“Rock and roll was a form of music older than modern jazz and has been with us for a long time. Louis Jordan had been playing it as long as I remember, before Elvis.”
-Dizzy Gillespie
“Route 66” features jump blues – that raucous child of country blues and swing jazz that burst onto late 1940’s America squalling and jiving to a hard-driving backbeat, boogie woogie piano triplets and bootin’ and honkin’ muscular tenor sax blasts. The simple lyrics were earthy, sometimes downright raunchy, and spoke primarily of love, loss and drinking, sung by big voiced shouters, both male and female, who managed to be heard over the din. Its energy and enthusiasm were infectious, filling dance halls, ballrooms and tobacco barns to the rafters with euphoric black and white fans and the impact it made on segregation in Jim Crow American cannot be overstated. For one glorious decade the big beat reigned supreme and changed the direction of American popular music soon to be known as rock ‘n’ roll.
