Here's the original sheet music for the first published "blues" tune - that is, the first published music that 1) had "blues" in the title, and 2) used what we now call a 12-bar blues progression, and 3) had blue notes (i.e, b3) in the melody. I found it online at the Tulane University library.
Some things to note:
many b3-to-3 blue note licks in the melody
G7 chord (V of IV) in bar 4 of the first repeated section - this became a basic feature of blues
C#dim7 chord (#IVdim7) in bar 6 - this too became a standard harmonic feature in many later blues
rhythmically and structurally a rag, but with a 12-bar blues progression in the first section, and a 12-bar "minor blues" in the second section
Here's a nice, straight reading of the sheet music by Marco Fumo:
In his book Creating Jazz Counterpoint, Vic Hobson quotes a 1955 article by the composer, Anthony Maggio, a "classically trained musician of Sicilian descent." Maggio writes about how he came to write the tune, in 1907:
I took the ferry boat from New Orleans across the Mississippi to Algiers. On my way up the levee, I heard an elderly negro with a guitar playing three notes for a long time. I didn't think anything with only three notes could have a title so to satisfy my curiosity I asked him what was the name of the piece. He replied, "I got the blues."
Hobson comments, "...why the elderly guitarist on the levee in Algiers chose to call the tune "I Got the Blues," we are not told. It may have been just a reference to his own state of mind, or it may have related in some way to "I've Got De Blues" (1901), the first major hit for the African American vaudeville entertainers Chris Smith and Elmer Bowman." [Smith and Bowman's tune, however, was not what we would call a blues.]
Maggio continues,
I went home. Having this on my mind, I wrote "I Got the Blues," making the three notes dominating most of the time. That same night, our five-piece orchestra played at the Fabaker Restaurant (in New Orleans) "I Got the Blues" which was composed with the purpose of a musical caricature, and to my astonishment became our most popular request number.
During this time people asked me for copies, but I had only my manuscript. I had no intention of publishing it because my interest in music was entirely classical. However, the people's demand by now was so overwhelming that our first violinist, Barzin (later to play first violin with Toscanini, at the Met) persisted until I finally consented to publish 1000 copies for piano, 500 for band and 500 for orchestra...This took place in 1908. The copies were sold in a very short time. I wasn't interested in another edition for the reason already explained.
The chord progression was not original with Maggio; similar 12-bar harmonic sequences had been used before in "Just Because She Made Them Goo-Goo Eyes," a 1900 hit tune by Hughie Cannon, and also in other tunes by Cannon. Similar 12-bar progressions had been used even earlier in the folk tunes "Stagolee," "Frankie and Johnny," and "The Ballad of the Boll Weevil."
The early history of blues is hazy; it's not clear if 12-bar tunes specifically called "blues" were being played in New Orleans or in rural areas previous to this. Certainly the 12-bar sequence was being played, and certainly blue notes (b3, b7) were a common feature of Southern popular music. "I Got the Blues" represents the first time that these elements came together in published form, under the title "blues."
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:
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."
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.
Long Lost Blues
is a state-of-the-art history and analysis of early published and recorded blues, with an emphasis on blues published in sheet music form between 1912 and 1920. Muir presents a detailed, well-researched historical account and, for musicians, some perceptive musical analysis.
The book includes 98 musical examples; sound files for all of them can be listened to on the author's website.
For those who feel that “folk blues" is somehow more “authentic” than the published blues influenced by Tin Pan Alley, Muir makes the point that composers of early published blues often drew heavily from folk sources. In the absence of any sort of recorded documentation of early folk blues, and very little early field research, sheet music compositions can provide useful information on the early development of the “blues” genre. And in any case, published blues is an interesting genre in its own right, that strongly influenced the subsequent development of American music.
Chapter 1: The Popular Blues Industry - Details the early development of the popular blues industry (“popular blues” is here defined as music that was titled and commercially presented as “blues”), beginning seriously around 1912, and gathering momentum in subsequent years. By the end of 1920, 456 “blues” compositions had been published. Presentation to the public took the form of sheet music and recordings, as well as performances in musicals, minstrel shows, and vaudeville.
Chapter 2: The Identity and Idiom of Early Popular Blues - Early blues songs were influenced to a greater or lesser degree by the “genes” of folk blues and Tin Pan Alley; instrumental compositions generally showed some ragtime influence. The author lists and explains five categories of vocal blues: Relationship Blues (the most common), Nostalgia Blues, Prohibition Blues, War Blues, and Reflexive Blues.
The relation of blues to the “fox trot” dance craze and to swing beat is explored. Five “distinctive components of the blues idiom” are listed and discussed: the 12-bar sequence, blue notes, the “barbershop ending,” the “four-note chromatic motif,” and the inclusion of the phrase “I’ve got the blues” or a variant.
Chapter 3: Curing the Blues with the Blues - This chapter is an investigation of the historical use of the word “blues,” particularly in regard to music, and the idea that blues (and other types of music) can be therapeutic. “Neurasthenia” was a fashionable disease in late 19th-century America. It was thought to be a sort of nervous exhaustion cause by the stress of modern civilized life, and was commonly called “the blues.” 19th century sheet music songs were presented as “a cure for the blues,” long before the appearance of the 12-bar blues form. The early 20th-century 12-bar blues tunes were generally thought of the same way.
The author proposes the terms “homeopathic” for slower blues with mournful themes (treating the player’s and listener’s “distressed state of mind with distressed music”), and “allopathic” for faster, more cheerful tunes (treating “a depressed mood with lively music”). By this measure, much folk blues is homeopathic, while the popular blues discussed in this book is generally more allopathic. Many specific examples are discussed.
Chapter 4: The Blues of W. C. Handy - Muir discusses Handy’s 26 blues tunes from both a historical and an analytical perspective, focusing particularly on those written between 1909 and 1917.
Handy was probably the most prominent figure in the world of early popular blues, influential enough to deserve a chapter devoted to his compositions. His “Memphis Blues” (1912) was what we might call a “breakout hit.” In Muir’s words, “it was this work more than any other that introduced the genre of blues to mainstream popular music.” Handy’s “St. Louis Blues” (1914), though initially slower to catch on, did much to codify the elements of what we know as “blues” today.
Chapter 5: The Creativity of Early Southern Published Blues - Southern published blues were “geographically and culturally closer to the folk sources of blues.” Muir examines the melodic and harmonic makeup of several of the earliest published southern blues in some detail: “Baby Seals Blues” (1912), “Dallas Blues” (1912), and “1913 Medley Blues” (1912). A number of other southern blues up to 1920 are also discussed; sections of this chapter also cover the blues compositions of Euday L. Bowman, George W. Thomas, and Perry Bradford.
Chapter 6: Published Proto-Blues and the Evolution of the Twelve-Bar Sequence - This chapter in particular spoke to my own personal interests, and began to answer a difficult question: How did blues evolve?
To a modern musician, “blues” is not defined as simply as “any tune that calls itself a blues.” I think of a blues as a song with a particular 12-bar chord sequence (or variation thereof), blue notes, perhaps AAB lyrics, and as being recognizably part of what has become a deep, century-long tradition. So - where did that chord sequence come from?
This last chapter includes sections on:
“Development of the Blues Song” - Discusses the history of American songs dealing with the word “blues,” and how the term came to describe an African American genre.
“The Evolution of the Twelve-Bar Blues Sequence” - The 12-bar chord pattern may derive from any or all of these: “The Bully Song” (pre-1894), “The Ballad of the Boll Weevil” (c. 1892?), “Stagolee” (c. 1895?), “Frankie and Johnny” (c. 1899?) and a number of popular songs by Hughie Cannon with harmonic schemes that are “Frankie and Johnny” - related, including the very popular “Just Because She Made Them Goo-Goo Eyes” (1900). Muir offers his opinion on how these songs may have evolved into the sequence we recognize as “blues.” There may not be any final answers here, but there is a lot of great information, and some well-considered speculation.
I enjoyed this book immensely, and recommend it to anyone interested in looking into the origins of blues. You can order it from Amazon; here's the link.
After reading this book and a few others about early blues (see this review), I’ve refined my view of early blues a bit. As a musician who has played many sorts of blues over the years, I have some thoughts to share about blues changes, blue notes, and blues scales - but I’ll save that for another post.
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.
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:
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.”
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:
, Vic Hobson quotes a 1955 article by the composer, Anthony Maggio, a "classically trained musician of Sicilian descent." Maggio writes about how he came to write the tune, in 1907:
