Post 311: EXPAND YOUR REPERTOIRE - JUST LIKE TUBA SKINNY

Can you name ANY band that plays five or more of the following twenty-five tunes? Big Chief Battleaxe, Billy Goat Stomp, Cannon Ball Blues, Carpet Alley Breakdown, Chocolate Avenue, Dear Almanzoer, Dreaming The Hours Away, Fourth Street Mess Around, Gladiolus Rag, Good Time Flat Blues, In Harlem's Araby, Jazz Battle, Jubilee Stomp, Kansas City Stomps, Michigander Blues, Minor Drag, New Orleans Bump, Oriental Strut, Perdido Street Blues, Pyramid Strut, Russian Rag, Skid-Dat-De-Dat, Variety Stomp and Wild Man Blues.

I certainly can't - apart from Tuba Skinny.

These are just a few of the tunes - mostly tricky and complicated in structure - that this wonderful band has magnificently mastered in its short existence. Yes, Tuba Skinny plays all twenty-five.

Listen to any programme given by your average traditional jazz band and the chances are that more than 90% of the tunes will be the usual standards structured in 32 bars (measures) or - in the case of blues - 12 bars. Of course a tune may have a short introduction and possibly a coda, but essentially the 32-bar or 12-bar melodies dominate our music.

But - as in so many other respects - the great young band Tuba Skinny is making us re-think this aspect of our playing.

How many bands do you know who play 10-bar tunes? Tuba Skinny do. Think of Frisco Bound.

How many bands do you know who play 11-bar tunes? Absolutely none, I guess. Apart from Tuba Skinny, with Jackson Stomp.

And what about 24-bar tunes? Can you even name one such tune (not counting 12-bar blues with two themes)?

Well, Tuba Skinny play a 24-bar tune: I'm Blue and Lonesome (Nobody Cares for Me). It is in no sense a double 12-bar. It begins with The Sweet Sue Chord Progression and then in bars 17 - 20 incorporates The Magnolia Chord Progression.

They introduced us to Ice Man (8 bars and only two chords!), a fun number with a simple theme.

Then there's Crow Jane - another tune well established in their repertoire. How many bars long is it? It uses both 8-bar and 10-bar lengths.

We have to admire Tuba Skinny for their fearless tackling of these unusually shaped tunes and the enormous range of their material.

They enjoy mastering difficult old classics, such as Fred Rose's Deep Henderson. This tune presents a challenge to any musicians. It is usually played by jazz bands in the key of F, modulating to the key of Db in Theme C (the Trio). Fred Rose's original piano music showed no key change.
Here's how it is structured:

8 BARS : Introduction, with various instruments taking a bar each in Bars 5, 6, 7 and 8.

32 BARS : THEME A. Rapid, tricky work for the reed player and a thrilling free-style middle eight.

32 BARS : THEME B. Interplay between two melodies. With a famous leaping middle eight that has to be played just right.

4 BARS : MODULATION, normally ending on Ab7, neatly leading into the key change to the unusual key of Db.

32 BARS : THEME C (THE TRIO). A super rhythmic riff in the new key. The middle eight is thrilling, with the cornet tearing through eight arpeggios on tricky chords including B7 (that's an awkward C#7 to the Bb instrument player!).

That gives you a total of  108 bars to be mastered and memorised, not counting any repeats or solo choruses that the band chooses to insert. Tuba Skinny play it magnificently. You can see and hear them do so on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqVx9vwt2WM

Post 270: 'CROW JANE' AND 'JACKSON STOMP'

Erika Lewis

I continue to marvel at the wonderful playing of Tuba Skinny, that great young band based in New Orleans. What a privilege that they have produced five CDs - all downloadable from their internet site:

http://tubaskinny.tk/

- and that generous folk have put up dozens of videos of their performances on You Tube.

I've been listening this morning to two of the tunes on the CD - 'Rag Band'.

'Jackson Stomp' is a tune about which I have written before. The extraordinary thing about it is that it is 11 bars (measures) in length.

Virtually all traditional jazz tunes (in common with most popular music of the first half of the Twentieth Century) are in multiples of FOUR bars. Musicians feel, think and play the music in four-bar phrases.

So eleven should not work!

Jackson Stomp is really a 12-bar blues with the ninth bar missing. In theory, it should sound awkward. Yet Tuba Skinny sail through it, chorus after chorus, with their usual brilliant collective improvisations, as if an eleven-bar song was the most natural thing in the world. (Unusually - and this is another illustration of the band's versatility -  on the CD  they even record it without trombone or cornet: Shaye switches to violin.)

Shaye Cohn

And what about Crow Jane? I had never heard of this song before Tuba Skinny introduced me to it. Apparently it was made up and recorded by Nehemiah 'Skip' James 85 years ago!

The tricky thing about this number is that, although it is basically a repetitive eight-bar tune, it also has an optional 2-bar tag.

Tuba Skinny deal with this tag in different ways in their various You Tube performances. On the CD version, they choose to have the band playing four choruses of eight bars, then Erika singing five choruses in 10-bar form - apart from the penultimate, which she takes as 8 bars. The band then plays more eight-bar choruses, Erika returns with some ten-bars, and the band rounds things off with choruses of eight bars; and yet there is one more twist: a TWELVE-bar chorus (including a four-bar tag) to finish. Sounds complicated? Yes. But such is the discipline and understanding within this band that nobody trips up, nobody puts a foot wrong. They play it as one. And, as usual, the improvisations on the basic theme are mind-boggling.

Post 237: TUBA SKINNY TESTIMONIALS

I start my days at my In-Box, where I usually find at least a dozen e-mails from readers of this Blog. These are appreciated; and I try to reply to them all.

I must tell you the topic my correspondents raise most often is the joy that discovering Tuba Skinny (the young New Orleans band) has brought to their lives. Some of them thank me for pointing them to the YouTube videos of this wonderful group of musicians.

Here's a recent typical e-mail:

I’m happy to report that 'Tuba Skinny' are under my skin ... a narcotic mix of youth, exuberance and Shaye Cohn’s phrasing. I listen to their YouTubes and am compelled to have a blow myself.........repeatedly failing to reproduce their magic but I enjoy trying!

And another:

...I bought all of the Tuba Skinny CDs because of your blog. Thanks so much. They are terrific! I walk to work...........where I teach harmony, counterpoint and composition......I have an mp3 player and listen both ways. I am conducting my orchestra this Friday..............and I should be absorbing the concert music on my walks. Ha, instead I have had a week of Tuba Skinny - I can't get enough of it - comical.

Another:

Dear Ivan,

I just turned 79 last March. Quite by accident, I also discovered Tuba Skinny. I've long been a dixieland/jazz lover. Your treatise on Tuba Skinny was spot on. I agree with your comment on the washboard, but they do make it work..........Many thanks for your wonderful blog on Tuba Skinny. (I'm also in love with Shaye.)

 Sincerely,

Lou 

Another reader - an English trumpet player on holiday in New Orleans - told me he came across Tuba Skinny playing in the street and he stood 'absolutely mesmerised' for two hours by Shaye's playing.

There are over 250 videos of Tuba Skinny on YouTube. I am an admirer of - and greatly indebted to - the video-maker codenamed digitalalexa, who has filmed the band in the streets dozens of times. A fine example of his work is to be seen by clicking here.