Review: "Creating Jazz Counterpoint: New Orleans, Barbershop Harmony, and the Blues," by Vic Hobson

It must have been tough to come up with a title - in just 129 pages (with 43 musical examples), this book covers a lot of ground.

The short version of the title, Creating Jazz Counterpoint, refers to one of the central questions considered in the book: How did the polyphonic instrumental texture of early New Orleans jazz develop? The full title, Creating Jazz Counterpoint: New Orleans, Barbershop Harmony, and the Blues, provides more specific reference to the subject matter, but still does not adequately convey the wide range of historical, biographical, and musicological material that is presented.

This book is the result of Vic Hobson's extensive research into early jazz and blues, using source material that included 1930s-1940s interviews (published and unpublished) with musicians of the early 1900s, the archived music of the John Robichaux band (active in New Orleans from 1877 to the 1940s), published sheet music, and public records. While endeavoring to answer some questions about the early development of jazz and blues, Hobson provides us a fascinating view of the New Orleans music scene in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

"Creating Jazz Counterpoint" is divided into nine chapters; each chapter is a sort of separate essay. Hobson's writing is quite readable, although the information is dense. Here is my attempt at a synopsis of each chapter, necessarily missing a lot of the detail:

Chapter 1: Jazzmen - Discusses Frederick Ramsey's 1939 book Jazzmen, which presented trumpeter Bunk Johnson as a living link to the legendary jazz pioneer Buddy Bolden. Bolden had left no surviving recordings. Bunk claimed he had played in Bolden's band, and Ramsey believed that Bunk's style very likely was similar to Bolden's. Critics have long questioned Bunk's reliability. Using Ramsey's notes and other sources, Hobson concludes that Bunk's information about history and about Bolden's playing style was basically reliable. In this chapter Hobson also proposes the idea that New Orleans counterpoint derived from barbershop quartet practices, and jazz/blues harmony from the intersection of barbershop harmony with blues tonality.

Chapter 2: The Bolden Legend - Considers available information on Buddy Bolden, including interviews and period documents, to assemble a likely Bolden chronology. Examines the tune, "Buddy Bolden's Blues," recorded by Jelly Roll Morton in 1939. This tune (aka "Funky Butt") is essentially the same as "St. Louis Tickle" (1904), both apparently deriving from "Cakewalk in the Sky" (1899). Morton recalled hearing the tune in 1902. As Morton played it in 1939, this tune included the progression Idom to IV to #IVdim, which has both barbershop and blues elements. However, it is an open question whether Morton's 1939 recording accurately represents the harmony as it was played circa 1902.

Chapter 3: Just Bunk? - Further investigates whether Bunk Johnson was a reliable source of information about Bolden's style, concluding that while the dates supplied by Bunk were several years too early, his information regarding Bolden's style is probably accurate. Bunk was most likely born in 1884, and appears to have played with Bolden beginning in 1902 or later.

Chapter 4: Cracking Up a Chord - In the late 19th century, barbershop singing was a popular pastime in the African American community. Characteristic barbershop harmony included frequent use of secondary dominant chords, and diminished chords containing the tonic note. Melodically, blue notes were in use in popular music, and barbershop harmony worked well to harmonize minor-third/major-third blue notes. Hobson cites much evidence that barbershop singing was quite popular in New Orleans, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Chapter 5: Bill Russell's American Music - Russell was co-author of the "New Orleans Music" section of Ramsey's "Jazzmen." Russell believed, with good reason, Bunk's assertion that he had played with Bolden, and encouraged Bunk to record. Hobson points out Bunk's use of the tonic diminished chord, a barbershop device. Both Bunk and Louis Armstrong excelled at the "second cornet" role in a typical New Orleans ensemble (second cornet played/improvised a counterline to the melody). Examining several tunes that were said to be in Bolden's repertoire ("Careless Love," "Make Me a Pallet On Your Floor," Mamie's Blues"), as played by Bunk Johnson, Jelly Roll Morton, and other early New Orleans players, Hobson points out the use of both barbershop harmony, and blues tonality.

Chapter 6: The "Creoles of Color" - Examines the role of sheet music in spreading the popularity of blues and pre-blues tunes (Hobson's research draws on the Robichaux collection, an archive of the repertoire of one of New Orleans' leading bands, active from 1877 to the 1940s). Songs considered include "I Got the Blues" (1908), "Just Because She Made Them Goo-Goo Eyes" (1900 - uses a 12-bar blues progression), and W. C. Handy's "Memphis Blues" (1912), "Jogo Blues" (1913), and "St. Louis Blues" (1914). Handy claimed inspiration from an 1892 experience hearing folk blues; Handy also knew barbershop harmony. This chapter also includes an account of the musical life of clarinetist Alphonse Picou; regarding Picou's version of "High Society," Hobson says, "The sheet music as performed by John Robichaux shows the clear imprint of barbershop harmony."

Chapter 7: The Original Dixieland Jazz Band - Considers recordings by the ODJB made in 1917 (the first recording of a jazz band), pointing out barbershop harmony elements. Quotes Nick LaRocca (cornetist/leader) as saying that his use of countermelodies was inspired partly by his boyhood experience listening to counterlines in French opera, as well as his early experience with vocal harmonizing.

Chapter 8: New Orleans: Capital of Jazz - Further considers dates for Buddy Bolden, citing reminiscences of Bolden's fellow musicians. Concludes that Bolden did not lead his own band until about 1900. Describes the changing role of instruments in a typical New Orleans band in the early 20th century, with violin being replaced by cornet (sometimes clarinet) as a lead instrument. Bolden may have played a "second" part on cornet. Playing harmony using secondary dominant concepts would have introduced notes that, played separately, would have come across as blue notes. Touches on the development of the "jazz soloist," driven largely by Louis Armstrong in the 1920s (Armstrong had played second cornet with King Oliver's band).

Chapter 9: The Blues and New Orleans Jazz - This short chapter sums up "How the blues became a part of the repertoire and tonality of jazz." Quoting Hobson,

Barbershop cadences give rise to specific harmonic progressions and particular voice leadings that are associated with the blues. It was through the application of these cadences and voice leadings to their instruments that the musicians of New Orleans developed New Orleans-style jazz.

Hobson makes a convincing case. Of course, secondary dominants were present in all sorts of music available in 19th-century New Orleans - classical, Sousa marches, instructional etudes, and I'd imagine hymns also (I'm no expert) - not just barbershop. But I'm willing to believe that in the social circles where jazz and blues developed, barbershop could have been a primary influence in establishing the use of dominant I and IV chords, which accommodate blue notes in a blues progression.

If you are interested in current scholarship about early jazz, and some interesting, well-researched biographies of early jazz figures, you should check out Creating Jazz Counterpoint: New Orleans, Barbershop Harmony, and the Blues. Highly recommended!

Strictly by coincidence, today is Mardi Gras, and it only seems right that I post this while there are still a few hours left in Fat Tuesday. Here's Jelly Roll Morton to wind it up:

"Chovendo na Roseira" - Jobim and Debussy

Listening the other day to Debussy's "Reverie," I noticed a definite similarity to Jobim's "Chovendo na Roseira" ("Raining on the Rosebush").

I did a little internet searching - apparently everyone knew all about this except me. "Chovendo" gets its first theme from "Reverie," and its second theme from another Debussy composition, "Le plus que lente, valse."

These are all incredibly beautiful pieces, of course. Here's "Chovendo na Roseira" from Jobim's "Terra Brasilis" album, arranged by Claus Ogerman. On this album it is retitled "Double Rainbow."

Here is Debussy's "Reverie":

Here's Debussy's "Le plus que lente, valse." The Jobim-like theme occurs at about 2:45:

This little revelation reminds me of the time I was helping a student work on "Moonlight in Vermont." I was trying to get him to phrase the melody (on sax) as though he were singing the lyrics:

Pennies in a stream
Falling leaves, a sycamore
Moonlight in Vermont

He tried it, then stopped playing and said, "Hey - that's a haiku!"

It is, of course. It's common knowledge, and has been since the tune was written. Everybody knew it except me.

BTW, one of the sources I ran across quoted Jobim as saying that "One-note Samba" is based on Chopin's "Prelude in Db Major." The only resemblance that I can hear is the constant repeated Ab note (a dominant pedal, but in a middle register). So, maybe. But I'll also stick with my observation that the "A" section of "One-note" is, harmonically, "I Got Rhythm" with some tritone subs and the chord durations doubled. And the melody is very likely inspired by the verse (introduction) to Cole Porter's "Night and Day."

Here's the Chopin prelude:

Here's "Night and Day," with the intro/verse:

And lastly, one more great recording of "Chovendo na Roseira" by Jobim and Elis Regina, from the "Elis and Tom" album:

"St. Louis Blues" and Other Early Published Blues

Browsing in our local used bookstore, I came across the sheet music for W. C. Handy's "St. Louis Blues." For $1.95, I had to pick it up.

As nearly as I can tell, this arrangement is the original one from 1914, although the cover art is from 1928. Sheet music publishers often changed the cover design to feature a currently fashionable performer, or in this case a Broadway revue. (Scroll through here to see a number of other covers for this tune.)

"St. Louis Blues" was not the first published 12-bar blues; it was predated by "I Got the Blues" (1908), "Dallas Blues" (1912), "Baby Seals Blues" (1912), and "Memphis Blues" (1912). Oddly enough, "Oh, You Beautiful Doll" (1911) also has a verse that is a 12-bar blues.

First, some disclaimers:

1) The blues tradition is obviously deeper than just the printed notes in published sheet music.
2) Blues (in one form or another, depending on your definition) had existed for many years before these songs were published. All the elements of blues that I'll discuss here, including harmonic devices, 12-bar form, and blue notes, were being played long before they were put into printed form.
3) This is just a blog post with some observations about these tunes, and not an attempt to make any sort of definitive historical or musicological statement.

Anyway, since I had acquired the sheet music, I thought it would be interesting to look more closely at the original printed version of "St. Louis Blues," to see which elements of what we now call "blues" were present in this 1914 song. But one thing led to another - checking various online sources, I found references to the other early published blues tunes mentioned above; I was able to find reproductions of the original sheet-music versions and/or youtube audio clips for all of them.

One great source of information was this dissertation by Vic Hobson. If you are interested in some eye-opening scholarship concerning the early development of blues as a genre and as a form, you should download it and read it.

What makes a tune a "blues"? For present purposes, let's say it's the distinctive 12-bar chord progression and the use of blue notes. For vocal blues, we might add the three-line pattern for lyrics (first 4-bar line repeated once, with a concluding 4-bar "punch line").

Below are the tunes I checked out, in chronological order, with comments.

"I Got the Blues" (Anthony Maggio, 1908) - A youtube clip is here. This tune sounds like ragtime, has a ragtime form with several distinct sections, and was marketed on the cover of the sheet music as a rag. Instrumental, no lyrics. The "A" section was probably the first published 12-bar blues with what we now call a standard blues chord progression. The melody uses the m3/M3 "blue note" device (the m3 note on the beat, moving up to the M3). This sort of notated "blue note" use seems pretty tame by modern standards. The opening riff, b3 - 3 - 1, shows up in some of the other early blues listed here, including "St. Louis Blues." The first theme returns later in minor - a very early example of a minor-key 12-bar blues.

In bar 4 of the blues section, a b7 note is added to the tonic chord, turning it into a V of IV, setting up the IV chord that follows. This is a basic feature of blues harmony. Other than that, chords are simple: triads on I and IV, and a dominant V7.

"Oh, You Beautiful Doll" (Seymour Brown, 1911) - The sheet music is here. The "verse" section, after the intro and the vamp, is a 12-bar blues. Has lyrics; more a "song" than a rag, though the melody has some rag-like syncopation. Marketed on the cover of the sheet music as a "song" - not titled, or marketed, as a blues or a rag. The A section melody begins with the same b3 - 3 - 1 sequence that was noted in "I Got the Blues." Again, bar 4 adds a b7 to produce a V of IV. Other than that, chords are simple I, IV, and V7.

"Dallas Blues" (Hart A. Wand, March 1912) - Hobson's dissertation has two versions: the 1912 version on page 81, and a later revised version on page 82. Neither version has lyrics. The earlier version is a 20-bar song: a typical 12-bar blues form with bars 5-12 repeated in bars 13-20. The 20-bar song is then repeated on the next page, with variations. This piece does not sound like a rag. The V of IV device is present in bar 4 (and bar 12), with a melody note stating the b7 (melody on the b7 here is a common feature of blues as we know it today). In addition, the melody in bar 6 (and bar 14) adds a b7 note to the IV chord (a Db note, in the key of Bb, in effect producing an Eb7 chord). This is another feature that has become an essential part of blues, melodically and chordally. The melody in bar 5 (and 13) uses the b3 - 3 "blue note" device.

The later, "revised" version changed the form to a standard 12 bars, and added a new 12-bar section preceding the original melody. The new section's melody also uses the b7 notes in bar 4 and bar 6; bars 7-12 of the new section's melody are the same as the original melody. A still later, 1918 printing of "Dallas Blues" added lyrics and a new piano arrangement.

"Baby Seals Blues" ("Baby" Seals, August 1912, arranged by Artie Mathews) - Hobson's dissertation, page 84, shows the first two pages - the "verse." As in "Dallas Blues," the verse is twenty bars, but unlike "Dallas Blues," the additional 8 bars is new material, rather than a repeat of bars 5-12. "Baby Seals Blues" also features "blue" melody notes in bars 4 and 6 (we are in the key of Bb; the notes are Ab in bar 4, and Db in bar 6). The harmony in bar 6 of the piano part is a #IVdim7 chord (Edim7) - this also has become a common feature of blues.

Citing the music itself, and Seals' career as a widely traveled entertainer, Hobson makes a case that "Baby Seals Blues" may have been composed first, perhaps as early as 1910, and Wand's "Dallas Blues" may be derivative.

The composer of "Baby Seals' Blues" is variously listed as "Baby F. Seals," "Arthur Seales," "Arthur Seals," "Franklin Seals," and "H. Franklin Seals." For more on Seals' career, see this interesting article by Erwin Bosman.

"Memphis Blues" (W. C. Handy, September 1912) - The sheet music is here (the 1912 version is found on pages 9, 10, and 11 of this archive). "Memphis Blues" is definitely a rag, in its melody and in its form. The last section modulates to the subdominant key, as in the "trio" section of many marches. In fact, the first recording of this piece was by the Victor Military Band; it strikes me as a merging of blues, ragtime, and march. It's played with a straight beat, not a swing beat. This piece was at first marketed as an instrumental; words were added by a lyricist for a 1913 edition, after Handy had sold the song to publisher Theron Bennett.

The first and third sections of this tune are 12-bar blues. The first section (in the key of F) uses an Ab note over the IV chord (adding up to a dominant-quality Bb7). The third section (in Bb) uses the b7 note in bar 4 (Ab, turning the Bb tonic chord into a V of IV). The b3 - 3 melodic shape shows up in several places.

Here's a Eubie Blake version of "Memphis Blues" from a piano roll (1921). Eubie plays it with a feel that is sometimes fairly straight, sometimes more pronounced swing. You'll hear a "third hand" part on the roll, presumably added by Eubie.

A note about swing: In college some years ago, I took a summer class in "American Music" taught by William Bolcom and Joan Morris. They had known Eubie (1887-1983). I asked Mr. Bolcom whether rags were originally played with a straight beat or a swing beat. He answered that Eubie had said that performers would go back and forth, whichever way they felt; both were correct. I took this to be as close to a definitive answer as I was ever likely to get.

"St. Louis Blues" (W. C. Handy, 1914) - The sheet music is here. This tune consists of an introduction with a bass line in habanera rhythm (a rhythm used in tango; Handy conceived of this section as a tango), a 12-bar blues "A" section, a 16-bar habanera/tango "B" section, and a 12-bar blues "C" section with a different melody.

The first recording (1916) is played with a straight beat throughout. Handy's 1923 recording (the youtube title showing 1914 is incorrect) has more of a swing beat; it also adds a minor-blues section and a non-blues closing section.

Getting back to my original question, in the 1914 version of "St. Louis Blues" we can see a number of important features that have come to define blues:

We are in the key of G. Looking at the first blues "A" section,

1) Dominant quality tonic chord in bar 1 (G7)
2) Dominant IV chord in bar 2 (C7, set up by the G7 in bar 1).
3) Melody note Bb in bar 2, coming across as a b3 of the key of G (blue note), supported by the C7.
4) Dominant quality tonic chord (G7) in bar 4.
5) Dominant IV chord in bar 6.
6) Melody note Bb in bar 10, coming across as a b3 of the key - but played against a supporting D7, producing a D7#5. Using an augmented V chord is an effective way of incorporating blue notes into the harmony.
7) 3-line lyric scheme, where the first line is repeated, with a third "punch" line, all 3 lines rhyming.
8) Both blues sections use the b3 - 3 melodic device (e.g., the first bar of each blues section). This was apparently intended to convey a bent-note effect.

"St. Louis Blues" was hugely popular in its day, and is still a jazz standard. Jazzstandards.com rates it as the 20th most recorded standard tune, and lists 16 versions that ranked anywhere from #1 to #24 on sales charts between 1916 and 1940. "St. Louis Blues" was not the first published blues, and W. C. Handy certainly didn't invent blues, but this tune apparently had a lot to do with establishing the features of the blues form as we know it today. Hobson puts it this way:

But in a different sense perhaps W. C. Handy was the father of the blues, in that it was his 1914 composition “The St. Louis Blues” that brought together all of the features that today we associate with the blues in a single composition. In “The St. Louis Blues,” W. C. Handy brought together the twelve-bar form of the blues, a blue-note melody and lyrics using the AAB stanza form. “The St. Louis Blues” was perhaps not the first composition to do this (arguably this distinction belongs to “The Negro Blues” by Lasses White) but the enormous popularity of the “St. Louis Blues” has ensured that this is the standard blues form. In this sense that W. C. Handy can rightly claim to be the father of the “formal blues.”

Thanks to Vic Hobson for permission to quote (and paraphrase) from his dissertation. Dr. Hobson also referred me to his recent book, "Creating Jazz Counterpoint: New Orleans, Barbershop Harmony, and the Blues." I'll be checking that book out next.

To close this post, here's Jelly Roll Morton in 1938, playing "Mamie's Blues" as he remembered it from his early years in New Orleans, perhaps not long after 1900:

Combo Projects! "Thelonious Monk Fake Book," "Just Gershwin Real Book," "Charles Mingus - More Than a Fake Book"

I've been coaching a jazz combo class on Saturday mornings for longer than I can remember - at least 25 years. The personnel have stayed pretty constant. Every five years or so, a bass player will move away or something, but we have some great continuity. Two of our current members were also founding members (Ralph on trumpet, Bob on bari).

We've had a few long-term projects. The first was my "List of Shame," a list of tunes that no self-respecting adult jazz improviser should ever have to read again (e.g., Take the A Train, All of Me, etc.). That list turned into my list of 100 Must-Know Jazz Tunes. Currently, every Saturday I will call two of these tunes, with reading strongly discouraged.

A couple of years ago we took on another project: playing through every tune in the Thelonious Monk Fake Book. The "Monk Book" is a collection of 70 Monk tunes, published by Hal Leonard. At the rate of one or two tunes per Saturday, this took us some while. We eventually completed the project, and had a lot of fun doing it. We played some tunes better than others, but we did check them all out. "Brilliant Corners" and "Trinkle Tinkle" were particularly challenging, but we gave them our best effort.

I can recommend the Thelonious Monk Fake Book as a well-researched collection of most of Monk's compositions. Chord changes are clean and jazz-friendly.

With that project finished, we then took on the Just Gershwin Real Book (Alfred Publishing). This book has charts for over 100 George Gershwin compositions, including the great tunes we all know, as well as a very large number of lesser, obscure ones. At two tunes per week, we are about a week or two away from finishing that project.

I can recommend the Just Gershwin Real Book as an extensive collection that will give you a sense of Gershwin's writing and the nature of his output, with a few hidden gems that you may not have known, along with many that are not exactly George and Ira's ticket to everlasting glory. The chord changes are not always clearly stated - the editors seem to have followed the path of omitting the original piano arrangements, but nevertheless trying to replicate the piano arrangements with chord symbols. This quite often results in charts that are cluttered with extraneous and non-functional chords. We got a lot of practice in editing charts on the fly - figuring out which changes to disregard, while sight-reading. It's a great collection, but not completely jazz-friendly.

It looks like our next project will be Charles Mingus - More Than a Fake Book, a collection of 55 Mingus pieces. This is a great product. Transcriptions are excellent; former Mingus sidemen were involved in the project. Lots of informative notes and Mingus lore are included.

This should keep us busy through 2015.

The "I Got Rhythm" Bridge - Some Historical Notes

George Gershwin's "I Got Rhythm," published in 1930, has provided the harmonic structure for perhaps hundreds of other jazz tunes. The bridge has a kind of perfect simplicity - a chain of dominant chords that begins on the III dominant, each resolving into the next along the circle of fourths, two bars each, until we land on the V of the original key, setting up the return to the last "A" section.

In the tune's usual key of Bb, the chords to the bridge are:

||  D7  |  D7  |  G7  |  G7  |
|   C7  |  C7  |  F7   |  F7  ||

However, these are not the chords that we see in the "original" sheet music, or in charts that are modeled on the "original" changes. Below is the bridge in what I think was its original form (I've had this sheet lying around for quite a while; I copied it from a Gershwin collection). Click to enlarge.

The chord symbols, taken by themselves, leave a false impression. As shown, they are not functional, but rather just an attempt to represent the notes in the piano arrangement. If a guitar plays the symbols while a piano plays the arrangement, it will sound OK. However, if you follow only the chord symbols, the harmony will sound fragmented and discontinuous - unless you are so extraordinarily clever that you can recreate the piano arrangement from the symbols!

The real gist of the harmony is in the left hand bass notes, which indicate:

|  D7  |  D7  |  G7  |  G7  |
|  C7  |  C7  |  Gb7 |  F7  ||

The many additional chord symbols attempt to represent the mostly-chromatic inner voices in the right hand, particularly the line that starts by ascending from F# in the first bar of the bridge, in the chart above (lyrics: "Old Man Trouble...").

Here's a priceless clip of George Gershwin playing "I Got Rhythm" in 1931. You can clearly hear the chromatic line in the bridge, although he alters it a bit in the third and fourth bars, continuing the line upwards. In this clip, he plays the tune first in Db, goes briefly to D, and finishes in Gb.

I found a few more printed "lead sheet" versions that seem to have been derived from the sheet music, showing similar chord symbols for the bridge:

Tune-Dex fakebook (c. 1949):

|  D7  C  |  Ddim  D7  |  G  D+5  |  Dm  G7  |
|  C7  Bb  |  Cdim  C9  |  Gb7  |  C7 with Gb  ||

Dick Hyman's Professional Chord Changes and Substitutions for 100 Tunes Every Musician Should Know :

|  D7  Am7/E  |  Fdim  F#m7b5   |  G   D7+5  |  Dm7/G   G7  |
|  C7  Gm7/D  |  Ebdim  Em7b5   |   Gb7b5   |    F7   ||

Just Gershwin Real Book :

|  D7  C/E  |  Fdim   D7/F#   |  G7   F/A  |  Bbdim7   G7/B   |
|  C7  Bb/D  |  Ebdim  C/E  |   F7   |    F7   ||

For comparison, here is the progression from the "original" sheet music, above:

|  D7  Am7  |  Fm6  D7  |   G   D+  |  Dm  G7  |
|  C7  Gm7  |  Ebm6   C9   |  C7b5  |   F7    C7 F7  ||

All of these seem to be trying to suggest the chromatic inner voice leading in the original piano arrangement, or some similar line.

Jazz players don't generally pay much attention to this line when playing tunes based on "Rhythm changes." Typically, they'll either just follow the basic chain of dominants, or use that as a basis for an elaborated progression (a couple of examples are shown here).

The pared-down approach seems to have started pretty early. Here's a Red Nichols version from 1930:

There's some interesting material in this Wikipedia article, including the fact that "I Got Rhythm" was actually written in 1928, as a slow song for the musical "Treasure Girl," but was re-used two years later in a faster setting, for "Girl Crazy."

The basic harmonic pattern of the "Rhythm" bridge was used by George Gershwin for the bridges in several more of his songs (I found these in the Just Gershwin Real Book); the first two definitely predate "I Got Rhythm":

Hang On to Me (1924)
Sweet and Lowdown (1925)
Feeling I'm Falling (1928)
Boy! What Love Has Done to Me (1930)

But this bridge idea wasn't necessarily original with Gershwin. The same harmony occurs in the bridge of "Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue." That song was copyrighted in 1925, but according to Wikipedia, may have been composed in 1914.

Aside from the fact that the "chain of dominants" progression is about as old as European classical harmony, I have to wonder if there isn't an even earlier example in American popular song, operetta, or ragtime. Please let me know if you run across one. To qualify, it has to be an 8-bar bridge in a 32- or 34-bar form, starting on the III dominant, then moving around the circle of fourths, 2 bars per change.

399 Scales in 12 Keys, from Saxopedia.com

If you haven't seen it yet, you should check out this resource from Saxopedia.com: The "Scale Omnibus," a compendium of 399 distinct scales from worldwide sources, each one shown in 12 keys. It's a free download in .pdf format - a real public service!

I have a backlog of practice items that will take me more than a lifetime to work through. Still, I could see the potential for some excellent obsessive practicing projects, using this book.

There's a wealth of other great stuff on Saxopedia.com, including links to over 2,000 solo transcriptions for various instruments, and much more.