Post 304: 'MY SWEET LOVIN' MAN'

Lil Hardin

While roaming around YouTube videos of jazz bands in New Orleans, I chanced upon one put up by Thomas Balzac. It showed Sarah Peterson singing My Sweet Lovin' Man with the famous Smoking Time Jazz Club Band at The Spotted Cat Music Club in Frenchmen Street:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCTXmjXIleA

I remembered that I have the tune on one of my King Oliver CDs. It turned out that it was written by Lil Hardin in 1923.

I also noticed that - after its 12-bar Verse - it has a Chorus based on The Hot Nuts Chord Progression - popular in the 1920s. This is basically a 16-bar progression, with breaks possible on Bars 9 to 12 inclusive. The final two bars of the sixteen are in many songs repeated as a tag. That is what happens in My Sweet Lovin' Man, making 18 bars in all.

I like it; so I decided to add this tune to my mini-filofax collection. I wrote it out, and it sounds quite good on my keyboard.

Post 79: THE HOT NUTS CHORD PROGRESSION

THE HOT NUTS PROGRESSION 

has a long history, as it dates back at least to 1906 with Percy Cahill's Don't Go Away, Nobody. In the Key of C it is:

C | A7 | D7/G7 | C | C | A7 | D7 | G7
C*** | C7*** | F*** | Fm*** | C | A7 | D7/G7 | C 

As you can see, it is a very simple 16-bar structure. In some songs, a two-bar tag is added, making 18 bars in all. Where I have placed askerisks, the band sometimes chooses to include solo instrument (or vocal) breaks.

Like the 12-bar blues, this is one of the most common progressions in traditional jazz.

You can hear it for example in:

If It Don't Fit, Don't Force It 

Droppin' Shucks
Everybody's Talking About Sammy

Forget Me Not Blues
Hot Nuts, Get 'Em from the Peanut Man 

How Come You Do Me Like You Do Do Do? 
Maybe Not At All

Meat on the Table (one theme)
My Sweet Lovin' Man
Prove It On Me Blues
Take Your Fingers Off It
Walk Right In
Watchin' The Clock
Don't Go Away, Nobody

Like the Sister Kate Progression, this one ends with the Sunshine Sequence (described elsewhere in this Blog). So nothing could be more natural or simple to play. But the progressions are extremely effective.