What’s Hokum and Can You Dance to it?
As the regional swing dance revival continues to expand, more bands are playing to dancers’ preferences for tempo and song length, while using vintage instrumentation that fits the period when Swing was King.
In the “About Us” section where the band describes its musical styles and genres, you might see the term “Hokum.” In fact, the term has become more visible lately as bands like the Troubadours of Rhythm or Professor Pinkerton’s Irrelevant Orchestra are using it to help define their brand.
The word itself, like so many other Americanisms, defies categorization, but it can mean pretentious nonsense, bawdy burlesque performance, artful showmanship, or in the case of music, an early form of the Blues that favored adult subject matter complete with transparent euphemisms, sexual innuendo and double-entendres.
Unlike its gloomier, raunchy cousin the “Dirty Blues,” Hokum Blues took on a more upbeat, humorous and light-hearted tone. The 1920’s duo of Tampa Red and Georgia Tom combined slide guitar and piano to create the classic sound, enhanced later by clarinet, trumpet, banjo and bass around the same time that Dixieland jazz emerged as a genre.
Its metric pulse borrows from ragtime, an earlier genre that combined European chord structures with African and American dance rhythms and elements of March. Since those styles were already linked to movement and footwork, Hokum tempos are danceable in the range of 90-120 beats per minute, sometimes faster.
And because of its early connections to vaudeville and medicine shows, Hokum is fun to watch, too! You can check it out as Professor Pinkerton’s Irrelevant Orchestra performs on the historic Grand Ballroom stage at Chivaree on Park in Ixonia on February 10th. For details, go to https://fb.me/e/5031dOk2Y
Blog wording and pictures credit to Jeffrey Pierce.
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