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1927:

Added: 2008-06-26 Coleman Hawkins drops his “slap tongue” style of playing tenor saxophone and begins improvising by playing the notes of the chords of a song. He'd heard a teenaged Art Tatum do this and was quite impressed. Up to this time all improvisation had been based on a song's melody. At first, this new style seemed somewhat incoherent but it will eventually lead to modern forms of Jazz.

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