Music of New Orleans - Rhythm & Blues and Rock & Roll

Rhythm & Blues and Rock & Roll

A new style came out of New Orleans after World War II. Prominent musicians such as Fats Domino helped shape what was first widely known as "rhythm and blues", which was an important ancestor of rock and roll, if not the first form of the music. In addition to the local talent, early rockers from elsewhere recorded many of their early hits in New Orleans using bands of New Orleans musicians.

In 1949 New Orleans jazz musician, and Fats Domino producer Dave Bartholomew brought the tresillo directly from Cuban music into early R&B.

New Orleans producer-bandleader Dave Bartholomew first employed this figure (as a saxophone-section riff) on his own 1949 disc "Country Boy" and subsequently helped make it the most over-used rhythmic pattern in 1950’s rock ‘n’ roll. On numerous recordings by Fats Domino, Little Richard and others, Bartholomew assigned this repeating three-note pattern not just to the string bass, but also to electric guitars and even baritone sax, making for a very heavy bottom. He recalls first hearing the figure – as a bass pattern on a Cuban disc—Palmer (1995).

In a 1988 interview with Robert Palmer, Bartholomew revealed how he initially superimposed tresillo over swing rhythm.

I heard the bass playing that part on a 'rumba' record. On "Country Boy" I had my bass and drums playing a straight swing rhythm and wrote out that rumba bass part for the saxes to play on top of the swing rhythm. Later, especially after rock ‘n’ roll came along, I made the 'rumba' bass part heavier and heavier. I’d have the string bass, an electric guitar and a baritone all in unison— Palmer (1988).

Bartholomew referred to the Cuban son by the misnomer rumba, a common practice of that time. On Bartholomew's 1949 tresillo-based "Oh Cubanas" we clearly hear an attempt to blend African American and Afro-Cuban music.