Post 286: TUNES WITH SIMILAR CHORD PROGRESSIONS

Puttin' on the Style.
Enjoy Yourself.
It's the Royal Telephone.

Listening to Tuba Skinny performing Vine Street Drag (also known as Lonesome Drag), in this video (click on to watch), I noticed that the chord progression sounds remarkably similar (possibly identical) to that of I'm Looking for the Bully of the Town recorded in 1927 by The Memphis Jug Band. You can hear The Memphis Jug Band performance by clicking here.

Similarly, if you listen to Tuba Skinny performing the eight-bar tune Mississippi River Blues, you may agree with me that it has the same chord structure as the first eight bars of Lonesome Road:
CLICK HERE.
I wonder how many hundreds of cases there are (in addition to the obvious examples of 12-bar blues) where this occurs.

There are dozens of 32-bar tunes based on the same chord progression as Bill Bailey, Won't You Please Come Home. Similarly, there are several using the same chords as When the Saints Go Marching In.

A less known example of a parallel is the 32-bar Please Don't Talk About Me, for which you can use exactly the same chord progression as for Has Anybody Seen My Girl? (also known as Five Foot Two) and Who's That Knockin' At My Door? and also for Aaron Gunn's great song Caffeine. It seems to me that Postage Stomp has an almost similar sequence too.

And I'm fairly sure you can play Livin' in a Great Big Way and Christopher Columbus to the very same chord structure as I Got Rhythm.

Where Am I Gonna Live When I Get Home improbably uses the same chord progression as Just a Closer Walk With Thee!

Bei Mir Bist Du Schön seems to me to use the same chord progression as When I Get Low I Get High and Blue Drag and Root, Hog, or Die and Jubilesta.

And my friend Ralph Hunt, the banjo player, tells me that Pennies from Heaven has exactly the same chord structure as I Can't Give You Anything But Love, apart from just one chord, which is a 7th in one tune and a minor in the other - hardly a significant difference.

My Josephine (first recorded by Papa Oscar Celestin's Tuxedo Band in 1926) is virtually identical to Some of These Days (composed by Shelton Brooks in 1910) - not only in chord structure but even in its melody. My theory is that someone (Celestin himself, perhaps) wrote a lyric dedicated to Josephine - a fan of his band - and set it to the music of Some of These Days, with only the the most negligible of modifications to the tune and chord structure.

I also think that the two spirituals Precious Lord, Take my Hand and When I Move to the Sky, if played in the same key, would be found to have the same chord progression.

I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate seems to me to have the same chord sequence as Red Light Rag, Southern Shout and the Chorus of Heebie Jeebies and of Dallas Rag. But the alternating of dominant and tonic chords is a very familiar ploy in dozens of tunes.

You Can't Escape From Me (aka San Jacinto Stomp) uses the same chord sequence as The Cat's Got Kittens.

The chord sequences for Coquette, Yes, Sir, That's My Baby and I Want to Be Happy all seem pretty much the same to me.

Rip 'Em Up Joe is an example of a 16-bar tune that seems to have a familiar chord sequence: it is similar to that found in Crazy 'Bout You (recorded by The State Street Boys in 1935) and sundry other tunes.

The House of the Rising Sun sounds suspiciously similar to St. James Infirmary. My ear tells me they have the same chord progression and almost the same melody.

Improbably, the religious number Royal Telephone is remarkably similar to Enjoy Yourself, It's Later Than You Think and to the rocking tune Puttin' On The Style.

Listening again on YouTube to the wonderful Tuba Skinny playing How Do They Do It That Way?, I thought the chord sequence sounded identical to that of the 1925 popular song Ice Cream (Ice Cream, You Scream, Everybody Loves Ice Cream). They are both very fine songs. How Do They Do It That Way? is a song about which I know very little, though I believe it dates from 1929, when Victoria Spivey recorded it. It is probable that she also composed it. I can't prove the chord progressions are identical as I do not have copies of the printed music. They are fairly different styles of song (Ice Cream is also usually played more quickly than the other) but it's interesting that to my ear at least the same chord pattern works very well for both. Listen to Tuba Skinny by double-clicking here. Try humming Ice Cream during the vocal and see whether you agree with me.
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Luke Holladay has sent me this email:
I believe the chords for "Do Lord" are identical to "This Little Light of Mine" and "Battle Hymn of the Republic".

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As for 'modern' jazz, there have been many tunes based on the chord sequences of good old songs, I'm told. For example:
Grooving' High is based on the chord sequence of Whispering
Anthropology is based on the chord sequence of I Got Rhythm
Take the A Train is based on the chord sequence of Exactly Like You
Donna Lee is based on the chord sequence of Indiana
In a Mellow Tone is based on the chord sequence of Rose Room
Ornithology is based on the chord sequence of How High The Moon
Hackensack is based on the chord sequence of Lady Be Good
Koko is based on the chord sequence of Cherokee.

Post 230: WHAT JIMMY MCHUGH AND DOROTHY FIELDS DID FOR US

It started when I noticed what a terrific tune I'm Living In a Great Big Way is. In the streets of New Orleans, the best dancers and bands make quite something of it. See this video for example: CLICK HERE TO VIEW.

I wondered who composed this song. I found it was one of the batch of compositions by Jimmy McHugh and Dorothy Fields that traditional jazz bands have taken to their hearts.

Jimmy and Dorothy

You hardly ever hear a traditional jazz programme that does not include something by the formidable Fields and McHugh team. Jimmy McHugh wrote the music; and Dorothy Fields provided the lyrics.

Think of these, for example:

I Can't Give You Anything But Love
Exactly Like You
Magnolia's Wedding Day
On the Sunny Side of the Street
Don't Blame Me
I'm in the Mood for Love
I'm Living in a Great Big Way
Diga Diga Doo

And then there are some good numbers rarely played these days, even though they were recorded by the likes of Bix Beiderbecke, Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller:

Take It 'Way
Blue Again
Raisin' the Roof

And there were plenty more songs from the partnership, some of which would still make good material for our bands. Examples are:

Cuban Love Song

I Must Have That Man

I Feel a Song Coming On

I Won't Dance

Thank You For a Lovely Evening

The Way You Look Tonight

Lost in a Fog

All these - and many more tunes - were produced by the pair over a period of just seven years. Quite remarkable. At other times in their lives, they both composed with other partners. Jimmy wrote many songs in collaboration with Ted Koehler, Al Dubin and Harold Adamson. Dorothy went on to set lyrics to the music of such luminaries as Jerome Kern and Cole Porter. With Kern, she gave us the unforgettable advice: 'Pick yourself up; dust yourself off; start all over again.' 

Dorothy Fields

Jimmy and Dorothy wrote their songs mostly for revues and shows. For example, I Can't Give You Anything But Love comes from their score for the Broadway Musical Blackbirds of 1928. On the Sunny Side of the Street and Exactly Like You both come from the same show - Lew Leslie's International Revue. They also provided title songs for films.

Who exactly were Jimmy and Dorothy?

James Francis McHugh from Boston was born in 1894. His father - a plumber - at first wanted Jimmy to join him in the business. But the family was quite musical too. In his early years Jimmy worked as rehearsal pianist for Boston Opera House and then as a demonstrator for Irving Berlin's publishing company. In 1921 he settled in New York as professional manager to the Jack Mills music publishing business (where he also found a job later for Dorothy). He went on to compose over 500 songs, including many for stage shows and films, and they were performed by pretty well all the big singing stars from 1930 onwards. McHugh lived until 1969.

Dorothy Fields - eleven years younger than McHugh - was the daughter of a Polish immigrant (Lewis Maurice Schoenfeld) who was in show business - first as a comedian and then as a Broadway producer. Her brothers Joseph and Herbert were also in the entertainment industry, mainly as writers. So show business was in the family's blood. Dorothy grew up in New Jersey and New York. While at school, she started regularly writing poems. She worked for a short time as a teacher and laboratory assistant. According to one source, Dorothy appeared on the stage in London, where she was said to have acted in the Midnight Follies at the Metropole in the 1920s.

At the age of 18, Dorothy married Dr. Jack. J. Wiener of New York. She was soon noticed as a talented lyric-writer; and her seven-year collaboration with McHugh began when she was only 23 years old. She went on to write the lyrics for about 400 songs. In the final years of their collaboration, they worked in Hollywood.

Dorothy's second marriage, in 1938, produced two children. Dorothy died at the age of 68, in 1974.

Why is it that the work of the Fields-McHugh partnership lends itself so well to interpretation by traditional jazz bands? I think these are the three reasons:

(1) McHugh composed good, simple, catchy melodies and structured them in such a way (usually 32 bars, based on the pattern  a - a - b - a) that they could easily be caught and memorised after a couple of hearings.

(2) His harmonic structures are relatively simple. There's not too much of a challenge in most of his (often basic and repetitive) chord progressions, so they are not difficult for jazzers to improvise on.

(3) Dorothy Fields - whether writing lyrics for comic or whimsical settings, or for more heartfelt and emotional songs - manages to find lyrics that strike us as 'just right'. You wouldn't want to change a word. She could skilfully express sophisticated and complex notions in idiomatic and colloquial language and sharp images.

So let's carry on, as the elephant said, Livin' in a Great Big Way!