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 215: THE FRENCH QUARTER IN NEW ORLEANS

For the benefit of readers who have never been to the French Quarter of New Orleans, here are a few pictures I took during my visit in April 2015.

George Lewis's House
- in which some legendary recordings were made.

Such famous roads as Decatur, Chartres, Royal, Burgundy and Dauphine run south-east to north-west and are criss-crossed by Iberville, Bienville, Conti, St. Louis, Toulouse, St. Peter's, Ursuline, and so on. The whole area is compact (well under a square mile) and very easy and pleasant to explore on foot. I guess that in total The French Quarter represents only about 2% of the entire City of New Orleans; but what a special area it is!

It is believed that about 4000 people actually live within the French Quarter.

Strolling round the quieter streets (no need to mention the noisy, brash Bourbon Street, which you can't avoid once in a while), you can admire the historic and very pretty colourful domestic architecture, including shotgun houses, classic nineteenth-century creole cottages and double-gallery houses. In case you are puzzled by the expression 'shotgun houses', I can tell you these are very simple homes, narrow and rectangular, with no hallway. The rooms are one behind the other. If all the doors of the house were open, it would be possible to fire a shotgun straight through the house - in at one end and out at the other - passing through all the rooms. Hence the name. There are also 'double shotgun houses', with two entrance doors and a central wall dividing the two homes, as in the first picture below.

Characteristic local transport
- passing Preservation Hall.

This next one is a bonus photo - sent to me by my friend Barrie Marshall. He took it when visiting the French Quarter in 1996.

When you are ready to hear some outdoor jazz in the French Quarter, you can head for Jackson Square:

or Royal Street:

At the north-eastern edge of the French Quarter, close to the Mississippi, is the wonderful and extensive French Market, where you can buy your souvenirs and take a break for refreshments.

Here's the French Market as it was in 1920:

Finally, you could head right out of the French Quarter and look back along the Mississippi at the City - including the more modern business district with its taller buildings. The French Quarter is the low-level area to the right of them:

Post 153: 'LOVE SONGS OF THE NILE'

Love Songs of the Nile is a beautiful tune that I first came across when I heard that very fine English trumpeter Cuff Billett playing it with his band in the 1990s. I have since discovered that it has been recorded by many of the best traditional jazz bands. The great Shotgun Jazz Band of New Orleans has the song in its repertoire. Here's their cracking version of it:
Click here to view on YouTube.

Apparently this song was written for a 1933 film called 'The Barbarian'; and it was sung in the film by Ramon Navarro. The composers were Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed. (Nacio Herb Brown also wrote You Stepped out of a Dream and You Were Meant for Me.)

You can hear it played by the band of De De and Billie Pierce (with George Lewis on clarinet and Louis Nelson on trombone) if you
CLICK HERE.

John Dodgshon of California wrote to me about this tune, pointing out that some jazz bands play a version with a 'simplified' chord sequence. John is right. There is a difficulty in bars 9, 10, 13 and 25 of the Chorus, where the 'simplified' version, possibly based on the De De and Billie Pierce recording, has for example F major chords where there should be Ab7s. Here is the recommended correct lead-sheet that John has kindly sent me. It includes the Verse.

Post 98: 'MOVE THE BODY OVER'

A friend asked whether I could supply him with the 'dots' for Move the Body Over. It's a simple tune with an easy harmonic progression and is popular with quite a few jazz bands. If you know who wrote it, please let me know. I have been unable to find out. All I know is that George Lewis in the 1950s made it popular with jazz bands.

Here's how it seems to go, according to my ear.

The usual lyrics are as follows:

Move the body over,
Move the body over,
Move the body over here.
I just want you near me
So that you can hear me
Whisper in your ear.
When you sit beside me
I am feeling grand

Specially when you whisper
"Darling hold my hand”.

Move the body over,

Move the body over,

Move the body over here.

Post 36: 'BURGUNDY STREET BLUES' ON THE CORNET!

George Lewis

One of the great classics of the traditional jazz canon is Burgundy Street Blues - a sequence of exquisitely beautiful 12-bar blues choruses created in 1944 by George Lewis. Most clarinet players ever since have aspired to play it as a party piece. You can hear George himself playing it in a version running for just under three minutes by clicking here.

And now we find the great Shaye Cohn playing Burgundy Street Blues as a CORNET feature with Tuba Skinny.

Shaye Cohn

Is there nothing that young lady cannot do? You can watch Shaye's performance (well recorded by the videomaker codenamed RaoulDuke504) by clicking here.

George Lewis - and clarinet players generally - play this tune in the key of C. As she does with all the vintage tunes in her repertoire, Shaye plays it in her own way, without slavish imitation. She has also brought it down to the key of F, where it is more comfortable for the cornet's range and where it still sounds exquisitely beautiful. The Tuba Skinny version runs for over six minutes - filled out with a couple of improvised choruses from each of the saxophone and clarinet, and one from the banjo.