Victoria Spivey composed How Do They Do It That Way? in 1927 and recorded it with Red Allen's Orchestra in 1929. It's a catchy and lively song. You can hear Victoria singing it BY CLICKING HERE.
Interesting points to note are:
1. It has a very good 16-bar Verse that no band should omit.
2. The Chorus (32-bar a-a-b-a) has a very simple chord structure that we also find in other tunes, notably Ice Cream. So improvising on it is very easy.
In Victoria's original recording, Red Allen's musicians played the song right through in the key of Eb. Then - for Victoria's vocal - they switched to Bb. Immediately after this they returned to Eb for an exciting chorus (trumpet against stop chords).
When Tuba Skinny took up this tune, with Erika Lewis as vocalist, they followed precisely this pattern set by the 1929 recording, complete with the key changes. You can hear an example of their performance BY CLICKING HERE.
