History

Precursors

Louis Jordan, New York, N.Y., ca. July 1946 (William P. Gottlieb 04721)

The migration of African Americans to the urban industrial centers of Chicago, Detroit, New York, Los Angeles and elsewhere in the 1920’s and 1930’s created a new market for jazz, blues, and related genres of music, often performed by full-time musicians, either working alone or in small groups. The precursors of rhythm and blues came from jazz and blues, which overlapped in the Late-1920’s,1930’s through the work of musicians such as The Harlem Hamfats, with their 1936 hit “Oh Red”, as well as Lonnie Johnson, Leroy Carr, Cab Calloway, Count Basie, and T-Bone Walker. There was also increasing emphasis on the electric guitar as a lead instrument, as well as the piano and saxophone.

Late 1940s

Big Joe Turner, Hamburg 1974 (Heinrich Klaffs Collection 86)
In 1948, RCA Victor was marketing black music under the name “Blues and Rhythm”. In that year, Louis Jordan dominated the top five listings of the R&B charts with three songs, and two of the top five songs were based on the boogie-woogie rhythms that had come to prominence during the 1940’s. Jordan’s band, the Tympany Five (formed in 1938), consisted of him on saxophone and vocals, along with musicians on trumpet, tenor saxophone, piano, bass and drums. Lawrence Cohn described the music as “grittier than his boogie-era jazz-tinged blues”. Robert Palmer described it as “urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a heavy, insistent beat”.^[2] Jordan’s cool music, along with that of Big Joe Turner, Roy Brown, Billy Wright, and Wynonie Harris, is now also referred to as jump blues. Also in 1948, Wynonie Harris’ remake of Roy Brown’s 1947 recording “Good Rockin’ Tonight” hit the charts in the #2 spot, following band leader Sonny Thompson’s “Long Gone” at #1.