What is 'stop time?'

[wesbed]

What does ‘stop time’ mean? On given jazz recordings, in the liner notes, the writer will sometimes mention ‘stop time.’

I found a ‘stop time’ quote in the notes to Sonny Side Up. In describing the tune ‘I Know That You Know,’ the liner notes say, “I Know That You Know begins, after the ensemble, with Rollins stop-time solo. Dizzy takes flight and Stitt ends the solos."

[shawn·m]

Musicians and academics stand aside! At my fingertips, I have the results of a google search:

A. A technique in which a band plays a pattern of short chords separated by silences. The intervening musical space is then filled in with monophonic improvisation.

Typical patterns for stop-time include playing on the downbeat of every other measure; or playing on beats 1, 2, and 3 of a measure.

B. Stop time, defined by Gunther Schuller as "discontinuous rhythm."

C. Performance technique used in New Orleans-style jazz in which the rhythm section stops keeping time and instead alternates sets of sounded beats with periods of silence. Alternations, however, occur regularly. An accent will be given to the first beat of a two measure phrase where the rhythm section will play a chord and beat at this point. Silence follows but solos can continue. Stop-time is not only used in jazz music it is also used in tap dancing and blues.

D. The way to resolve this problem is to develop a procedure that stops time for all couplings and for all individual spins in the molecule. Then if we need a selected coupling for a controlled- NOT gate, or if we want to push a given spin forward in time by just about that much, we can release just the coupling or just the spin, so that the required free evolution for them takes place for a precisely determined amount of time. Then we stop time for the coupling and for the spin again and perform whatever other operations are required to finish the controlled- NOT gate.

E. "What are we after? We are literally trying to stop time," says Smith. "Running 100 meters in 10 seconds won't bring you fame. But running it in 9.79 will. He who finishes closest to zero wins. Freeze the clock -- that's what we're all about."

[Harold_Z]

A couple of examples of stop time:

Almost any recording of NIGHT TRAIN....When The rhythm plays 1 2 3 and is silent on 4 and usually a tenor player does his HONKIN' thing.

The first chorus of Johnny Mercer's BLUES IN THE NIGHT.

The Richard Berry part at the beginning of Etta James' ROLL WITH ME HENRY.

A lot of the Louis Hot Fives contain examples of stop time. WILDMAN BLUES, FIRE WORKS, SKID-DAT-DE-DAT. Louis' solo on CORNET CHOP SUEY is over stop time.

>> Performance technique used in New Orleans-style jazz in which the rhythm section stops keeping time <<

This works better for me if you substitute the word "playing time" for "keeping time". Everybody BETTER keep time or that stop time will turn into a train wreck. . SLOP TIME ! (and I don't mean the dance!)

Edited March 15, 2003 by Harold_Z

[JSngry]

The "Charleston" rhythm in the Globetrotters version of "Sweet Georgia Brown"

The beginning to the solos on Sonny's studio version of "Sonnymoon For Two" (recorded the day after the Vanguard version!)

[Harold_Z]

One of my all time favorites: Little Willie John's "Heartbreak". Stop time on the front 4 of each chorus and a charleston superimposed on the last 8 of each chorus.