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Rhythm and BluesRhythm and Blues Rhythm and blues (or R&B) was coined as a musical marketing term in the United States in 1949 by Jerry Wexler at Billboard magazine, and was used to designate upbeat popular music performed by African American artists that combined jazz, gospel, and blues. It replaced the term race music, which was deemed offensive, as well as the Billboard category name "Harlem Hit Parade," in June of 1949, and was initially used to identify the rocking style of music that combined the 12 bar blues format and boogie woogie with a backbeat, later known as rock and roll. In 1948, RCA Victor was marketing black music under the name "Blues and Rhythm," but the words were reversed by Wexler of Atlantic Records, the most aggressive and most dominant label in the R&B field in the early years. By the 1970s, rhythm and blues was being used as a blanket term to describe soul and funk as well. Today, the acronym "R&B" is almost always used instead of "rhythm and blues", and defines the modern version of the soul and funk influenced African-American pop music that originated with the demise of disco in 1980. Original rhythm and blues In its first manifestation, rhythm and blues was a predecessor to rock and roll. It was strongly influenced by jazz and jump music as well as black gospel music, and influenced jazz in return (hard bop was the product of the influence of rhythm and blues, blues, and gospel music on bebop) and African tribal beats. The first rock and roll consisted of rhythm and blues songs like "Rocket 88" and "Shake, Rattle and Roll" making an appearance on the popular music charts as well as the R&B charts. "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On", the first hit by Jerry Lee Lewis was an R&B cover song that made #1 on pop, R&B and country and western charts. Musicians paid little attention to the distinction between jazz and rhythm and blues, and frequently recorded in both genres. Numerous swing bands (for example, Jay McShann's, Tiny Bradshaw's, and Johnny Otis's) also recorded rhythm and blues. Count Basie had a weekly live rhythm and blues broadcast from Harlem. Even a bebop icon like arranger Tadd Dameron also arranged for Bull Moose Jackson and spent two years as Jackson's pianist after establishing himself in bebop. Most of the studio musicians in R&B were jazz musicians. And it worked in the other direction as well. Many of the musicians on Charlie Mingus's breakthrough jazz recordings were R&B veterans. Lionel Hampton's big band of the early 1940s, which produced the classic recording "Flying Home" (tenor sax solo by Illinois Jacquet) was the breeding ground for many of the bebop legends of the 1950s. Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson was a one-man fusion, a bebop saxophonist and a blues shouter.
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