Jazz Piano – the History

Jazz Piano is an integral part of jazz idiom since it has been incepted in both ensemble and solo settings. Due to its harmonic and melodic nature, the instrument is quite important for understanding the jazz arranging and theory. Along with a jazz guitar, a jazz piano is also one of those instruments of jazz combo which may be played with chords as with a trumpet or saxophone.

If you are into practice jazz piano you must know about jazz practice tool where chords are the primary substance in the instrument, and the second skill you will have to learn is how to play jazz piano with swing rhythm. Then is the skill of improvisation which requires you to make something on the spot. This is a skill that requires tremendous skills and extreme knowledge of the piano.

Earlier, the jazz piano used to be heavily stride technique and it was often played solo. Historically influential promoters of early piano include Earl Hines, Jelly Roll Morton, Teddy Wilson and Art Tatum. The playing style of Mary Lou Williams, Wilie Smith and James P. Johnson shaped the history of jazz piano. The 1950s and the 1960s were the golden age of the jazz which created many important and influential jazz piano players. These powerful players included Red Garland, Ahmad Jamal, Don Pullen, Bud Powell, Cecil Taylor and Horace Silver. The jazz pianists require an exclusive skills set and the piano’s extended range as a playing instrument offers the solo players an exhaustive variety of choices. One can use bass register for playing a pattern of ostinato such as that of a melodious counterline or boogie woogie emulating the playing of upright bass. Stride piano is a style of playing in which the left hand of the player changes positions rapidly while he plays notes in bass register and the chords in tenor register. This can also be done in a more syncopated variant.

Bill Evans sat at the front line of new generation players who emerged in 1960s including Chick Corea, John Taylor, Dave Brubeck and Keith Jarrett. Today, the popular figures in the field of jazz piano include Bill Charlap, Brad Mehldau, Jacky Terrasson, Danilo Perez and Geoffrey Keezer.