Post 441: MINOR KEY VERSE; MAJOR KEY CHORUS

With thousands of tunes available in the traditional jazz repertoire, there are bound to be many that musicians never learn or get to play. However, I am sure we all keep striving to learn new ones - especially those we have been intending to pick up for months.

That's why I set about learning I'm Coming, Virginia today. It was a tune composed in 1927 by Donald Heywood and Will Marion Cook. I first enjoyed it on a Jack Teagarden recording decades ago. And of course the Bix Beiderbecke version is a classic.

I wanted the full song - Verse included. So I found the 'dots' on Lasse Collin's wonderful site (many thanks, Lasse!) and I entered them into my mini filofax system.

But what was this? The verse was in a minor key but the Chorus was in the major.

This made me wonder how often this switch from minor to major occurs in the popular old songs.

I guess there must be many whose verses in minor keys have been long forgotten and only the Chorus is now played. An example is the very popular Hindustan. It has a minor-key 16-bar verse, but I do not recall hearing any band play it in recent years. Similarly, Japanese Sandman has a 20-bar Verse in a minor key (usually Eb minor), followed by a 32-bar Chorus in the major key (Eb major, usually).

I think I'm right in saying that At The Jazz Band Ball, That Da Da Strain, She's Crying For Me, Shim-Me-Sha-Wobble, Willie The Weeper and Lil Hardin's Droppin' Shucks all start with a minor theme and then have a second theme in the related major key. And the 1929 song The Ghost of the St. Louis Blues by J. Russel Robinson, with words by Billy Curtis, certainly has a 'spooky' minor Verse with a major Chorus. Exactly the same is true of Chloe.

Another is a nearly-forgotten song called I Don't Know Nobody Here and Nobody Knows Me, composed in 1924 by Jo Trent and Will Donaldson. The piano music shows a 16-bar Verse in D minor leading into an 18-bar Chorus in the key of D major.

And Lil Hardin uses the minor very heavily in the early stages of Perdido Street Blues before inviting the musicians to play 12-bar choruses in the related major key.

Cole Porter worked wonders with the minor-major effect in I Love Paris, where the first sixteen bars offer a lovely melody in a minor key and the second sixteen - like a flower suddenly blossoming - use virtually the same melody an octave higher but now in the major key.

Cole Porter plays a similar trick in My Heart Belongs to Daddy, which is essentially in a minor key, though there is a 'blossoming out' into the major in the second half of the Chorus, before the tune settles back on the minor in its final bar. And if you look closely at Cole Porter's You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To, you discover that he very skilfully contrasts minor with major chords.

There are tunes such as I'm The King of the Swingers, where we begin in the minor (I'm the King of the Swingers, the Jungle VIP.....) and then switch to the related major key (Oh oobee do, I wanna be like you.....) for the second half of the Chorus. And I think Mama's Gone, Goodbye may be said to have a minor verse leading into a major chorus.

But I am stumped in trying to think of other interesting examples.

Maybe you can help me?

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Reader responses

It seems that readers are just as stumped as I am. Only two responses have arrived so far. Robert Duis in the Netherlands offers Chega De Saudade, which has a verse of 32 bars in the minor, followed by a 36-bar chorus in the major. It is a 1958 bossa nova by Antonio Carlos Jobim. I have not personally heard a traditional jazz band play it. And Richard Bogen in Phoenix, Arizona, has told me that Shine On Harvest Moon (music composed in 1908 most probably by Nora Bayes-Norworth) has a 16-bar Verse in the relative minor. I did not know the Verse, but I have found it on the internet and yes: Richard is right.
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Post 127: COLE PORTER - 'I LOVE PARIS'

That wonderful haunting tune I Love Paris was composed by the great Cole Porter about 66 years ago.

O.K. I know I Love Paris is not a tune normally played by traditional jazz bands. But it well deserves attention and study - and maybe attempting.

On the face of it, the tune is a simple 32-bar song - typical of the times. But what makes it so special?

Cole Porter has divided it into two sixteen-bar sections. The first is in the minor key, starting:

All four of these bars are on the chord of C minor. By the end of the sixteen bars, he will have created an image of a pensive individual whose love for Paris is deep.

Then what happens? Something startling!

The second sixteen begin by leaping up an octave and offering the same phrase as above, but without the flattened minor notes. Now we are in the key and on the chord of C major. Suddenly the sun is out and we feel like jumping up and dancing!

The phrasing of the second sixteen copies that of the first, but not closely. It is entirely major in feeling and we find out why: the song ends by saying that his love 'is near'.

I doubt whether I Love Paris is unique in having the 16-minor + 16-major pattern. Perhaps you can draw my attention to some more tunes of this kind? But it is certainly a trick Cole Porter uses brilliantly.

He does a similar thing in My Heart Belongs To Daddy, a 32-bar tune substantially in a minor key; but just for a few bars near the end (notably bars 25 - 28) it is suddenly all 'sunshine' as he leaps into the major, before returning to the minor  to finish.