Post 149: 'MEET ME BY THE ICEHOUSE, LIZZIE'

Friend Ralph was playing at a jazz gig when someone in the audience requested Meet Me by the Ice House, Lizzie. Unfortunately the band could not oblige as they didn't know this song.

Ralph later did his homework and then told me I might find this number enjoyable if I looked for it on You Tube.

It turned out that Meet Me by the Ice House, Lizzie was made famous in the 1930s by the Hoosier Hotshots. The Hoosier Hotshots (based in America) seem to have combined vaudeville with very good musicianship (including some unusual home-made musical instruments) to produce comic song  recordings that were popular through the middle of the Twentieth Century.

According to one source, Meet Me By the Ice House, Lizzie was composed in 1935 by someone called Cletus M. Wickens.

So I listened to the song performed on YouTube by the Hoosier Hotshots and I had to agree it was a very attractive, amusing number, and well suited to traditional jazz. This is mainly because it has a simple 32-bar structure (16 + 16 [no Middle Eight]), with an elementary chord sequence. Its words are of course comical, so adding a vocal - if your band has a willing singer - would be fun too.

I tried to work it out by ear and came up with the following lead sheet for Meet Me by the Ice House, Lizzie. On the recording, The Hoosiers perform it in the unusual Key of D; but I have put it into F, as this is more comfortable for me on the cornet.

Post 148: V - I - V - I THE SWEET SUE CHORD PROGRESSION

Among the many chord progressions at the opening of famous tunes is the one known to traditional jazz musicians as the SWEET SUE PROGRESSION.

It begins on the Dominant 7th, with the Tonic as the next chord. (Often this pattern is then repeated before further developments.) To put it simply, if you’re in the key of C, you begin these tunes on G7th (usually two bars) and then move on to C. 

This progression is very useful when composers fancy bouncing back and forth between the dominant and the tonic. It is simple and therefore popular with improvisers.

Examples:

Absolutely Positively
April Showers 

Auf Wiedersehen 

Avalon 

Black Bottom Stomp [final strain] 

Blue Chime Stomp [2nd theme]
Dallas Rag
Do What Ory Say 

Gatemouth
His Eye Is On The Sparrow 

I'm Blue and Lonesome, Nobody Cares for Me
I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate 

Jealous 

Louisiana
Martinique
Miss Annabelle Lee 

My Life Will Be Sweeter Some Day
Pretty Baby 

Say Si Si 

So Do I 

South [second strain] 

Sweet Sue 

That’s A Plenty [final strain] 

Up Jumped the Devil
Way Down Yonder In New Orleans 

Willy The Weeper [second strain] 

Winin’ Boy Blues 

It is also the basis of several tunes known as 'Stomps'.

Poast 147: PEANUT BUTTER MAKES GIGS POSSIBLE

Is playing traditional jazz hard work?

It depends what you mean by 'hard work'. Sometimes it doesn't feel like work at all. If you have a really good gig, where everything gels and both the band and the audience have a great time, you end up on a high.

But there IS a lot of hard work, both at the gigs and before them. The work involves mastering and storing a lot of music and related information inside your head and also keeping the relevant muscles in shape (fingers, lips, whatever). This becomes increasingly difficult as we age. Obviously a lot of practice is important.

Haven't you noticed too that you can feel very tired after a long gig? That's when you know hard work has been involved.

Peter Jenns

And don't you find that long gigs leave you feeling very hungry? They drain your resources. My old tuba-playing buddy Peter Jenns (who died in August 2006) always used to say he was starving after a gig and, no matter how late he arrived home, he always had a couple of toasted peanut-butter sandwiches before he went to bed!

Post 146: THE HARMONIC IMPACT OFTHE FIRST NOTE

I wanted to find out on what chord most popular songs start, and what effect this chord has.

I carried out an unscientific survey. But I believe my general conclusions are about right.

I selected at random 60 songs that have stood the test of time - tunes such as Tea for Two and I Can't Give You Anything But Love and It Had To Be You. I then noted the chord with which they start. I am referring to the first chord of the first bar of the Chorus (i.e., omitting any anacrusis).

Five of the tunes turned out to be in minor keys. That's just 8% of the total. These tunes certainly had a 'minor' feel but this did not necessarily make them sad.

I am going to give my attention to the other 92% - those in major keys.

Of these, no fewer than 50 tunes (that's a whopping 83% of all the tunes I looked at) started on the major chord of the tune's key. A tune in the key of F, for example, would start on the chord of F major.

I found the effect of this is to establish firmly and clearly where we are: there's no attempt at subtlety.

Of these 50 tunes, I categorised 38 as bright and cheerful in character, which means about 63% of all popular tunes are likely to be bright, cheerful, un-challenging and starting on the major chord of the home key.

The figure is about what I would have expected; and probably you would too.

But this leaves twelve tunes (20% of all I studied) that begin on the major chord of the home key but are more subtle and complex, perhaps with elements of sadness, nostalgia or melancholy. These include such tunes as I'm In The Mood For Love, Smoke Gets In Your Eyes and I'm Getting Sentimental Over You. If you look at the inner workings of these tunes you find minor chords, diminished chords and other surprises (such as a 7th based on the flattened third note of the scale in I'm In The Mood For Love). These chords make the tunes harder to learn but they also give the songs their distinctive colours and make them linger in our minds, it seems to me.

The only tunes from my original 60 not yet mentioned are five in major keys that do not start on the chord of the major key, so that's just 8% of the total. Four of these are 'bright' tunes, the other one less so. These tunes do not seem to lose any impact as a result of not starting on the key chord. Usually they begin on the Dominant 7th, and very quickly inform our ear of the key we are in. An example is (The Bells Are Ringing) For Me And My Girl.

To sum up my main findings:

83% of popular songs are in major keys and begin on the major chord of the home key.

8% of popular songs are in minor keys.

(Note: all percentages are rounded to the nearest whole number.)

Post 145: PAPA OSCAR CELESTIN'S 'TUXEDO RAG'

My effort to produce a lead sheet for Tuxedo Rag (by ear) resulted in this.

I do not know how accurately my effort represents the tune as played by trad jazz bands.

I think the tune is associated with and probably composed by the bandleader 'Papa' Oscar Celestin and dates from about 1923. Celestin was born in 1884 and moved to New Orleans, where he ran the band at the Tuxedo Dance Hall. Even after the dance hall closed, he continued to call his band the 'Tuxedo' Jazz Band.

Post 144: LANGSTON CURL AND 'TIGHT LIKE THIS'

Ever heard of Langston Wesley Curl? Probably not.

But he was a useful musician in the mid-Twentieth Century. Curl, who was born in Virginia in 1899, became a fine trumpet-player in New York and Detroit and appeared on many records - notably those made by McKinney's Cotton Pickers.

But he withdrew eventually from the music scene, switched to a different career, and lived to the age of 92.

He was also a composer. And I'm particularly interested in his simple but very effective 16-bar tune called 'Tight Like This', which uses catchy repeated minor-key arpeggios. Even Louis Armstrong liked and recorded this one.

But I was first attracted to the tune when I heard Tuba Skinny playing it.

You can hear them doing so BY CLICKING HERE.

Or you can watch them in a more recent performance BY CLICKING HERE.

Post 143: RECORDING JAZZ IN THE EARLY DAYS

What a performance it was, recording music in the early days - round about 1920, for example.

The sound had to be picked up through a funnel (centre of picture above) and - to achieve some kind of balance - the musicians had to be disposed at various distances from it. The vocalist, if any, would sing straight into the funnel.

On  a related subject, here's a video you may find interesting. It shows Andy Schumm and fellow musicians, with the recording expertise of Shawn Borri, in 2012 recreating the wax cylinder recording techniques of about 100 years earlier.

Click here.

To hear the amazing end product in full,

Click here.

Post 142: A HAUNTING MELODY - 'LAURA' AND DAVID RASKIN

Some tunes are described as ‘haunting melodies’; and I have been wondering what gives a tune a ‘haunting’ quality.

I think the answer is that is has to be the kind of tune that defies expectations and yet – after being heard a few times – implants itself in our minds.

A prime example of a haunting tune is Laura, composed by David Raskin in 1945.

For ease of discussion, let’s consider it in the key of C. The first thing we notice is that the opening bar involves the extremely unlikely combination of A, B and C. (A minor the harmony, B the note being played, C the key [and the chord we might normally expect]).

Having started in that weird way, the tune continues in the same vein. In its 32 bars, it gets through an astonishing range of chords. No matter how simple the version of chords you try to use, you are unlikely to get away without using at least Am7 (sometimes with flattened 5th), D7, G, Gdim, Gm7, C7, F7, Fdim, Fm7 (sometimes with flattened 5th), Bb7, Eb major 7, Eb7, Em7, Bm, E7, G7, and C (C - the home chord - surprisingly being used only with the final note).

How’s that for a tune of 32 bars? Can you think of any other popular song with such changes? No wonder the tune is VERY rarely attempted: it’s too difficult! It is almost as if Raskin set himself the task of writing a tune that used pretty well every possible chord in the chromatic scale.

Strangely, though, you find the chord changes – as you work through each sixteen bars – are based subtly on the familiar circle of 5ths – starting with A (in the form of minor 7th rather than usual 7th).

What makes it sound so ‘haunting’ is that the chords are not the conventional 7ths. Minors, diminisheds and major 7ths are preferred to normal 7ths and the melody note often adds a 9th to the chord, as indeed on the very first note.

Also, the second half copies the first only for 8 bars and then – although keeping the rhythmic pattern of the first sixteen bars, introduces a slightly different upward arpeggio and harmony.

FIRST SIXTEEN ENDING:

SECOND SIXTEEN ENDING:

You will not be surprised to hear that Raskin (who died in 2004) was a classically-trained composer. The son of an orchestral conductor, he studied composition at the University of Pennsylvania and later was tutored by Arnold Schoenberg. Raskin wrote over 100 film scores. Laura was based on the theme for the 1944 film of the same name. Lyrics for it were provided by the great Johnny Mercer.

Post 141: 'MOONGLOW' - A TEASINGLY BEAUTIFUL TUNE

At the request of a member of a little band in which I sometimes play, I added Moonglow to my repertoire.

This catchy tune was written in 1934 by Hudson, Delange and Mills.

As ever, I used a Mini Filofax page. I wrote it out in the Key of G. I kept the chord structure simple, though I am aware that more subtle changes would have been possible.

What strikes me about this tune is the way it cleverly teases the listener and thus achieves its striking effects. For example, the first bar of melody sounds like an anacrusis but in fact it really is the first bar proper. Also, the first two bars are based on the chords of C major and C minor respectively, even though the tune is actually in G.

In its principal 8-bar melody, Moonglow uses a simple two-bar theme three times. You could hardly devise anything less complex. But look at the changing harmonies and you find the first B natural is harmonised against C minor, the next one against A major (making in effect A9th) and the third B natural is played against a D major (making in effect a D6th). The final two bars of the eight (all on the melody note of G - again seemingly very simple) are played over the beautifully shifting harmonies of G, G diminished, A minor 7th and G again. What a super effect that achieves.

And what about the Middle Eight? They start with a G7. Fair enough. Surely that will lead smoothly into C major?

Oh no it doesn't. We descend exquisitely through F#7th and F7th to E7th! And the next four bars go (as we might expect) from A7th to D7th - but there is yet another surprise: we slide through C major 7th on the way!

Mastering this tune with the band should not be difficult. There are only 16 bars essentially to learn, even though you have to play 32. I'm already thinking of the pleasure those teasingly beautiful harmonic games will give.