acoustic recording:

Process for recording sound in the pre-microphone era. Performers projected into a huge megaphone. Replaced by electric recording in 1925.

ASCAP (the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers):

Founded in 1914 in an attempt to force all business establishments that featured live music to pay fees (“royalties”) for the public use of music.

cakewalk:

Africanized version of the European quadrille (a kind of square dance). Ironically, the cakewalk was first developed by slaves as a parody of the “refined” dance movements of the white slave owners.

collective improvisation:

A musical element found in New Orleans jazz in which the players of the ensemble improvise and embellish melodies simultaneously.

disc jockeys:

Played records and provided entertaining patter on the radio.

electric recording:

Developed in 1925 using a new device, the microphone. Electric recording converts sounds into electrical signals.

front line:

The wind instruments (cornet, clarinet, and trombone) that play and embellish the melody in New Orleans jazz bands.

licensing and copyright agencies:

Organizations set up to control the flow of profits from the sale and broadcast of popular music.

polyphonic:

Musical texture with interlocking melodies and rhythms.

sound film:

Introduced in 1927. Became an important means for the dissemination of popular music.

tango:

Style of dance that developed during the late nineteenth century in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The tango blended European ballroom dance music, the Cuban habanera, Italian light opera, and the ballads of the Argentine gauchos (cowboys).

turkey trot:

A popular dance of the early twentieth century. Considered scandalous because of the close contact between the dancers.