Post 400: 'FINGERING WITH YOUR FINGERS' - FROM THE MISSISSIPPI SHEIKS TO TUBA SKINNY

The tune Fingering With Your Fingers was created in 1935 by The Mississippi Sheiks.

The Mississippi Sheiks

This string band was very active in the early 1930s, when they recorded about 70 tunes. The musicians were mostly members of the Chatmon family (living about 200 miles north of New Orleans and descended from slaves). The best-known member of the family was Armenter Chatmon, who used the stage name 'Bo Carter': he also had a solo career. In performance, there would be between three and five men in the group and the principal instruments were guitars and violin. Many of their recordings (though not this one) had vocals. You can hear their original recording of Fingering With Your Fingers BY CLICKING ON HERE. It is very simple and repetitive (with a 32-bar AABA structure). It also uses a basic, straightforward chord sequence. The melody is reminiscent of the 1930 song Exactly Like You (composed by Jimmy McHugh and Dorothy Fields), though it has a quite different Middle Eight.

I picked it up for playing with my friends in the English Midlands. Here's the lead-sheet I prepared.

Practically nobody today would have been aware of this lively tune had it not been for the revival of it, in about 2012, by Tuba Skinny - and their frequent playing of it in public.

For example, to watch an exhilarating performance of Fingering With Your Fingers in 2013, CLICK HERE. That was filmed for us by digitalalexa; and Tuba Skinny comprised nine players on that day. It shows what really great jazz musicians can make out of even the simplest material. I hope you enjoyed the way those two outstanding reed players - Jonathan and Ewan - traded bars in the early part of the video.

And when I visited New Orleans three years later, I found Tuba Skinny still merrily beginning a set with the tune. Here's the video I made at the time: CLICK HERE. On this occasion, Tuba Skinny had a line-up of eight musicians - only four of whom had also appeared in the 2013 video.

The Mississippi Sheiks, by the way, recorded under various names. One of them was The Mississippi Blacksnakes - the group that introduced us to 'Blue Sky Blues' - a most remarkable tune because it comprises twelve AND A HALF bars! This tune was also mastered by Tuba Skinny and you can hear their version of it BY CLICKING HERE.
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Post 287: LASSE COLLIN'S GREAT CONTRIBUTION

Scattered around the Globe there are many individuals who have voluntarily and generously given hundreds of hours of their time to help support and propagate traditional jazz.

I can not list them all. But I personally am specially grateful to the anonymous person (?Scott Alexander) who created the highly-informative 'Red Hot Jazz' website:

CLICK HERE. (Unfortunately, I am told that nothing new has appeared on this site for several years, even though it is a 'work in progress'. It is possible that the creator has died, though obviously we must hope this is not the case.)

And I am grateful to the people who run the CD-publishing company Document Records. They have enabled us to hear so much of the almost-forgotten music of the 1920s and 1930s:

CLICK HERE.

Then there is the great Dick Baker, about whom I have written before. For years he has been tirelessly researching the old tunes, trying to establish who composed what and to tidy up hundreds of confusions:

CLICK HERE.

And I have a huge admiration for John Birchall, who has spent years building up a massive library of tunes our bands play, all in Band-in-a-Box form:
CLICK HERE.
There are also many great video-makers, who have done us huge favours by making the best music available on YouTube. I follow several of them, and have long been impressed especially by the work of the video-maker codenamed digitalalexa:

CLICK HERE

and the video-maker codenamed RaoulDuke504:

CLICK HERE.

But today, especially on behalf of all of us who try to play the music, I want to praise Lasse Collin - a man who - month after month for many years - has been creating HUNDREDS of Lead Sheets from which we may learn the tunes.

It is virtually impossible to find or buy the sheet music for the wonderful tunes the bands played in the first half of the Twentieth Century. Lasse Collin has been working them out by ear to the best of his ability and publishing his findings (usually complete with lyrics where possible) - free to everyone - on his web-site.

Lasse says:
New Orleans jazz is played by heart and ear. You fake some good old tunes and improvise on the melodies and the chords they are built on. Most of the tunes were forgotten a long time ago;, nobody asked for them. ...... To preserve these tunes is more of a cultural achievement. Often you have to transcribe them from old recordings, because there has not been any sheet music available for many decades, if ever.


Lasse adds (with undue modesty) that his transcriptions 
are mostly an interpretation of the song and don't claim to be quite right, simply just "good enough for jazz". The upper section with the chords is for C-instruments (banjo, guitar, piano, bass), the lower with the melody is for instruments tuned in Bb (trumpet, clarinet, soprano- and tenor sax, trombone). Have a look at the tune, memorize it, put in your soul, and play it hot!

Here is an example of what he offers on his site.

You can also click on examples of Lasse's bands playing most of the tunes. Pretty good, eh?  And extremely useful to all of us who try to play the music. Well done, Lasse. We are all indebted to you! To explore Lasse's wonderful site for yourself,

CLICK HERE.

ADDITIONAL NOTE added in August 2023 : Sadly, I have just heard that Lasse died on 23 December 2022.

Post 129: 'SOMEBODY'S BEEN LOVING MY BABY' - TUBA SKINNY AND MANDY LEE

I know very little about 'Document Records', though Wikipedia tells me the company was established in 1986 and still seems to be active, now based in Scotland. It is clear this company has done a great service for the history of jazz by rescuing from obscurity and re-issuing hundreds of recordings from the period 1900 to 1945.

It's also exciting to note how influential these old recordings have been on the young generation of great traditional jazz musicians - particularly in New Orleans. For example, Tuba Skinny manage to pick out from the long lists of material tunes that are perfectly suited to their style and to Erika's voice in particular.

On one of Document's CDs, there are eleven songs performed in the 1920s by Mandy Lee. What do we know about Mandy Lee? Who was she? It has been suggested that 'Mandy Lee' was just a name given to an artist (or even more than one artist - certainly it is difficult to be sure that all eleven songs are sung by the same voice). I suppose it's one of those mysteries never to be solved.

Tuba Skinny have taken on the song Somebody's Been Lovin' My Baby; and of course they perform it extremely well. They have included it on their sixth CD (Owl Call Blues - released in August 2014). And you can watch them perform it (filmed for us by the great video-maker codenamed digitalalexa)
BY CLICKING HERE.