Jobim's "Estrada do sol" and Copland's "Laurie's Song"

"Estrada do sol" is a beautiful Jobim tune, written in 1958. It's been recorded by a long list of artists; here's a nice, definitive solo piano version from Jobim's album "Terra Brasilis" (1980).

The other night, picking up after dinner, we had "Classic Arts Showcase" playing on the TV, and a video came up with Aaron Copland's "Laurie's Song," from his opera The Tender Land (premiered 1954). There's a phrase with a similarity to "Estrada do sol" that's hard to miss, right at the beginning, in the instrumental introduction.

I think it's quite possible that Jobim consciously borrowed that melodic phrase from Copland; there are a number other instances of his borrowing musical ideas (from both classical and American popular sources) and using them in his own way.

Besides the melodic phrase, the pieces have a bit of harmonic similarity. In "Laurie's Song," the harmony seems (to me) to start with repeated Bm to C chords, creating a temporary B phrygian feel, eventually resolving to G major. "Estrada do sol" begins with a Dm7 G7 vamp, giving a temporary D dorian feel, resolving after 8 bars to C major.

This device - beginning in minor (in "Estrada do sol," D dorian), dwelling on it long enough to establish the minor key as tonic, then resolving it to the "relative major" (here, C) - shows up in some well-known tunes that predate both the Jobim and the Copland. Bronislaw Kaper's "Invitation" (1950) does this, as does Ary Barroso's "Na baixa do sapateiro" (1938).

Here's a Toquinho version of "Na baixa" that starts with the vamp in question:

You can find the music to "Estrada do sol" on jobim.org (click here), along with a wealth of other Jobim resources.

The Flat Five As a Blue Note

It seems pretty clear that in early blues (say, pre-1920), musicians did not much employ the b5 as a blue note. By the mid-1920s, we have recordings with b5 licks used as part of the blues/jazz vocabulary. At some later point, the concept of a "blues scale" was conceived. I've been trying to get some historical perspective on all this (see my previous post, Early Blues, Blue Notes, and Blues Scales).

In his autobiography, referring to pre-1914 Southern folk music, W. C. Handy wrote:

[Black Southern folk musicians were] sure to bear down on the third and seventh tones of the scale, slurring between major and minor. Whether in the cotton fields of the Delta or on the levee up St. Louis way, it was always the same...

Handy speaks of the flat third and seventh, but does not mention the flat fifth.

Looking at the earliest blues (by Handy and others) that appeared as sheet music pre-1915, I don't see any "blue note" use of the b5 (see the books on early published blues by Peter Muir and Vic Hobson, reviewed here earlier).

Listening to Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue (1924), I don't hear any blues use of the b5. Gershwin was not a blues musician, but as a bright young music industry insider, he would have been quite aware of blues usage in his time, at least the commercial and big-city type (Gershwin was born in 1898; the "blues craze" in popular music began c.1914). If the b5 had been part of what constituted "blues" for him in 1924, he surely would have exploited it in "Rhapsody in Blue."

To me, "blue note" usage of the flat five consists of either scooping the note in the same way and to the same extent that the third was traditionally scooped and bent, or incorporating the b5 into this sort of lick. This is from the opening of the melody in Tadd Dameron's The Squirrel (1947):

This kind of usage doesn't seem to have been there, in the earliest days of blues.

So when did musicians begin to use the b5 as a blue note? The earliest recorded example I could find was this 1925 Bessie Smith recording of "St. Louis Blues," featuring Louis Armstrong:

In the minor-key section, Bessie bends the fifth, and also embellishes the melody with a lick that's very close to the b5 4 b3 1 shape shown above. (Incidentally, check Louis in the second 12-bar strain of the tune, suggesting a IVm chord in bar 6 - pretty harmonically aware for 1925!)

There are a quite a few similar b5 licks in Louis' 1928 recording of "St. James Infirmary":

The b5 licks here are used liberally - in Louis' vocals and cornet solo, and in the clarinet and piano parts as well (Earl Hines was the pianist). The trombone contributes a b5-5 scoop.

You can hear similar b5 licks in later jazz standards like Ellington's "It Don't Mean a Thing" (1931) and "In a Sentimental Mood" (1935), and in Matt Dennis' "Angel Eyes" (1946).

Interestingly, the b5 licks in these Bessie Smith, Armstrong, Ellington, and Matt Dennis examples all occur in a minor-key context. This might seem to suggest that b5 blues usage started in the mid-1920s, in minor-key tunes.

On the other hand, the mid-20s time frame only reflects minor-key examples that I could find recordings for. "St. James Infirmary," for example, is a very old tune (see this Wikipedia entry). Perhaps Louis was just playing it the way New Orleans players had played it decades earlier, before recordings.

By the 1940s, b5 licks were commonplace in major-key blues as well. (Note: blues usage of the b5 by the bebop players was a different phenomenon than their use of the b5 for harmonic color.)

Some years ago, I researched blues scales for a college course. Surveying books and articles, I found no less than ten different "blues scales." The earliest proposal of a "blues scale" that I could find was by Winthrop Sargeant, in his 1938 book "Jazz - Hot and Hybrid." Here's Sargeant's diagram, as reproduced in Gunther Schuller's "Early Jazz":

The arrows indicate prevalent melodic motion. Sargeant stated that this diagram related more to early or traditional blues (from a 1938 perspective).

If this scale is based on C as tonic, it is our present-day "major blues scale" with an added b7, and does not include the b5.

I'm not sure when our present-day "minor blues scale" (1 b3 4 b5 5 b7 1) came into the picture. If a blues scale involving the b5 had become commonly known by the 1940s, could it have influenced b5 usage? It's an interesting thought, but I have a feeling that it didn't happen that way.

I emailed this question to a few jazz musicians who who had learned their stuff in the late 1930s or early 1940s: When you were learning to play, were you aware of any concept of a "blues scale?" I heard back from two of them. One well-known NY pianist had this to say:

When I was learning to play, in the 30's and 40's, there was no "jazz education" to formalize matters, but there were soloists such as Lionel Hampton, Pete Brown, Lester Young,  Harry Edison, Buck Clayton, Charlie Christian, and the boogie-woogie pianists (Ammons, Lewis, James P. Johnson) who employed the blues scale in their solos and their pieces, and we followed what they did without labeling it systematically as "the blues scale."

Maurice "Dr. Bugs" Bower's answer was, "Never heard of it."

"Bewitched," "Este seu olhar," and "So em teus bracos"

"Este seu olhar" is our latest addition to the list of classic Jobim tunes that use a harmonic template similar to an American "golden age" standard - in this case, Rodgers and Hart's "Bewitched."

A recent recording by Carlos Lyra, Roberto Menescal, Marcus Valle, and Joao Donato runs these tunes simultaneously, along with "So em teus bracos," another Jobim tune with similar changes (but not quite as exact a match). No one has posted this track or this album on Youtube yet, but here's a link to the album on iTunes; play the short sample of "Bewitched" and you'll get the idea.

Thanks to Carlos Ribas for the tip!

Teaching Music in Silicon Valley, a Saga

My music teaching business, Hope Street Music Studios, will be moving to a new location in Mountain View, in the next couple of weeks. Here’s a brief history of our studio, with some perspective on what it takes to be a self-employed music teacher in the heart of Silicon Valley.

Ten years ago, in 2005, I was teaching in the back of a music store in downtown Mountain View. The store, Mountain View Music Center, had been around for many decades. The store’s founder was an old friend; I used to buy reeds from him when I was a kid. But the store had changed hands - Tony had sold the store to his son, and a few years later, Tony’s son sold it to an ex-tech guy who had made some money on Netscape, and had always wanted to run a music store. 

Unfortunately, this was a period of shakeout in the music store business. Customers were using the store to try out instruments, but then making their purchases on the internet. It began to look as though the store might not survive this shakeout. I had been talking with one of my fellow teachers about finding a place to rent, so that we could be in control of our own venue, and in 2005, Frank Conrad and I leased a 1200-square-foot space in downtown Mountain View, about a block from the store. It had 6 small offices (it was former medical space), a luxurious teaching situation compared to the tiny, stuffy teaching rooms we had at the store. (A year and a half later, the store did in fact close.)

A couple of teachers at the store came with us, and over time we signed up other teachers, who sublease space from us on an hourly, daily, or monthly basis. We now have 17 teachers at Hope Street, covering most instruments (piano, guitar, bass, drums, voice, sax, clarinet, flute, violin, viola, cello, french horn, trombone, and trumpet). As a business, the studio partnership is break-even. Frank and I make little or no profit on the studio (we make our living on our teaching), but our business plan has worked out well - we are surrounded by fine teachers, and we have a pleasant place to work that is under our own control.

In 2005, we were still in a bit of a tech recession. Commercial vacancy rates were around 20% in Mountain View. The space we leased had been vacant for over a year, and as result we had been able to obtain a 5-year lease with a 5-year option to renew, at a very reasonable rate.

As we came to the end of our 10-year lease, we began to worry. Mountain View has changed radically. Tech businesses and their employees are putting huge pressure on the real estate market, both commercial and residential. Where commercial vacancy rates were 20% in 2005, it’s more like 2.5% now.

To say that this area is in an economic “boom” does not begin to describe it. Google is the business that dominates the city, with tens of thousands of employees and thousands more coming, but Intuit, LinkedIn, Symantec and many others are also located here. Apple is building a new HQ a few miles away, in Cupertino. New-construction 1-BR apartments are renting for up to $4,000/month; downtown office space rents for $4-$5/sf/month. It’s crazy. We were offered a new lease at our present location, but the rent would have more than doubled.

So about a year and a half ago, we started a search for a new location. We checked commercial real estate listings nearly every day. There wasn’t much available, and it seemed that every time we found a possibility, there was a problem with zoning, parking, affordability, location, or lack of a long-term lease. Then about a year ago, on a day when I was feeling too burned out to check, my wife saw a new listing. It seemed like it might work: zoning OK (but we would have to apply to the City for a Conditional Use Permit), parking OK, affordability OK, location good, and a 5-year lease with 5-year option to renew. The only drawback was that it was basically warehouse space, and would require an expensive buildout to be used as teaching studios.

We started paying rent on the space last October, while we worked on the Conditional Use Permit, then the architect’s plans for the remodel, then the building permit. There were expenses and hangups every step of the way. Only two parts of the process went smoothly: Our acoustical adviser (Malcolm Clark) has been terrific, and once we had the building permit, our contractor (Dan Riley) got the job done in record time, and kept our expenses from getting any more ridiculous than they already were.

I’m omitting a lot of details here. It’s been a long, involved process. But after all the hassle, I’m pretty sure that we didn’t have a choice, if we want to keep working as independent music teachers in Silicon Valley. The alternatives would have been: 1) start driving to students’ houses to teach, 2) teach in my living room, 3) become an employee of one of the for-profit or non-profit music teaching organizations in Mountain View, where management takes a cut of 50% or more of earnings or 4) try to find space in the back of a music store (not many stores are left, and their space is completely booked). These were not attractive options. In addition, Frank and I considered the other 15 teachers, and the fix some would be in if we closed the studio.

At the moment, we are feeling pretty good about it. If all goes well, we will be open for business at the new location in a couple of weeks. We won't be on Hope Street any more, but we're keeping the name, for the time being.

Tchaikovsky, Bing, and the Checkers

I guess inspiration can strike in unlikely ways. Here's Odette's Solo from "Swan Lake"(1876)...

And here's Bing (1943)...

As a side note, the composer of "I'll Be Home For Christmas," Walter Kent, is also remembered for "There'll Be Bluebirds Over the White Cliffs of Dover" (1941), another wartime song of hope and home. Here's a cool version by The Checkers (1953). Stick around for the sax solo by Red Prysock...

Early Blues, Blue Notes, and Blues Scales

Here are a few thoughts regarding blues history and blues usage, that came up in the course of reading several interesting books on early published blues (see this review and this review). I don't claim to be an authority on the subject, beyond the fact that I'm a sax player who has played and listened to a lot of blues over the years.

Blue notes and Blues Changes

Composers of early published blues drew inspiration from folk musicians. In the absence of better documentation, examining these compositions can be one way of trying to understand what early (pre-1910) folk blues and pre-blues might have sounded like.

Early published blues, in turn, influenced the development of popular music in the years that followed, especially jazz and jazz-oriented blues, but published blues influenced subsequent folk blues as well.

In his autobiography Father of the Blues (1941), W. C. Handy describes his creative process in writing "St. Louis Blues" (1914):

[Black Southern folk musicians were] sure to bear down on the third and seventh tones of the scale, slurring between major and minor. Whether in the cotton fields of the Delta or on the levee up St. Louis way, it was always the same. Till then, however, I had never heard this slur used by a more sophisticated Negro, or by any white man. I had tried to convey this effect in Memphis Blues by introducing flat thirds and sevenths (now called "blue notes") into my song, although its prevailing key was the major; and I carried this device into my new melody as well. I also struck upon the idea of using the dominant seventh as the opening chord of the verse. This was a distinct departure, but as it turned out, it touched the spot.

It appears that Handy may have gotten inspiration not just from folk blues, but in part from Anthony Maggio's earlier published tune, I Got the Blues (1908). Maggio's melody consisted of a repeated riff, clearly meant to mimic the bent third that Maggio had heard from a folk musician. Maggio's b3-3-1 phrase was used by Handy in his "Memphis Blues" (1912), "Jogo Blues" (1913), and "St. Louis Blues" (1914).

Maggio's riff as it was used in "St. Louis Blues" (click to enlarge):

Handy's prior awareness of Maggio's tune is pretty clearly demonstrated in Peter Muir's book, Long Lost Blues. But be that as it may, there are two other noteworthy points in Handy's statement:

1) He describes b3 and b7 as blue notes, but not b5.

2) Handy describes the seventh as being bent, like the third, in folk usage. I don't doubt that, but in early published blues by Handy and others, when the b7 of the key is used in the melody or harmony, it is almost always in the context of setting up a I dominant (V of IV) sound, preparing a IV chord. That goes for the first bar of St. Louis Blues as well - perhaps a "departure," as Handy stated, but still acting as a V of IV, preparing the IV in bar 2.

Use of b7 notes in the context of a V of IV can be found in Sousa marches, arrangements of church hymns, and in popular classical themes - musical settings that were commonly heard in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Musicians like Handy, Maggio, and Artie Matthews (arranger of "Baby Seals Blues," pub. 1912) were relatively well-educated, and probably would have known quite well how a secondary dominant works. Usage of the b7 in that context is not at all unique to blues.

Vic Hobson, in his book Creating Jazz Counterpoint, has pointed out that adding a b7 to a triad was a common practice in barbershop singing - a popular pastime in the African American community in those years.  That may well have been another factor in b7 blues usage. But as far as a unique barbershop influence goes, I’d look more to the b7 that is added to the IV chord in blues, resulting in a b3 of the key (a non-classical usage), or to the use of a #IVdim7 in bar 6 of the progression, a feature that goes back to some of the earliest published blues.

In the first published blues tunes, and in late 1910s/early 1920s recordings, most “blue note” usage seems to occur on the third of the key. In sheet music intended for piano, a bent-note effect could be expressed by a b3 to 3 grace note, or by putting a b3 on the beat, resolving then to the 3 (as in the example above), or by simply sounding a b3 note over a major or dominant chord. Melodic b3 notes can also appear in measures harmonized with a IVdom chord (where the b7 in the chord is the b3 of the key), or in measures harmonized with a V7 (the b3 of the key is a #5 relative to the chord).

In early published songs and early recordings, the third seems to be scooped or bent far more than the seventh, which is relatively stable (still true now, IMO).

The b5 rarely occurs in these early blues. 

The M6 note is also an important part of blues vocabulary, then and now. It wasn’t flagged as a “blue note,” though, because it is a part of our familiar major scale. 

Gunther Schuller, in his book Early Jazz, traces b3 and b7 blue note usage to the b7 note that he states was common to the music of Central/West African societies, with the b3 resulting from singing parallel lines. I don't doubt that African music often used b7 notes, but the prevalence of the b3 and bent third in early blues, and the relatively “classical” usage of the b7 (V of IV context) when it does occur, do not seem to support this explanation.

The nature and degree of African influence on the development of blues styles is an open question. Some blues scholars see extensive African influence, others see relatively little.

Willie Ruff has suggested the possible influence of “lining out” worship singing, introduced in America by English and Scottish settlers perhaps hundreds of years ago, on popular music practices in the South. "Lining out" singing still exists in a few congregations in Scotland (Presbyterian) and in the South (Baptist) - see this very interesting video. Check out the similarities and differences in the melodic embellishments and bent notes used by congregations from Scotland, Kentucky, and Alabama. There's room for some speculation on the influence of this type of singing in the origins of blues and gospel style.

In my non-expert opinion, recordings by male "down home" blues artists in the late 1920s seem to show more use of the b7 as a melodic blue note than we see in early published blues, or in recordings of female blues singers in the early 1920s. This may reflect the rural folk style of earlier, undocumented times (pre-1910). On the other hand, styles can change over time. Jazz recordings of blues tunes seem to show freer use of the b7 as a "blue note" (not just a secondary dominant note) as time goes on, from the 1920s through the 1940s. 

The b5 seems to have been used increasingly beginning around perhaps the early 1930s, and became an integral part of blues/jazz/pop melodic vocabulary (e.g., Ellington's 1931 tune "It Don't Mean a Thing," or Matt Dennis' 1941 "Angel Eyes"). By the 1940s, blue-note b5 licks were a part of the bebop language.

Of course, since musicians have been taught that there is a "blues scale" for perhaps 70 or so years, it is now universally accepted that blues-scale-derived licks are basic blues melodic vocabulary.

Blues scales

As I see it, it's a bit misleading to teach students that playing a “blues scale” is the way to create a good blues solo. Historically, and to this day, much of the blues musical vocabulary does not conform to any sort of “blues scale.” In the early days of jazz and blues, the concept of "blues scales" did not exist. The idea of a “blues scale” seems to have come about in the late 1930s, when academically-inclined musicians looked for some sort of underlying principle that would explain the use of “blue notes” in a major-key musical context.

A number of different “blues scales” have been proposed over the years. The one that most of us have settled on (1 b3 4 b5 5 b7 1) has some utility: We can give it to beginning improvisers, and they will usually sound good immediately, which inspires self-confidence. I do teach this way, but I always follow up by saying that lots of great blues licks don’t use the scale, and that any note could sound good, depending on how it is used.