Post 543: TUBA SKINNY'S 'TUPELO PINE' - ALBUM AND CD

Tuba Skinny recorded their eighth album - Tupelo Pine - in May 2017 and released it in August.

Using the eight musicians who were appearing regularly with the band at the time (but without Erika, who was absent), it offers music ranging from 1921 right up to tunes recently composed by three of the band members. Greg provides vocals, with one by Max.

The only tune to have appeared previously on one of their CDs is Call of the Freaks. On their earlier Garbage Man CD, it was played under its alternative title - Garbage Man, in fact. In this 2017 version, there are some 'freakish' inventions, especially from the clarinet, and we still have the vocal (Stick out your can....). But the arrangement is more  elaborate, intricate, delicate, and polished than in the earlier version.

And that is exactly what will strike you about this album. Everything is so deftly executed. You have the impression that a great deal of preparation has gone into the arrangements. Backing rhythmic patterns are precise and well-rehearsed. All the little breaks are carefully worked out. A good illustration of this is the structure and use of two-bar breaks in Come On and Stomp, Stomp, Stomp, where the band precisely follows the famous recording made in 1927 by Johnny Dodds' Black Bottom Stompers. What stands out strongly compared with Tuba Skinny's earlier recordings is that everything is even more slick and polished.

As usual with Tuba Skinny, there is no exhibitionism. The emphasis is on good melodic music played with bags of intelligence and impeccable teamwork.

Several of the tunes have become familiar through YouTube videos that appeared in 2016 and 2017. For example, the 1933 Clarence Williams composition Chocolate Avenue is yet another of those good old numbers the band unearthed. It is a gently swinging 32-bar tune in Eb; and the band passes the melody around in its usual fashion. To read the article I wrote when Tuba Skinny were first filmed playing Chocolate Avenue, CLICK HERE. And to watch a video I made of them playing this tune in New Orleans when I was there in February 2017, CLICK HERE. It is interesting to compare different performances. You will notice that the structure is remarkably similar, with the trombonist (in my video Charlie Halloran, but on the CD Barnabus Jones) leading the first sixteen bars of the Second Chorus and Craig on clarinet leading from the Middle Eight to the end of the Chorus. On the new recording, in the third Chorus Todd on sousaphone is given the dominant role in the first sixteen bars but the full ensemble rounds the piece off. So: three Choruses in all. However, in my video, you can see them playing four Choruses in total, with much prominence given to the three-man string section in the third.

And Clifford Hayes' romping Frog Hop from 1929 (at two and a half minutes the shortest piece in the album) is a real foot-tapper, with good little solos and a couple of amusing 'frog' effects.

Dangerous Blues - the 1921 song with music by that tragically short-lived young lady Billie Browne - features Craig on clarinet and also has the usual collective vocal. You can read my article about this tune BY CLICKING HERE.

Come On and Stomp, Stomp, Stomp (composed in 1927 by Fats Waller et al.) is the trickiest and most complex piece in this album. Tuba Skinny's version is taken at a more leisurely pace than the one by Johnny Dodds, is fully arranged, complete with the key changes, and sets a great example to any band wishing to try this tune.

Shaye's composition Pearl River Stomp (2016) is a bouncy number with two sixteen-bar themes. In this performance the lead is passed around, the bass clarinet is strongly in evidence and there is even a 'twos' section shared by cornet and trombone. Almost imperceptibly, without any bridge, it slips into Db for the final two choruses (the second theme) after being entirely in Ab up to that point. This theme seems to be similar to the second theme of Bogalusa Strut, also using that tune's chord progression.

And Shaye's Nigel's Dream (from 2015) is another fine composition. With typical Shaye-isms, it slides neatly from C to Eb, back to C and then back to Eb to finish. It uses a thematic base reminiscent of the middle eight of East Coast Trot, and indeed the whole piece is something of a trot, played with great energy. Quite a dream our Nigel had!

I am glad the album also includes Thoughts, Robin Rapuzzi's gently rolling composition from 2015, in a lovely arrangement. I have written before about this tune. You may read my article BY CLICKING HERE. Robin originally composed it for violin but he is proud of the way it sounds when played by the band.

I'm Going to Germany (the 1929 number composed by Noah Lewis for Cannon's Jug Stompers) is a 16-bar song with a wistful melody, well presented by Greg, with good support from the band.

Greg also sings Loose Like That - one of those bright 8-bar tunes from which Tuba Skinny always manages to extract so much. It gets the album off to a fine start. (There is a YouTube video of them playing this song at the Abita Springs Buskers' Festival in April 2017.) In contrast, he also sings the 1930 Broonzy number Eagle Riding Papa, which is a brisk 32-bar tune.

Max is the singer on Right or Wrong, the pleasant love song composed in 1921 by Arthur Sizemore and Paul Biese, with words by Haven Gillespie.

Some have already said that the elegiac minor-key Deep Bayou Moan is the loveliest melody Shaye has ever written. She herself leads it off, and it is then played beautifully by all members of the band. You may well consider this track alone justifies the price of the album.

The eponymous Tupelo Pine, composed by Barnabus (maybe inspired by the band's canine musical director!), is a slow, lovely melody in Eb over a simple chord progression (plenty of Ebs, C7ths and Abs). As with all the other tunes, it provides opportunities for a variety of instruments to take the lead.

You can download the album, or individual tracks, from Bandcamp: CLICK HERE.

Post 434: WHAT ARE 'BLUES'?

A reader asked me to explain the type-names we come across in traditional jazz tune titles. 'What is the difference between a Drag and a Rag?' he asked. 'What exactly is a Stomp? How do you define Blues?'

Little did he know I am just as confused about these matters as he is. There is plenty to read on the subjects, both in books and on the internet; but agreed definitions are not easy to come by.

Worst of all is trying to define Blues. In the 1940s, the first 'Blues' I became aware of were the songs of Bessie Smith and her contemporaries. There were tunes such as Backwater Blues and Blue Spirit Blues. I was led to believe the Blues were mournful songs, expressing suffering or regrets, or at least wistfulness and nostalgia. The books I read suggested they had arisen from the chanting of African slaves and were structured on a familiar twelve-bar chord pattern (three four-bar blocks). They used a scale in which flattened thirds, fifths and sevenths were common.

But just think of the heritage of tunes with 'Blues' in the title today.

There are songs called 'Blues' that are really just run-of-the-mill pop music of ninety years ago (normally 32-bar structures). Think of Beer Garden Blues (a conventional 32 bars in AABA structure). Think of Tishomingo Blues, Sugar Blues (this one actually an 18-bar, including tag), Bye Bye Blues, Wild Man Blues, Rent Party Blues, and Davenport Blues.

When professional composers got to work on writing 'Blues', their inventiveness took them far beyond creating one mournful melody of 12 bars. You find Yellow Dog Blues, Savoy Blues, Riverside Blues, Perdido Street Blues, Royal Garden Blues, Jackass Blues, Aunt Hagar's Blues, Dippermouth Blues, Livery Stables Blues, Beale Street Blues, Canal Street Blues, St. Louis Blues, West End Blues, Tin Roof Blues, Chimes Blues - all having two or more (often very cheerful) 12-bar themes and in some cases further structuring, such as 'bridge' passages and key changes.

The early classic Crazy Blues has a long, continuous vocal that runs through three themes. Only the middle one comprises 12 bars; but you would hardly be aware of it.

There are tunes with a 12-bar theme but also a substantial and memorable verse that is played before it. Think of Memphis Blues.

There are plenty of 'Blues' that are lovely wistful compositions that do not include a 12-bar theme at all - Basin Street Blues, Melancholy Blues, Wabash Blues, Michigander Blues, Owl Call Blues, Winin' Boy Blues, Faraway Blues, for example.

Some tunes called 'Blues' have no 12-bar theme and nothing 'bluesy' about them, but are simply well-structured fun numbers. Think of Wolverine Blues, Blue Grass Blues, Dangerous Blues and Jazz Me Blues.

Sometimes the 12-bar blues structure turns up in unlikely places. For example, Mahogany Hall Stomp (yes - it's called a stomp) has a simple main second theme of 12 bars on which the musicians improvise. The same thing happens in She's Crying For Me, Copenhagen, and especially in The Chant, which sounds like a very tricky piece, even though there is a simple 12-bar section tucked away within it as a basis for improvisations.

And what about Tom Cat Blues? It actually sounds like the 12-bar song Nobody Knows The Way I Feel This Morning leading (usually with a change of key) into the 16-bar Winin' Boy Blues.

And consider Weary Blues. Band-leaders often tell you it is not a blues and it is certainly not weary. In fact the first two themes are 12-bar structures, though they whip along in such a way that you would hardly notice. Then, with a change of key, you are into the pulsating familiar 16-bar theme on which sparkling improvisations are possible.

So: what kind of tune may be called a 'Blues'? As John Gore, my favourite school-teacher, used to say to us pupils in his Latin class 70 years ago: 'Tot homines, quot sententiae' [There are as many opinions as there are people]. He was quoting Terence, the Roman dramatist who lived 22 centuries ago.

Post 319: 'DANGEROUS BLUES' - AND A SAD TALE

There is so much joy in the history of traditional jazz. But frequently it is intermingled with sadness.

Here's a poignant example.

The original cover of Dangerous Blues,
with art-work by Ilah Marian Kibbey

Dangerous Blues was recorded by The Original Dixieland Jazz Band in 1921. You can hear the recording by clicking on here. In more recent times, the tune has been revived by the wonderful young band Tuba Skinny. You can hear them playing it by clicking here. It's a merry enough tune.

But here's the sad tale behind it. The composer of this tune, Billie Brown, was a young lady who died of smallpox very soon after she composed it.

We know that is correct. But unfortunately not much else is known for sure about Billie.

Billie was probably born in 1903 and became something of a child prodigy. She first had some music published when she was only 12 years old. In the next few years, six more of her songs were published.

Billie's mother, Anna Welker Brown (who lived on until 1935), wrote lyrics to most of Billie's tunes, including the words for Dangerous Blues.

Billie's first song was published in Kansas City, and she is believed to have been living there with her mother in a rooming house at the time. One record suggests her mother may have been a music teacher (presumably she taught Billie) and that Billie worked as a pianist in a cafeteria. This was a time in history when it was still normal for children at such an age to have jobs rather than be in school.

By the time of Dangerous Blues, Billie had secured a job as a composer and pianist (piano and song demonstrator) for the J. W. Jenkins Music Company - a large and prosperous musical instrument dealer and music publisher. As well as Dangerous Blues, Jenkins published her Lonesome Mama Blues and Lullaby Moon - both very popular at the time - and also composed in 1921.

Dangerous Blues was a great success and Billie received a good deal of money from royalties during the weeks before she died. As we know, both the blues singer Mamie Smith and The Original Dixieland Jazz Band immediately picked the tune up and recorded it.

And then - how awful! - poor young Billie contracted smallpox and by December 4th she was dead. What a terrible loss to the development of our music.

Another of Billie's songs - What's On Your Mind - was published posthumously.

No sure evidence concerning Billie's father has been found, but he may have died earlier. Her mother Anna re-married when Billie was about 16 years old.

Here is my mini-filofax-stored attempt at Dangerous Blues:

The crazy lyrics of Dangerous Blues appear to be:

Ta de da da de dum. Ta de da da de dum.

There's a funny strain a'stealing through my brain

It drives me 'most insane it seems.

Ta de da da de dum. Ta de da da de dum.

If you listen now, I'll tell you what this

Ta da da de-dum means:

CHORUS:

Oh, I got them dangerous blues.

Naughty doggone dangerous blues.

Can't you hear the music playing soft and sweet?

It's the kind that makes you want to shake your feet.

I think I'm slippin'; I know I'm slippin'.

Ta de da de da de da de da de da de dum.

Weary, dreary dangerous blues;

they're the kind you hate to lose.

I can't even think,

So lay me out in pink.

Every time that saxophone it moans

I want to sink.

'Cause I got them doggone dangerous blues.

Oh, I got them dangerous blues.

Naughty doggone dangerous blues.

Can't you hear the music playing soft and sweet?

It's the kind that makes you want to shake your feet.

I think I'm slippin'; I know I'm slippin'.

Ta de da de da de da de da de da de dum.

Weary, dreary dangerous blues;

they're the kind you hate to lose.

I can't even think,

Can't even sleep a wink.

Every time I hear those mournful blues

I want to sink.

'Cause I got them doggone dangerous blues.

Footnote: a researcher found records of a couple living in Eureka Springs, whose names were William B. Brown and Anna Welker. They adopted in about 1895 a baby with the name Irene Anderson, who is believed to have been born the previous year.  The researcher suggested this could have been Billie's family and that this baby - despite her name - could have been Billie. If so, that would have made her about 27 when she died.

Although this speculation may be true, it raises troubling questions. How come Billie's age was given as 18 on her death certificate? How and why did it come about that her name changed from Irene Anderson to Billie Brown? How come she and her mother are recorded as living in Kansas City, so far (250 miles) north of Eureka Springs? Why did the William Brown in question, still living in Eureka Springs in 1930, describe himself as a widower in the Census of that year?

I prefer to believe the details given on the death certificate.
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