Stride piano

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Genre

Stride piano · Stride is a piano style from Harlem, grown out of ragtime. The left hand ‘strides’: a low bass note on the first and third beats, a chord in the middle of the keyboard on the second and fourth. As a result, a pianist sounds like a complete band. Stride is faster and freer than ragtime and is improvised. Pianists played at rent parties, parties where visitors paid to help the host raise the rent, and challenged one another in cutting contests. James P. Johnson was regarded as the master; his Carolina Shout was a test piece that the young Duke Ellington learned from a piano roll. Fats Waller was his pupil, Willie 'The Lion' Smith his rival. In the 1930s, Art Tatum took the technique to an unprecedented speed and harmonic richness.

Listening

• 
  Carolina Shout · James P. Johnson, 1921
• 
  Echoes of Spring · Willie The Lion Smith, 1939
• 
  Ripples of the Nile · Luckey Roberts, 1958

In School of Rock

The chapters, maps and magazine stories of School of Rock are currently available in Dutch only.

• Jazz Map^NL Map
• Mixtape 1: The Origins of Pop Music^NL Reader

See also

• Willie The Lion Smith
• Luckey Roberts
• Harlem Renaissance