Post 458: MUSICAL TUNE 'GOING DOWN THE LADDER'

I'm going to be a bit technical today, so you will have to excuse me. I want to point out something about a particular chord sequence I find interesting. It's the sort of thing that for me makes our music a constantly fascinating study.

I have written before about the JaDa Chord Progression. You find it at the start of such tunes as these:

It Had To Be You

Ja Da

I'm Alone Because I Love You

I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas

Nobody's Sweetheart Now

The JaDa Progression goes from the tonic to the 6th and then follows the Circle of Fifths. So, in the key of G, for example, the first few bars could be:

G

G

E7

E7

A7

A7

D7

Etc.

Now consider that 1931 classic song entitled Need a Little Sugar in my Bowl, composed by Dally Small, J. Tim Brymn, and Clarence Williams, and made famous by Bessie Smith.

Its Chorus consists of 18 bars (basically 16 bars plus a tag); and it could be said to use the JaDa Progression from Bars 1 to 8, and then again from Bar 9.

But there is a subtle difference from the standard JaDa Progression. Using the key of G again for my example, you will see that - to get from the opening tonic G chord down to the second chord of the progression (E7), it 'goes down the ladder' - passing in half-bars through the chords of F#7 and F7.

G:F#7

F7:E7

A7

A7

D7

D7

G

Etc.

That's what helps to give this song its special flavour. Can you think of any other similar tunes? I can offer Blue Turning Grey; but then I'm stumped.

By the way, if you listen to Bessie Smith performing the song by clicking on here, remember that the chord sequence does not occur immediately at the start (which is the Verse). It comes where the Chorus begins (with the words 'I need a little sugar....').

One other point I can add about this business of 'going down the ladder' concerns the tune I'm Beginning To See The Light. The Middle Eight begins on the chord of III7 and works its way through to the chord of V7. That is normal enough. But it gets there in a most unusual way, which also involves going down a ladder.

The sequence of chords in the eight bars is:
III7 - III7 - IIIb7 - IIIb7 -  II7  -  II7 -  VIb7 - V7.

It produces a very interesting and unusual effect. I think the technique going on here is what is known as Tritone Substitution - but now I am becoming so technical that I'm out of my depth!

Post 354: 'FAR AWAY BLUES'

If you run a beginners' jazz band and you are looking for a simple, straightforward but effective tune to add to your repertoire, may I recommend Far Away Blues? The tune is sometimes called Faraway Blues.

It was written (under a pseudonym) by Fletcher Henderson in about 1923. I worked out my own leadsheet of 'Far Away Blues'.

I have arranged it at its most simple - a mere sixteen bars, to be played gently, but preferably sustained by a rock-steady and emphatic rhythm section.

One of the secrets of its appeal lies in the twelfth bar, where the diminished chord introduces a welcome surprise.

If you would like to hear the tune, you can find several versions on You Tube.

Here it is again, in C:

Note that this version includes a decorative addition in the first eight bars (shown here in the narrower print). A well-drilled band could have the trumpet playing the main melody, for example, and the clarinet playing those decorations.

In the version recorded in 1946 by George Lewis and the Eclipse Alley Five, George himself takes the melody in the opening choruses and the great Jim Robinson on trombone adds the decorations. It's a lovely recording, available on You Tube:

CLICK HERE

You can even go right back to 1923 and hear the great blues singers Bessie Smith and Clara Smith singing the song as a duet (including the decorative echoes). Click on here: they are accompanied on the piano by the composer.

CLICK HERE

If you would like a straightforward modern performance by a full traditional jazz band (the Grand Dominion), try clicking on this one from YouTube. They perform it simply, in the key of Bb. Try playing along with them.

CLICK HERE

Post 208: WHO COMPOSED 'YOU'VE BEEN A GOOD OLD WAGON BUT YOU DONE BROKE DOWN'?

You may have been told that You've Been a Good Old Wagon But You Done Broke Down, made famous by Bessie Smith's 1925 recording, was composed by Ben Harney and John Biller in 1895.

So let's get this straight right away. The song those two men wrote is NOT the one made famous by Bessie.

Yes, they wrote a song with the same title. Here, for example, is the beginning of their Chorus. You can see at once that it is a quite different song from Bessie's.

This sort of confusion occasionally occurs with our repertoire, when two different songs are written by different composers, but they both use the same title. There are at least two songs called Oh, Baby, for example; and there are two very different numbers both called Once in a While.

So who did write Bessie's song for her?

The best answer I can come up with is Stuart Balcom and Bessie Smith herself. I found that in a record catalogue. I guess Bessie wrote the words and Stuart may have been a pianist. He seems to have achieved no fame as the composer of any other tune. Elsewhere Stuart's surname (always in connection with this song) was spelt Balcomb, Balcolm or Balcon. I will accept Balcom, as that was the version to appear most frequently.

So who was Stuart Balcom? If you can provide information, please let me know. Meanwhile, I can add that he might just possibly have been a pen-name of Perry Bradford (1893 - 1970), the vaudeville performer, music entrepreneur and composer. Although Perry Bradford was better known for working with the blues singer Mamie Smith, he was certainly in the right place at the right time to have worked with Bessie on this song. More recent artists have attributed it to him. I find this theory plausible.

Meanwhile, to hear Bessie singing You've Been a Good Ol' Wagon,

CLICK HERE;

and to hear Erika Lewis singing it (much more recently),

CLICK HERE.

Post 202: 'IF YOU DON'T, I KNOW WHO WILL'; BESSIE SMITH

In 1923, Bessie Smith recorded If You Don't, I Know Who Will, with Fletcher Henderson at the piano. It is a minor classic.

Tuba Skinny recorded it on their first CD in 2009; but as far as I know there is no YouTube version of them performing it.

This is how I play it on my keyboard. The first twelve bars are the Verse. Then comes the 26-bar Chorus (including a two-bar tag).

Post 90: 'MY KITCHEN MAN'

I wanted learn to play on my keyboard the good old Bessie Smith jazz classic 'Kitchen Man'. I think it was written in about 1928 by Andy Razaf and Maceo Pinkard.

I made my own lead sheet. It's probably incorrect in a few notes or chords but it doesn't sound too bad to me. (I have since found that there's a version - probably better than mine - on the internet at :
 http://cjam.lassecollin.se/songs2/kitchenman130218.html   )

Post 64: 'WEEPING WILLOW BLUES'

Bessie Smith

Having enjoyed the performances of Weeping Willow Blues by the great Bessie Smith and (on You Tube) by Tuba Skinny, I decided I would learn the tune so that I could play it on my keyboard. As so often with these classic old numbers, I was unable to get hold of the sheet music, so I worked out the notes and chords as well as I could by ear. I had to make my own lead sheet.

However, a reader kindly sent me this version, which confirmed that my own leadsheet was about right.

I found out that Weeping Willow Blues was written in 1924 (though one source says 1920) by P. Carter. Who was P. Carter? A man or a woman? I wish I knew. The composer is given as Pam Carter but also elsewhere as Paul Carter.

It was the Bessie Smith classic recording of 1924 that made the song famous.

This is a great song for any lady blues singer.

When you analyse it, Weeping Willow Blues turns out to be a very interesting and unusual jazz number.

For a start, if you listen casually, you may think the main melody is a standard 12-bar blues. But it is not.

On the recording, we begin with a four-bar Introduction (let's call that [A]). This is followed by a sung Chorus of 12 bluesy bars ('I went down to the river.....'), but they do not follow any of the conventional 12-bar blues chord progressions. Let's call these twelve bars [B]. They are followed by that four-bar Introduction [A] again (so we now notice that [A] actually comprises nothing but the final four bars of [B] - but without the vocal).

So in effect we have a 12-bar song [B] with its final four bars repeated as an instrumental tag [A]. These sixteen bars are in the key of Ab; and we usually hear THREE of these sung choruses in succession (with room obviously for additional improvised choruses by the bandsmen).

Then comes a big surprise. There is a key change to Db; and what follows is not any old melody in Db. Let's call this section [C]. It's a full 20-bar recitative such as you might have found in a nineteenth-century opera; and the first 16 bars of this are entirely on the chord of Db, with the band playing stop chords against the singer's recitative. Only in the final four bars is there a glorious resolution, with the band fully joining in.

So the basic sequence of musical events (to which may be added instrumental improvisations on [B]) is usually:
[A]
[B]
[A]
[B]
[A]
[B]
[A] = final time before [C] optional
[C]

For the Bessie Smith performance, double-click  RIGHT HERE.   

What an extraordinary piece of historic jazz!

Post 59: 'FROSTY MORNING BLUES'

Here's my attempt to pick out the song Frosty Morning Blues. I have enjoyed listening to Tuba Skinny's performance of it.

The song dates from 1924, was recorded by the great Bessie Smith  and is believed to have been written for her by a gentleman called Eddie Brown.

I can't guess how accurate Mr. Brown would consider my attempt, but I hope it's not too far out.

The words of this blues - which requires a good lady blues singer - are easily available on the Internet.

As you can see, there is a 16-bar verse and then a conventional 12-bar blues.

You can enjoy a street performance of the song by Erika Lewis and Tuba Skinny by clicking here.

Post 32: 'DO YOUR DUTY'

My ear was caught by the song Do Your Duty. I particularly enjoyed the performances of it on YouTube by that great young band Tuba Skinny.

It was written in 1933 by Wesley 'Sox' Wilson. He and his wife (Leola B. 'Coot' Grant) were vaudeville performers and song writers. It was recorded that year by the great Bessie Smith.

Not sure whether Sox would agree the version below of his tune is absolutely right but this is how it seems to go. It has a 32-bar structure, essentially four sets of 8 bars:

a - a - b - a.

It sounds right in the key of F, so I entered it into my mini-filofax collection in the key of G, because this is helpful to me when playing my Bb cornet.

You can catch a terrific street performance of this song by Tuba Skinny if you
CLICK HERE.

Post 22: 'NEED A LTTLE SUGAR IN MY BOWL'; AND THE RESEARCHER DICK BAKER

Click on THIS VIDEO. It is concise (only 30 bars in total) and therefore simple for musicians to learn and memorise. It has a good, strong, easily-singable melody and a very pleasant down-the-ladder harmonic progression (plus The Sunshine Chord Sequence at the end). Bars 7 and 8 of the Chorus can be played as a 'Break' - to be taken either by a singer or by a member of the band; and Bars 17 and 18 of the Chorus are an appealing 'Tag'. For all these reasons, I Need A Little Sugar In My Bowl is a very good tune for jazz bands to have in their repertoire.

I have written before about the amazing Dick Baker who has spent decades researching the origins and histories of tunes played by traditional jazz bands. He now has information about nearly 4000 tunes on his website, which runs to over 400 pages of closely-typed information: CLICK HERE; and then go to Stomp Off Records Project.

Dick has been tracing the origins of I Need A Little Sugar In My Bowl, the song made famous by Bessie Smith and - more recently - brilliantly revived by Tuba Skinny and their fine singer Erika Lewis.

Dick sent me an email:

Ivan, In my quest to update and improve the Stomp Off index, I went hunting for this on a trip to the Library of Congress in January. The composers were actually Dally Small, Clarence Williams and J. Tim Brymn, and the filed copyright was "I Want a Little Sugar in My Bowl." The original lead sheet, possibly in Clarence Williams's handwriting, is attached. The copyright as printed in the book reads I need a little sugar in my bowl words and melody by C. Williams, Dally Small and J. T. Brymn. © 1 c. Jan. 14, 1932; E unp. 50141; Clarence Williams music pub. co., inc., New York. The record label, alas, screwed things up a bit. The initial "I" was dropped (but it's common for record companies to shorten, streamline, or otherwise change titles for their labels), but the composer credit on the Columbia 14634-D label is Williams, Byrne [or poss. Byrns] and Small. There WAS a composer named W. A. D. "Danny" Small, but this evidently isn't that guy.

Here is the leadsheet Dick discovered. What is interesting about it? It is dated (rubber stamp) '1932'. The composers are given as stated by Dick. The tune is set in the key of Ab, with a melody line and no chords for the Chorus and a melody line and a few hints at chords for the Verse. The Verse has 16 bars. The Chorus has 18 bars (really 16 bars plus a two-bar tag).

The 16-bar Verse is typical of its time - not specially interesting melodically, simple and with a repeated phrase, and ending with a dominant 7th to lead into the Chorus.

What I find strange is that Bessie Smith recorded it (in a musically very good version) in 1931; and yet the copyright manuscript (not such good music - especially the Verse) is dated 1932. I would have expected it to be the other way round.

Bessie Smith sang a shorter (12-bar) verse which is better than the 16-bar Verse in the manuscript.

Turning to the Chorus, Bessie's version is very close to the manuscript version of the melody.

Bessie, by the way, sang the song in the key of F, though the manuscript is in Ab.

When Tuba Skinny recorded the song (on their first CD, in May 2009), they based their performance on the Bessie Smith version, including the 12-bar Verse and using the key of F.

Here are the lyrics Dick Baker discovered. Bessie Smith kept close to the first three lines of the Verse, but scrapped the remaining three, replacing them with one line (thereby reducing the Verse to 12 bars). With regard to the Chorus, Bessie pretty well kept the words as in the manuscript, though she slightly amended a couple of phrases.

Bessie then went on to sing a second Chorus (not typed into the manuscript above). This second Chorus was based on the first, but with cruder metaphors.

I'm pleased Tuba Skinny's version omits Bessie's second Chorus altogether. Erika Lewis sings the Verse and first Chorus only, following Bessie Smith but with a little toning down of the language, conveying a mood rather than archness. And Tuba Skinny abbreviates the title even further to Need a Little Sugar.

Writers of jazz history books in the past used to snigger like schoolboys at the 'innuendos' in the lyrics of songs performed by the likes of Bessie Smith, Victoria Spivey and Lucille Bogan.  (In England, we had the songs of George Formby: their 'cheekiness' was fashionable at one time.) But we live in an age when people are neither amused nor shocked by the metaphors used; and today there is little appetite for this kind of verbal humour.

So, regardless of the lyrics, let us value this tune for its conveying of mood, its conciseness, its simplicity, its strong melody, its harmonic progression, its 'Break' and its 'Tag'.

Long before I received the photocopy of the manuscript above from Dick Baker, I did my best to pick the tune out by ear. This is the 'Need a Little Sugar' leadsheet that I came up with (as in the recordings: 12-bar verse and an 18-bar chorus). It's good enough for me.

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Footnote

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