Post 272: 'NEW ORLEANS HULA' AND 'THE GIRLS GO CRAZY'

Sadly, the great jazz clarinet-player Monty Sunshine died on 30 November 2010. He was born in London, England, in 1928. I enjoyed his recordings over fifty or more years and had the pleasure of being in the audience at some of his concerts.

One of his recordings was of New Orleans Hula, a tune of which I was only vaguely aware.

However, listening to it again recently, I noticed that it is virtually identical to another old jazz classic - The Girls Go Crazy.

And if you are interested in jazz chord progressions, as I am, here's a curiosity for you. Take a standard twelve-bar blues chord sequence, for example (in the Key of C):

  C | C | C | C7 | F | F | C | C | G7 | G7 | C | C

(This was the basis of so much rock 'n' roll and all that followed.)

Then chop off the first four bars, leaving you with a sequence of eight bars:

 F | F | C | C | G7 | G7 | C | C

And what do you have?

None other than the chord sequence for New Orleans Hula and The Girls Go Crazy.

It also happens to work for the chorus of the spiritual It is No Secret - except that you have to go through the sequence twice to make up the 16 bars. And it works for the Chorus of Redwing and of Down By The Riverside.

If you don't know these tunes, I am sure you can find them easily on the internet. They are fun to play.

Post 166: WHEN YOU TRIM THE 12-BAR BLUES

The standard, basic chord structure of a 12-bar blues (without any subtleties) is this:

I | I | I | I7 | IV | IV | I | I | V7 | V7 | I | I | 

Hundreds of tunes are based upon it.

But there are some curious variants that are arrived at by chopping out some part of the structure.

For example, lop off the first two bars and you have this:

 I | I7 | IV | IV | I | I | V7 | V7 | I | I | 

This is exactly what you get in the 10-bar tune Frisco Bound, composed in 1929 by Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe.

Lop off the first four bars:

 IV | IV | I | I | V7 | V7 | I | I | 

... and you have the chord progression for The Girls Go Crazy (and many other tunes with 8-bar themes - such as the second part of Down By The Riverside).

Omit Bar 9 and you get:

I | I | I | I7 | IV | IV | I | I | V7 | I | I | 

...which is what you have with the possibly unique 11-bar blues that is Jackson Stomp, composed in 1930 by  Charlie McCoy and Walter Vincson.

Memphis Minnie

And here's a curiosity - the only 13-BAR blues I can think of. It occurs as the Interlude in Blind Boy Fuller's Untrue Blues. This is essentially an eight-bar tune, but he has two guitar links of 13 bars, which seemed to be based on the 12-bar blues, but with Bar 10 repeated. When Tuba Skinny revived this tune in 2014, they scrupulously followed the original and kept the 13-bar section.

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Footnote

The book Playing Traditional Jazz by Pops Coffee is available from Amazon.

Post 75: THE IV - I - V - I (BLUEBERRY HILL) CHORD PROGRESSION

If you are interested in jazz chord progressions, here's a curiosity for you. Take a standard twelve-bar blues chord sequence, for example (in the Key of C):

    C | C | C | C7 | F | F | C | C | G7 | G7 | C | C

(This was the basis of so much rock 'n' roll and all that followed.)

Then chop off the first four bars, leaving you with this sequence of eight bars:

   F | F | C | C | G7 | G7 | C | C

And what do you have?

It's the sequence 4 - 1 - 5 - 1  (IV - I - V7 - I), because it is based on the fourth note of the scale (F major) followed by the 1st note (C major), etc. It is known by some musicians as The Blueberry Hill Progression.

The structure can lend itself to some exciting if riffy rocking music, especially with Redwing and Uptown Bumps.

It is the chord sequence for:

Blueberry Hill (1st, 2nd and final 8s)
Bucket's Got a Hole in It

Come on and Stomp Stomp Stomp [A]
Down By The Riverside (chorus)

Ice Cream (middle eight)

It is No Secret (the chorus)

Make Me a Pallet on the Floor

Marie (I. Berlin 1928)
New Orleans Hula

Redwing (the chorus)

The Girls Go Crazy

Uptown Bumps (chorus)

When It's Sleepy Time Down South

If the tune is written in the key of F, this means the first chord would be Bb major. Here's an illustration of how it works. The tune (second half of Down by the Riverside) is in the key of F.