A friend (thanks, Carlos) just pointed me at a great "Deep Dive With Lewis Porter" article on the inspirations behind John Coltrane's composition "Impressions." Briefly put, Porter demonstrates that the melody of "Impressions" is a paraphrase of a section of Morton Gould's "Pavanne" (1938). The chord structure, of course, is borrowed from Miles Davis' "So What." For more detail on this, check out the Porter article. It's a great read, with plenty of sound clips. I'd heard about Coltrane's use of "Pavanne" before, but the following was news to me: In a follow-up article, Porter cites the source of the melody to Coltrane's "Big Nick": Francis Poulenc's "Impromptu #3." See Porter's article for recorded examples. In a comment below the second article, a reader points out that the source of the melody to the first half of "Giant Steps" was pretty definitely Harold Shapero's String Quartet (1941). Check the recording below! Shapero moves his theme through quite a few transpositions, including some chromatic third relations, though he doesn't follow "Coltrane changes."
The second half of "Giant Steps,” both chords and melody, is definitely borrowed from Nicholas Slonimsky. This is widely known (see this previous post for an image). It was a monumental achievement for Coltrane to combine the Shapero melody, Coltrane changes, and the Slonimsky example into a cohesive whole, not to mention working up the technique and applying the improvisational creativity necessary to perform it. While checking other sources for this post, I ran across an assertion that the intro to "So What," written by Gil Evans, is borrowed from Debussy's "Voiles." I hear Debussy, but I don't particularly hear that piece in the "So What" intro. I also read in several places that "So What" derives in some way from Ahmad Jamal's recording of Gould's "Pavanne" - I'd have to be convinced. However, it's a fact that the horn riff in James Brown's "Cold Sweat" was derived from "So What" - as stated by Alfred "Pee Wee" Ellis, who wrote the horn parts.
Update 3/28/21 - Regarding "So What," see the comments below. It seems pretty clear that Miles used the template of Ahmad Jamal's "New Rhumba" (not the Jamal "Pavanne" recording cited in Wikipedia), distilling it into the modal, ultra-cool piece that had so much to do with setting the mood of Miles' "Kind of Blue" album.
"Theft! A History of Music" is a monumental, very cool graphic-novel presentation of music history, changing music media, borrowing, and copyright law, created by James Boyle and Jennifer Jenkins, professors of law at Duke University. In 251 pages, it covers 2000+ years of music history, from Plato to rap.
You don't want to miss this.
Click here to view online, get a free download, or purchase a hard copy.
Here's a clip from the book's web page ("fair-use"!!):
To understand this history fully, one has to roam wider still—into musical technologies from notation to the sample deck, aesthetics, the incentive systems that got musicians paid, and law’s 250 year struggle to assimilate music, without destroying it in the process. Would jazz, soul or rock and roll be legal if they were reinvented today? We are not sure. Which as you will read, is profoundly worrying because today, more than ever, we need the arts.
See the video below for a lecture on the subject by co-author Jennifer Jenkins. I'd recommend that you read the comic book first, though.
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."
"Laura" is a brilliantly composed song by David Raksin, first presented as the theme of Otto Preminger's 1944 movie of the same name. The melody occurs throughout the film, but is never heard in full; the nearest it gets to a complete playing is in the opening credits, where it stops three measures short of its full 32 bars, leaving listeners with an unfinished song and a tense chord, as the movie's story begins.
"Laura" was published as sheet music in 1945, with lyrics by Johnny Mercer. No lyrics appear in the movie; they were added for the sheet music version, as was the unremarkable introductory "verse." Mercer's lyrics have pretty much nothing to do with the film's storyline, but they do create a mood, and certainly contributed to the song's popularity.
There's an excellent writeup of the tune's origins at JazzStandards.com, where it is rated number 35 on their list of the top 1000 standards.
"Laura" is one of the very few "Golden Age" jazz standards that ends in a different key (C major) than it begins (G major). The only other tunes I can think of that do that are "Unforgettable" and "Autumn Leaves" - and that one only if you count relative major (G) and relative minor (E minor) as being different keys.
A couple of weeks ago my wife and I watched "Laura" via Netflix streaming. As the title theme played, I noticed an unusual modulation halfway through the tune. I checked it out, and as it happens, this modulation allows the song to end in G (or rather, it would have, if the last three bars had been played). I could guess that Raksin might have originally set up the tune to end in the same key it started, but later changed his concept when preparing the sheet music.
Below is how the changes appear in the sheet music. This is a bare-bones version; I've omitted some superfluous chord symbols. Most modern fakebooks show similar changes, but with the Fdim7 replaced by Dm7b5 G7b9.
And here's an outline of the way the movie's opening credits presented the song. The melody starting in bar 17 matches the sheet music, but is pitched a fifth higher than in the sheet music, beginning with an F# in the melody, over the Em7 chord.
The sheet music version smoothes out the tune by beginning the second half in the same key as the first half, as one might normally expect in a commercial song. The modulation halfway through in the movie version worked in the soundtrack, but may have seemed a bit strange for a popular sheet music version, hence the revision. The trade-off was that by beginning the second half conventionally, in G, the tune would have to end in a key (C) different from the one it began in.
This is just speculation, of course, but it might be why "Laura" ends in a different key. Just a guess!
Here's Charlie Parker playing "Laura" with strings, recorded live. This arrangement employs a modulation, but not the same one heard in the movie.
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:
My recent post on the harmonic similarities of "Tangerine" and "Doce de Coco" got me thinking about other tunes that have that distinctive "Tangerine" feature of modulating briefly to the key a major third up, in measures 13-14 of a 32-bar form.
Here are some American "Golden Age" standards that do this:
The Touch of your Lips (Ray Noble, 1936 - OK, so he was English)
I Hadn't Anyone Till You (Ray Noble, 1938)
I'll Never Smile again (Ruth Lowe, 1940)
Tangerine (Victor Schertzinger, 1941)
How About You (Burton Lane, 1941)
I Love You (Cole Porter, 1944)
Suddenly It's Spring (Jimmy Van Heusen, 1943)
Addendum: Evelyne (Stephane Grappelli, late 1930s or early 1940s)
Brazilian tunes that do this:
Lamentos (Pixinguinha, 1928)
Doce de Coco (B section) (Jacob do Bandolim, 1951)
Noites Cariocas (B section) (Jacob do Bandolim, 1957)
Triste (Jobim, 1967)
I'd always identified that device with "Tangerine," but obviously there are antecedents.
Thanks to Tom Simpson for pointing out the Ray Noble songs. They came earlier, and use the 2-bar modulation in the same spot, bars 13-14. "The Touch of Your Lips" (1936) seems to be the earliest one we have. Thanks also to Keith Bernstein for mentioning Irving Berlin's "Always" (1928), which also uses that device, though not exactly in the same spot in the form.
The harmony to Porter's "I Love You" seems to be a blatant "Tangerine" appropriation from beginning to end, with only a few small differences, including putting in some half-diminished II chords to give it that Cole Porter-ish minorness.
Please leave a comment below if you have a tune to add to the list. I'm looking for a 2-bar modulation up a major third, in bars 13-14.
Of course, most harmonic patterns did not originate with the popular music composers of the early/mid 20th century. Somewhere in the works of Bach or Schubert or Scott Joplin, you can probably find a modulation to the key a major third up, in measures 13-14 of a 32-bar form. If you run across anything like that, let me know!
Charts for "Tangerine" and "Doce de Coco" can be found here.
Finally, here's Pixinguinha's choro "Lamentos," played by Jacob do Bandolim. Great stuff, and pretty advanced for 1928!
“Long-awaited” is the descriptive term that reviewers repeatedly attach to Stanley Crouch’s new biography of Charlie Parker, "Kansas City Lightning." Beginning in the early 1980s, Crouch taped interviews with a number of Parker’s early associates, including Bird’s first wife, Rebecca Ruffin; Jay McShann; Buster Smith; Gene Ramey; and many others. Finally, in 2013, Crouch organized this material, along with previously known Parker history, into "Kansas City Lightning," which covers Parker’s life until about 1940. A second volume is anticipated.
However, Crouch was not content to produce a simply factual biography.
The reader will be immediately struck by two aspects of this book that one would not normally expect from a biography: First, the writing style that Crouch chooses to employ is not just florid, but over-the-top florid, in a vernacular idiom, often in street talk. Secondly, the narration often veers away from biography, into tangential historical material (e.g., railroad history; Jack Johnson; Sherlock Holmes; Chicago gangsters; American music from minstrels to ragtime). It’s enough to make most reviewers wonder what the heck Crouch was trying to do.
Check out these excellent reviews. You can feel the effort the reviewers had to expend, to make sense of Crouch’s mode of narration:
Here’s my take: Crouch's digressions are obviously meant to put the biographical details into a comprehensive cultural/historical setting. The real significance of Parker’s life story is in the context of American culture. It goes in both directions: Understanding his world helps us to understand the development and significance of his art. At the same time, his art has taken its place in the ongoing development of our present cultural world.
Why the over-the-top florid writing style? I think the explanation is in an NPR interview that Crouch gave with Tavis Smiley:
Crouch: ...there always is a bittersweet version of an epic hero in mythology. Charlie Parker is as close to a super hero as someone can be because the way he could play was on a super hero level. But that didn’t mean that he was a perfect person because Odysseus, Achilles, all of these people, they’re very gifted, but they’re also very screwed up [laugh]...
The key here is Crouch’s analogy of Achilles and Odysseus to Charlie Parker. Today we see Charlie Parker as a nearly mythical figure - a “super hero.” The interviews that Crouch collected are as "factual" as reminiscences could be, fifty years later. Crouch, while presenting this "factual" material (OK, he does seem to invent some dialog, and often presumes to describe Charlie’s thoughts), sets himself up as an epic bard (like Homer, or maybe a Kansas City old-timer), and chooses his narrative voice appropriately. I’m sure Crouch knew that this would annoy some readers and reviewers, but if you look at this book as a long yarn spun by a colorful storyteller, it makes a very entertaining read.
As far as nut-and-bolts musical analysis goes, this book doesn’t have a lot. Musicians will find better specific information in the biographies by Lawrence Koch (Yardbird Suite) and Carl Woideck (Charlie Parker: His Music and Life). Crouch does include some nicely written descriptions of the creative process in jazz, that are accessible to the average reader. As well, he explains the influences of Lester Young, Buster Smith, and Chu Berry on Parker’s style in layman's terms.
Although Stanley Crouch is a musician (drummer) as well as a writer, he does not always nail it, when it comes to the saxophone. I can say this, because I’m a sax player. For example,
“[Charlie] had long since mastered the physical challenges of playing - the pain of the lips, the tongue, and the teeth; the fatigue of the fingers, and the limitations of the lungs...”
As someone who has been playing for over 50 years, and taught many hundreds of students, I can assure you that this passage is more than a little overstated. But of course, it’s really just Crouch’s chosen prose style. There were a few other questionable saxophone-related statements that perhaps should have been fact-checked - but these are minor quibbles.
This book is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand how Charlie Parker went from being a clueless kid to becoming the brilliant creator of a musical style that is still fundamental to jazz. It’s quite informative, written from a unique perspective, and a lot of fun, if you are willing to accept Stanley Crouch on his own terms. Link: Stanley Crouch bio on Wikipedia
Some years ago, I think in the late 1980s, one of my students (Eric, an eighth grader), said, "My grandpa's been fixing up an old clarinet. Do you want to see it?" I said, "Sure, bring it in next week." I was expecting a junker, or maybe an Albert system clarinet from the early 1900s, or...whatever.
At his next lesson, Eric brought in a cardboard mailing tube, and pulled out an instrument that looked like a recorder (German blockflöte or English fipple flute) but had a few keys, and a clarinet mouthpiece. It was a clarinet, but obviously a very early one. Grandpa (Doug) had filled a hairline crack, replaced the string windings that this instrument had instead of tenon corks, and replaced the pads. He had used felt for the pads, probably because the original leather ones were so deteriorated that they looked like felt to him.
The clarinet had 6 keys. I recall them this way: a register key, an A key, a RH little finger Ab/Eb key, and LH little finger keys for E/B and F#/C#. These keys had a flat, square area to hold the pad. A sixth key for LH C#/G#, differently shaped with a round area for the pad, had apparently been added later. The mouthpiece was ebony, with grooves to hold the string that was used in those days instead of a ligature. The mouthpiece tip, unfortunately, was broken. The clarinet was made of boxwood. It had a stamp on it that had a not-quite-legible maker's name, and "Paris."
I talked with Doug. He said that the instrument had been in his family at least since he was a kid (probably in the 1920s), disassembled, in bad shape, in a cigar box. His parents would say, "Now don't throw that away - that's a clarinet!" Doug kept it, and finally one day when he was much older, he decided that it was time to fix up that old clarinet. He was a fix-it kind of guy. So he did what seemed right, then sent it in with Eric.
I asked around, and found an early-music expert at Stanford who told me that 5-key clarinets were standard from around the 1750s until as late as the 1820s, and that the 6th key was often added to 5-key instruments in the early 1800s. I wondered how long that clarinet had been in Doug's family, and how it made its way to California (I never found out). The Stanford guy sent over a piece of leather that would be the appropriate material for pads. Doug used it to replace the felt pads. Then he bought a little block of ebony, and carved a new mouthpiece. It looked right, but of course it's a fine art to make a mouthpiece, and it didn't play. So he went to the next solution - he turned a new barrel on his lathe, with a diameter on one end to fit the clarinet, and a diameter on the other end to fit a modern mouthpiece. Now it was playable.
It seemed to play in the key of C (although in the 18th and 19th centuries, tuning standards varied wildly - see this Wikipedia article). Doug loaned me the instrument for six months. There was just one condition: I would learn to play it, and record something for him to listen to. What a privilege! I found a fingering chart somewhere, and eventually recorded him a couple of simple Handel pieces. The clarinet had a nice sound, but without the volume or projection of a modern instrument. Fingerings were of course not quite the same as a modern clarinet. Above high C, though, Boehm fingerings seemed to work. One problematic note was second-space Ab. The best I could find for that was to press only the register key - pretty stuffy, and out of tune. This instrument gave me an appreciation for what it took to play those Mozart and Stamitz pieces, in the era that they were written.
If Eric is out there somewhere and happens to read this, please leave me a comment!
For some pictures of early clarinets, and current prices on antique instruments, here's one place to browse. The 14th and 20th ones down from the top of the page (#4611 and #4580) resemble the one described here.
The other day I had a few minutes between lessons, and randomly opened up the Hal Leonard "Real Book" Vol. 5 (reviewed here), to a tune called "I'm a Ding Dong Daddy From Dumas." Remembering the song title from an R. Crumb cartoon, I looked at the tune a little closer, and had a flash of recognition: the chord progression is basically the same as Sonny Rollins' "Doxy." I'd always heard that "Doxy" was written on the chords to "Ja-Da" (1918), but the bridge of "Doxy" fits the "Ding Dong Daddy" bridge a lot better. Of course, that led to some clicking around.
According to Wikipedia, "'Doxy' was written by Sonny Rollins during his stopover in England on a European tour. Its name is given after a bread-spread that the band was eating in the hotel." Here's the first recording of "Doxy," with Sonny and Miles (1954):
Although it wasn't the first recording of "I'm a Ding Dong Daddy From Dumas," one of the best is by Louis Armstrong (1930):
Here's another 1930 recording by Slatz Randall, posted as a 2-song medley (both sides of the record), with "Daddy" preceded by a tune called "Skirts," which has the same chordal template. You'll notice that Slatz's version of "Ding Dong Daddy" includes a lead-in section, sort of like the "verse" in many "Golden Age" standards:
In Louis' version, note the "Salt Peanuts" riff at the end of the trumpet solo - the first recorded use of this riff. Dizzy expanded it by two bars and used it in "Little John Special," a blues that he recorded with Lucky Millinder (1942):
In 1943 Dizzy re-framed the riff over (more or less) Rhythm changes, as the bop classic "Salt Peanuts."
But to get back to Louis - Here is a really great writeup by Armstrong expert Ricky Riccardi, with a wealth of interesting details about the song, Louis, Dumas (Texas), and much more.
In this article, the author mentions "How Come You Do Me Like You Do" (1924) as the source of the "Doxy" changes. Maybe. It's closer than "Ja-Da," but the bridge to "How Come" is still a bit different, ending on the tonic chord. I think "Ding Dong Daddy" is still a better fit. Or maybe "Skirts." Maybe all of them. You be the judge!
The other day, Patricia was listening to Puccini's "Tosca," and noticed how much this piece ("Ah, quegli occhi!") sounded like Charlie Chaplin's "Smile." Check it out for yourself. Here's Placido Domingo singing Puccini, and Nat King Cole singing Chaplin:
There's that old saying: "If you're going to steal, steal from the best."
And here's the Wikipedia entry for "Smile," with lots of interesting info. For example, although the melody is from the music to Chaplin's movie "Modern Times" (1936), Nat Cole was the first to record "Smile" as a song (1954). There's nothing in this article as yet about "Ah, quegli occhi!"
But now check out this one - Joao Bosco's "O Bebado e o Equilibrista" ("The Drunk and the Tightrope Walker"). It's a tribute to Chaplin, and a poetic commentary on the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil at the time it was written. Bosco uses "Smile" as the intro to "O Bebado," then reworks it into a great samba (I also pick up a bit of "La Vie en Rose" and "Aquarela do Brasil" in there):
After reading more about "change-ringing," I think I have a clearer idea what was on that list of bell patterns that Price wrote out in 1931. For reference, here's the document again:
First, here is a beautifully concise definition of "change ringing" from the North American Guild of Change Ringers:
Change Ringing is a team sport, a highly coordinated musical performance, an antique art, and a demanding exercise that involves a group of people ringing rhythmically a set of tuned bells through a series of changing sequences that are determined by mathematical principles and executed according to learned patterns.
The Guild's website has a very nice presentation of the mathematical aspect of this art. As generally practiced, it has to do with ringing extensive permutations of a set of bells (the set is called a "ring of bells"). The resulting extended sequence in the "peal" (performance) is not random, but intricately patterned, according to an exact method.
The rhythm of the bells will be unvarying. The interval sequences will not be at all chosen for musicality, but will occur however is dictated by the permutation method. Thus, the musical content is quite randomized.
This sounds like a composition method that might have appealed (pun not intended) to John Cage, doesn't it? Cage did, in fact, compose a randomized piece called Music of Changes (1951). The title is in reference to the I Ching ("Book of Changes"), but I have to wonder...
Anyway, back to Percival Price. The sheet he wrote out is titled "Musically Interesting Changes for Ten Bells." This is a reference to the fact that most "changes" in change-ringing are perhaps not so musically interesting. Price lists eight patterns, each of which has a distinct "musical" interval sequence, with performance instructions in the margins.
These patterns come under the heading of "Named Changes" (aka "Called Changes," or "Call changes"), and are generally well-known in the world of bell-ringing. See this Wikipedia explanation. Call changes tend to have amusing and very British names - see this list.
I don't think that Price's document implies the traditional playing of permutations, at all.
Rather, this seems to be a sort of composition by Price, built out of "Named Changes" selected for their musicality, and put into a meaningful order. He includes specific instructions for the performers (obviously, the performers would be a "ring" of ten bells): In the margin, "Play each change twice." Below the changes, "Conclude with Queens and Rounds." At the bottom of the sheet, "N.B. Let strokes average 200 to 100 per minute, according to size of bells."
As the piece would begin with Rounds and Queens, it would finish symmetrically with Queens and Rounds. Altogether there would be 10 "changes," each played twice, or 20 sequences of 10 notes each. There would be a 1-stroke rest between each sequence, I believe, making 220 strokes total including the rests. At 200 to 100 per minute, that's a playing time of just over 1 minute at minimum, to just over 2 minutes maximum. That seems like some pretty furious bell-ringing!
I found this document at a sheet music sale, when a local community music school was clearing out unwanted material. Perhaps it had been donated by a retired local musician, or perhaps by a family clearing up an estate. It's titled "Musically Interesting Changes for Ten Bells," and signed "Percival Price, Peace Tower Ottawa, 2/July/31" (that's 82 years ago, tomorrow!).
Percival Price is legendary in the world of carillon players (carillonneurs). This document turned out to be a snapshot of a small but interesting corner of music history.
In case you don't know what a carillon is, here is Wikipedia:
...a musical instrument that is typically housed in the bell tower (belfry) of a church or other municipal building. The instrument consists of at least 23 cast bronze, cup-shaped bells, which are serially played to produce a melody, or sounded together to play a chord. A traditional manual carillon is played by striking a keyboard — the stick-like keys of which are sometimes called batons — with the fists, and by pressing the keys of a pedal keyboard with the feet.
Since these "changes" are for just 10 bells, it's not carillon music, but rather "change-ringing," to be performed by 10 ringers, one for each bell (see the last video, below). Some pretty extensive information on change-ringing can be found in this Wikipedia article.
The Ottawa Peace Tower carillon was inaugurated on July 1, 1927 by Price, who had consulted on its design. Price was in charge of the Peace Tower carillon from 1927-1939. Here's Wikipedia on the Peace Tower carillon:
Accompanying the Peace Tower clock is a 53-bell carillon, conceived by an act of parliament as a commemoration of the 1918 armistice that ended World War I, and was inaugurated on 1 July 1927, to mark the 60th anniversary of Confederation. The bells weigh from 4.5 kg to the 10,160 kg (10 lbs to 23,399 lbs) bourdon, all cast and tuned by Gillett & Johnston in Croydon, England, and which are used by the Dominion Carillonneur for both regular recitals and to toll to mark major occasions such as state funerals and Remembrance Day. Each bell is stationary and is struck by its internal clapper, itself mechanically linked to the carillon keyboard, to create a note, a particular one on the music scale for each bell. In this way, the carillon plays similarly to a piano, allowing the carillonneur to change the sounds by varying the way he or she strikes the keys.
The date in the upper right corner is June 30, 1931; the date below Price's signature in July 2.
How do you suppose this piece of paper came to be in Mountain View, California, 82 years later?
How about this scenario: In 1931 a young musician with an interest in the carillon, and perhaps who was a bell-ringer in a church with 10 bells, makes a pilgrimage to Ottawa for some lessons with Price. They have a nice visit over a few days; Price writes out the sheet on June 30. The student sticks around for the festivities on July 1 (Canada Day - "Canada's birthday"). Undoubtedly, Price would have played a carillon concert. The next day, before the student leaves, he/she asks Price to autograph the sheet. Many years pass; the musician ends up in the Bay Area. He/she passes away, and the family donates his/her sheet music to the community music school. It gets culled out for the sale, because the person doing the sorting doesn't think it's worth keeping. I look at it, find it somewhat interesting, and buy it, along with a pile of other music. It sits in a stack of music for some years, until I finally take a closer look.
, 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:
