Post 597 : MIDDLE EIGHT JAZZ ANXIETIES

The band-leader announced that we would play I Get The Blues When It Rains.

The clarinet-player leaned across to me and quietly said, 'Just remind me how the Middle Eight goes.'

I hummed the tune and soon had to stop. 'Hey, wait a minute!' I said. 'I Get The Blues When It Rains doesn't have a Middle Eight. It's a 16 plus 16.'

'Ah yes. Got it!' he replied. And away we went, with no problems playing the tune.

But the incident reminded me that Middle Eights can cause problems and anxiety.

In case you don't know what I'm talking about, let me tell you most of our standard tunes are written in a 32-bar form. Sometimes (as in I Get The Blues When It Rains) the structure could be described as A1 (16 bars) + A2 (16 bars), in which A1 and A2 are very similar, beginning in identical ways for the first few bars.

But a huge number of the 32-bar tunes are structured in 8-bar segments, of which the first (A1), second (A2) and fourth (A3) are almost identical, while the third (B1) is something quite different. This 'B' section is called the Middle Eight (even though it does not come in the very middle); and it is sometimes called the Bridge or the Release.

(Incidentally I'm reminded of a very old joke. Two jazz musicians walked past a newspaper hoarding on which were the words Indiana Bridge Disaster. 'That's funny,' said one of them. 'I didn't think there was a bridge in Indiana.')

Although there are some stock patterns for Middle Eights (making it easy to improvise), there are also a few tunes that defy conventions. In these cases, you have to learn the Middle Eight the hard way and keep it in your head with regular practice.

All musicians have trouble with Middle Eights occasionally. I have even heard some of the 'big names' being flummoxed at this part of their improvisation.

Examples of tunes needing practice and care with the Middle Eight are I'm Putting All My Eggs in One Basket, Rosetta, Blue Moon, You Took Advantage of Me, Have You Met Miss Jones?, Polka Dots and Moonbeams, Yearning, Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams, Do You Know What it Means to Miss New Orleans?, and C'est Si Bon. Although very few bands play them, Body and Soul and When Smoke Gets in Your Eyes need care, too.

In more complex multi-part tunes, you may find several themes, each of which has a challenging Middle Eight. Think of Deep Henderson, which contains three themes with Middle Eights that have to be thoroughly mastered. The Middle Eight of the final theme is a real thriller (arpeggios descending over unlikely chords). But Shaye Cohn, Barnabus Jones and Jonathan Doyle make it sound easy at 1 minute 53 seconds in this video:

CLICK HERE.

Post 114: 'HAVE YOU MET MISS JONES?'

I looked at the song Have You Met Miss Jones?. What a beautiful and harmonically unusual song it is!

For a start, the words - by Lorenz Hart - tell a joyful story of the blossoming of love, from 'Have you met Miss Jones?' someone said as we shook hands. She was just Miss Jones to me

through to

I met Miss Jones, and we'll keep on meeting till we die - Miss Jones and I!

It was written for the musical I'd Rather Be Right and was published in 1937. 

And what about those glorious harmonies by the great Richard Rodgers? No wonder they have appealed to such modern jazzmen as John Coltrane.

It is difficult with the cold medium of text on a screen to show what is exciting about the harmonic progression. But I will try. Incidentally, I have noticed that the various books of music offer many alternatives within the chord structures, so I am working with one of the least complex. 

With the tune in the key of G, we find:-

(1) It includes the harmonies of G sharp diminished, lots of A minor 7ths and E minor 7ths. 

(2) While the singer holds the word 'die' on the long high F sharp (in 'till we die', at the climax of the song), the accompanying harmony moves through three chords: G major 7th; C sharp diminished; and A minor 7th. Wow! What a heady experience. 

(3) The 'middle eight' is unlike all other middle eights that I know of. The basic chords for the eight bars are these (with chord books offering other subtleties in between):-

C major | Eb7 | Ab major |  B7 |

E major |  Eb7 |  Ab |    D7    |

How amazing is that as a way of leading us through to the D7 that in its turn will take us into the final eight?