Post 511: 'SIDE BY SIDE' AND THAT MOST COMMON OF MIDDLE EIGHTS

Yesterday I was playing Side by Side and I couldn't help noticing that its middle eight chord structure was just the same as the most common and simple structure found in so many other of our tunes. It offers a really good demonstration of the effectiveness of the 'Circle of Fifths'.

A few examples of other tunes with the same pattern are:
Do Your Duty
Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue
Girl of My Dreams
Give it Up
Hometown
I Can't Believe That You're in Love With Me
Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall
Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone
Stevedore Stomp

To begin with, the Middle Eight's first chord is III7 (for example A7th in the key of F). This happens in the Middle Eight of dozens of our tunes.

And over the eight bars, we find two bars on each of the 'Circle of Fifth' chords as we head towards the usual V7th.

To make clear what I am trying to explain, the result (in the key of F) is:

A7 | A7 | D7 | D7 | G7  | G7 | C7 | C7

How does it sound? Surprisingly effective, in this and a huge number of other tunes our bands play.

Side by Side was composed in 1927 by the great Harry Woods. Words were provided by Gus Kahn.

For an interesting performance of the tune, CLICK HERE.

The Middle Eight starts at 48 seconds.

Post 477: 'CHLOE (SONG OF THE SWAMP)'

Let us have a look at Chlo-e (Song of the Swamp) which is a lovely and unusual tune from the 1920s. Some of our jazz bands still play it and I am very pleased that this is so.
Chloe was composed in 1927 by Charles N. Daniels, under his pseudonym of Neil Moret; and the lyrics were by the great Gus Kahn, who was very important in the history of our music. Working with various composers, Kahn wrote the words for such songs as these:

My Baby Just Cares For Me
That Certain Party
Making Whoopee
Carolina in the Morning
Love Me or Leave Me
I Never Knew That Roses Grew
Yes, Sir, That's My Baby
I Wonder Where My Baby is Tonight
I'll See You in My Dreams
Spain
It Had to be You
Pretty Baby
Memories
On the Road to Home Sweet Home
It Looks Like a Big Time Tonight
Coquette
Crazy Rhythm
Toot Toot Tootsie
Ukulele Lady
Ain't We Got Fun
Chloe
Side by Side
On the Alamo
Nobody's Sweetheart Now
You Stepped Out of a Dream

Dream a Little Dream of Me

Chloe may have been used first in the 1927 musical called 'Africana' but there is no definite evidence for this, even though, on the original sheet music, a picture of the singer Ethel Waters apparently connects it to that show.

Whatever the truth, it must have soon become popular because it was recorded during the late 1920s and during the 1930s by several famous orchestras and singers.

Chloe begins with an interesting but somewhat spooky 16-bar Verse in a minor key (usually A minor). The words of this verse are:

'Chlo-e! Chlo-e!'

Someone calling, no reply.

Night shade's falling, hear him sigh.

'Chlo-e! Chlo-e!'

Empty spaces meet his eyes.

Empty Arms outstretched, he's crying.....

(and so we are led into the 32-bar Chorus in the related major key [C]).

'Through the black of night, I got to go where you are.

If it's wrong or right, I got to go where you are.
I'll roam through the dismal swamp land searching for you,

'Cause if you are lost there, let me be there too.
Through the smoke and flames, I got to go where you are,

For no place could be too far, where you are.

Ain't no chains can bind you,

If If you live, I'll find you,

Love is calling me.

I got to go where you are.'

Searching for a girl at night, through swamp lands, and going through smoke and flames? How on earth did this situation arise? Weird, isn't it? 

The important thing is that the Chorus, which is the only part that most bands play these days (and the only part that is played on many of the classic recordings), has a memorable melody, almost as strange as the words. The way it achieves its effect, I think, is by giving itself a sort of minor flavour while it is actually written in the major key. It does this partly by beginning each 16 with four bars on the dominant seventh rather than the tonic and then following these with some bars on the tonic seventh and, what is more, beginning these bars by using the flattened seventh as the melody note.

I am sorry if I make it sound complicated but it is an easy tune to learn and to improvise upon, so I think bands would be well advised to have it in their repertoire, if only to provide something to contrast with other tunes in their programme.

It is not easy on YouTube to find a simple, straightforward version (featuring both Verse and Chorus). Here's a highly arranged recording by the Duke Ellington Orchestra, but you have to wait till 1 minute 22 seconds to hear the Verse:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YKWKIfEN8Y

There was of course a famous irreverent version by Spike Jones, which you may also find on YouTube if you wish. It includes the Verse.

At least four video-makers have filmed Tuba Skinny playing this tune (Chorus only) and you may find the resulting videos easily enough on YouTube.

The lead-sheet for this tune is readily available: it has been provided in The Firehouse Jazz Band Fake Book, with which all jazz musicians are familiar. 

It is also available on the famous site run by Lasse Collin, though he does not include the Verse and his suggestions for chords are slightly different from those of the Firehouse Jazz Band. Here's the Firehouse version:

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 229: GUS KAHN - HIS LEGACY

Gus Kahn

Having written recently about the great, though brief, song-writing partnership of Dorothy Fields and Jimmy McHugh, it occurred to me that we traditional jazz lovers are also deeply indebted to the lyricist Gus Kahn for many of the songs in our standard repertoire.

In his main partnership with the composer Walter Donaldson, Kahn gave us such songs as:

My Baby Just Cares For Me
That Certain Party
Making Whoopee
Carolina in the Morning
Love Me or Leave Me
I Never Knew That Roses Grew
Yes, Sir, That's My Baby
I Wonder Where My Baby is Tonight

In fact, Kahn wrote over 100 songs with his friend Walter Donaldson.

But Kahn also wrote (with Isham Jones):

I'll See You in My Dreams

Spain

It Had to be You

And with Egbert Von Alstyne he gave us:

Pretty Baby

Memories

On the Road to Home Sweet Home

It Looks Like a Big Time Tonight

With other collaborators he wrote:

Coquette

Crazy Rhythm

Toot Toot Tootsie

Ukulele Lady

Ain't We Got Fun

Chloe

Side by Side

On the Alamo

Nobody's Sweetheart Now

You Stepped Out of a Dream

Dream a Little Dream of Me

What a man!  You can't attend traditional jazz concerts without frequently hearing songs with lyrics by Kahn.

So who was Gus?

Like so many of the people involved in American popular music in the first half of the Twentieth Century, he came from a family of immigrants. Gustav Kahn was born in Koblenz, Germany, in 1886 but his family had gone to seek their fortune in the USA by the time he was four. They lived in Chicago. After working in a mail order business, Gus became successful in his mid-twenties at writing lyrics and soon had hits with Memories and Pretty Baby.

Taking on the career full-time, Gus wrote for stage revues and Hollywood movies, collaborating at various times with pretty well all the contemporary big names in American popular music. Sadly, he died following a heart attack at the age of only 54.