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Lester Young - Ghost of a Chance (Take 1)

Philadelphia was well positioned to play a leading role in popular music. The city had long been one of the nation’s most important musical centers, with strong traditions in both European derived and African American music dating back to the eighteenth century. In the early twentieth century Philadelphia saw a dramatic increase in its Black population as a result of the Great Migration. By the 1940s, Philadelphia’s large and diverse Black population had created thriving scenes in jazz and gospel music. From these traditions a new kind of music emerged in the 1940s, in Philadelphia and across the nation. Usually played in small combos called jump bands, the music featured rollicking dance rhythms coupled with fairly simple blues based harmonies and melodies. The adaptation of this style, known as rhythm and blues or R&B, by white musicians essentially created rock and roll.

In Philadelphia in the late 1940s and early 1950s, jump bands played dance halls, nightclubs, and corner bars in Black neighborhoods throughout the city. The better groups also toured and got record deals... In 1949 both the Preston and Powell groups recorded a song called Rock The Joint, a spirited tune that rock historians consider a seminal recording in the emergence of rock and roll. Like most R&B music of the time, the records were targeted to a primarily African American audience. It was not until a white Philadelphia area country and western group adapted Rock The Joint, along with other R&B numbers, that Americans at large took notice.


Lester Young - Ghost of a Chance (Take 1)
  • Released in: 1960
  • Genre: Jazz
  • Written by: Bing Crosby and Lester Young

"Lester Young was one of the true jazz giants, a tenor saxophonist who came up with a completely different conception in which to play his horn, floating over bar lines with a light tone."

See previous Song of the Day 

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Location: United States

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