Classical Jazzy Unsungs

[Paul Barasi]

Radio3 just played Beethoven's boogie-woogie piano sonata 32 and it set me thinking. Well, there's Bach's Brandenburg 5, the Delius blue note and loads of Gershwin but that's all I think I know. So I was wondering: what jazzy bits can be found in music composed preferably early within the period 1800-1918 and of course in the unsungs in particular?

[MikeW]

Alkan has plenty of blue notes. One unsung he's now very sung.

[TerraEpon]

Obviously Gershwin doesn't fit. Personally I'd extend the 'latest' date to about 1900 because that's when ragtime came about, or at least 1908 (Debussy's Golliwog's Cakewalk)

But all you really have to do is look toward Gottschalk.

[MikeW]

I would also point towards Cuban composers like Ignacio Cervantes (1847-1905), who studied under both Gottschalk and Alkan, or his contemporary José White

[JimL]

I don't know about you, but I definitely detect some proto-jazz in Moscheles piano concertos, specifically in the closing sections of his first movement expositions and codas.

[chill319]

For the pianists in the crowd: Nikolai Kapustin. Lots of fun to play.

[TerraEpon]

For the pianists in the crowd: Nikolai Kapustin. Lots of fun to play.

Born in 1937. Not quite the OP was looking for.

[febnyc]

Obviously Gershwin doesn't fit.

Why not?  'Cause Gershwin is not "unsung?"

(PS - The BIS label has a new release of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue and his Piano Concerto in F [obviously a candidate for this thread].  Who the heck would buy this disc?  I mean there must be dozens of recordings of these two works - what does the world need with another one?  But, I guess this aside answers my own question - Gershwin is very much a "sung" composer.   )

[MikeW]

Why not?  'Cause Gershwin is not "unsung?"

Because the OP said "the period 1800-1918".

After that time the musical world, sung and unsung, is drenched in jazziness.

[markniew]

I know this music was composed later than the suggested 1981 but they are really jazzy - Three Preludes in the form of Blues of 1937 by Aleksander Tansman (1897-1986) can be found in the Downloads/Polish music.