In order to learn tunes to play on my cornet and keyboard, I like first to try to establish the dots and chords for storage in my mini-filofaxes. Here's what I came up with for 'Moose March'.
You will note that it has two themes - the main 32-bar melody and the 'fanfare' interlude. This is how jazz bands can still occasionally be heard playing it.
What I did not discover until very recently is that this traditional jazz 'standard' is in fact taken from a quite long and complex good old-fashioned brass band march, called The Moose. It was composed in 1909 by Mr. P. Hans Flath (about whom I know nothing). It has a 4-Bar Introduction, followed by a first Theme of 32 bars. Then comes another Theme, also of 32 bars. Next there is a four-bar link (the start of 'The Trio' - see below) leading to a change of key from Eb to Ab and ONLY THEN comes the 32-bar Theme and 16-bar Fanfare Interlude as played by the jazz bands. So the truth is that when we play Moose March we are really using only 48 bars of a much longer composition. That's the kind of thing that happened in the early days of jazz repertoire creation.
What I did not discover until very recently is that this traditional jazz 'standard' is in fact taken from a quite long and complex good old-fashioned brass band march, called The Moose. It was composed in 1909 by Mr. P. Hans Flath (about whom I know nothing). It has a 4-Bar Introduction, followed by a first Theme of 32 bars. Then comes another Theme, also of 32 bars. Next there is a four-bar link (the start of 'The Trio' - see below) leading to a change of key from Eb to Ab and ONLY THEN comes the 32-bar Theme and 16-bar Fanfare Interlude as played by the jazz bands. So the truth is that when we play Moose March we are really using only 48 bars of a much longer composition. That's the kind of thing that happened in the early days of jazz repertoire creation.
