Israelite House of David - From High Pitch To Low Pitch
"About 1920 all bands changed from high pitch to low pitch. Our band was one of the last to change. I still have a high pitch and low pitch attachment for my slide trombone. About that time small orchestras become very popular. We arranged two orchestras out of our twenty piece band and both traveled for a while." Estelle Hornbeck memoirs
By the early 1920's popular music in the United States was undergoing a Jazz revolution. It appears that the twenty-piece House of David road band was playing Jazz no later than 1919. Late in 1920 the band reorganized as two ten piece bands to focus exclusively on playing Jazz. Gone were the big brass band and the marches. This new arrangement usually consisted of two coronets, two saxophones, two trombones, a tuba, a banjo, a piano and drums. It was optimized for playing early Jazz, now known as "Classic" or "Hot" Jazz.
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