Was jazz shaped by dancing?

PROVO — While millions of Americans love popular reality shows such as "Dancing With the Stars," a Brigham Young University professor has discovered how a different type of dancing with the stars — in the 1920s — may have shaped jazz music as we know it.

BYU associate professor of music, Brian Harker, 44, of Orem, says he has uncovered a partnership between a dancing duo and Jazz musician Louis Armstrong, who influenced the development of early Jazz.

One of Armstrong's many accomplishments was singing "What a Wonderful World," which was released as a single in 1967. He also appeared and sang in the movie "Hello Dolly" with Barbra Streisand.

Harker, who plays the jazz trumpet, explains his theory in a paper just published in the Journal of the American Musicological Society.

First comes music, then comes dance. "Dance mirrors music," Harker says.

However, in Armstrong's case, Harker contends the musician actually changed his music to fit the dancers. And the result was a different type of music that had a great influence on the jazz world.

"There was a very distinct change in Armstrong's rhythm," Harker said. "It became freer and much less predictable."

Harker has studied Armstrong's music, including the song "Big Butter and Egg Man," and says he can detect the change.

Harker discovered through his research that between the summer of 1926 and the summer of 1927, Armstrong entered into a partnership at Chicago's Sunset Cafe with a husband-and-wife dance team called Brown and McGraw. Armstrong played his trumpet onstage with the dancers, performing rehearsed — though not written — solos that closely matched their steps, movements or facial expressions.

Armstrong's earlier music was fixed and repetitive. His music that emerged in 1926 and 1927 reveals a style that is free and flexible. This rhythm became the foundation for the new jazz rhythmic style that emerged in the Swing Era, Harker said.

The BYU professor did his investigation during a research sabbatical in New York City in 2005 and 2006. While digging through an interview with an old trumpet player named Doc Cheatham, Harker found references to the dance partnership.

From there, Harker found additional sources from newspapers, clippings in Armstrong's scrapbooks, census records and a 1926 court case between Brown and McGraw and a club in which they performed. Harker also tracked down a living nephew of the dancing couple who provided additional personal information. Harker learned that Armstrong not only accompanied the dance duo, but he also worked out solos based on their dancing.

A quote from Armstrong on the collaboration is cited in Harker's paper: "There was the team of Brown and McGraw — they did a jazz dance that just wouldn't quit. I'd blow for their act, and every step they made, I put the notes to it."

Harker's next project is a book on Armstrong, whom he has been studying for nearly a decade.

Harker added he actually doesn't watch reality dance shows — and has never seen "Dancing With the Stars."

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E-mail: astewart@desnews.com

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