbals, but rather something that was contrary to the interview I was quoting.

I don't know where you're getting a belief from that some things are really in 2/4 rather than 4/4. Are you just referring to the actual historical conventions of notation?
 
Im not hearing it. Listening to the recording for the first time, maybe were not talkin about the same track. I wanna know what this is. Hes not saying he invented the ride cymbal pattern, Papa Jo had been "diggin" coal on the hi hats, Clarke just gave beautiful reason why he decided to really focus on the ride cymbal. THats how I see it, it started with the bass drum, time moved to the hats, and then finally to the ride cymbal. Ive never heard something that was pre-Clarke on which someone was not only consistently putting focus on the ride cymbal and not just a choked crash cymbal, or where the quality of the recording was good enough to really make a secure judgement. However, Clarke is more than recognized as one of the fathers of jazz time playing.

There are some very old radio broadcasts of Count Basie's group where Jo Jones was actually playing the standard jazz ride cymbal pattern on the ride cymbal, although I can't seem to find them. Not very helpful, but they do exist somewhere. He began on hats, and switched to the ride during another section and back to the hats for the remainder. Brief, but significant. Perhaps not surprising given the high level of respect each of the prominent bebop drummers had for Papa Jo.

Clarke was definitely the prominent figure when it came to shifting the emphasis to the ride, but he was not the originator. It is hard to tell exactly when many of the innovations of the bebop era originally came about due to the musician's strike in 1942. To many listeners, bebop came about almost "overnight," because in that 2-3 year hiatus there were significant developments that were never documented through recordings.

As for the "skip" beat, there have been many valid suggestions, and I might add another. The skip beat (as I have read, anyway) was a derivative of the snare rhythms used by the early New Orleans drummers. When jazz drumming "smoothed" out in the transition from early New Orleans jazz to larger groups around Chicago in the 20s, the snare beats straightened out and became more consistent, and what was left closely approximated what we hear today. The swing and bebop drummers just moved the rhythm to different surfaces and made small adjustments.
 
As for the "skip" beat, there have been many valid suggestions, and I might add another. The skip beat (as I have read, anyway) was a derivative of the snare rhythms used by the early New Orleans drummers. When jazz drumming "smoothed" out in the transition from early New Orleans jazz to larger groups around Chicago in the 20s, the snare beats straightened out and became more consistent, and what was left closely approximated what we hear today. The swing and bebop drummers just moved the rhythm to different surfaces and made small adjustments.


By one account, it came from Baby Dodds who used the ride pattern on the cymbal but not on recordings. The drums just could not be recorded well until electronic recording, which was invented in 1925. But even into the 1930s, the standard cylinder method was used for most recordings. On the Hot Sevens you have the banjo to replace the drums. The Hot Five and Sevens don't really even represent Armstrong from the period who played with a variety of Big Bands. So it may be problematic to rely on recordings to pin point what was happening at the time.
 
By one account, it came from Baby Dodds who used the ride pattern on the cymbal but not on recordings. The drums just could not be recorded well until electronic recording, which was invented in 1925. But even into the 1930s, the standard cylinder method was used for most recordings. On the Hot Sevens you have the banjo to replace the drums. The Hot Five and Sevens don't really even represent Armstrong from the period who played with a variety of Big Bands. So it may be problematic to rely on recordings to pin point what was happening at the time.

Indeed. I agree with you in terms of the earlier recordings, but from the individuals I have spoken to who actually participated in the bebop scene in the 40's, the recordings are an accurate representation of what was happening at the time, even if shortened due to the limits of the technology available.

There are many possible origins of the ride pattern, and perhaps it is possible to have multiple sources.
 
There are many possible origins of the ride pattern, and perhaps it is possible to have multiple sources.

Yeah, good ideas develop and travel so fast it's very difficult to determine without a time machine what actually happened and who to give credit for what. Where did the european jazz came from? =P
 
First off, nothing is "really in 2/4" versus 4/4. It just depends on how you want to write whatever it is. For that matter, you could write it in 8/4, 2/2, 4/8, 1/4--whatever you like. Next, the groove for the whole song is on cymbal. I'm not sure if it's primarily a choked crash or a hi-hat--either could sound the same way--but there are plenty of times in the song where he's playing quarter, dotted-eighth, sixteenth for a few bars at a time. That is the infamous swing ride cymbal pattern, it's just not on a ride cymbal. I didn't say anything about ride cymbals, but rather something that was contrary to the interview I was quoting.

I don't know where you're getting a belief from that some things are really in 2/4 rather than 4/4. Are you just referring to the actual historical conventions of notation?

I get the belief that Clarinet Marmalade is in 2/4 because it is in 2/4. As I detailed in my original post, 20s Chicago jazz works were absolutely without a shadow of a doubt constructed in 2/4 to fit the dancing of the time. If the music is constructed in anything other than 2/4 then there's no Charleston dance. Clarinet Marmalade is no exception. In fairness I even partially agreed with you that the illusion of the common ride pattern appears in a 4 measure episode. I also tagged it for you. In fact Clarinet Marmalade is a very old piece constructed in American march form. You hear two strains, four measure episodes, trio, breakup strains, the whole nine yards. And as everyone knows all of that is always in 2/4.

Your original confusion, and the part where Britt and others tried to clarify for you, was that Kenny Clarke said late 30s because he was referring exclusively to the latter ride pattern that he would only recognize in 4/4 because the ride pattern acheived its fully evolved recognizable form in the late 30s when the 4/4 dance that it was created for /the jitterbug/ was in the broader 4/4 pattern, because of the freedom of the jitterbug over the 2/4 Charleston dance.

The skip note asked about by the threadstarter is part of the jitterbug dance. You can even see the skipping in the step itself. It is a pure skip note because it accompanies the actual dance step and was the reason for the continual evolution of the pattern. In the late 1920s people were leaning towards this freer style. that's why forward thinkers like moorehouse were starting to slide in those inferences in 2 BEAT dance compositions. In case you're not aware, 2 beat is an actual style that is studied in schools and is beyond any possible discussion of semantics or terminology.

Because you had no idea about the relation of the dance to the evolution of the ride pattern/although Clarke absolutely did/ you then inferred that he might not have been correct, then used as an example a composition that inferred your notion of a possible ride pattern, not fully aware of the whole picture.

How am I doing now?

Actual historical conventions of notation?
It just depends on how you want to write whatever it is. For that matter, you could write it in 8/4, 2/2, 4/8, 1/4--whatever you like?

Tell that to the dancers. In your world they would be falling down the moment they hit the dance floor. Moreover in 1927 you could count the number of functioning hi-hats on your fingers and toes. I've also never seen a photo of Chauncey Moorehouse using a hi-hat. So your other guess of a crash is probably correct, in case you're interested.

Mostly, you might want to notice that my tone in originally responding to you was perfectly civil. You then responded to me in a less than civil way and I found that unacceptable. This one is just too obvious. The music of Bix Beiderbecke has been fully analyzed and evaluated for over half a century. There are no more debates about his music. Nothing about it is discovered in 2010.

Geez.
 
I get the belief that Clarinet Marmalade is in 2/4 because it is in 2/4.
Oy vey. In other words, what makes it in 2/4 rather than 4/4, 2/2, 8/8, or even 2/16, 1/4, or 7/8? You can write anything in any time signature. You have some odd view that you're not explaining that some things are really in some time signatures. Explain your ideas there.
As I detailed in my original post, 20s Chicago jazz works were absolutely without a shadow of a doubt constructed in 2/4
What makes them in 2/4 rather than 4/4? If you're claiming that there was a historical notational convention that composers actually wrote the time signature as 2/4 rather than 4/4, then that would be fine (if it were actually the case, that is--I'd want to see the actual historical charts and lead sheets). But you'd just be saying that it's what they happened to choose to write as the time signature. If you're saying that per the sound of something, it's "really" in 2/4 rather than 4/4, as if it's some kind of objective fact, then you're just wrong. We can write anything in any time signature. I'll briefly explain this:

Now, there are conventions of thinking of particular kinds of phrasing in particular time signatures. For a simple example, if we're playing a steady pulse of notes (not shuffled, all evenly spaced, etc.) and accenting them like this: LOUD soft LOUD soft LOUD soft soft LOUD soft LOUD soft LOUD soft soft, over and over, conventionally--and this is just a convention, it's not at all a fact about what it "really" is--most folks would say it's in 7, and if they're anything but classically-oriented, they'd usually say it's in 7/4, 7/8 or 7/16 depending on just how fast it's being played relative to about 120bpm. None of that is right, it's just a convention, a "groove" (in the "rut" sense) in the way that some populations think about it. The actual time signature is no more a fact than the idea that you shouldn't wear white shoes after labor day (however, the actual time signature that someone chose to write something in historically would be a fact just like it would be a fact whether Joe Smith did choose to wear white shoes after Labor Day in 1945).

We could write it in 7/8, so that it's just ONE two THREE four FIVE six seven, repeating ad infinitum, but we could also write it in 14/8, so that it's ONE two THREE four FIVE six seven EIGHT nine TEN eleven TWELVE thirteen fourteen.

In 4/4, it would be ONE and TWO and THREE and four AND | one AND two AND three and FOUR and | ONE and TWO and three AND four AND . . . etc.

11/16: ONE (two) three (four) FIVE (six) seven (eight) NINE (ten) eleven | (one) two (three) FOUR (five) six (seven) EIGHT (nine) ten (eleven) | ONE (two) three (four) five (six) SEVEN (eight) nine (ten) ELEVEN | etc.

Or at a halftime tempo of 11/16: ONE two THREE four FIVE six seven EIGHT nine TEN eleven | ONE two three FOUR five SIX seven EIGHT nine ten ELEVEN | etc.

Or in 1/2: ONE | one | ONE | one | ONE | one | one | ONE | one | ONE |one | ONE | one | one etc.

In terms of what you'd be hearing, it would be exactly the same in each example. So there's no way to say what time signature anything is "really in", as there are no facts about what time signature anything is "really in". There are only facts about what time signature a composer or arranger, say, chose to write something in (and sometimes the choices are very odd--look at a Stravinsky score), or what time signature some particular musician (or dancer, or listener, etc.) chose to think about something in.

to fit the dancing of the time. If the music is constructed in anything other than 2/4 then there's no Charleston dance.
As we've just seen, it can be written in absolutely ANY conceivable time signature and sound just the same. You could also count dance steps anyway you like and yet the movements are exactly the same. (And you can also dance so that it's polyrhythms relative to the music, etc.)

Now, some of those time signatures would be very unusual to think of for certain phrasing, but 1/2, 2/4, 4/8, 8/16, etc. are all theoretically identical to 2/4 (in terms of that, it works just as mathematical fractions does, but you can just think of it like this: in 2/4, there is one half note in the bar, four eighth notes, etc.), and 2/2, 4/4, 4/2, 8/8, 8/4, 8/2, etc. would all sound identical, you'd either just be using different notes to write it and thinking of it at a different tempo (like using half notes where you'd used quarters before, but the half notes are occurring just as quickly as the quarter notes had been--it sounds exactly the same) or you're just thinking of bars being longer strings of the phrases, so that instead of 1 2 1 2, you've got 1 2 3 4 --- sounds exactly the same, you're just counting it differently.

It's no different than having a jar of marbles and counting them as 1, 1, 1, 1 (and seeing how many 1s there were total) or 1, 2, 1, 2, (and seeing how many twos there were total) or 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3 (and seeing how many 3s there were total, etc.). The jar of marbles doesn't change. Only the way we're choosing to count them changes. There is no fact that there were 100 pairs of marbles in the jar rather than 50 quartets or marbles, or 66 and 2/3 trios--they're all the same exact thing.
And as everyone knows all of that is always in 2/4.
It can be a fact that conventionally, that has been written in 2/4. It's very wrong to say that it's a fact that it really is in 2/4. It would be the same as this difference: "Historically, people have always counted jars of marbles in pairs", and "Jars of marbles really are in pairs". For the latter--no they're not. There's nothing that makes them "really in pairs", that would just be a fasionable way of counting them if that happens to be the case (if people happen to be following that fashion).
Your original confusion, and the part where Britt and others tried to clarify for you, was that Kenny Clarke said late 30s
He said that it wasn't played on cymbals, but snare drums. He said it wasn't accepted by others to play it on cymbals.
It is a pure skip note because it accompanies the actual dance step and was the reason for the continual evolution of the pattern.
It was present in the music prior to the jitterbug. I also know no one else with an academic background in it who agrees with your view on this, but I can give you academic references for many different musicologists who believe it stems from the 2:3 hemiola as I noted above.
In case you're not aware, 2 beat is an actual style that is studied in schools and is beyond any possible discussion of semantics or terminology.
I have degrees (plural) in music theory/composition, by the way. I'm familiar with what is taught in schools.
Because you had no idea about the relation of the dance to the evolution of the ride pattern/although Clarke absolutely did/ you then inferred that he might not have been correct,
Re Clarke, he made statements about snare drums versus cymbals that I noted were incorrect. I didn't say anything about anything else there. Also, re the historical evolution of the swing groove, I'm relying on the work of academic musicologists and historians who I'm familiar with and happen to agree with on this issue.
then used as an example a composition that inferred your notion of a possible ride pattern, not fully aware of the whole picture.
I referred to a randomly picked earlier piece that has that same exact rhythm on cymbal, rather than playing a shuffle groove on snare drum. That was it.
How am I doing now?
You can probably figure that out from my comments.
Tell that to the dancers.
Okay, point me to some dancers you want me to explain this to.
In your world they would be falling down the moment they hit the dance floor.
They would be dancing exactly the same way, just counting their steps differently.
 
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Indeed. I agree with you in terms of the earlier recordings, but from the individuals I have spoken to who actually participated in the bebop scene in the 40's, the recordings are an accurate representation of what was happening at the time, even if shortened due to the limits of the technology available.

There are many possible origins of the ride pattern, and perhaps it is possible to have multiple sources.

Your point is very clear in identifying the evolution of this pattern in terms of N'Orleans traditions rather than listening to what was going on in a specific recording. If you listen to second line rhythms, you can see where the idea came from.
 
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There are many possible origins of the ride pattern, and perhaps it is possible to have multiple sources.
Just want to add that that is a good point, and the same thing can be developed independently by many different people. That is even the case for something as complex as calculus. Both Leibniz and Descartes developed it, and as far as we've been able to tell, without any knowledge of the other's work. Let's not forget that we're talking about a simple shuffle rhythm.
 
Just want to add that that is a good point, and the same thing can be developed independently by many different people. That is even the case for something as complex as calculus. Both Leibniz and Descartes developed it, and as far as we've been able to tell, without any knowledge of the other's work. Let's not forget that we're talking about a simple shuffle rhythm.

Science is FULL of examples like this. Why would music be that different from any human invention?
 
Science is FULL of examples like this. Why would music be that different from any human invention?
Right, especially when there is a large population of people being exposed to many of the same immediate predecessors/influences.
 
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