Post 586: LET'S LEARN 'WA WA WA'

My friends and I decided to learn Wa Wa Wa. This is the tune famously recorded by King Oliver in 1926. You can hear his recording BY CLICKING HERE.

We soon realized it was a great piece to learn - an archetypal 1920s number with a catchy melody based on a simple, intuitive chord structure, and having a good Verse - played AFTER the first Chorus - to provide some contrast.

The Chorus is one of those consisting of twenty bars (a fashionable length in the 1920s) and allowing 'breaks' over bars 13 - 16. These of course add to the excitement.

We went about learning it direct from the King Oliver recording, with frequent use of the pause button. King Oliver plays it in Bb - the easiest of keys for traditional jazz bands - so it was not too difficult.

I must mention that Wa Wa Wa was not actually composed by King Oliver. The composer was Mort Schaefer, who seems to have been famous for nothing else.

It's a terrific piece to play, and easier than it sounds. For your own satisfaction, though, it's a good idea to include King Oliver's excellent four-bar Introduction  and neat, tricky Coda (ending with a syncopated bar played on percussion only). The Coda begins in Bar 19 the final time you play the Chorus. It lasts for eight bars. It's worth taking the trouble to get it right.

Post 436: YOUR LOCAL BAND NEEDS YOU!

The world of traditional jazz desperately needs more musicians - especially young ones. I have written on this subject before (about three years ago) and hundreds of people read the article, so it seems to be a topic worth considering again.

Would you consider playing in a traditional jazz band? How should you go about it?

You must start by reaching a reasonable level of technical proficiency on your chosen instrument. If you are a complete beginner, you will need lessons to get you started, mainly to set you up with good habits. I would recommend finding a qualified professional music teacher rather than someone who happens to play traditional jazz. (Players do not necessarily make good teachers.) Make sure you learn about scales, keys, chords and arpeggios and it will help if you learn to read music, at least at a basic level. After that, practice will be your main pursuit.

If you are already a competent musician, it does not follow that you will move easily into traditional jazz. Good piano soloists sometimes find it hard to adapt to their rôle in a band. Teamwork is the key to success in traditional jazz and players of the piano, guitar and banjo have to accept that for most of the time their job is simply to lay down the correct chords, firmly and clearly, rather than display virtuoso skills.

The one exception may be highly-skilled double bass players. If they are willing to adjust to the style and hardly use the bow at all, they can contribute extremely well with nothing more to guide them than the band's chord book. I remember how, during the 1950s, there were some double bass players, members of the symphony orchestras based in London, who would finish a concert with their orchestra and then head to a jazz club where they would join a traditional jazz jam session. It was easy enough for them to jump from Handel to Handy and from Mozart to Morton.

Becoming good enough to perform traditional jazz in public doesn't mean passing lots of exams. But be warned: it can take hundreds of hours of hard work in the woodshed.

You should start early on learning some tunes from the traditional jazz repertoire - easy ones to begin with. Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler is a particularly good and easy one as it is fun but uses very few notes and virtually only two alternating chords.

Soon you could try Algiers Strut, Tin Roof Blues, When The Saints Go Marching In, Careless Love, Down By The Riverside, and Lily of the Valley.

There are plenty of sources of printed music, such as busker's books. But an excellent site you should consult is Lasse Collin's, where there's enough to keep you going for years: CLICK HERE TO VIEW.

And here's an important tip: when you first learn a tune, make sure you learn it accurately. If you get into a habit of playing a phrase or a sequence of chords wrongly, it is very hard to unlearn them later, after the tune has become embedded in your brain and fingers.

Develop an understanding of and fluency in different keys. Those most commonly (but by no means exclusively) needed in traditional jazz are Bb, Eb and F. Next most common are Ab and C.

Listen to lots of traditional jazz - especially noting the part played by your chosen instrument - to get a feel for what is required. Use the wonderful resource of YouTube. When you are ready, try playing some tunes along with bands on YouTube. That's almost as good as 'sitting in'.

A similar idea is to play along with backing tracks. Some of these are also freely available on YouTube. This will give you a great chance to assess your progress because, if you are confident and not discordant with a backing track, the chances are you will fit in with a jazz band.

Link up with other musicians. Maybe you can form a band in your town, starting with a nucleus as a trio or quartet. Meet regularly in one of your houses to rehearse and expand your repertoire.

How do you find these musicians? Put the word around among all your friends and acquaintances. Chat in the local music shop. Advertise in the local newspaper. See whether anybody in a social group is interested (e.g. in England, the U3A). There may be a regional website on which you can seek (free of charge) other musicians.

Listen to live traditional jazz bands and talk to the musicians: they are very good sources of information about both learners and established players in the area and may be able to put you in touch with people who could join your group.

For information on which bands are playing where, there is probably a regular publication you can consult. For example, here in England we have the monthly Jazz Guide - available in clubs and from bands and also by post if you pay the very reasonable subscription (payments by PayPal are accepted). You should be able to see a sample page and full information by clicking HERE.

And specifically for the North-West of England, a gentleman called Fred Burnett altruistically runs a website giving full bulletins concerning jazz in his region: click here.

When you feel ready, begin to practise more challenging and more complex tunes: there are hundreds in the repertoire.

Unless you are a born genius, you will need to learn the standard chords and also practise improvising your way though common chord progressions. In particular, work on the Circle of Fifths and The Sunshine Sequence and the basic 12-bar Blues Sequence as these will be useful in hundreds of jazz tunes. If you don't know what I mean, look at the blog posts in which I have written about them.

Are you worried about improvising? Watch Charlie Porter's excellent videos. For an example CLICK HERE.

When your group is good enough at fifteen or so tunes, start playing gigs! You can give your band a name and offer yourselves for free to a local pub or residential home and get your band officially launched.

Also, when you have built up confidence by playing along with YouTube, ask whether you may sit in for a couple of tunes with an existing band. Most bands are so keen to keep the music alive that they readily give opportunities to anyone who shares that mission.

Make sure you give your telephone number and email address to everyone who may be able to help you in the future - especially band-leaders. It may be worth having some business cards printed.

Band-leaders and agents keep lists of musicians within a radius of seventy miles. You never know when you may receive a call to deputise for a musician who is ill or on holiday.

Eventually you may succeed in obtaining a place in a reputable well-established band. There is a rapid turn-over of personnel and a need for new blood, especially these days when many elderly musicians are hanging up their trumpets and clarinets.

Most of today's traditional jazz musicians have gone through the stages I have described above, except that in their day they did not have the enormous benefit of YouTube and such sites as Lasse Collin's to help with learning and training. In years gone by, players had to listen to records and later to cassettes in order to pick up tunes by ear and learn from the masters.

Post 428: 'OLD AGE BLUES'

As at 31 August 2016, according to the survey released by the NWG Institute, the average age of active traditional jazz musicians in the United Kingdom was 76 years and 10 months. I think the situation in many other countries must be similar.

So it's high time we revived a fine tune from 1921 - Old Age Blues. The music was composed by Jess Williams and the words were written by Pete Curtis. Not much is known about Jess (Jesse?) Williams, except that he was born in 1892 and died in 1977. He was a fine piano player and composer of ragtime music and he ran an automotive parts business in Nebraska. We can see from the cover of Old Age Blues that Williams and Curtis were partners in publishing music, too, apparently.

It's a good tune, merry and well worth playing. But I have been unable to find any example on YouTube of a jazz band playing it. (There is an Old Age Blues on YouTube but it's a different tune from the one of which I am speaking.) So I have produced on my computer a Band-in-a-Box version of it. This is far from an ideal way of hearing it, but it gives some idea of the nature of the tune. You can listen to my attempt by clicking here.

Take a look at the structure of Old Age Blues. It has a 16-bar Verse and then a 16-bar Chorus. Players could use the Chorus as the basis for improvisations. The Verse is virtually A-A-B-A in structure, whereas the Chorus is A1 (8 bars) + A2 (8 bars)  

And here it is in F (for Bb instruments).

The words are worth using too:

VERSE
Folks, there's a man that's made me sad.
That ain't all. He's made me mad.
Since I was born, we've been good friends
But this very day our friendship ends. I'll
Tell you what he's done and
Give you his name for
If you live long he'll
Treat you the same.
We all call him 'Father'
Father Time and he
Gave me some blues I
Wish wasn't mine! (Those)

CHORUS
Old age Blues, those Dotage Blues:
They haunt you night and day. They
Come to you seems all at once
And never go away. They're
In your dreams and in your wake and
Do just what they choose. There's
No way beating them
No way cheating them - Those
Old Age Blues.

If you care to study the original piano sheet music, here it is.

Post 383: 'PUT ON YOUR OLD GREY BONNET'

Put On Your Old Grey Bonnet was composed as long ago as 1909 by Percy Weinrich and Stanley Murphy. It's one of those 'Good Ol' Good Ones' that has truly stood the test of time. It is still popular with the traditional jazz bands of today.

However, versions of this tune by jazz bands on YouTube are mostly disappointing and they nearly all omit the excellent trotting verse. When I was in New Orleans in April 2016, I heard one of the best bands giving an exhilarating performance that included the Verse. Sadly, I was not videoing at the time.

But there is a historic (non-jazz) recording that is interesting to study: you get the full works, plus the lyrics: Click here to listen. In this version, the Verse is in G; the Chorus in C.

It's a super number for any band but I would specially recommend it to learners because - if you play the Verse as well as the Chorus - you have two good tunes for the price of one. Also, it is fairly easy to play and improvise on.

The Verse (32-bars structured AABA) uses the simple I-II-V-I chord progression (known as The Four Leaf Clover Progression) for the three 'A' sections. And the Middle Eight is basic too: II7-V-II7-V-VI7-II7-V7-V7.

The song changes to the related key (in effect, dominant to tonic) for the Chorus. This is the part on which musicians improvise. There are only sixteen bars and the Progression is straightforward (Think The Apple Tree Progression [I-IV-I] and The Four Leaf Clover Progression again).

Here is the tune. This is shown with the Chorus in Concert Bb - the key generally used in traditional jazz because it is the most comfortable for players.

Post 362: 'EVERYBODY LOVES MY BABY'

That spirited song Everybody Loves My Baby is in the repertoire of most traditional jazz bands. It is one that has stood the test of time. Why? Because it has a neat, memorable, repetitive melody, making clever use of a minor chord and its related major. The words are appealing and easy to learn. It even has a far better verse than many of the popular songs of its time.

Everybody Loves My Baby was composed in 1922 by Jack Palmer and Spencer Williams. Looking at a copy of the original piano sheet music, I'm impressed at how faithfully today's bands keep to the original, even many decades later. This is something rarely achieved!

I think it is partly because most musicians know the lyrics; and those lyrics fix in our minds the correct notes of the tune.

We find that Williams and Palmer published it in the key of G (with much use of the related E minor chord). Our jazz bands tend to prefer the key of F (with D minor), because this is easier for tuning and fingering.

The original sheet music offers an eight-bar Introduction and a couple of bars or repeatable 'patter' before the Verse. We now tend to discard these. But we play the 16-bar Verse (I'm as happy as a king, feelin' good 'n' ev'rything) pretty much as written.

The Chorus has a standard  A - A - B - A structure, with the A Sections dominated by that 'Minor' flavour.

The 'Middle Eight' is very effective, with the repeated, stuttering, notes (mainly on the tonic, though with changing chords beneath them.)

And the tune ends well.

'Fine,' you say. 'But is there any chance of hearing a really great band such as Tuba Skinny playing this tune?'

Yes, there is! It's on YouTube and we must be grateful to that excellent video-maker codenamed WildBill for putting it there. It's a storming performance (in the key of F). Shaye sets a cracking pace and is on her very best form, both in playing and in directing the traffic (note the Chorus in which she trades fours with Barnabus). Erika provides the vocal. There's even the bonus of Ben Polcer playing superbly on piano. In this version, they have chosen to omit the Verse, but who cares about that? CLICK HERE TO VIEW IT.

Post 356: 'ELEPHANT STOMP'

Who composed Elephant Stomp? This has long been one of those intriguing mysteries in the history of traditional jazz.

The composer's name is sometimes given as St. Gery Alferay. More often it appears as St. Gery and Alferay. These names were long assumed to be pseudonyms.

The tune (two themes of 16 bars each) became popular after Humphrey Lyttelton began featuring it in 1954. At one time, some suspected that Lyttelton himself had composed it.

Adding to the confusion, there seems to have been at least one other Elephant Stomp (in three themes, and from the 1930s) but this was not the tune Lyttelton played.

Dick Baker (I have written before about his great website), with the help of his colleague Erwin Elvers, not long ago published a solution to the mystery. Elvers says that 'Alferay' was a French tenor sax player called Albert Ferreri and that 'St. Gery' was his French colleague, a pianist called Yannick Singery. Apparently, Singery was on piano when Albert Nicholas recorded the tune in Paris in 1953. Maybe that's how Lyttelton picked it up.

Well, all that makes sense; and it's good enough for me.

I think it's a useful tune in the repertoire because it's bouncy, simple to learn and easy to improvise on. My ear tells me it goes as below. There are two sets of 16 bars, both repetitively made up of 8 + 8. And the chord progressions are simple. A band can play it through a couple of times and then stick on B for solos.

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 328: EIGHT-BAR BLUES?

Blind Blake (1896 - 1934)

The 12-bar blues is, of course, one of the staple components of traditional jazz. No concert is complete without one. Audiences seem to love them, especially if some (e.g. Squishin' Bees or Shake That Thing) are played at rock-n'roll tempos.

Yet many musicians I have spoken to are not so keen. They find the 12-bar blues too formulaic, too repetitive. They notice they are playing virtually the same solo in several different blues. They want different challenges and more variety. So they prefer to include no more than two 12-bar blues in a concert.

Many tunes called 'blues', of course, do NOT fall into the 12-bar structure, so musicians object less to playing them. Tishimingo Blues is a good example, with a pleasant harmonic progression: its Chorus comprises 32 bars. (It also happens to have a 12-bar Verse - but that is hardly ever played.)

Wild Man Blues is another very appealing number - but it also comprises 32 bars.

Basin Street Blues is very popular but it is not a 12-bar: it uses a 16-bar theme, based on The Georgia Progression.

Atlanta Blues, Michigander Blues, Big House Blues, Jazz Me Blues, Wolverine Blues, Winin' Boy Blues, Wabash Blues and Faraway Blues are all very appealing to play because they have good melodies and (in some cases) challenging structures. But not one of them is a 12-bar blues.

And then there are some famous blues that DO incorporate 12-bar themes but are so interestingly composed, with multi-part structures (possibly including a change of key or a section in a minor key) that everybody enjoys playing them. Examples are Royal Garden Blues, St. Louis Blues, Riverside Blues, Savoy Blues, Yellow Dog Blues and Beale Street Blues.

But here's an idea for adding a bit of interest to a routine performance of a 12-bar blues. Play Too Tight Blues, as performed by 'Blind' Arthur Blake (the great guitarist) in 1929. Too Tight Blues is actually an EIGHT-Bar Blues, the melody and chord progression of which are very easy to pick up. When you play it (with or without vocals), you can do what Blind Blake does: throw in some choruses of improvised 12-bars, using the standard 12-bar chord progression. Then you have some variety. You can pick it up from Blind Blake with the help of YouTube:  CLICK HERE.

Post 253: 'IT LOOKS LIKE A BIG TIME TONIGHT'

I was thinking about a tune called It Looks Like a Big Time Tonight. I could remember it vaguely. I think I heard a band play it in Preservation Hall, New Orleans, when I was there about twenty-five years ago.

So I tried YouTube.

Sure enough, up came a spirited recording of this tune, made by Ken Colyer and Acker Bilk a few decades ago.

Then Google led me to the discovery that It Looks Like a Big Time Tonight was written more than a hundred years ago by those distinguished producers of popular music - Gus Kahn and Egbert Von Alstyne. Think of Memories, Goodnight Ladies, Pretty Baby and On the Road to Home Sweet Home.

What a great tune this is for traditional jazz bands - happy, catchy and with a simple harmonic progression - all best played at moderate foot-tapping tempo.

So by ear I worked out a lead sheet for myself. Here's what I came up with. I hope it's about right. There are two sixteen-bar sections; and the best way to play it, I think, is to go through (A) twice, then (B) twice and then return to (A), including for any solos.

Post 251: 'DANCING WITH TEARS IN MY EYES' - AND AL DUBIN THE LYRICIST

I have been asked to learn Dancing With Tears In My Eyes. A scratch band in which I shall be helping soon at a gig has decided to play it.

I did not know this tune but I found it is a very pleasant melody, especially the Chorus - which I suppose is the only part we shall use. I made a lead sheet of Dancing With Tears In My Eyes for storage in my mini filofax.

It seems to have been written as a waltz, and I guess that is how we shall play it. But it would be easy to play it in 4/4 time if we wished to make it more 'jazzy'.

I noticed that it was written in 1930 by Joe Burke (music) and Al Dubin (words). It was Burke who wrote the music for Yearning, Carolina Moon and On Treasure Island - so the world of traditional jazz is greatly indebted to him.

Al Dubin and Joe Burke also collaborated on Painting the Clouds With Sunshine and Tiptoe Through the Tulips; and Dubin (who worked mostly with Harry Warren) wrote the lyrics for several famous songs, including The Anniversary Waltz, September in the Rain, Lulu's Back in Town, You Let Me Down and I Only Have Eyes for You. Burke died in 1950. Dubin died in 1945.

Al Dubin : 1891 - 1945 

Harry Warren : 1893 - 1981

Note: Since writing the above, I have received the following interesting comment from blog reader and friend Carsten Pigott:
I recently happened across your blog article about Dancing With Tears In My Eyes.  It's a terrific tune which, in my view, lends itself far better to up-tempo jazz treatment in 4/4 time than as the originally-intended waltz.  This link gives a fine example of a 'hot' dance band version: Jack Teagarden has the beautiful trombone solo and Joe Venuti's on violin.  I think you'll agree that this is a fine rendition of the tune:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lhDAclgssQ 

Thank you, Carsten: that certainly is a pleasant, swinging, neat arrangement.

Post 244: 'IN THE UPPER GARDEN'

It's confusing but there are two lovely gospel numbers entitled In the Garden (1912) and In the Upper Garden (1900) and they are both played by traditional jazz bands. As far as I can tell - and by a strange coincidence - they were both composed by Charles Austin Miles. He was born New Jersey in 1868; he died in 1946. After a short career as a pharmacist, Charles became a full-time composer and music-publisher, specialising in gospel songs, of which he wrote several dozens.

My friends and I decided to add one of them to our repertoire. It is the one composed in 1900, known as In The Upper Garden. 

The Verse begins with the words Just beyond the River Jordan and the Chorus with We shall meet them some bright morning.

Having listened to it on YouTube, I decided it went like this. I put it in F:

For Bb instruments such as mine, it transposes into G:

And (better still) I'm very grateful to Ron Flack in Australia who, since reading the above, has sent me his transcription (for Bb instrument, but with concert chords) of the George Lewis version:

And more recently still, Brian Hutchinson - also in Australia - kindly sent me photocopies of the sheet music.

In The Upper Garden has to be played at a slow tempo, with much caressing of the simple harmonies.

As for the other In The Garden hymn, it is beautiful too and is written in 3/4 time. This is indeed the time signature in which even jazz bands usually play it. But that may be a subject for another day. It begins with the words:
I come to the garden alone
While the dew is still on the roses
And the voice I hear falling on my ear
The Son of God discloses.
(Chorus)
And He walks with me, and He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own;
And the joy we share as we tarry there,
None other has ever known.

Post 220: 'MISS HANNAH'

Here's a tune to which I have been introduced. It is Miss Hannah, composed in about 1929 by Don Redman and John Nesbit. I have put it in my mini filofax collection.

It's another one I can recommend on the grounds that it has a pleasant melody (especially the Chorus - no need to play the Verse if it doesn't appeal) and a very simple chord structure. It's a standard 32-bar song, with an A - A - B - A structure.

All in all, it could hardly be simpler.

There were various 'Hannah' songs at about that time - Hard-Hearted Hannah, Miss Hannah From Savannah and Oh Miss Hannah. They are all different and all worth playing.