Home » History of Jazz Timeline: 1942
History of Jazz Timeline: 1942
The recording ban limits recording of the fledgling Bop movement. The result is that Bop origins remain mysterious to this day. The ban had resulted from a strike by the Federation of American Musicians which began in August.
It is becoming very clear to musicians that Bop is indeed a new music. A number of Jazz musicians are now playing Bop.
Armstrong marries a Cotton Club dancer named Lucille Wilson. They will remain married until Louie's death.
Charlie Parker is now jamming regularly at Minton's and playing the Savoy Ballroom with the Jay McShann band. An example of Parker's work at this time is Sepian Blues recorded with McShann. It is Blues inflected Swing. Parker was a Blues player.
An amateur recording of Parker playing Cherokee at Minton's is made by Jerry Newman. This is music in transition.
Parker quits McShann in July and joins Noble Sissle's Band where he plays clarinet and alto sax.
Parker is acquiring a very bad drug habit and bad personal habits in general.
The Earl Hines big band seems to be a breeding ground for Bop. Many of the Bop players are currently with Hines. The list includes Parker, Gillespie, trombonist Benny Green, drummer Shadow Wilson and others. The band's vocalist is Billy Eckstine. Both Hines and Eckstine are from Pittsburgh, Pa.
Ellington wins Downbeat Poll. Some records from this year are C-Jam Blues, Moon Mist, Sentimental Lady and Perdido. See the Blanton-Webster collection which was mentioned earlier.
Lionel Hampton has a huge hit with Illinois Jacquet's sax playing on Flying Home.
Thelonious Monk and Dizzy Gillespie are both playing in Lucky Millinder's band.
Dizzy Gillespie writes two of his all-time classic compositions, A Night in Tunisia and Salt Peanuts.
Charlie Christian dies from tuberculosis in February. He had been improving but his friends began to bring liquor and women into the sanitarium . It proved to be too much. He was only 22.
Bandleader Woody Herman commissions trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie to write some compositions which lead to a newer, more progressive sound for his band.
Trumpet player Miles Davis (sixteen years old) is playing with a local East Saint Louis band called the Blue Devils (not the Walter Page group).
New Orleans legend Bunk Johnson is fitted with dentures and begins to play trumpet again.
Future Free Jazz pianist, Cecil Taylor (only 9) is already interested in Jazz, especially Swing.
Belgian Robert Goffin and Englishman Leonard Feather act on Goffin's idea to have a formal class on Jazz history and analysis. The class consists of fifteen lectures by Feather and Goffin which are augmented by recordings and musical demonstrations by such artists as Louis Armstrong and Benny Goodman. The class which attracted almost one hundred serious Jazz students was given at the New School for Social Research in New York. It was repeated later in the year.
Bunny Berigan dies of alcoholism related pneumonia. Berigan was a fine trumpeter, second only to Armstrong in the warmth and sincerity of his tone.
Pittsburgh pianist Erroll Garner comes to New York and finds steady work on 52nd Street.
One of the first European Trad bands is founded by French student Claude Abadie.
Aretha Franklin is born in Memphis.
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