That "A Train" Lick, Part 2 - Jimmie Rodgers!

Don't blame me. My friend Adam (last name withheld) just came up with this one. Adam is the one who started our tune-detective project on earlier use of "that A Train lick" (see Part 1 here),

Adam's new example is Jimmie Rodgers' "Blue Yodel No. 1," a big hit in 1928 - before any of the other tunes listed in my previous post.

Ridiculous? A year-end joke? Maybe! But...

The A Train lick -

Jimmie Rodgers, "Blue Yodel #1," 1928. The yodeling lick is at 0:30 -

The yodeling phrase actually does resemble "that A Train lick" in several ways: a leap up to the third of the key, back down to the fifth, then chromatically down to the fourth, leap to the second, moving to the tonic (delayed by several notes in "Blue Yodel"). It is similarly placed, at the end of the musical phrase.

Here's the Wikipedia page for Blue Yodel #1 (AKA "T for Texas"). Jimmie's recording sold half a million copies. He built on the success of "Blue Yodel #1," recording eight more Blue Yodels for Victor between 1928 and 1930, as well as many other titles. Louis Armstrong and Lil Hardin Armstrong were featured on the last one, "Blue Yodel #9." All the Blue Yodels are on YouTube.

Of course, Jimmie didn't invent yodeling, either. It was not just an alpine thing, but was part of "Western" music in the 1920s-1930s. Roy Rogers was pretty accomplished too; supposedly as a youth he used yodeling to communicate on the family farm.

However, from what I can find on the web, there seems to be disagreement over whether yodeling was actually something cowboys did to communicate on the range, or whether it was just a showbiz gimmick, perhaps inspired by alpine yodeling in vaudeville.

You'd have to at least concede that this yodeling lick was "in the air" by the 1930s, when most of the other tunes on our list were written. Maybe the lick just sort of floated into Harold Arlen's creative mind, and so on, down the line:

Blue Yodel #1 - 1928
Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea - Harold Arlen, 1931
Shuffle Off to Buffalo - Harry Warren, 1933
I've Put all My Eggs In One Basket - Irving Berlin, 1936
Take the A Train - Billy Strayhorn, 1939
Tiny's Tempo - Tiny Grimes, 1946

(Here's a "maybe," also contributed by Adam: Stardust - Hoagy Carmichael, 1929)

I know - you are thinking, "Give me a break!" - right? But like I said, you can't blame me for this one.

Happy New Year!

That "A Train" Lick, Part 1 - Harold Arlen, Irving Berlin, Billy Strayhorn, and Tiny Grimes

My friend Adam called my attention to the Irving Berlin song "I'm Putting All My Eggs In One Basket" (1936), which contains a phrase that strongly resembles one in the A section of Billy Strayhorn's "Take The 'A' Train" (1939). Adam wondered where that lick might have originally come from.

Here's the lick from "Eggs":

Berlin wrote "Eggs" for the Fred Astaire movie "Follow the Fleet":

I'm sure you already know the "A Train" lick:

Duke Ellington's classic 1941 recording:

I didn't have a good answer for Adam about the origin of the lick, but I did recall another tune with a similar lick, "Tiny's Tempo." Guitarist Tiny Grimes recorded this one in 1946, with Charlie Parker as a sideman:

This week I've been re-reading Alec Wilder's landmark book, American Popular Song: The Great Innovators, 1900-1950(1972). If you are at all interested in jazz standards, you owe it to yourself to read it. It's extensively researched, authoritative, and amusingly opinionated. Wilder's opinions are pretty well-informed - he was himself a successful composer, both classical and popular, and personally knew some of the composers he wrote about.

In his Harold Arlen chapter, Wilder mentions an early Arlen tune, "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea" (1931), calling this phrase "a marvelous riff which I must believe was written before the lyric":

That's the piano part, from the published sheet music, copied from Wilder's book. "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea" was written for a 1931 Cotton Club show, "Rhyth-mania." Arlen was familiar, and comfortable, with the jazz world. He was adept at incorporating blues licks and blues harmonies into his compositions - I've always enjoyed that aspect of Arlen's work. Note the Ab in bar 2, a moment of a b3 blue note. As Wilder notes, Arlen was pretty advanced for his time.

Here are the dates of the songs mentioned:

"Between the Devil" - 1931
"Eggs" - 1936
"A Train" - 1939
"Tiny's Tempo" - 1946

Harry Warren's Shuffle Off to Buffalo (1933) has a related lick - a simpler version, without the initial reach to the higher note, but with the chromatic movement from the fifth to the fourth, followed by a reach up, to the second and the tonic. As in the first 3 tunes above, the lick comes at the end of the musical phrase.

"Between the Devil" is the earliest instance that I can find of any lick resembling this one. I have to wonder if it was a part of the jazz vocabulary of the day, even before Arlen wrote the song.

If any blog readers can think of an earlier example, please leave a comment at the end of this post!

Update 12/27/16:

Here's a similar sequence from 1929. I was just reading Wilder's chapter on Hoagy Carmichael. I'm not sure if this counts, as the melodic sequence is placed differently, both harmonically and in its placement in the measure, but I'd be remiss not to mention it:

About this musical example, Wilder comments, "If ever there was an instrumental phrase, as if improvised at that..."

Update 12/30/16: Click here for That A Train Lick, Part 2 - Jimmie Rodgers!

As a side note, this post led me to check out Tiny Grimes' biography. Tiny played with Art Tatum in the early 1940s, recorded four tunes with Charlie Parker in 1946, and later recorded with Johnny Hodges, Coleman Hawkins, Illinois Jacquet, Pepper Adams, Roy Eldridge, and Earl Hines. Tiny Grimes is also regarded as a contributor to the origins of rock and roll:

Trivia: According to Wikipedia,

In the late 1940s, he had a hit on a jazzed-up version of "Loch Lomond", with the band billed as Tiny "Mac" Grimes and the Rocking Highlanders and appearing in kilts. This group included top tenor saxman Red Prysock and singer Screaming Jay Hawkins.

Screaming Jay (remembered for his 1956 hit, I Put a Spell On You) was featured on vocals, sax, and keyboards with the Rocking Highlanders. Jay doesn't sing on the "Loch Lomond" track, but if you want to check it out, "Loch Lomond" is from 8:00 to 11:05 in the first recording below. The saxophones get an interesting bagpipe effect in the intro:

Here's one last one - Tiny Grimes with Art Tatum and Slam Stewart:

"I Didn't Know What Time It Was" - A Few Observations

A few months ago I picked up a copy of the original sheet music to the 1939 Rodgers and Hart song "I Didn't Know What Time It Was," at a book sale. I finally got around to taking a closer look at it last week, and noticed some interesting things about the harmony.

Below are the first eight bars of the "chorus" (main body of the tune, after the introductory "verse"), first as shown in the Standards Real Book(Sher Music), and then as shown in the 1939 sheet music.

Sher's fakebooks are a sort of gold standard; they are well-researched and generally will give you an intelligent, mainstream-jazz version. This chart is pretty representative of modern fakebook versions of this song. Click to enlarge.

Here are a few observations about the harmony, sticking just to the first 8 measures.

It's best to look at the piano part, not just the guitar chord symbols. Chord symbols in many older sheet music charts are not always well-considered. The piano part is likely to be a better representation of what the composer originally had in mind.

1) The first chord in the sheet music's piano part is not F#m7 (as in Sher, and every other fakebook version I could find), but rather F#7sus4 (the chord symbol in the sheet music calls it "F#7 add B"). The melody note B is anticipating the B7 chord that follows. The F# chord has no third.

2) The second bar of the sheet music shows just Em, not Em7 A7 as in the Sher version (and other fakebooks).

3) Bar 4 of the sheet music shows just an A triad, not Em7 A7 as in Sher (and other fakebooks).

4) Bar 5 of the sheet music shows just Am, not Am7 D7 as in the Sher chart.

Comments:

The differences reflect the tendency of current jazz lead sheets to frame harmonies in terms of II V sequences, and other standard concepts that constitute "jazz theory" as it is taught today. In bars 2 and 4 of this tune, the fake book editors have overdone it a little.

1) I do think that turning the first chord of bar 1 into F#m7 makes sense. Functionally, F#m7 isn't too different from F#7 with no third. F#m7 is II in E major, followed by B7b9, a V with minor-key color, resolving to Em. This conforms to standard jazz harmonic practice.

2) Showing Em7 A7 in bars 2 and 4 is misleading. This looks too much like a II V in D, and I'm quite sure that was not Rodgers' intention. Jazz recording artists don't play these measures as II V, but rather as a simple resolution to a tonic Em. I think the A7 found its way into fake books because it incorporates the note C# as part of a voice-leading line that threads through bars 1 and 2 in half notes: E, D#, D, C#. You can hear this voice-leading line in the Sarah Vaughan track below (this version is down a fifth from the sheet music key, so the line is A, G#, G, F#):

I suppose you could look at Em7 A7 as a sequence in E dorian, but that's fussy and misleading too. It's really just E minor.

3) The A triad in bar 4 of the sheet music is a nice twist by Richard Rodgers, but doesn't seem to have been picked up by jazz players. An A triad has a rather different harmonic meaning here than the Em7 A7 shown in most fakebooks (again, the Em7 A7 here is not actually a II V, and most players play lines in this measure that just convey a tonic E minor).

4) In showing Am7 D7 in bar 5, the fakebook version indicates a II V where Rodgers wrote simply Am. This II V works, though, setting up the Em in the next bar (or Sher's alternate chord here, G6).

These differences don't mean that the modern fakebooks are "wrong"; it just goes to show how a tune's harmonic setting can change in the course of 70+ years in the jazz repertoire. I will say, though, that you probably won't want to plug in II V licks in soloing over bars 2 and 4. The rhythm section can play Em7 A7 if they like, but if you use your ear, you'll probably end up playing tonic Em ideas over the whole measure.

Following are two more more great recordings of "I Didn't Know What Time It Was." The Ella Fitzgerald version includes the introductory verse. Ella delivers the lyrics perfectly. Shirley Horn's version is more modern and harmonically spare.

"Autumn In New York" - Comparing Charts

Vernon Duke's "Autumn In New York," a beautiful ballad that is an essential part of jazz repertoire, was first introduced as the closing number in a 1934 Broadway show, "Thumbs Up." For a nice writeup on the tune and the composer, check this article on jazzstandards.com.

Charts for "Autumn In New York" can differ considerably regarding the chord changes. A couple of weeks ago I finally decided to look into what was what, and ordered a copy of the original 1934 sheet music. The sheet music really helped clarify what Vernon Duke had in mind.

Sheet music for tunes in this era consisted of the melody, printed above a complete piano arrangement. Chord symbols were generally an afterthought, added above the piano staves in case someone wanted to play along on guitar (or ukelele or banjo). The chord symbols would produce a rough approximation of the more carefully-composed piano part.

Modern charts consist of just melody and chord symbols. A lot of subtleties in the piano part may be lost, while the chord pattern may be adjusted to be more improvisation-friendly. I looked at nine relatively modern charts, comparing them to the sheet music and to each other. In this post I'll make some observations about these nine charts. I'm only looking at these printed versions - analyzing the ways that various performing artists and arrangers have harmonized the tune would be another question entirely.

The original arrangement includes a lead-in "verse" that shows up in only one of these modern charts; it's left out in most classic recordings of the tune. That's a shame, as it's quite well-written. In Vernon Duke's piano arrangement, the verse begins like this (click to enlarge):

Note the parallel motion of five maj7 chords in the first and second measures, with the first three moving by whole step - an impressionistic, Debussy-like device (Duke had studied with Gliere, and besides writing popular music, also had a career as a modern classical composer). This opening reminds me very much of the introduction to Tadd Dameron's "On a Misty Night" (1956), which uses the same parallel-harmony device. I don't think this is a coincidence.

In the excerpt above, note also the bass line in bar 5, reflecting the first notes of the familiar melody of the "chorus" (main body of the tune).

Perhaps the verse is often omitted because it's tough to sing. Here's a recording by Mel Torme that includes the verse:

The song was written with two sets of lyrics, involving a repeat of the "chorus" section. This makes for a song that was perhaps too long to be performed in its entirety on pre-LP records; I couldn't find any early recordings with both the verse and all the lyrics.

About the charts: We are considering only the familiar chorus section of the tune. In consideration of copyright, I am not showing the melody - you can find that in any fake book, and it will be almost exactly the same as the sheet music.

The charts I looked at are from these sources:

• The original sheet music, both chord symbols and actual piano notes
• Dick Hyman's Professional Chord Changes and Substitutions for 100 Tunes Every Musician Should Know
• Hal Leonard Real Jazz Standards Fake Book (the only source with the introductory verse)
• Hal Leonard, The Real Book: Sixth Edition
• Original ("classic") bootleg Real Book
• Hal Leonard, The Ultimate Fake Book
• Jamey Aebersold playalong vol. 40
• Jamey Aebersold playalong vol. 93
• iReal Pro

There are at least ten spots in the tune where you will find disagreements between these charts:

measures 2 (and 18), 3-4 (and 19-20), 7-8, 12, 14, 16, 20, 23-24, 26, 28.

Below are the chords as shown in four of the charts - the original sheet music (chord symbols only), Old Real Book, Hal Leonard Real Book "6th Edition," and Dick Hyman (only half of the Hyman version is shown, because IMO its copyright value is largely as a harmonic arrangement). My comments follow.

Here are the problem spots (measure numbers are for the chorus only):

Measures 2 and 18: Some charts (including the chord symbols in the original sheet music, as well as HL 6th ed., above) show Gm7, but the piano notes actually show Bb6. The Bb bass note makes for a nice ascending bass line that is important to the song. Here is a clip from the sheet music:

mm 3-4 and 19-20: As you can see in the clip above, the original harmony is static - just Fmaj7 (or F6, or F6/9 if you like). The Dm7 symbol is incorrect. The piano part fills this space with a moving line and an embellishment. In modern charts, this space is sometimes filled in with an ascending chord sequence, mirroring the ascending movement in mm 1-2 (see Old RB and HL 6th ed., above). I like Hyman's solution, with a voice-leading line (not the same as in the sheet music) specified, and Am7 D7b9 in bar 4. However, specifying voice-leading lines like this might be more detail than is necessary for a jazz chart.

mm 7-8: Originally, two II V sequences, as in the first chart above, with a voice-leading line and melodic decoration. In pretty much all modern charts, this is changed to one "long" II V, one bar per chord.

m12: In the original symbols, Cm is not really correct, I think. To me, the first two beats of m12 comes across as a continuation of the Ab chord that precedes it. The Ddim symbol is not quite right; it's actually Dm7b5 in the piano part. Old RB and Hyman get this right, but many other charts replace the Dm7b5 with G7b9. To me this sounds weak; it's an apparent effort to make everything conform to clichéd dominant-tonic harmony. Dm7b5 sounds better; it's what Vernon Duke wrote. Dm7b5 is II of the Cm that follows. What's wrong with that?

In mm 11-12, the "6th ed." chart takes some real liberties with the harmony, crowding this space with a sequence that doesn't work for me, and that I've seen in no other chart.

m14: For the first two beats, Duke wrote a problematic D7 to harmonize a G in the melody (see clip above). The F# in the chord clashes. Maybe he wanted a little moment of dissonance to illustrate his mixed feelings in the lyrics, "making me feel I'm home." Or maybe it was just an oversight. Many charts eliminate this clash by changing the D7 to Dm7; I agree. Hyman suggests some voice leading in showing G13 to G7+ in the last 2 beats of this measure (the original is a bit different, showing G7+ to G7 in the piano part).

m16: The last chord in the first half of the tune sets up the second half (see clip above). Duke uses C7+ on beat 4, which moves into Gm7 (actually Gm9, melody on the 9) by way of chromatic motion of the top two voices. Hyman changes beat 4 to F#m7, providing a completely chromatic approach. I like it, though it's a departure from the original score. Hyman's charts generally do tend to be more like "arrangements," and not so much "vanilla" charts. Some other charts (HL 6th ed., HL Real Jazz Standards, Aebersold vol. 40 and 93) set up the return with a conventional Am7 D7 (or D7b9, D7b5, or D7#9). To me this sounds a lot less interesting.

m20: In the original score, mm 19-20 are exactly like mm 3-4. However, some modern charts (Old RB,  HL 6th ed., iReal) fill the space as in the two middle charts above - an OK solution, but not what Duke wrote. Aebersold vol. 93 uses Dm7 on beat 3, Dbm7 on beat 4, which sounds odd to me.

mm 23-24: This is an important spot. The original piano part, and many classic recordings, have this as  | Bbm    | Bbm#5  Bbm6 | (the chord symbols in the sheet music are misleading). This line harmonizes the word "pain" in the lyrics, "Autumn in New York is often mingled with pain." Hyman keeps this progression. Aebersold vol. 93 has a sightly different line in the same spirit: | Bbm7  Bbm7#5 | Bbm6 C7#5 |. Old RB, HL 6th ed., and iReal have | Bbm6 Abm7 | Gb7   |, which doesn't work for me.

m26: The original score has this measure as | Fm Ab7+ |. HL Real Jazz Standards and iReal turn the last 2 beats into a II V, Ebm7 Ab7. This seems like another effort to turn every change into stock jazz chord movements. I don't think the chart needs this; after all, a soloist can always play a II V over a simple V, anyway. HL 6th ed. and both Aebersold charts insert a chromatic passing chord, Em7, resulting in this bar looking like | Fm Em7 Ebm7 Ab7 |. To me this is unnecessary clutter.

m28: The sheet music chord symbols show Fm7b5 on the last beat. However, it follows 3 beats of Dbmaj9, so in effect the Fm7b5 is really Db9. Note that the top notes of this chord, Ab C Eb, spell Abm, a chromatic upper neighbor to the Gm7 that follows. Great writing! If a chart expresses the last beat of m28 as either Db7 or Fm7b5, it's fine. HL 6th ed. and HL Ultimate Fake Book show Abm7 and Abm6 here respectively - not quite as effective, but following the same basic idea. However, iReal and Old RB show Ab7 (subV of Gm7), another example of changing a more interesting sound into "correct" predictability. Aebersold Vol. 93 shows D7+4, essentially the same thing as Ab7. The four-chord sequence shown by HL 6th ed. in mm 27-28 seems stilted to me.

After all that, what is the best chart? That depends on what you are looking for. For a chart that is more of an arrangement, I think Dick Hyman's is excellent. If you are looking for a basic, serviceable "vanilla" arrangement that is mostly correct, then perhaps the chart from the Hal Leonard Real Jazz Standards Fake Book, which also has the virtue of including the verse. Use the alternate changes. And actually, the Old RB chart isn't too bad. I wonder who at Berklee c.1974 was responsible for it?

Here's a chart with combined features, intended as a sort of common-practice-yet-correct version:

Finally, though, how you handle any song is your call, as long as it sounds good. This arrangement, for example:

Sax Reed Adjustment - Which Parts of the Reed Affect High Notes and Low Notes?

An important aspect of single-reed adjustment is where to sand or scrape in order to make certain notes speak more clearly. I've read quite a few books and articles on reed adjustment, in the never-ending quest for the elusive secrets of getting a good reed. Most writers seem to agree that lows are controlled by the lower end of the vamp closer to the shoulder, highs by the area closer to the tip. That is, if your low Bb is stuffy, then sanding or scraping towards the bottom of the vamp might help; if your high notes are not clear, try thinning towards the tip (but not too much). In my own experience, this is a valid concept.

A while ago, I was given a nearly complete set of Saxophone Journal magazines, dated from 1981 to 2001. I had (foolishly) never been a subscriber, but this was a great magazine, and now I have a second chance to read hundreds of informative articles. It will probably take me a year or two to check out every issue. Anyway, I just ran across an article (Nov./Dec. 1988) by mouthpiece expert Ralph Morgan, with a very interesting assertion - that if we divide a reed's blade into 33 equal segments and "each segment is weighed to compute its mass," each segment will be found to have a "resonance frequency" corresponding to a "quite accurate chromatic scale."

Morgan brings this idea up in a discussion of reed/mouthpiece compatibility, but obviously it would apply to reed adjustment as well. In his article, Morgan references research by Ignatius Gennusa, who was principal clarinetist with the Baltimore, Chicago, National, and NBC symphony orchestras, though it's not completely clear whether this idea comes from Gennusa. I admit to being a little skeptical about the precise validity of this claim - but I'd love to see the details of the research. On the other hand, I do agree with the basic concept that highs (and high overtones) are generated towards the tip, middle register notes in the middle of the vamp, and lows towards the bottom.

Perhaps you are familiar with this test for how to balance the left and right sides of a reed (quote is from this article on reed adjustment):

Turn the mouthpiece clockwise, so that your embouchure only controls the right side, with the left side of the reed free. Blow an open C# (sax) or G (clarinet) - then turn the mouthpiece the other way, to free the right side. If the “free” side (L or R) seems stuffy compared to the other, some wood should be removed from the stuffy side. 

Try combining this test with the idea that highs are controlled at the tip, lows at the shoulder - for example, if your middle D is stuffy, take some wood off approximately where the word "even" is in the diagram above, but first test that note with the mouthpiece-turning method to see which side is actually the problem; remove a little wood at the appropriate point on the reed for that frequency, and do it just on the appropriate (stuffy) side. It seemed to work for me.

Review - "Unheard Bird - The Unissued Takes"

I was thrilled when the news came out that 58 previously unknown Charlie Parker studio takes had been discovered, and would be issued by Verve. I ordered my copy of the 2-CD set as soon as it became available, and I was not disappointed. The recordings include alternate takes and incomplete takes from a number of the Parker sessions organized by Norman Granz, originally for the Mercury and Clef labels (later subsumed under the Verve label). Sessions include Parker with Machito and His Orchestra; a group with Al Haig and Kenny Dorham; Parker with strings; a Parker quartet with Hank Jones, Ray Brown, and Buddy Rich; Parker's all-star session with Dizzy, Monk, Curley Russell, and Buddy Rich; the "South of the Border" session with Parker's quartet augmented by two Latin percussionists; and Parker fronting a first-rate, very tight big band.

Besides the previously unreleased alternate takes, the original released master takes of each tune have been included. It's fascinating to listen to the process that led to the finished products. In some cases the completed alternate takes are excellent in themselves; in other cases you can hear mistakes that show the players were after all only human, and adjustments being made through the takes leading up to the released master.

Here are a few observations I jotted down:

Disc 1

Tracks 1-5, Okiedoke - With Machito's Afro-Cuban band. Alto sax too high in the balance. Maybe this worked on c.1949 record players. Bird burns.

6-9, Visa - C blues.  Features Al Haig, piano, and a young Kenny Dorham on trumpet.

10-15, "Tune X," "Tune Y," "Tune Z" - Long-standing confusion about the titles of these tunes is somewhat cleared up here. Two takes of Tune X were originally released, one with the title "Diverse," another with the title "Segment." Tune Y (a C blues) and Tune Z (a different tune, with Rhythm changes), were both released under the name "Passport." Track 15, a false start labeled Tune Y on this CD, is actually Tune Z, a mislabeling that doesn't help the confusion over the titles.

Tune Z, a "Rhythm changes" piece, is the tune that appears in in the Omnibook under the title "Passport." After a number of false starts, the band tries it at a slower tempo, and gets a keeper.

24-25, If I Should Lose You - Bird With Strings. Track 24 consists of 30 seconds of false starts; track 25 is the previously released master. #24 is included as a "make-good" track; it was discovered after the release of the "Charlie Parker With Strings Deluxe Edition." Not much new here, though the previously-released master take is great.

26-28, Star Eyes - This tune, and the blues that follows, feature a 22-year-old Hank Jones, sounding very good. There is a tight, arranged intro; after false starts and one incomplete take, the band gets a good one.

29-36, Blues (Fast) - Bb blues at about mm 270. The band is Parker, Hank Jones, Ray Brown, and Buddy Rich. Although one might think that these musicians could have done a great Bb blues in one or two takes, it took them 12 tries to get to the one that was released. The album notes relate that the session engineer carefully numbered the 12 takes, including false starts; the 8 tracks included here comprise all but the (still lost) takes 9 and 10. The head and the arrangement seem to have been created in the studio. Over the course of the 10 takes preserved here, you can follow the development of both the head and the arrangement. By the end, it's a pretty tight product. Of course, this process includes many fantastic choruses of Parker playing blues in Bb.

37-38, Bloomdido (Bird, Diz, Monk, Rich, Russell) - The intro is first tried as unaccompanied piano, followed by drums, but that sets up a sloppy entrance by the horns. Monk, Buddy Rich, and the horns were not quite on the same wavelength. Dizzy muffs bar 5 a couple of times. They fix these problems by having the drums start along with the piano, and by having Diz drop out for bar 5, letting the alto sax cover it. The final result is a clean, classic take. Monk's intro is the same in every take; he seems to have worked it out in advance.

Disc 2

Tracks 1-4, An Oscar for Treadwell - Piano intro is the same for each take; again Monk seems to have prepared it in advance. Dizzy is in great form in this session. Track 3, an alternate take, is very good until the horns mess up the out-head.

5-8, Mohawk - In the first 2 takes, the horns don't have the head clean yet, and the tempo is slower. By the time they record the released master, the tempo is faster and the head is tight. Monk develops the intro over the course of the takes. In the album notes, Phil Schaap tells a story about this session that was related to him by Curly Russell, the bassist:

"...the slightly different timing mechanisms of Thelonious Monk and Buddy Rich were throwing off Bird and Diz. The horn players asked the engineer if it would hurt the audio if they were repositioned so as to stare at and play directly to Curly, a steady rock and a one-man rhythm section. The adjustment was made."

9-12, My Little Suede Shoes - See this post for some details about the origin of this song. My impression of Bird's Latin recordings, including the cuts with Machito, is that Parker's solo concept doesn't always mesh as well with Latin grooves as well as it does with bop/swing. The overall ensemble groove is better in his bop combo and big-band tracks. He seems to be "feeling it" in his recordings with strings, too.

13-17, Tico Tico - A Charlie Parker choro! The drum set seems to be thinking samba here - not inappropriate, really. The tempo seems to be a little too fast for Bird to tongue repeated notes cleanly in the B section. I guess he was a single tonguer. That makes me feel a little better about my lack of double-tonguing ability.

18-19, Fiesta - Second take is faster. Parker seems quite comfortable on this "Latin" tune, maybe because it was written by Americans (Cal Massey and possibly Jimmy Heath), and possibly because the bridge to the head - as well as the entire solo form - are played swing.

20-21, Mama Inez - Nice groove, Parker is comfortable on this one too. It is a well-known tune, written in 1927 by Eliseo Grenet, a pioneer of Latin jazz - see this very interesting Wikipedia bio. Youtube has dozens of versions of Mama Inez (or "Ay, Mama Ines"), played by many artists from the 1930s to the present, in a wide variety of styles.

22-24, Night and Day - A terrific, tight big band on these last three songs. Parker is right at home.

25-27, Almost Like Being in Love - The album notes say this was composed by Cole Porter, but it's really by Lerner and Loewe.

28-31, What Is This Thing Called Love - Again, a great big band, with a tune that Parker knew inside out.

I had a great time listening to this album, many times over. For Charlie Parker fans, which ought to include all jazz fans and jazz players, this is a must-listen album. Again, you can get it here.

"Batida Diferente," "Satin Doll," and a Couple of Other Songs

Here's another bossa nova with American antecedents - "Batida Diferente," by Durval Ferreira and Mauricio Einhorn (English - "A Different Beat"). "Batida" was featured on Cannonball Adderley's 1962 album, Cannonball's Bossa Nova.

Brazilian bossa nova musicians were very much aware of, and influenced by, American jazz of the 1950s and "Golden Age" standards of the '20s to '50s. It's hard to miss the resemblance of "Batida's" bridge to "Satin Doll" - not only the chords, but also the starting note of each 4-bar phrase, and the fact that the second phrase is a repeated sequence of the first. Here's the bridge; the A section is in the key of G.

The chord pattern here (II V I to the key of the IV, then II V I up a step, leading to the V of the original key) is common enough in standards to have been dubbed the "Montgomery-Ward bridge." Nowadays we might have called it the "Walmart bridge."

The harmonic progression in the A section of "Batida" is pretty much the same as "Do Nothing 'til You Hear From Me," or "The Nearness of You."

Last week I brought in a chart of "Batida Diferente" for my Saturday adult combo class to play, and a couple of the band members noticed some other song resemblances. A stretch maybe, but the first phrase of the melody in "Batida's" A section isn't too far from this one:

"Be My Love" was composed in 1950 for Mario Lanza by Nicholas Brodzsky, lyrics by Sammy Cahn. It sold over 2 million copies. Ferreira and Einhorn certainly would have known the tune, but who knows?

The melody of the A section of "Batida" also resembles the original "Star Trek" theme (composed by Alexander Courage), but because the TV series didn't come out until 1966, it's disqualified as a "Batida" source. Maybe Courage listened to Mario Lanza (it's common knowledge that the harmony to "Star Trek" seems to have been lifted from Johnny Green's "Out of Nowhere").

Larry, our Saturday pianist, noticed that the bridge to "Batida" matches There! I've said It Again, a tune popularized by Vaughan Monroe in 1945, and also recorded by Jimmy Dorsey, Nat Cole, Bobby Vinton, and others. The chords are "Montgomery-Ward," but the melody also almost exactly matches in bar 1-2 and 4-5 of the bridge.

Incidentally, Mauricio Einhorn, co-composer of "Batida," is is an excellent jazz harmonica player. Here he is appearing with Toots Thielemans:

"My Little Suede Shoes," "Pedro Gomez," and "Le Petit Cireur Noir"

In his liner notes for the newly-released Charlie Parker collection "Unheard Bird," Phil Schaap discusses the origin of "My Little Suede Shoes." Apparently Parker created the tune by combining two French pop songs, "Le Petit Cireur Noir" and "Pedro Gomez." The "Suede Shoes" title comes from the story that is told in the lyrics of "Le Petit Cireur Noir."

Check it out for yourself. "Pedro Gomez" contributes the A section of Parker's tune; "Le Petit Cireur Noir" contributes the bridge. The two Giraud songs were flip sides of the same 78 rpm single:

The music to "Pedro Gomez" was composed by Hubert Giraud, with lyrics by Roger Lucchesi. The music to "Le Petit Cireur Noir" was composed by Giraud and Lucchesi, lyrics by Annie Rouvre. Both songs were published in 1950.

The French lyrics to "Pedro Gomez" are here. This song tells the story of Pedro, who is taking a boat from Bahia and going to Paris. He packs up his cuica and other samba instruments. The song lists the instruments ("one needs at least 10 instruments like that" for a good samba). When the boat arrives it takes Pedro 2 1/2 hours to get through customs, because the officers suspect contraband, and "at least four taxis" to take his belongings into Paris. "With a well payed gig at Lido he replaces 22 gauchos...By himself he creates so much rhythm that all women go nuts." He spends his money, and two months later is broke. He starts to sell his instruments, "starting with the pandeiro... tamborim, small bongos...soon was the turn of the conga, his bells, tam-tam, etc....finally his parrot...so he can buy a ticket back." Pedro returns to Bahia by himself "with his small cuica." Note the vocal cuica imitation in the recording. (Thanks to my friend Carlos for the translation.)



The French lyrics to "Le Petit Cireur Noir" are here. This song is about a shoeshiner, who complains that the fashion for suede shoes is putting him out of work. It's in dialect (Carlos thinks Caribbean). "But one day I found in a cafe terrace a well stuffed wallet...nobody claimed it. With it I bought a shoe store. I now sell pretty shoes...and since then I now like the suede shoes..." But he doesn't forget his old job: "...and when I go to the cafe I put on my old shoes... leather shoes, well worn out...so I can have them polished and give big tip...This little story has a moral, that a little black shoeshiner can very well make it in life...and to make it, all he needs is to find at the cafe terrace a well stuffed wallet."

Hence, the title to Parker's tune.

According to Phil Schaap's notes, Parker was in Paris in November 1950, where he heard an artist/entertainer named Lobo Nocho sing "Le Petit Cireur Noir" (check Wikipedia's very interesting biography of Nocho). Bird tracked down a copy of the Trio Do-Re-Mi recording (the Youtube videos above), and combined the songs into "My Little Suede Shoes."

In his blog, Doug Ramsey expresses the opinion that Parker borrowed the chords and structure for "My Little Suede Shoes" from "Jeepers Creepers." I agree that the chord progressions for the A sections of the two songs match, but the evidence for Parker using the two Giraud songs as his source is kind of overwhelming. The chord progression is basic. The melody of "Shoes" matches Giraud's songs closely, and "Jeepers" not at all. There's a comment from a reader at the end of Ramsey's blog post quoting Annie Ross as saying that she had owned the record of the Giraud tunes, and Parker had heard it at Kenny Clarke's house. The poster does not say if this was in Paris or not. According to Wikipedia, Clarke did not move permanently to Paris until 1956.

Brian Priestley, in his book Chasin' the Bird: The Life and Legacy of Charlie Parker, states that "My Little Suede Shoes" is "actually a song from the French Caribbean that Charlie picked up in Paris entitled 'My Little Suede Shoes' or 'Mes Souliers de Daim.'" This would appear to be incorrect information.

I'd always felt that "Shoes" was stylistically unlike anything else Parker ever wrote. I guess this explains it.

As a side note, "Pedro Gomez" is obviously intended rhythmically as a samba, and comes off in the Trio Do-Re-Mi recording as a sort of 1950 French pop samba. Parker's recording has more of a Cuban flavor. When Americans play Latin nowadays, you are more likely to hear a bossa nova rhythm. I guess it all works here.

The "Unheard Bird" CD is all great stuff. It includes three alternate takes of "My Little Suede Shoes," plus the originally released master, as well as over 50 more previously unreleased studio takes from various other recording sessions. More on that in a future post.
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Is the major sixth a blue note?

Why don’t we call the major sixth a “blue note?” From the earliest days of jazz and blues, it’s been a basic part of the blues melodic vocabulary. Here’s a perfect example - check out Illinois Jacquet’s opening phrase. It’s an archetypal blues lick, 5-6-1-3-1-3:

I’d argue that in terms of traditional blues vocabulary, the major sixth is just as important as the the flat seven or flat five.

Here’s Bessie Smith’s 1925 rendition of “Yellow Dog Blues” (W. C. Handy, 1915). You’ll hear major sixth licks all through it:

There are countless other examples of the major sixth in blues licks, from all eras of jazz and blues.

Maybe we should try to better define our terms. What exactly is a “blue note,” anyway? Merriam-Webster cites the first use of the term “blue note” as 1919; Dictionary.com says it dates from 1925-1930.

Pretty much everyone agrees that the term “blue note” refers to a flat third or flat seventh, often in a context that is otherwise major-key. For about the last 70 years or so, one could include the flat fifth as well.

As I see it, the term was originally coined to describe the use of notes that contradicted the simple diatonic vocabulary of most early popular music. It’s an ethnocentric term, describing a Southern, mostly African American melodic usage that was at the time (c. 1919) heard by most mainstream-culture Northerners as unusual and exotic.

The terms “blue notes” and “blues scales” don’t go very far in actually defining the language of blues and jazz. They are overly-limiting concepts (though that limitation can be helpful to beginners); also, these terms say nothing about rhythm. Musicians, and especially educators, would do better to think of blues usage in terms of melodic vocabulary (licks).

True, the “blues scale” can be a useful teaching tool. When I help beginners learn to improvise, I nearly always start by having them experiment with a “minor blues scale” (1-b3-4-b5-5-b7-1), while I play a basic 12-bar progression on piano. They usually sound good right away, which gives them confidence. In addition, they usually end up finding some traditional licks in playing around with the blues scale - and that’s a good thing. Fortunately, most people today have heard plenty of blues, even if they didn’t know that’s what they were hearing, and they will intuitively draw on it.

But the next step is to tell them that actually, any note could work, depending how it is used.

The “major blues scale” (1-2-b3-3-5-6-1) is a useful concept too - again, because it draws students into traditional licks, this time including the major third and major sixth. You can’t use this scale over the entire progression like you can the minor blues scale, because the major third in this scale doesn’t work so well over the IVdom chord (e.g., playing the note E natural over the F7 in a C blues). Also, the “major blues scale” omits the flat seventh. And anyway, dwelling on a scalar approach to improvising is kind of going down the wrong road, I think - not the best way to get students to play melodically.

Getting back to the major sixth - I’d speculate that its use in traditional blues licks traces back to 19th-century hymns - consider “Amazing Grace” (the words were set to its present melody in 1835), for example - and before that, back to English/Irish folk music (e.g., “Londonderry Air,” c. 1792). I suppose you could call that usage “major pentatonic,” if you subscribe to the oversimplistic theory that pentatonic scales are somehow an Ur-form of world music.

In terms of defining the vocabulary, some notes are bluer than others. The flat third is the bluest (maybe we should call it the flat/major third, or bent third); after that the flat seventh, flat fifth, and major sixth, then maybe the second and fourth. The performance practice of bending notes (pretty much any note) is a separate, but related, element in jazz and blues vocabulary. It can turn any note “blue” - think Johnny Hodges or Jimi Hendrix. 

In a due-diligence internet search, I ran across an article by Hans Weisethaunet, Is There Such a Thing as the “Blue Note”? It’s worth reading (I agree with some, not all, of what he has to say). Weisethaunet concludes that:

…there is no such thing as the blue note, the ‘item’ of musicology. There is no such thing as the ‘blue note’ as a strange or ‘out of tune’ third or seventh (apart from in the theories and ideologies of a few musicologists). Rather than thinking of ‘blue notes’ as pitches being out of tune, ‘blue harmony’ creates a space for the play of identity in music performance...

My perspective here is not that of a musicologist, but of a player and teacher. My point in this post is simply that blues and jazz are best thought of as a matter of tradition, vocabulary, and creative evolution over time. The terms “blue note” and “blues scale” are useful and descriptive, and can be utilized as teaching tools, but the blues/jazz tradition is far more than these simplistic concepts, and students should be made aware of that early on.

If you want to teach a student what constitutes a blues vocabulary, you couldn't do much better than to have them listen to the two videos above, as a start, then check out another thousand classic blues on Youtube. Don't forget this one; the melody opens with a major sixth lick, right after the intro:

New Charlie Parker Release: "Unheard Bird - The Unissued Takes"

On July 1, Verve/UMe will be releasing Unheard Bird - The Unissued Takes, a collection of 58 previously unknown Charlie Parker studio recordings. These are alternate takes from sessions organized by Norman Granz for the Mercury and Clef record labels (later incorporated into Granz's Verve label). The recordings were discovered as part of a "cache of material" owned by one of Granz's associates.

The collection includes cuts from a number of landmark recording dates: Bird with Strings; a Latin session with Machito; a Cole Porter project with big band; 14 tracks with Parker's quintet featuring Kenny Dorham; and 10 tracks from the session with Dizzy, Monk, Curly Russell, and Buddy Rich. 20 master takes are also included; notes are by Phil Schaap.

More information in the link above. This promises to be the most important release of Parker material since the Benedetti tapes - and with studio quality sound!

Video: Louis Armstrong Recording Session

Here's a newly-discovered film of Louis Armstrong in the studio, recording "I Ain't Got Nobody." We only get to see one song for now; the rest of the session will eventually be released by the Louis Armstrong House Museum. 

Here's the story of how the film was discovered:

These two YouTube items were posted last month, but I just was made aware of them - Thanks, Tom!

Combo Projects! "Charles Mingus - More Than a Fake Book"

My Saturday adult combo class has finally finished our latest long-term project: playing through all 55 tunes in the collection, Charles Mingus - More Than a Fake Book. We started in December 2014, and read through one (sometimes two) tunes each Saturday. Some tunes had to be carried over for a second week for us to come close to dealing with them. We missed a few weeks due to vacations. Now, in May 2016, some 70 weeks later, we can say we at least "attempted" all 55 tunes.

I can enthusiastically recommend the Mingus book. The vast majority of the tunes are interesting, fun to jam on, and (mostly) playable by reasonably experienced players. They range from simple to complex. The charts are nicely done - with only a few exceptions, they are clear, without too many typos. Each composition is accompanied by informative text: first recordings, personnel, assorted anecdotes. Only a few of these tunes have made it into the more mainstream fakebooks, and many of them deserve to be more widely known and played.

BTW, if you've ever wondered about the correct changes to "Goodbye Porkpie Hat," you'll find them here.

We're still cycling through the jazz standards "list of shame," now expanded to 150 must-know tunes. In addition Mike, our guitarist, has made up a list of must-know ballads for us to work through.

For our next project, I'll be bringing in some of my favorite bossas and sambas, that are not among the 10 or 15 overplayed ones that you find in American fakebooks. We're starting with a few Roberto Menescal tunes (check this website). I don't think we'll undertake the complete works of Jobim or Menescal or Ary Barroso; that would be a bit much for us. I'll just bring in 20 or so less-known classics, and we'll work on our bossa/samba groove, one tune per week. That should keep us busy for a while.

Notable Music Copyright Infringement Cases

If you are interested in music copyright law, here's a website you should check: Music Copyright Infringement Resource, sponsored by Columbia Law School and the USC Gould School of Law. It details over 160 cases from 1844 to the present, including often-amusing introductory comments on each case, and the texts of the decisions.

There's far more reading here than I have time for, and the legalese is often dense, but I can recommend a look at these cases, at least:

Saint James Infirmary (1932 - issues of title ownership)

My Sweet Lord (1976 - George Harrison was found to have "subconsciously" infringed on the Chiffons' "He's So Fine," plaintiffs were awarded damages)

When Sunny Gets Blue (1986 - parody "When Sunny Sniffs Glue" was held to be "fair use")

Satin Doll (1993, Estate of Duke Ellington vs. Estate of Billy Strayhorn - the judgment states that chord progressions may be an element of copyright!)

Girl From Ipanema (2001 - Astrud Gilberto vs. Frito-Lay)

Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die Rag (2003, Babette Ory vs. Country Joe McDonald - case was dismissed on the grounds of time elapsed since the alleged offense)

Copyright infringement issues that did not result in litigation, or were settled out of court, did not make it onto this data base, e.g. Chuck Berry/Beach Boys ("Sweet Little Sixteen"/"Surfin' USA"), and Jorge Ben Jor/Rod Stewart ("Taj Mahal"/"Do Ya Think I'm Sexy"). Berry settled for a co-writing credit, and Stewart agreed to donate proceeds to UNICEF.

There's another recent music plagiarism case in the news, alleging that Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" was cribbed from Spirit's "Taurus." I listened to the songs in question, and IMHO, the suit is utterly without merit. But what do I know? I thought the recent "Blurred Lines" case brought against Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams by the heirs of Marvin Gaye was also utterly without merit, but the jury awarded Gaye's family $4 million.

Matt Dennis' "Angel Eyes," "St. James Infirmary," and "DYKWIMTMNO"

One of the bluesiest jazz ballads is Matt Dennis' "Angel Eyes," lyrics by Earl Brent. It's been recorded by Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and many others. Here's Chet Baker, in a rather dark version:

You'll find differing versions of the chords, depending on what source you consult. Looking just at the "A" section, here is the original sheet music (it's in Dm, while most current fakebook versions are in Cm). Click to enlarge:

As is common with sheet music versions, the piano part probably represents the composer's intentions fairly well, while the chord symbols attempt, not always successfully, to provide a sort of vertical cross-section that will work for a guitarist trying to play along. In any case, this tune has been re-harmonized by several generations of musicians, in varying ways.

One spot subject to reharmonization is the first bar, beats 3 and 4: What is the best way to harmonize the b5 blues lick in the melody? The sheet music, above, does it with two diminished chords. Bearing in mind that the following versions put the tune into the key of Cm, here are a few other ways to play it:

• The old bootleg Real Book uses two beats of a bVIdom chord (Ab7, in the key of C).
• The Hal Leonard "6th Edition" Real Book uses one beat each of Dm7b5 and G7#5 (this doesn't work well, IMO).
• The Sher Music "New Real Book" uses one beat each of D7 and G7, but also shows the diminished chord harmonization as an alternative, as well as another take on the first bar: | Cm/C Eb/C D/C Db/C | , one beat each.

Check the nice descending bass line in the sheet music, going lower, as fits the mood of the song.

I don't want to get too caught up in the harmonization issues here, but if you compare the sheet music above to just about any fake book version (bearing in mind that the sheet music is in D minor), you'll see some other differences. You can decide for yourself what works best. I'd go with Sher.

Regarding the bridge:

The bridge to "Angel Eyes" goes like this in the sheet music (shown here in the now-current overall key of C minor):

|| Bbm7  Eb7b9 | Abmaj7  Adim7 | Bbm7  Eb7b9 |   Abmaj7      |

|    Am7    D7   |  Gmaj7             |   F#7#5   F#7   |   G7   G7#5   ||

The last two bars here are generally revised to |  C#m7  F#7   |   Dm7  G7   ||, in keeping with modern players' predilection for II V sequences.

The bridge sections of "Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans," "Everything Happens to Me," and "This Masquerade" all follow the same pattern as "Angel Eyes" - that is, II V I twice, then II V I down a half step, followed by a 2-bar sequence to set up the return to the last "A" section.

The similarities between the bridges of these tunes made me wonder which one was written first. Here's the chronology:

1941 - "Everything Happens to Me" (music by Matt Dennis)
1946 - "Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans" (Louis Alter)
1946 - "Angel Eyes" (Matt Dennis)
 ("This Masquerade," written in 1972 by Leon Russell, is an outlier)

The melodies of the bridges to "Angel Eyes" and "Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans" (henceforth referred to as "DYKWIMTMNO") are also very, very similar, in both melodic rhythm and in melodic contour. Here's Billie Holiday:

It's as though one composer had copied the other on the bridge, but that's impossible to really know. Both tunes were composed in 1946, and both were released to the public in 1947 - "DYKWIMTMNO" as a song in the movie musical "New Orleans" (the clip above), "Angel Eyes" in a recording by Herb Jeffries. It's hard to know which one came first, and it seems unlikely that either Dennis or Alter could have heard the other one's song before it was publicly released. However, Alter had certainly heard Dennis' "Everything Happens to Me" previously, since that tune dates from 1941, with a popular recording by Frank Sinatra and Tommy Dorsey.

Alter's "DYKWIMTMNO" starts in C, with the bridge moving to the key of Ab, then G. "Angel Eyes" moves similarly. That is, in both cases the bridge starts in the key of the b6. "Everything Happens to Me" moves differently, starting in Bb, with the bridge in Eb, then D (bridge starts in the key of the 4).

Perhaps Alter liked the chord pattern in "Everything," and used it in "DYKWIMTMNO," whereupon Dennis wrote it again into "Angel Eyes," swiping the melodic contours of Alter's bridge and the key relationship to the "A" section as well. Probably not, though, right?

Both composers were excellent musicians. Matt Dennis was a jazz pianist and singer as well as a songwriter (he also wrote "Let's Get Away From it All," "The Night We Called it a Day," and "Violets for Your Furs"). Louis Alter was a pianist who began writing for films in 1929, and later appeared as a pianist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic (Alter too wrote a number of hits, including "You Turned the Tables On Me").

You can hear Matt Dennis singing and playing "Angel Eyes" in the 1953 movie "Jennifer," in the video below, at 55:22.

Here's Matt Dennis singing and playing "Everything Happens to Me," including some additional amusing lyrics:

Regarding the "A" section of "Angel Eyes":

I hear a definite similarity to "St. James Infirmary" in melodic contour, in underlying harmony, and in its minor-key b5 blues licks (discussed in this earlier post). And in mood too, for that matter. Here's the Louis Armstrong recording from 1928:

I don't have any final answers here on the relationship between any of these tunes or their possible derivation, I'm afraid - just observations.

In a tangential matter, perhaps you have noticed that the melody of "House of the Rising Sun" is very close to "St. James Infirmary." I did a little internet research on this. It turns out that "House of the Rising Sun" has two completely different melodies. There is an earlier, major-key version of the song, recorded by a number of folk performers beginning in the 1930s - check Youtube for versions by Leadbelly, Georgia Turner, Ashley & Foster, and Roy Acuff. The minor-key version (e.g., as recorded by Eric Burdon and the Animals in 1964) was first recorded by Josh White in 1950. White seems to have combined the "House" lyrics with the "St. James" melody.

The melody to "St. James Infirmary" was first recorded in 1924, as part of an instrumental called "Charleston Cabin," by Whitey Kaufman's Pennsylvania Serenaders. In 1927, the lyrics were recorded by Fess Williams and His Royal Flush Orchestra under the title "Gambler's Blues" (note: Fess Williams was Charles Mingus' uncle...but I digress). The first recording of melody and lyrics under the title "St. James Infirmary" seems to have been Armstrong's, in 1928.

Finally, here is a great 1933 Cab Calloway version of "St. James." It was just too good not to include. Cab sings at 4:21:

For more on "St. James Infirmary," check out this interesting essay by Rob Walker.

For more on Matt Dennis, here's a great article by Gene Lees.