Post 352: EIGHT-BAR TUNES; AND TUBA SKINNY

Tuba Skinny performing 'Owl Call Blues'

Tuba Skinny are fond of what I would describe as 'eight-bar melodies'. What I am referring to are themes of eight bars (measures), sometimes repeated, so you could say the tunes are either of eight bars or sixteen bars (often with a 'turn-around' in bars 7 and 8). A sixteen bar (8 + 8) example is Late Hour Blues - a song they introduced into their repertoire in April 2015.

I suppose this is inevitable with a band that garners so much of its material from the unsophisticated songs of the jug bands and blues guitarists of the 1920s and 1930s. They went in for simple, memorable themes that are really good to sing.

These eight-bar tunes (sometimes using only two chords and sometimes needing just four chords covering two bars each) have become specialities of Tuba Skinny's wonderful vocalist, Erika Lewis.

Not long ago, she added Untrue Blues to her eight-bar songs in a version that is remarkably faithful to the 1937 original by Blind Boy Fuller. Incidentally, Tuba Skinny play it in the key of A, which is awkward for some brass and clarinet players. Here's Erika: Click here to watch.

And here's the original by Blind Boy Fuller. He prefers the key of Bb: Click here.

But other Tuba Skinny numbers in this eight-bar category are:
Mississippi River Blues (Big Bill Broonzy, 1934)
Blue Spirit Blues (by Spencer Williams and famously recorded by Bessie Smith in 1929; it also has a 12-bar theme at the end)
Got a Mind To Ramble (Merline Johnson, 1930s)
Lonesome Drag (Tennessee Chocolate Drops, 1930; adapted by Erika Lewis)
Ice Man (Memphis Minnie, 1936)
Baby, Please Don't Go ('Big Joe' Williams, 1935) (Click here to watch video)
I'll See You in the Spring (The Memphis Jug Band, 1927)
Owl Call Blues (music by Shaye Cohn and words by Erika Lewis, 2014): you can watch Erika singing this haunting tune by clicking on here.

Papa, Let Me Lay It On You (Blind Boy Fuller, 1938) CLICK HERE for a video of this filmed by my friend David Wiseman.
Too Tight Blues (Blind Blake, 1927)
All I Want is a Spoonful (Papa Charlie Jackson, 1925)
You Gonna Quit Me, Baby (Blind Blake, 1927)
Jet Black Blues (Lonnie Johnson, 1929)

There's a lesson here for the rest of us. Maybe we should play more eight-bar tunes, especially if our band is lucky enough to have a singer.

Post 283: CHORDS INSIGHT ('OWL CALL BLUES')

Pianist and blog-reader Peter Petrovič from Slovenia has been transcribing Owl Call Blues, the lovely tune composed during a tour in France by Shaye Cohn and Erika Lewis. He kindly sent me a copy.

Erika and Shaye

He also added some interesting information about chords.

Regular readers will know that I, as a self-taught musician, have been struggling for months to come to some understanding of chords, chord sequences and how they work, so every snippet that comes to me is eagerly gobbled up.

Here's what Peter told me:

The chord sequence "  Bb7     C#dim7     Cm7-5 " (here at the beginning of Owl Call Blues)  is often used in the 11th bar of a 12-bar blues composition and dissolves very well into Bb in the last bar.

Peter gives this as the chord sequence for the first seven bars of Owl Call Blues:

I feel sure he is right and I now appreciate that this sequence of chords contributes so much to the quality of this song. It is a most beautiful, hauntingly sad and satisfying sequence. Shaye has been very clever in spreading it over the first eight bars of a slow-paced song, rather than employing it only in its usual position - crushed into one bar, bringing a 12-bar blues to an end.

I shall try to memorise that sequence and think of it as The Owl Call Sequence from now on. It may be expressed as:   I⁷   -  III^bo7   -   II^m7-5  -  I.

I wonder whether it occurs at the start of any other tunes. Can we think of one? I doubt it.

You can listen to Tuba Skinny playing Owl Call Blues, with Erika singing, BY CLICKING ON HERE. And you can read what I wrote some months ago about Owl Call Blues BY CLICKING HERE.

Post 161: 'OWL CALL BLUES'

Photo : David Wiseman

Tuba Skinny have introduced a beautiful slow-paced song, Owl Call Blues, to their repertoire. It is gloriously sung by Erika Lewis. The melody was written during a tour in France by Shaye Cohn and the lyrics by Erika herself. What a team!

I'm pleased to say it is on their sixth CD, which is actually called Owl Call Blues and includes 14 other tunes, such as Dallas Rag and Oriental Strut.

I can tell you this haunting, melancholy tune immediately embeds itself in your mind. You will want to hear it again and again; and you will go around humming it for days.

It's not a 12-bar blues. It is a 16-bar tune that begins by working its way down a chromatic ladder of long notes. In general feel, it has something in common with Jelly Roll Morton's 1938 composition, Sweet Substitute, Fred Meinken's Wabash Blues (of 1921) and Alex Hill's 1934 song Delta Bound (which Tuba Skinny have also brilliantly recorded).

Tuba Skinny perform it entirely in Bb.

Erika's lyrics comprise two 8-line verses of mystic wistful, nostalgic, pastoral poetry. Both verses begin with the same four lines, but the second four lines are different.

Several readers have asked me to give them the lyrics. I may be wrong but, to my ear, they are as follows.

The valley wide, the valley low,
The ocean deep, the undertow:
I'd walk for miles; I'd walk for days
To feel again your warm embrace.
The clouds roll in to mask the moon.
The owl calls a mournful tune
To a fire that glows with sparks that fly.
I sit and stare, and wonder why.

The valley wide, the valley low,
The ocean deep, the undertow:
I'd walk for miles; I'd walk for days
To feel again your warm embrace.
So take me back to those good old days,

Of running free above the glades.

In tender years we danced and sang.

Our time will come to go away.

If, like me, you can't resist trying to play it yourself, you will probably be able to pick out both the melody and the chord structure (in the main it seems to be a three-chorder, though for the long note - E - in Bars 3 and 4 I settled on Bb diminished).

I first came across this tune in two YouTube videos. One was recorded inside a museum and the acoustic is inevitably resonating, bringing out the full glory of Erika's voice. The Band (with Shaye going for the higher octave) plays three choruses before Erika sings:

Watch it by clicking here.

The second, also filmed in the open air by the great video-maker digitalalexa [Al and his wife Judy], obviously has a quite different acoustic. You can watch it

by clicking on here.

============

Footnote

The book Tuba Skinny and Shaye Cohn is available from Amazon.

Post 106: TUBA SKINNY'S CD 'OWL CALL BLUES'

Readers asked me to re-publish what I wrote in 2014 about Tuba Skinny's CD - Owl Call Blues - which was released at the end of August that year.

I would much prefer that you all listen to it and buy it! Go to their website: CLICK HERE  and follow the instructions.

The band's friend (and occasional guitarist) Max Bien-Khan recorded the music with his equipment over several days in one of the New Orleans houses in which Tuba Skinny musicians live. The resulting acoustic is of a very high quality.

Here's what the CD contains:

1. Crazy 'Bout You: a standard Tuba Skinny performance of the pleasant, simple 16-bar tune, with singing by Erika and good ensemble work. I enjoyed Shaye's cheeky Ab on the very last note played - turning the final chord into Bb7th!

2. Rosa Lee Blues: vocal by Greg (abetted by Erika) in this 12-bar blues, which is slightly unusual in having an eight-to-the-bar rhythm and being played in the key of G.

3. Cannonball Blues: An amazing key-changing 12-bar blues with a terrific head arrangement. I love the moment when Shaye shakes her cornet though about 12 notes in half a second while changing the key from Eb to Ab! And it's clever how they slide down to the Key of C for Todd's tuba chorus before sliding up again to Ab.

4. Got a Mind To Ramble: One of those Erika vocals that we all love. Essentially a simple 8-bar theme in Bb - just the sort of material out of which nobody can make more than Erika and Tuba Skinny do.

5. Short-Dress Gal: Many of us know and love the 1927 original by the Sam Morgan Band. Tuba Skinny recreate it with their usual skill and Barnabus does a great job on the trombone, in the style of Big Jim Robinson on the Sam Morgan recording.

6. Owl Call Blues: I think for many of us this haunting song alone is worth the price of the CD. Shaye and Erika composed it; and here the band performs it lyrically for us. I have written before about Owl Call Blues   HERE .

7. Too Tight: The bouncy 16-bar blues highlights the strings and also Todd on the tuba.

8. Oriental Strut: Johnny St. Cyr's complex multi-part 1926 composition is very well executed, with a typical Tuba Skinny arrangement including some tricky breaks and rhythmic effects.

9. Ambulance Man: This 1930 Hattie Hart song is a duet with a story to tell. There is very good ensemble support. Basically a 12-bar Chorus in Bb but with a preceding Verse. (Don't like to say this but maybe it starts just a shade too slowly. It picks up later. Perhaps the slow start is deliberate - for dramatic effect.)

10. How Do They Do It That Way?: This Victoria Spivey song from 1929 is a favourite with the band and their followers. There are plenty of videos of them performing it. And I believe it's the only number they have recorded twice for CDs: it was also on their Garbage Man CD. So we are in familiar territory, though with a new arrangement. On this occasion they have chosen to play one Chorus in Eb and then one in Bb (Erika's preferred key) before Erika's vocal solo. But they return to Eb for a remarkable final Chorus, displaying Shaye's talents as she plays almost the entire Chorus solo, against stop chords.

11. Dallas Rag: This tune (devised and recorded by The Dallas String Band in 1927) has settled into Tuba Skinny's repertoire and I have written about it before ( CLICK HERE TO READ ). Although it's based on a simple chord sequence, given its liveliness and the use of breaks, it is a great fun number. Good work all round. Fans of Robin will enjoy hearing him strut his stuff.

12. Untrue Blues: Another 8-bar theme bouncily played and well sung by Erika. You'll enjoy hearing Shaye playing the fiddle here. Like Rosa Lee Blues (above) it's played in G.

13. Somebody's Been Lovin' My Baby: One of those sad tales that suits Erika's voice very well. A 32-bar song. Sounds like another example of a key that is hardly ever ventured into by other traditional jazz bands - A minor.

14. Willie the Weeper: Jazz bands have been playing this one since 1920. Tuba Skinny give a lusty creative performance, almost entirely with full ensemble and preferring the keys of G minor and Bb to those used by many bands - D minor and F. (By the way, Robin has said this is his favourite track on the CD).

15. Travellin' Blues:  A standard 12-bar, with Shaye on fiddle and Greg providing the vocal - again abetted by Erika.