Post 357: TUBA SKINNY AND 'HILARITY RAG' BY JAMES SCOTT

While I was in New Orleans during April 2016, I had the good fortune to be in Royal Street when Tuba Skinny were busking. Their programme included Hilarity Rag. Apparently this was a tune they had only just learned and they were giving their first public performance of it. I managed to film it. You can see and hear the piece by clicking on here.

But where does Hilarity Rag come from? The answer is that it was composed in 1910 - an early piano rag by James Scott (who also composed such classics Climax Rag, Ophelia Rag and Grace and Beauty).

You can hear the original piano rag (and see the sheet music - with sincere thanks to the video-maker codenamed RagtimeDorianHenry) by clicking on here.

Like so many of those early piano rags, it had to be 'simplified' and adapted quite a bit to make it playable as a full-band piece. Bunk Johnson obviously liked it and played it with his bands. Fortunately, at the end of his revived career, he was recorded in New York, playing his version. You can hear that by clicking on here. Sounds quite a bit different from the piano piece, doesn't it?

Other bands before Tuba Skinny have taken it up from there. For example, there's a lovely clear performance by an English band with the late Norman Thatcher on trumpet. You can watch it by clicking on here. (I remember Norman Thatcher as one of the rare musicians who also had Scott's Grace and Beauty in his repertoire in the 1980s.)

And now we have the young band Tuba Skinny in New Orleans playing Hilarity Rag. Their version also closely follows the Bunk Johnson reinterpretation of Scott's original.

I must mention that they also added to their repertoire in April 2016 tunes called Frog Hop and Frog-i-More Rag. Unfortunately I did not video them playing these tunes. But I noted that RaoulDuke504 did so in the weeks that followed. For his video of them playing Frog Hop, CLICK HERE.  And for Frog-i-More Rag, CLICK HERE.

Clifford Hayes composed Frog Hop in 1929 and recorded it with his Louisville Stompers. You can hear that original performance by clicking on here.

Tuba Skinny's version, that I heard at the dba in New Olreans on 8 April 2016, was modelled very closely on this - including the sustained link notes at the ends of choruses.

Frog-i-More Rag is, of course, a much better known piece - in the repertoire of most bands. It was composed by Jelly Roll Morton in 1918.

Post 287: LASSE COLLIN'S GREAT CONTRIBUTION

Scattered around the Globe there are many individuals who have voluntarily and generously given hundreds of hours of their time to help support and propagate traditional jazz.

I can not list them all. But I personally am specially grateful to the anonymous person (?Scott Alexander) who created the highly-informative 'Red Hot Jazz' website:

CLICK HERE. (Unfortunately, I am told that nothing new has appeared on this site for several years, even though it is a 'work in progress'. It is possible that the creator has died, though obviously we must hope this is not the case.)

And I am grateful to the people who run the CD-publishing company Document Records. They have enabled us to hear so much of the almost-forgotten music of the 1920s and 1930s:

CLICK HERE.

Then there is the great Dick Baker, about whom I have written before. For years he has been tirelessly researching the old tunes, trying to establish who composed what and to tidy up hundreds of confusions:

CLICK HERE.

And I have a huge admiration for John Birchall, who has spent years building up a massive library of tunes our bands play, all in Band-in-a-Box form:
CLICK HERE.
There are also many great video-makers, who have done us huge favours by making the best music available on YouTube. I follow several of them, and have long been impressed especially by the work of the video-maker codenamed digitalalexa:

CLICK HERE

and the video-maker codenamed RaoulDuke504:

CLICK HERE.

But today, especially on behalf of all of us who try to play the music, I want to praise Lasse Collin - a man who - month after month for many years - has been creating HUNDREDS of Lead Sheets from which we may learn the tunes.

It is virtually impossible to find or buy the sheet music for the wonderful tunes the bands played in the first half of the Twentieth Century. Lasse Collin has been working them out by ear to the best of his ability and publishing his findings (usually complete with lyrics where possible) - free to everyone - on his web-site.

Lasse says:
New Orleans jazz is played by heart and ear. You fake some good old tunes and improvise on the melodies and the chords they are built on. Most of the tunes were forgotten a long time ago;, nobody asked for them. ...... To preserve these tunes is more of a cultural achievement. Often you have to transcribe them from old recordings, because there has not been any sheet music available for many decades, if ever.


Lasse adds (with undue modesty) that his transcriptions 
are mostly an interpretation of the song and don't claim to be quite right, simply just "good enough for jazz". The upper section with the chords is for C-instruments (banjo, guitar, piano, bass), the lower with the melody is for instruments tuned in Bb (trumpet, clarinet, soprano- and tenor sax, trombone). Have a look at the tune, memorize it, put in your soul, and play it hot!

Here is an example of what he offers on his site.

You can also click on examples of Lasse's bands playing most of the tunes. Pretty good, eh?  And extremely useful to all of us who try to play the music. Well done, Lasse. We are all indebted to you! To explore Lasse's wonderful site for yourself,

CLICK HERE.

ADDITIONAL NOTE added in August 2023 : Sadly, I have just heard that Lasse died on 23 December 2022.