Post 593: KEYS USED BY JAZZ BANDS

Here are two astonishing facts:

1. Our jazz bands play 43.5% of the all their tunes in just one key - Bb.

2. Our bands play over 90% of all their tunes in just three keys - Bb, F and Eb.

And yet there are twelve keys available. So why use only three?

Knowing many of my readers are not musicians, I will try to explain things as simply as possible.

When a band is going to play a tune, the musicians have to agree on which key they will use. Twelve keys are available:

G

Ab

A

Bb

B

C

Db

D

Eb

E

F

Gb.

Think of it this way: on a piano, Ab, Bb, Db, Eb, and Gb are the black notes. All the others are white notes.

The key indicates within which scale the tune is played and also which is the 'Home' note. For example, a tune in F will usually end on the note F.

The 'top five' keys are:

43.5% of all tunes: Bb  : (made up of 42% in Bb and 1.5% in the related minor key - G minor)

29.5% of all tunes: F : (made up of 26.5% in F and 3.5% in the related key of D minor)

18.5% of all tunes : Eb

4.5% of all tunes : C 

3.5% of all tunes : Ab : (made up of 2% in Ab and 1.5% in the related key of F minor)

Of course, any tune could be played in any key. To change a tune from one key to another, all you have to do is raise or lower all the notes by the same amount in order to reach the key you want. But most tunes are traditionally played in one agreed key.

Bearing in mind that there are twelve keys available, why on earth do we find that almost half of our tunes are played in Bb? And why are most of the others played in either F or Eb?

Put simply, it is because those are the keys in which the various musicians of the band are most likely to stay well in tune with each other. For example, when a trumpet plays in these keys (especially Bb), the notes require minimal use of the valves and all notes are reasonably well in tune.  Other keys require far greater uses of the valves. Each of the three valves on a trumpet adds an extra bit of tubing through which the column of air has to pass. Notes at six different pitches can easily be achieved by any combination of valves; but the physics of sound would require the length of tubing to be slightly different for each of these six notes to be perfectly in tune. So the manufacturers compromise by making tubes of the 'least worst' lengths.

On most instruments, the lower notes played with the use of valves are a tiny bit sharp. Some manufacturers provide expensive instruments with levers to extend the tubing just a little on these particular notes. You can see such levers in the centre of this picture:

The keys of Bb, F and Eb are used so much that musicians become increasingly comfortable with them and the fingering they require. So there is not much incentive to use other keys - even just for fun or for practice.

This is why traditional jazz musicians sometimes find it tricky when suddenly asked to play a tune in an unfamiliar key. This happens mostly when they accompany singers. You play a tune for years in F and then come across a singer who wants it in D because that is the key that best suits her voice.

Despite all I have said, the young band Tuba Skinny - in this as in so many respects - has made us re-think our attitudes. They are unafraid of 'tricky' keys and may be heard in a few of their recordings and YouTube videos playing  in such keys as G.

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How 'scientific' is the survey above?

Sufficiently, I think, to justify my findings.

I chose two hundred different tunes from the standard traditional jazz repertoire and noted the keys in which they were played in YouTube videos and in performances I have attended. I omitted tunes such as early rags which usually comprise two or three sections and use different keys for different parts. I also omitted a very small number of tunes (such as 'Willie the Weeper' and 'At The Jazz Band Ball') which have two parts - one in a minor key and the other in the related major.

In the case of tunes in minor keys, as shown above I counted them within the total for the related major key: for example, G minor uses the same notes as Bb, so I classified it within 'Bb'. 

Post 592: A MUSICAL TEST PIECE - 'LAURA'

I was thinking about the tune Laura, composed by David Raskin in 1945. To my mind, this is a most beautiful piece of music; and yet I find it difficult to play and virtually impossible to improvise on.

David Raskin

Although, like thousands of other songs, it has a 32-bar structure, Laura is based on an extraordinary and complex chord progression. It runs through far more chords than the typical traditional jazz band tune. In fact, I think it uses 17 different chords. And the melody notes are sometimes on the ninth note of the chord.

There is on YouTube a brief video of Raskin himself playing the tune. Listen. Watch his hands. Note the rich succession of chords. CLICK HERE TO VIEW IT.

It struck me that this would make a very good test piece for a traditional jazz musician. I would be very impressed by anybody who - without using a chord book or the printed music - could play a decent full 32-bar improvisation on this tune.

One of my friends is a very fine English guitarist of the younger generation (by which I mean he is under 60!). He is booked frequently to play at festivals. So I asked him whether - without referring to a chord book - he could play Laura, complete with an improvised chorus. He responded first with a twinkle of the eye, because he knew exactly what a challenge I was setting. But he picked up his guitar and immediately played a couple of perfect, magical choruses, just for my personal entertainment. He had clearly passed the test. I was mightily impressed and felt privileged to hear it.

I have written about Laura before - in a post which you can read BY CLICKING HERE.

Post 591: 'DREAMING THE HOURS AWAY' AND WILLIAM DULMAGE

Though history has not treated his memory kindly, William E. Dulmage was an important figure in American music during the first half of the Twentieth Century.

Born in 1883, he became a musician, composer and music publisher. He grew up in Michigan and spent much of his life there. His parents ensured that he had a good music education and he found employment in a large store in Detroit - the Grinnell Brothers Music House. Grinnell sold pianos of their own manufacture and these were considered some of the best at the time. William Dulmage worked there for 22 years, rising to become manager of the Band and Orchestral Department. In his spare time he played in the band and orchestra run by George and William Finzel in Detroit. It was not a jazz band but it played for dances in Detroit and for boat trips on the nearby Lake St. Clare.

In 1930 he moved on to an executive post with the Wurlitzer Company, well before its decline, and he worked there for twelve years.

During all this time, William was composing. Early on there were his patriotic World War One songs. Later there were soundtracks for films and television shows. He wrote Tigers on Parade as the theme song for the local baseball team. Two of his hits were Tenderly Think of Me and When It's Night Time in Nevada. 

In his final years, Dulmage ran a music store of his own, with the help of his wife and son.

William died in 1953.

Why am I telling you all this? Because one of Dulmage's songs was called Dreaming The Hours Away and, since 2015, it has been very successfully revived by traditional jazz bands, notably Tuba Skinny.

What a fine song it is! It has a 16-bar Verse, using plenty of minor chords, and a repeated pattern in two-bar phrases. The words for the first phrases are: 'When evening comes along....The night bird sings his song....It makes me sad and blue.... Because he sings of you...'.

Then there is a beautifully-phrased 32-bar Chorus (with a 16+16 structure). The words of the first 16 are: 'Dreaming....the lonesome hours away... Longing... for you all through the day...and in the twilight.... beneath the starlight...thoughts of you...make me blue...'.

But the words are not important. When the Clarence Williams Jazz Kings recorded the tune in 1928 - the year after Dulmage composed it - they chose not to have a vocal at all. You can hear the seven-piece band playing the song BY CLICKING HERE.

This enterprising arrangement makes the most of the opportunities for 'breaks' in Bars 15 and 16 of the Chorus. But it begins with a 4-bar Introduction, followed (at 09 seconds) by 16 bars distinctively led by the clarinet and freely based on the first 16 bars of the Chorus. This is followed (at 28 seconds) by the final 16 bars of the Chorus by the full band, powerfully led by the cornet. Then it's back (at 46 seconds) to the Verse (which is played only once in the entire recording), played much 'as written' by Dulmage, with syncopations stressed by the whole band.

At 1 minute 05 seconds, we embark on the next run through the 32-bar Chorus, but the first sixteen are led by Ed Allen's muted cornet, unsupported by trombone or reeds. From bar 16 (1 minute 22 seconds), the alto-sax of Coleman Hawkins takes over the lead, backed for his first eight bars by tricky rhythmic pattern played by the rest of the band - notably banjo, brass bass and piano. At the end of the Chorus (1 minute 42 seconds), the trombonist Ed Cuffee takes the lead in another Chorus, and is immediately backed by a delightful little riff from the reeds, until the unmuted cornet (at 2 minutes 10 seconds) takes the lead back for the final eight bars. Then, to finish, we have a complete Chorus with the whole band freewheeling - excitingly improvising but without loss of control.

It's not surprising that this tune and arrangement appealed to Tuba Skinny. They must have worked hard at mastering this number for their own very slick public performances. Here's one - filmed by my friend James Sterling: CLICK HERE.

Note how strongly they have been influenced by the 1928 recording. They use the same Introduction and then copy the idea of having a clarinet take the first 16 bars of the first chorus and the cornet leading the second 16 bars. Then (at 45 seconds), like Clarence Williams, they play the Verse. Like him, they will play it only once. At 1 minute 06 seconds, we embark on the next run through the 32-bar Chorus, but the first sixteen are led by Shaye Cohn's cornet, unsupported by trombone or reeds. From bar 16 (1 minute 26 seconds), the clarinet takes over the lead, backed for his first eight bars by those same tricky rhythmic patterns played by the rest of the band.

At the end of the Chorus (1 minute 46 seconds), the trombonist Charlie Halloran takes the lead in another Chorus, and is backed from time to time by that Clarence Williams delightful little riff from the clarinet and cornet. Then, to finish, we have a complete Chorus with the whole band excitingly improvising. Both bands play the tune entirely in the key of Ab.

Interesting, isn't it, to note how closely, despite their slightly different instrumentation, Tuba Skinny have respected the structure of the original recording?

Post 590: 'SAVOY BLUES' - TWO MAGNIFICENT CONTRASTING PERFORMANCES

May I draw to your attention two recent and magnificent performances of Savoy Blues? They are both available for you to watch and hear on YouTube.

Savoy Blues is one of the best-known tunes in the traditional jazz repertoire. It is played by almost all of our bands. Created by the great pioneering trombonist Edward 'Kid' Ory (1886 - 1973), it is played throughout in the key of F and has opportunities for 12-bar blues improvisations at its centre. But it also has popular riffing patterns at the beginning and end. These have become conventional parts of the structure. The exciting riffs are old friends to anybody who listens regularly to traditional jazz. Because the trombone usually has such a prominent part, the tune is often regarded as a trombone feature. Most bands playing Savoy Blues stick closely to the original Ory structure.

The first performance on YouTube, by the Shake 'Em Up Jazz Band, adheres to these conventions. The video may be enjoyed BY CLICKING HERE.

The ladies begin with the famous 16-bar introduction with its striking notes at the end (30 seconds to 32 seconds). This is followed by the famous riff of 12 bars where once again the final two bars are usually accentuated (52 seconds to 54 seconds). After this comes a four-bar 'bridge' (two bars played twice) acting as a lead-in to the series of 12-bar blues solos. 

In this Shake 'Em Up performance, the first solo is taken by Chloe Feoranzo on the clarinet. Chloe by the way plays a Buffet E11 clarinet with a Vandoren M13 Lyre mouthpiece. She begins with a laid-back chorus and then plays two more in which her improvisations become increasingly fiery. Chloe is followed by Marla on the trumpet. She also takes three choruses, demonstrating some very fine work with the plunger mute. Note how Haruka Kikuchi and Chloe back her up with a gentle riff in the third chorus (2 minutes 56 seconds to 3 minutes 12). 

It is usual in Savoy Blues for the final solo to be taken by the trombone. That is what happens here. The great Haruka Kikuchi, who has told us it was Kid Ory who inspired her to become a traditional jazz trombonist, plays very much in his manner. She takes just two choruses, with Marla and Chloe backing her up prettily in the second. As is the convention in Savoy Blues, the trombone solo ends with a glissando rising over two bars (3 minutes 57 seconds to 4 minutes 01 in this video). This glissando is one of the most treasured and exciting moments for traditional jazz audiences (as indeed it obviously is for the cheering audience here!).

The glissando takes us into the final two 12-bar riffing choruses. The Shake 'Em Up ladies then finish with a neat two-bar trombone-led coda. 

Throughout this performance, notice the superbly metronomic, empathetic and gentle rhythmic footfall provided in the background by Albanie, Molly and Dizzy. 

What a magnificent performance of Savoy Blues this is! Here we have six of our greatest musicians each individually demonstrating wonderful skills and yet playing brilliantly as a team. It is hard to imagine a better performance of Savoy Blues in its conventional form.

Now let us turn to the slightly more recent performance by Tuba Skinny. You can watch the video BY CLICKING HERE.

This is equally magnificent and yet the tune is reinterpreted in Tuba Skinny's distinctive way. Editing of the usual rituals has taken place and the tune is given a new delicacy. There is no question of its being a 'trombone feature'; and the 12-bar riffs that usually bring the tune to an end are replaced by a repeat of the riffs from the beginning.

Sure enough, Tuba Skinny begin with the usual 16-bar riffing introduction but with less accentuation on the famous final two bars than we normally hear (from 32 seconds to 35 seconds). Then, sticking for the moment to the usual pattern, they follow with the 12-bar riff but again quite deliberately tone down the final two bars (54 seconds to 55 seconds). 

This is followed by the usual four-bar link to the solo choruses. It is played gently by Barnabus. 

As with the Shake 'Em Up version, soloing now begins. First we have Craig playing two choruses on the clarinet, in the second of which he is very neatly and gently backed up by Shaye and Barnabus (1 minute 26 seconds to 1 minute 42).

We then have an extraordinary conversational two choruses in which Barnabus on trombone and Shaye on cornet 'trade twos' in a most exquisite manner (1 minute 47 seconds to 2 minutes 30). For me, this is the highlight of the performance and it demonstrates so well why thousands of us all over the world consider the musical partnership and mutual understanding of Shaye and Barnabus to be among the best in traditional jazz anywhere. 

After this we have a single 12-bar chorus from the strings. 

Now, in a total break from the Savoy Blues conventions we do not have a final chorus from the trombone and we do not have the famous glissando up to the 12-bar riffs that normally bring the tune to an end. In contrast, the trombone solo and those riffs are dropped altogether and we have Todd (at 2 minutes 52 seconds) taking the lead just for 12 bars while the others repeat the 12-bar riff that had been played before the solo choruses. 

Finally, Tuba Skinny choose to go right back to the beginning (with Shaye tapping her hand on the head at 3 minutes 13 to remind them to do this). So they end by playing the 16-bar introduction and the 12-bar riff that always follows it yet again, giving us an unusual and surprising ending, which incidentally they finish in a gentle manner with a little rallentando.

In addition to the musicians I have named, note the usual brilliance and solidity of the Tuba Skinny rhythm section and the subtleties of Robin's playing on his percussion instruments.

So this too is a magnificent performance, cleverly thought out, with superb teamwork and some lovely touches demonstrating traditional jazz at its best. 

I hope you will enjoy these videos as much as I have. And I must add that both were uploaded by RaoulDuke504. I think we owe this generous gentleman a major international award for all the pleasure he has spread over the world with his videos in the last few years. Thank you, RaoulDuke504!

Post 589: THE DEW DROP HALL - THE OLDEST SURVIVING VENUE

I have written about the Dew Drop Hall before. But it is such an important building in the history of traditional jazz that - for the benefit of newcomers - I think it is worth writing about again.

The Dew Drop Hall
April 2015

For me the ambition to see The Dew Drop Hall started when I read that Marla Dixon's Shotgun Jazz Band played there on 7th November, 2014. That was what prompted me to find out more about this important jazz venue. It must have been a great thrill for Marla and her team to play in this very spot, among the spirits of so many of the Greats who performed there one hundred years earlier.

So let me tell you about this truly legendary old building that is one of the most important venues in the history of traditional jazz. It's the oldest surviving building in the world in which jazz was played in the earliest years of its development; and traditional jazz is again being played there today. I'm referring to the The Dew Drop Dance and Social Hall, which is situated at 430 Lamarque Street in Old Mandeville, Louisiana.

A great thrill for me was finally setting foot in The Dew Drop Hall in April 2015, when I was in New Orleans for the French Quarter Festival.

The story of the Hall begins on 5 May 1885, when local African Americans created The Dew Drop Social and Benevolent Association - aiming to provide help to the sick and the needy.

The Association built the hall from cypress timber nine years later - and opened it in 1895. Its foundations were simple brick piers (a wise choice for flood protection at the time). The pier at the front on the left still bears the original inscription (now barely legible).

It commemorates the founding of the Dew Drop Social and Benevolent Society No. 2 of Mandeville on May 5th, 1885, and the construction of the building in 1895, along with the names of the building committee.

The walls were covered with weather-boards at the front, and batten on the sides and rear; and they were originally painted green. The carpenters created the large wooden double-door at the front gable end, and a smaller door on the right at the back. There was an open beam ceiling. It was essentially a one-room structure, available for meetings, celebrations, vaudeville, dances and so on. It became the centre of social life.

The dais (mainly used as a bandstand) at the far end was typical of the time - with a wooden banister front opening in two places for the steps. The original dais was small (the part behind the banister on the left) but it was later extended to what we see in the picture above. The hall was built without electricity - or plumbing - or even glass: the 'windows' were simply openings measuring 6 feet high by 4 feet wide. They were normally covered by wooden shutters. These windows must have helped keep the band and audience cool on humid evenings.

Lamarque Street is to this day a quiet sparsely-populated, leafy, narrow road.

But where exactly is it? Answer: about 35 miles north of The French Quarter in New Orleans. It's where I've put the red dot at the centre top of this Google Map, very close to the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain.

From the earliest days, musicians started to cross the lake by steamboat to play for Saturday night dances in the Hall.

There were three landing-places for the boats on the shoreline - from east to west the Camellia Landing (destroyed by fire in 1912), the St. Tammany Pier (destroyed by fire in 1926), and the Lewisburg Landing (at the Lewis Plantation). The bands brought plenty of fans with them: Mandeville was considered a fashionable resort. It had several bands playing in various venues, including pavilions, the hotels and local park.

Pretty well all the famous early jazz musicians played at The Dew Drop Hall. Buddy Petit, Bunk Johnson, Kid Ory, Tommy Ladnier, Louis Armstrong, Papa Celestin, Sam Morgan, Chester Zardis and George Lewis were among them. Local man Isidore Fritz - according to such witnesses as George Lewis one of the best jazz clarinet players of all time - was a regular there, leading The Independence Band, which was hugely popular. He had Tommy Ladnier on trumpet and Edmond Hall on clarinet. Isidore's two brothers also played. What a pity the band was never recorded (or even photographed, it seems). Fritz was unwilling to cross the Lake to play in New Orleans. Why? Because he was doing very nicely in Mandeville and also had a family building business there. Fritz died in 1940.

Lillian, the wife of banjo-player Buddy Manaday (of Buddy Petit's Band) later recalled that white people as well as black attended and they all got along well together. Petit's Band, by the way, played at many venues in the  region - including at Bogalusa, Pensacola and Moss Point.

By the 1920s and 1930s, the Hall was a major centre for jazz concerts. Wooden benches provided limited and basic seating for about 100 people.

But - how sad! - as fashions and customs changed, the young were no longer interested, the Dew Drop Association ceased to exist and the Hall was virtually abandoned in the mid-1940s. This state of affairs continued for about half a century.

What amazing luck that nobody knocked the building down! All the other similar dance halls of its era were demolished or changed hands and acquired new uses or (like The Sons and Daughters Hall - also in Mandeville, on Lake Shore Drive) burned down.

The overgrown plot was bought at auction in 1993 by Jacqueline 'Jinx' Vidrine. She might have been expected to demolish the building and erect a modern house there; but she was a jazz enthusiast and knew what she was doing. She cleared the plot and investigated the building. She even found an old upright piano inside.

Jacqueline dreamed of re-opening the Hall as a jazz venue or museum. After some years, she managed to get the local Parks Service interested. By 1999, a first concert was possible! Mayor Eddie Price and the Mandeville Council recognised the importance of the property and bought the plot of land from Jacqueline. She herself donated the Hall to the community. Funds had been raised, including donations from the English. 

There had been a plan to transport the Hall to a site in Louis Armstrong Park, New Orleans. But the Mayor of Mandeville was easily convinced that the Hall should stay where it was. In 2001 the Hall was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. The 'official' re-opening was on 5 May, 2002. In 2006, two members of the Mandeville City Council led a campaign to create The Friends of Dew Drop - a non-profit organisation. There had to be a little refurbishment (at a cost of about 25,000 dollars), but they ensured it was entirely sympathetic with the original design of the Hall. Here is how the Hall looked in Lamarque Street when I visited. Note the (inevitably moss-covered) tree in front of it.

Concerts featuring the best of local musicians are now put on fortnightly in the Spring and Autumn. There are string bands, jug bands and various similar groups as well as traditional jazz bands.

The band performing when I was there included the great Gregg Stafford and Michael White and the outstanding young bass player Tyler Thomson.

There was even a brolly parade.

Just inside the entrance door

I'm thrilled to say that 'Jinx' is still very much involved in helping with activities at the Hall. She was there and I had the honour of being introduced to her.

Jacqueline Vidrine -
the driving force in preserving the Hall

If you go to The Dew Drop, you have a choice between standing, or arriving early to secure one of those wooden seats, or (bringing your picnic chairs) listening from outside to the wonderful music drifting through the large open windows (three on each side). Good Louisiana food is usually on sale outside the Hall, as it was in the earliest days.

The Shotgun Jazz Band
performing there in 2014

By the way, you may care to watch a video I made about The Dew Drop:
CLICK HERE.
Three days after the Gregg Stafford concert, the great Tuba Skinny played at The Dew Drop Hall. A video showing one of the tunes they played can be seen by clicking on here.

And for a much more recent video of Tuba Skinny playing at the Hall, CLICK HERE. The tune is the wonderful Deep Bayou Moan, composed by Shaye Cohn.

You can sample an entire album (19 tunes) recorded in The Dew Drop Hall during a live concert on 18 March 2017 BY CLICKING HERE. 

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Just in case you may be interested to know which tunes were played when I was there for the Gregg Stafford concert in April 2015, the programme was:
SET ONE
Hindustan
We Shall Walk Through The Streets of the City
Bye Bye Blackbird
Redwing
Fidgety Feet
Careless Love
Golden Leaf Strut (final strain of 'Milneberg Joys')
SET TWO
Panama Rag
When You're Smiling
Burgundy Street Blues (Michael White feature)
You Always Hurt The One You Love
Blueberry Hill
SET THREE
Baby Won't You Please Come Home
Creole Love Call
Just a Little While To Stay Here
What a Friend We Have in Jesus
When The Saints Go Marching In

Long may The Dew Drop continue!

POST 588 : MUSIC POCKET NOTEBOOKS UPDATE

I mentioned a couple of months ago that I had discovered for the first time pocket music notebooks (made by Moleskine). I have since had a lot of pleasure filling them with useful straightforward lead-sheets of tunes played by traditional jazz bands - particularly those that are the more difficult to remember, or that have verses worth hearing but rarely played.

I have made such progress that I have filled three books, with a total of over 400 tunes so far. Of course, I also keep and regularly update an Index, so that I can find any tune in a moment.

Although they truly are pocketable, I like their robustness, the amount of space they give on and between staves (just right for me) and the way the books stay open at the desired pages when playing an instrument.

Moleskine Pocket Music Books

I intend to start a fourth soon. However, I have noticed (as at late-February 2018) that Moleskine seem no longer to be producing the notebooks for music in pocket size. So I may have to buy a plain pocket notebook and draw the staves myself. That should work just as well.

Post 587: 'A WOMAN'S PLACE IS IN THE GROOVE' - FROM VIV TO MARLA

In 1946, a quintet led by string bass player (and occasional singer) Vivien Garry made a recording for RCA Victor Records of Vivien's tune A Woman's Place is in the Groove (also known as Sycamore Blues). It was a 5-piece band. But the distinguishing feature of this group was that the players were all ladies.

The tune A Woman's Place is in the Groove is simple - just a riffy number based on a 12-bar blues chord sequence in that easiest of keys - Bb. But it was played in a rocking up-tempo style, with good teamwork and improvisations.

Listen to the recording BY CLICKING HERE.

Vivien Garry was married to the guitarist Arvin Charles Garrison. She played and recorded (with eleven different recording companies) in numerous small groups (often led by herself and including her husband) and she also made a few recordings with orchestras.

Vivien Garry lived a long life. She died just ten years ago.

It seems that the only recordings by The Vivien Garry Quintet were all made on one day in September 1946. In addition to A Woman's Place is in the Groove were I'm in the Mood for Love, Operation Mop, and Body and Soul. The members of the quintet, in addition to Vivien on bass, were Emma 'Ginger' Smock (violin), Edna Williams (trumpet),  Dody Jeshke (drums) and Wini Beatty (piano).

Here they are, with Edna on the left and Vivien herself at the back on the right:

Operation Mop (sometimes known as Edna's Stomp), by the way, is also available on YouTube. It's a bouncy, boppy 32-bar a-a-b-a number composed by the quintet's trumpet player.

Where did Edna Williams emerge from? Research takes us back to the Piney Woods Country Life School, about 150 miles (250 kilometres) due north from New Orleans. This institution, founded in 1909 as a boarding school for African-Americans, notably orphans, by the far-sighted Dr. Laurence C. Jones, set high educational and religious standards and was particularly strong in training future musicians. Today the school stands in a fine campus and includes a Laurence C. Jones Museum. Jones himself ensured that the school developed bands and choirs. It was he who started and led a girls' swing band. It went on to be the first manifestation of the big band (very popular and famous at the time) called The International Sweethearts of Rhythm. You can find examples of their playing on YouTube. From 1941, they operated as a professional group, independent of the school. Other young lady musicians of various races joined them.

They toured America, playing at top theatres and setting box office records. I find it appalling, though, that when they played in the Southern States, despite their star status, they were forced to live, eat and sleep in the band bus because the segregation laws prevented them from using the hotels and restaurants. The Band went on to entertain the troops in Europe towards the end of the Second World War.

Vivien Garry was able to hand-pick Edna Williams from that band to participate in her quintet. Also notable on the recording is Emma 'Ginger' Smock, 26 years old at the time. Bearing in mind that the Quintet had no reed player, Emma does an amazing job with her improvisations on violin. She went on later to lead an all-female sextet of her own. She died in 1995.

I have been unable to find out anything about the other two ladies on the recording, except that Wini Beatty also played and recorded with The Vivien Garry Trio. You can find her (on YouTube) both singing and playing piano in this group.

Why am I telling you all this - I who had never heard of Vivien Garry until recently? It's because my friend Marla Dixon and her five colleagues in The Shake 'Em Up Jazz Band (probably the best all-female jazz band in the world today) decided to call their latest Album A Woman's Place and to include among its 12 tracks A Woman's Place is in the Groove.

How do they play it? Like the Vivien Garry version, they begin with an 8-bar Introduction played principally on the trumpet. Then Vivien has a chorus led by the muted trumpet and violin in unison. Shake 'Em Up, having greater resources, also begin with a unison chorus. Vivien then has three remarkable choruses played by the great Emma Smock on violin, and then the equally-great Edna Williams plays three on the muted trumpet, sometimes sounding reminiscent of King Oliver. Next, Wini Beatty plays three on the piano, in the last of which she neatly decorates the notes played by bass and percussion, and ending with two bars of percussion that lead us into two final super ensemble choruses, where you might almost think you were listening to a big band. What an exquisite recording!

The Shake 'Em Up Band, with its different instrumentation, gives the clarinet, trumpet and trombone a couple of choruses each before choruses from the others (including a fine one from Molly Reeves on guitar) lead to a swinging final three choruses from the ensemble.

The strengths of The Shake 'Em Up Jazz Band are these: they have on trumpet, clarinet and trombone three of the finest exponents of those instruments anywhere in the world; and they are supported by a 'rhythm section' that - without any drums, or banjo, or brass bass, or piano - succeeds in generating an exciting and subtle pulse that drives the band along. It is amazing how well these ladies listen to each other and play as a team.
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Additional Note

As well as hearing this played by Shake 'Em Up on their Album, you can now view a live and extended performance of the tune - courtesy of that indefatigable and generous video-maker codenamed RaoulDuke504:
CLICK HERE.

Post 586: LET'S LEARN 'WA WA WA'

My friends and I decided to learn Wa Wa Wa. This is the tune famously recorded by King Oliver in 1926. You can hear his recording BY CLICKING HERE.

We soon realized it was a great piece to learn - an archetypal 1920s number with a catchy melody based on a simple, intuitive chord structure, and having a good Verse - played AFTER the first Chorus - to provide some contrast.

The Chorus is one of those consisting of twenty bars (a fashionable length in the 1920s) and allowing 'breaks' over bars 13 - 16. These of course add to the excitement.

We went about learning it direct from the King Oliver recording, with frequent use of the pause button. King Oliver plays it in Bb - the easiest of keys for traditional jazz bands - so it was not too difficult.

I must mention that Wa Wa Wa was not actually composed by King Oliver. The composer was Mort Schaefer, who seems to have been famous for nothing else.

It's a terrific piece to play, and easier than it sounds. For your own satisfaction, though, it's a good idea to include King Oliver's excellent four-bar Introduction  and neat, tricky Coda (ending with a syncopated bar played on percussion only). The Coda begins in Bar 19 the final time you play the Chorus. It lasts for eight bars. It's worth taking the trouble to get it right.

Post 585: 'I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT MUSIC.' REALLY?

'He plays piano queer. He only plays by ear'. Those are the words describing the pianist 'Mister Brown' in the 1916 jazz song Down in Honky Tonky Town.

A very good English clarinet player once told me: 'I know nothing at all about music. I play by ear. That's all you need for jazz.'

But on another occasion I overheard him saying to a pianist, 'You played a D minor chord in the third bar. It should have been F diminished.'

So much for 'knowing nothing about music'!

That gentleman died five years ago, but I have met several other musicians who have also proudly claimed they can't read music and know nothing about it. Presumably they thought they were natural geniuses.

I have become sceptical about such claims.

I can recall only three gentlemen who obviously could not read music and played entirely 'by ear'. But they were very limited in what they could offer in traditional jazz bands and in their understanding of tune structures and conventions. I noticed they were unable to gain acceptance in any regular band and managed only to pick up occasional gigs as deputies.

Of course, the ear is an essential tool in the learning of tunes when - as often happens - you can't get hold of printed music. Play along a few times with a good clear recording. Use the pause button and write the tune down as you go along. You may even be able to work out the chord progression reasonably well. I am sure most jazz musicians have mastered dozens of tunes in this way. But you need to know what you are doing. You must have at least some rudimentary understanding of keys, note lengths, time signatures and tune structures. 

Many of the older generation of traditional jazz players depended very much on their ears in order to learn music, as they put it, 'closely enough for jazz'. But the younger generation is more academic in its approach to the repertoire. Some have studied both jazz and classical music at colleges. So they practise hard to memorise correctly the melodies, harmonies, structures, rhythmic patterns and grammar of the music. For an example of the finished product:

CLICK HERE.

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COMMENT RECEIVED FROM BARRIE MARSHALL:

I used to dep with a band that had a trumpet player who boasted he was an ear player and knew nothing at all about music. We were doing this gig in the back garden of a pub, we started a tune and on the first chorus the banjo player played a chord that was not right He played it again on the second chorus. Then when he played it on the third chorus the trumpet played turned to him and said, 'That should be a C7, not an F7!'