Post 609: THE YOUNG KEEP TRADITIONAL JAZZ GOING

Thank goodness the young are keeping our music going.

There is a band called Ragstretch, formed by young people in 2012.

It is impossible for me to work out where this band is based, because its members are Australians and Scandinavians and some of them seem to be living in New York. The musicians also play in other bands and most of them are already well-known on the traditional jazz scene. But when the band Ragstretch comes together, they give brilliant, sparkling, tasteful performances. There are plenty of videos of them for you to explore on YouTube. You could try this version of Panama (played in Copenhagen) for starters: 

CLICK HERE.

In St. Louis, Missouri, The Sidney Street Shakers play exactly the kind of jazz I like best - unpretentious, straightforward, exciting, with good teamwork and just right for dancers.

And note elsewhere The California Feet Warmers - a fairly young band playing slick, well-prepared traditional jazz.

And even in Britain there is hope for the future. Have a look at the videos of The Brownfield/Byrne Hot Six to discover some technically-brilliant swinging jazz being played by chaps who seem to be still in their twenties.

Also from Britain, seek out the videos of Adrian Cox, or Ben Cummings, or The Graham Hughes Sunshine Kings, or Giacomo Smith, or The Basin Street Brawlers. You will have a pleasant surprise.

And in May 2017 a band called The Ten Bells Rag Band was formed in London. The musicians are relatively young and are inspired by such bands as Tuba Skinny in New Orleans. They play some very pleasant traditional jazz.

Also from London check out the wonderful videos of The Vitality Five.

In Edinburgh, Scotland, we find The Tenement Jazz Band.

I have not had the pleasure of seeing these musicians in person but their videos and recordings suggest to me that they also have been much inspired by the repertoires of Tuba Skinny, The Shotgun Jazz Band and The Shake 'Em Up Jazz Band.

Elsewhere, you may find such good young bands as Magic Shook Heads and The Hippocampus Jass Gang in the south of France: their videos are worth watching. And in Buenos Aires, you have the Jazz Friends - a terrific, fluent band, whose range of instruments sometimes includes the 'pinkullo' - a South American flute.

In the North-Eastern corner of Italy we find the young Adovabadan Jazz Band of Treviso playing some very tasteful traditional jazz. For example, click here to see them performing Cake Walking Babies From Home.

In Horten (population 27,000), Norway, a group of beginners aged 35 to 55 got together in 2016, modestly called themselves The Sloppy Jazz Newbies, and by the following year were making good progress and starting to attract gigs. You can hear them tackling Big Chief Battleaxe BY CLICKING HERE.

In the Rhine-Neckar area of Germany, a newly-formed band of energetic and enthusiastic young musicians has shown what can be achieved even with a limited range of instruments. They call themselves Die Selbsthilfe-Gruppe (The Self-Help Group) and you can find examples of their work on YouTube.

In Japan, of course, there is a terrific jazz scene around Tokyo. Most of the musicians are still quite young. For an immediate example, have a look at a video of Over The Waves to see what I mean:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBuXLwcnvvg

Another band formed in recent years is The Stone Arch Jazz Band of Minneapolis, founded by the talented and tasteful clarinet-player Richard Lund. Have a look at their website: Click here to view. And note that the band has already made some stylish videos, such as this one: Click here to view.

The band called The Fat Babies, based in Chicago, are highly respected and I am told they play regularly at The Green Mill Bar in that City. You can find plenty of their videos on YouTube.

And The Dirty River Dixie Band, founded in Texas and playing a very energetic kind of dixieland music, was able to announce towards the end of 2017 that the average age of its members was under 26. And the Tuba Skinny-inspired King Copper Jazz Band, based in Prescott, Arizona, is very impressive.

The Dizzy Birds Jazz Band in Berlin is terrific.

And have a listen to The Old Fashion Jazz Band of Santiago, Chile, by clicking here.

And correspondent Michael Meissner has introduced me to Queen Porter Stomp in Sydney, Australia. Here they are, and you can easily find examples of this fine young band's work on YouTube:

Regular correspondent Robert Duis recommends looking at videos of Malo's Hot Five and Attila's Rollini Project; and my friend Anders Winnberg in Sweden has assured me there are plenty of good bands operating in his country, where the Gothenburg Jazz Festival is a major event. Anders reports that the Festival is always held at the beginning of September and that last year there were lots of young people, both in the audience and in the bands. And Ray Andrew in Perth, Australia, has told me the traditional jazz scene is very strong in his city and that the young are being attracted to it. Even Finland - a country remote from New Orleans and with a population of well under six million - has the very pleasant Birger's Ragtime Band. Also in Finland there is a band called Doctor Jazz: it seems to me to be bright and recently formed; and several of the players are relatively young.

Regular reader Phil in the USA has recommended the Moscow-based young bands The Kickipickles and The Moscow Ragtime Band. You may find their work on YouTube.

Above all, of course, there is great old-time jazz being played by YOUNG people on the streets of New Orleans. They offer hope for the future, because the Internet and visits from overseas musician-tourists are spreading their influence very rapidly.

In the days before Hurricane Katrina, you would have thought of Bourbon Street as the main hub for jazz in New Orleans. But now it is Frenchmen Street, in the Faubourg Marigny - a road full of jazz bars and clubs. There are over twenty traditional jazz bands playing professionally in New Orleans - more than at any previous time in jazz history.

To see what I mean, even if you can't get to New Orleans, try spending some time visiting the City on YouTube. You will be amazed at the quality of the traditional jazz being produced by instrumentalists mostly under forty years of age; and there are plenty of singers of outstanding ability too.

You may try any of these groups on YouTube. Just type their names in and indulge yourself with some fine music:

Tuba Skinny

Rhythm Wizards Jazz Band (CLICK HERE to sample their tasteful playing)
Loose Marbles
Little Big Horns
The Cottonmouth Kings
The Dapper Dandies
Smoking Time Jazz Band
Jessy Carolina and the Hot Mess
Jenavieve Cook and the Royal Street Winding Boys
Yes Ma'am String Band
The Shotgun JazzBand (led by the dynamic Canadian trumpeter and singer Marla Dixon: CLICK HERE for an exciting example of their work)
Stalebread Scottie and His Gang
The Gentilly Stompers
Eight Dice Cloth
The Shake 'Em Up Jazz Band
Emily Estrella and the Faux Barrio Billionaires (Emily is originally from Cincinatti)
Hokum High Rollers
The Messy Cookers
The Sluetown Strutters
The Palmetto Bug Stompers
John Zarsky and the Trad Stars
The Jazz Vipers
The New Orleans Swamp Donkeys
Orleans 6 (led by the excellent Ben Polcer)
Sour Mash Hug Band
Baby Soda

Post 608: FROG AND HENRY

Have you come across the wonderful band called 'Frog and Henry'?

Well, they are just as much a concept as a band, as they appear with any number of players from two to about seven (but mostly six) and the personnel changes constantly. But what you can always be sure of is that they offer the highest standards of musicianship and teamwork.

Have a look at these two videos:

(1) Shreveport Stomp (performed on tour in France):

CLICK HERE.

(2) That's a Plenty (performed in New Orleans):

CLICK HERE.

Different line-ups; but you see what I mean?

Frog and Henry describes itself as 'a brass and string band specializing in early Jazz, Ragtime, and Jug Band music'. If you explore the videos of the band, you will see how brilliantly it achieves these aims.

They do indeed use strings, including violin, frequently with a couple of reed players. Their house-style does not normally seem to require a full-kit drummer or a trombone but there is sometimes a cornet or trumpet player.

The band has toured in Italy, France, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Turkey, Austria, the U.K., Poland and Canada, as well as performing frequently in the U.S.A., notably in New Orleans. Not bad, eh? And it has more tours planned for the future.

I have never had the pleasure of seeing Frog and Henry in performance but my impression is that the band's guiding spirit is Ryan Baer - a charming and modest young man who is a multi-instrumentalist but mainly plays the banjo or guitar or mandolin with the group. Ryan, who is a Canadian, I believe,  used to be a member of Tuba Skinny. Wherever he is - in the USA or Europe - he manages to attract some of the most gifted local musicians from other bands; and they join him in lovingly and dexterously playing the wonderful old tunes. I have noticed that Robin Rapuzzi and Ewan Bleach enjoy playing in this band. Ewan even composed 'Berlin Rags' specially for them. CLICK HERE to enjoy their performance of Ewan's tune.

The band has recorded two albums (as at 2018). Full information is available on Bandcamp.

Post 607: THE TENEMENT JAZZ BAND

I'm pleased to report that another new young traditional jazz band has come to my attention.

From Edinburgh, Scotland, let us welcome The Tenement Jazz Band.

I have not had the pleasure of seeing these musicians in person but their lively videos and recordings suggest to me that they have been inspired by the repertoires of Ben Polcer, Tuba Skinny, The Shotgun Jazz Band and The Shake 'Em Up Jazz Band. In this video, for example, you can hear them playing Root, Hog! Or Die! :

CLICK HERE.

And for Chocolate Avenue :

CLICK HERE.

They have also recorded an album for Bandcamp. You may access it here:

https://tenementjazzband.bandcamp.com/releases

Among the tunes are Whenever You're Lonesome (which - unlike Marla - they play in F, presumably to suit the singer's voice), Big Chief Battleaxe (given extra interest by a variety of patterns from the rhythm section), and neat, unpretentious versions of Mahogany Hall Stomp and Chocolate Avenue (the latter including some heavy off-beat backing during the trombone and sax solos). 

The album gives the personnel as:

Simon Toner - double bass

Mike Kearney - banjo

John Youngs - guitar

Charles Dearness: trumpet

Paddy Darley - trombone

Tom Pickles - soprano saxophone

The Tenement Jazz Band appears to be energetic, busy and hard-working; and I hope we shall hear more of them.

Post 606: TUBA SKINNY'S CD 'SOME KIND-A-SHAKE'

Tuba Skinny’s latest CD, released in April 2019 and entitled ‘Some Kind-a-Shake’, contains 14 tracks and is remarkable for four reasons.

First, it was recorded at The Living Room Studio in New Orleans. This is a former church, a spacious wooden building, now equipped with a huge range of technical equipment and offering excellent acoustics. So the CD is possibly the most ‘professional-sounding’ of all Tuba Skinny’s recordings.

Second, the band on this occasion comprised ten players, including two reeds. The result is an unusually full-bodied sound.

Third, to an even greater degree than before, most of the tunes are highly orchestrated with slick, ingenious arrangements. Little is left to chance.

Finally, two of the tunes were composed by participating musicians. The title track, ‘Some Kind-a-Shake’, written by Shaye Cohn in 2018, is a riffy number with well-drilled backing and rhythmic effects, a 16-bar fluent ‘verse’ interlude, and an amusing link and coda in which various instruments play one at a time in an eight-note arpeggio! And Ewan Bleach’s ‘Berlin Rag’, composed in 2016, is craftily scored, with an intriguing structure that seems to dance teasingly around the key of D minor.

'Saturday Night Function’ is a highlight, with five 12-bar solos, including two particularly tasteful by Craig on clarinet and Todd on sousaphone, sandwiched between single statements of Ellington and Bigard's 16-bar theme. The unusual rhythmic pattern backing Ewan’s solo is typical of the attention to detail that permeates this CD. You hear the same kind of thing behind Craig’s solo in ‘Ballin’ The Jack’.

Erika sings Fats Waller’s ‘Squeeze Me’, which she also performed on the band’s album ‘Rag Band’. The earlier recording was made before a live audience at The Spotted Cat, so this new version is much cleaner in sound, but the arrangement and key (Eb) are pretty much the same. The strings – in the familiar chromatic descents - and Ewan’s alto saxophone provide lovely support.

Erika also duets with Greg on the Memphis Minnie song ‘I’m Going Back Home’ (in the unusual key of A) and on ‘Wee Midnight Hours’ - based on ‘Midnight Hour Blues’ originally recorded in 1932 by Leroy Carr. Both these are established favourites with fans of Tuba Skinny.

Greg gently sings the 8-bar Blind Blake song ‘You Gonna Quit Me’, followed by a pleasant solo from Barnabus, and some exquisite teamwork choruses.

The up-tempo ‘Ballin’ The Jack’ has Craig shining on baritone sax and Ewan playing a clarinet chorus against stop beats; and there is a vigorous ‘Jubilee Stomp’, with lively work from Craig and plenty of tricky links and breaks perfectly executed.

'Echo in the Dark’ and ‘Stealing Love’ are gentle, melodic pieces, with the lead shared around and sweet combined work from the reeds. 'Too Late’ keeps closely to the spirit of the 1929 original by Dave Nelson and King Oliver, even with Rhadamanthine scrupulosity including the drop from Eb to C for just one chorus.

Many bands play May Aufderheide’s ‘Thriller Rag’ in F; but Tuba Skinny go for the more challenging Ab, in an exciting up-tempo version.

Shaye Cohn’s own playing seems to have reached an even greater peak in the last couple of years. Whether beautifully melodic in ‘Echo in the Dark’ or rapidly and energetically creative in ‘Deep Minor Rhythm Stomp’ (a super tune for dancers), she is always exciting to hear. 'Echo in the Dark' is the tune in which Shaye reaches the second highest note (concert Bb) we have ever heard her play on record. She is not merely showing off technique, as many players do, but is required to play it as part of the melody. There's an amusingly tense moment when she approaches it for the final time near the end of the track: we keep our fingers crossed for her and she pulls it off - with only the tiniest hint of a struggle!

There is superb, neat, complementary playing and soloing throughout by Barnabus, Robin and Todd, and by the strings - with quite a few finger-picking solos.

In total, then, this a well produced CD, with a wide range of contrasting tunes demonstrating the dazzling standard the band has reached ten years after its formation.

The artwork as usual is by Shaye.

Post 605: SEARCHING FOR TAINTED TUNE TITLES

'We're now going to play that good old number from the 1930s - Fats Waller's I'm Crazy 'Bout My Baby.'

'One, Two; One, Two Three....'.

'Hold on! Hold on!' shouts the bass player, hunting through his chord book. 'Does it come under I for I'm Crazy? No. I can't find it.'

'Try under C,' calls the piano player. 'You've probably got it as Crazy 'Bout My Baby'.

How often I have heard such conversations delaying the start of tunes and also making the band look incompetent.

A Friend's Chord Book

When you are compiling an extensive alphabetical chordbook or list of repertoire, you have to take so much care. In the case of the I'm Crazy 'Bout My Baby example, it might pay to have the chords under both letters.

Another troublesome problem is how to handle tunes beginning with an apostrophe.

For example, do you put 'S Wonderful under I because it means It’s Wonderful, or does it go under S?

If you set out the title correctly with the apostrophe included and then tell your computer to ‘SORT’ your titles into alphabetical order, you are likely to see 'S Wonderful end up neither under 'I' nor under 'S'.

But on a gig, you may need to find a tune quickly. So you need a good system.

There’s a similar problem with all the ’Taint tunes. Think, for example, of ’Tain’t Nobody’s Business if I Do, ’Tain’t No Sin to Take Off Your Skin, ’Tain’t What You Do, It’s The Way That You Do It, ’Tain’t Nothing Else But Jazz. Do you want them pedantically under 'I' [for It Ain't] or under 'T'?

The best solution, when preparing such lists, is to omit the apostrophe, ensuring that you begin the title positively with a letter rather than a punctuation mark. Then, the 'SORT' into alphabetical order on your computer will convert any list into something more useful. So use TAINT rather than ’TAINT.

Then there's the matter of tunes that have an apostrophe very near the beginning, as in I'm Alone Because I Love You. Would you expect this to appear before, or after, If I Had You ? It makes things easier if you establish a rule and stick to it.

In my case, I keep little notebooks containing leadsheets. These are supported by a separate Index. I have found the best solution for this Index is to show letters only. In other words, I get rid of all spaces and punctuation marks. I then let the computer 'sort' the titles in alphabetic order and - by thinking only of the letters, I can instantly find any tune. Here's an extract from my Index:

ILoveParis285

ILoveYou(ColePorter)288

ILoveYou(Thompson/Archer)294

ILoveYouBecauseYouUnderst289

ILoveYouSoMuchItHurts167

ImAloneBecauseILoveYou168

ImAlwaysChasingRainbows356

IMayBeWrongBut293

ImBeginningtoSeethLt386

ImBlueandLonesome28

ImComingVirginia1140

ImConfessin1142

ImCrazyBoutMyBaby1141

ImDreamingofaWhiteChristm229

ImForeverBlowingBubbles333

ImGettingSentimentlOY387

ImGoingAwaytoWearY290

ImGonnaLockMyHeartand244

ImGonnaMeetMSwtieN382

ImGonnaSitRightDown&W167

ImHenerytheEighthIAm35

ImHummingtoMyself315

ImintheMarketforYou1143

ImintheMoodforLove292

ImLookingOver4L289

ImNobody’sBaby47

ImPuttingAllMyEggs390

ImShyMaryEllenImShy356

ImSittingonTofthWld391

ImSorryIMadeYouCry256

InaMellowTone47

InAppleBlossomTime155

InaShantyinOldShantyTown257

Indiana122

IndianLoveCall244

INeverKnewthatRosesGrew356

INeverKnewWhataGalCdDo379

InHarlemsAraby370

IntheGarden388

IntheGloaming383

IntheGoodOldSummerTime190

IntheMood374

IntheShadeoftheOldAppleTr284

InTheSweetB&B289

IntheUpperGarden389

IntoEachLifeSomeRain294

InWalkedBud361

IOnlyHaveEyesforYou274

ISawMummyKissingSantaCl294

IsItTrueWhatTheySayabtD1115

IsleofCapri113

ISurrender,Dear386

IsYouIsOrIsYuAintMB317

ItDontMeanaThing333

ItFeelsSoGood164

ItHadToBeYou287

ItHappenedinMonterey295

ItIsNoSecret462

ItLooksLikeaBigTimeTont421

ItLooksLikeRaininCherry422

ItsAllRightWithMe351

ItsaLongWaytoTipperary1115

ItsaSintoTellaLie179

What it means is that, for example, if I want 'I'm in the Market for You', I find it as
ImintheMarketforYou1143
and this tells me the tune is to be found in Notebook One, Page 143.

-----------

The book Playing Traditional Jazz by Pops Coffee is available from Amazon.

Post 604: HOW KINGSLEY AMIS DESCRIBED TRADITIONAL JAZZ

Over the years, I have jotted down interesting and insightful remarks I have come across concerning traditional jazz. I would like to share some of them with you.

Ken Colyer (one of the most important English traditional jazz musicians of the second half of the Twentieth Century):

Take it easy. Keep it down. Give plenty of light and shade.

Ben Marshall (banjo-player) writing in The Ken Colyer Trust Newsletter, December 1992:
...the whole band acting like a rhythm section, concentration on ensemble work, seeking the inner rhythms, dynamics, swing, lift, energy, passion, all the things we talked of for hours on end.

From Ken Colyer: A Musician for All Seasons, by Malcolm Robinson, Spring 1990 (in Jazz Beat):

Through the months that followed, Ken learned and developed his playing, and achieved his still unmatched understanding of the subtle dynamics and harmonies of the beautiful New Orleans music: the easy tempos, the relaxation, the emphasis on ensemble with no one instrument ever dominating, the solos growing out of the ensemble, the rolling beat with the trumpet always riding the 4/4 bass figure, gently pushing then pulling back like a surfer; all to create the feeling of tension, relaxed heat and bounteous emotion that New Orleans jazz fans understand so well.

From a book about Preservation Hall:

....music in the African tradition - circumlocution rather than exact definition...

Narvin Kimball:

In those days, players had to learn to 'sleep fast'.

Kingsley Amis (in The Times, March 1991):

Rhythm was what made you tap your feet in time to the stuff, and you certainly did that if you were not actually dancing to it. If alone, or in the right company, you gave little yells of enjoyment and encouragement, as some of the listeners do to this day. With a four-man rhythm section, piano to drums, pounding out their four-to-the-bar in a contentedly unliberated fashion, and the wind instruments often avoiding the actual beat but never ignoring it, nobody who was not worse than deaf could fail to respond to the driving pulse. Of course, it was more a metrical pulse, and real rhythmic interest and diversity lay in what those other instruments, aptly called the melody instruments, were playing. And melody, which comes first and last in jazz, as in any self-respecting music, is in another sense the heart of this.

To reproduce the tune, the air, to do no more than embellish it, was likely to be thought inadequate except in slow ballads. Effectively the aim was an alternative tune, a counter-melody, or a disconnected series of them, sometimes in scraps rather than flowing, improvisatory in manner, delivered here in a solo passage, there divided among two or three, dry and harsh rather than limpid in tone, often distorted in pitch, its points of tension arranged across the steady underlying beat. When successful, the result was exciting and absorbing in a way otherwise unknown, intense but abstract, encouraging no mood or thought beyond itself, satisfying.

Benny Green:

It would seem that there is in the make-up of a jazz musician a strong instinct of defiance of authority and contempt of humbug which has always seemed to me one of the most attractive features in the jazz world. I have seen so many bubbles of pretension pricked by every grade of humour from epigram to obscenity that I am now convinced that the jazz musician is one of the most beautiful creatures on the planet.

An Irish fiddler speaking on BBC2 on 23 February 1991:

The great thing about traditional music is that it has no shelf life. There is no sell-by date.

Post 603: PLAYING THE ODJB'S 'OSTRICH WALK'

'Ostrich Walk' was first devised and recorded in 1917 by The Original Dixieland Jazz Band, so it was credited to their players Edwin B. Edwards, Nick LaRocca, Henry Ragas, Tony Sbarbaro and Larry Shields.

You can hear them over a hundred years ago playing the tune - at a good pace - BY CLICKING HERE.

This is a simplified lead sheet.

=====================

The book 'Enjoying Traditional Jazz' by Pops Coffee is available from Amazon.

Post 602: MAKING TRADITIONAL JAZZ VIDEOS

I feel hugely privileged to have lived to an age when - sitting at my computer here in Nottingham, U.K. -  I am able to click a button and watch wonderful traditional jazz performances from all around the world. We have to be deeply grateful to all the generous and hard-working video-makers who provide us with these treats.

Some of them have high-quality equipment. They use two or more cameras and have a separate sound-recording apparatus.

If it had not been for video-makers such as those codenamed digitalalexa and RaoulDuke504, I might never have discovered the wonderful traditional jazz being played by relatively young musicians in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina. Their videos convinced me that I had to get to New Orleans to see and hear for myself.

Good news is that digitalalexa (Al and his wife Judy) produced the first video of Tuba Skinny to be viewed more than a million times: THIS ONE - CLICK ON TO WATCH IT.

When I decided to try to make some videos, I bought a simple small camera from the cheaper end of the Panasonic Lumix range. It is intended mainly for taking still photographs but, like most cameras these days, it has a built-in microphone and the facility to record videos. It also has a useful 'zoom' feature.

Once you have made a video, it is easy to load it on to such a site as YouTube, thereby making it available to viewers all over the world. You have merely to follow the simple instructions on the screen.

I have had only four or five opportunities to video truly outstanding jazz bands. But I have made a number of videos and put them on YouTube. My favourite - the one with which I am most pleased - shows The Shotgun Jazz Band at The Spotted Cat Club (New Orleans) playing Royal Garden Blues when I was there for the French Quarter Festival in April 2015. The band was on absolutely cracking form and I was able to film from the side, very near the band, so I obtained some pleasing close-up shots of Haruka, Marla, James, John and Twerk.

If you have not yet seen that video, you can watch it BY CLICKING HERE.

I hope you will enjoy it as much as I still do.

I must also mention James Sterling, who discovered the music a few months after I did. Living in Florida, he has been able to travel to New Orleans far more often than I have, and he has uploaded some fine videos.

If you haven't yet explored what's up there on YouTube, you should start by looking at the offerings of the three video-makers I have mentioned.

POST 601: 'ROCK ME'; AND A BEREAVEMENT

Here's a sad tale. In 1932, Nettie Dorsey, the wife of Thomas A. Dorsey,  died in childbirth; and two days later their new-born son died too.

In his grief, Thomas A. Dorsey composed Precious Lord, Take My Hand - a tune which remains popular with traditional jazz bands to this day.

Thomas Andrew Dorsey

Who was Dorsey? Not to be confused with Tommy Dorsey (1905 - 1956), the famous trombonist and band-leader, he was always known as Thomas A. Dorsey. He lived from 1899 to 1993.

Thomas A. Dorsey was already well-known at the time of his wife's death. He was an established blues pianist, band-leader and composer. He had performed as 'Georgia Tom'. He had a hit record in 1928 with It's Tight Like That. His band had accompanied Ma Rainey. He founded the first black gospel music publishing company. He was in later life to be considered the Father of Black Gospel Music. 

A gospel number for which he is also specially known is the 1937 composition Peace in the Valley.

But what prompts me to tell you all this is that I listened earlier today to Erika Lewis singing Rock Me on Tuba Skinny's first album - the album simply called 'Tuba Skinny' and issued in 2010. Rock Me was made famous when it was recorded by Sister Rosetta Tharpe in 1938; but the song was originally composed by Thomas A. Dorsey under the title Hide Me In Thy Bosom.

Rosetta sang it in the key of Bb; Tuba Skinny prefer Ab.

You can hear Rosetta's recording BY CLICKING HERE.

To hear Erika Lewis singing the song in the early days of Tuba Skinny, you should buy the album. But if you would like to see a live version, filmed as long ago as 2010, CLICK HERE.  At the time, Tuba Skinny was in its infancy and still had no reed player; but you can hear a wonderful little solo chorus from Shaye Cohn at 2 minutes 20 seconds  that foretells the greatness to come.

We have to thank the video-maker codenamed digitalalexa for recording this early performance.

I decided to try playing Rock Me on my keyboard and trumpet. What I then discovered is that it is a 32-bar tune (you could consider it as a 16-bar Verse with a 16-bar Chorus). Also, I found the first 16 bars have virtually the same simple chord progression as the second 16 bars. Moreover, all four sets of eight bars begin with The Magnolia Chord Progression [ I  -  I7  -  IV  -  IVm ].

The Magnolia Chord progression is found at the beginning of so many of the tunes we play. Other examples are:

After My Laughter Came Tears 

Mississippi River Blues 

Brown Skin Mamma 

Carolina Moon 

Cherry Red 

'Deed I Do 

Does Jesus Care? 

Girl of My Dreams 

If I Had You 

I'll See You in the Spring

I May Be Wrong But I Think You're Wonderful 

I'm Gonna Meet My Sweetie Now 

I'm Putting All My Eggs in One Basket 

In the Upper Garden 

I Want a Little Girl to Call My Own 

I Would Do Most Anything for You

Lonesome Road 

Louisiana Fairytale 

Magnolia's Wedding Day 

My Mother's Eyes 

Old Rocking Chair 

Red Sails in the Sunset

Rolling Round the World 

Show Me The Way To Go Home

Stevedore Stomp [final strain] 

When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano

You Were Only Passing Time With Me
==============
Footnote

My books Tuba Skinny and Shaye Cohn, Playing Traditional Jazz and Enjoying Traditional Jazz are all available from Amazon.