Post 596: 'ALLIGATOR HOP' - A GOOD TRADITIONAL JAZZ TUNE

Alligator Hop is a good tune to have in your armoury. It sounds clever and complicated. And yet it could hardly be simpler. By the way, it was also originally called Alligator Flop.

It is one of those tunes composed by King Oliver and Alphonse Picou with a helping hand from Lil Hardin (I suspect) in 1923 for use by their band.

Listen to it by clicking here.

Although it is usually played quite fast (and can therefore sound tricky) it uses very simple melodic, harmonic and rhythmic patterns, with built-in two-bar 'breaks'. It is even normally played in the easiest keys.

The tune begins with a standard four-bar Introduction and then goes into THEME A. This is 32 bars in Bb (16 + 16) using the Sweet Sue Chord Progression and  ending each 16 on II7:V7  |  1.

A 'break' is taken on the tonic chord in bars 13 and 14 (and therefore again on bars 29 and 30). So far so good, and you have needed only the chords of:

I   and  II7    and  V7.

After a couple of times through Theme A, you burst into THEME B, which is 16 bars (8 + 8), but you have now switched to the key of Eb. A 'break' is taken on Bars 7 and 8, based on the chords II7  |  V7.

Again the chord pattern could hardly be simpler: the tonic is the chord for 13 of the 16 bars!

Next: go back and play Theme A once.

Finally play THEME C until you're ready to stop. Theme C is in Eb and it is identical in chord and general structure to Theme B. The only difference is that you may care - like King Oliver - to play a slightly different melody.

So the entire romping tune can be seen as very simple; and the chord players can get away with using only three chords - though in both Bb and Eb.

Incidentally, this is best regarded as an ensemble party piece. Everybody plays throughout: there's no call for 'solos', apart from those little 'breaks'.

Post 485: 'DROPPIN' SHUCKS' BY LIL HARDIN ARMSTRONG

Good friend and regular correspondent Jim Sterling of Florida told me he had been very pleased to discover the YouTube video of Tuba Skinny playing Droppin' Shucks in Royal Street as long ago as 2012, when the band still had Ryan Baer on banjo and when there was no reed player. I'm talking of this video - click on here to view.

The message from Jim reminded me that I enjoyed the video when I first saw it in 2012. At the time, I remember listening also (for comparison) to the original 1926 version composed by Lil Hardin Armstrong and recorded by Louis Armstrong's Hot Five (also available on YouTube).

But on that occasion, apart from feeling that it was a very good but quite complicated piece of music, I thought no more about it.

Jim enjoyed the performance and particularly praised Shaye's muted cornet work. Throughout the three minutes, Shaye uses her Humes and Berg 102 stonelined cup mute and has it fully wedged inside the bell of her cornet. We know that on other occasions, she prefers to hold it half in and half out of the bell. Barnabus also, using his Humes and Berg stonelined straight mute, plays some lovely stuff complementing Shaye's melodic lines. Jim also specially liked the final Chorus, in which Shaye and Barnabus play so well together, alternating the 'breaks'.

We must all be grateful to the video-maker codenamed jazzbo43 for recording this fine performance.

It's interesting to observe how Ryan (at 2 mins 08 secs) warns Max that the band is about to go to the 12-bar 'breaks interlude' rather than the start of the Chorus; and then (at 2 mins 24 secs) that this time they are returning to the start of the Chorus. (The 'Breaks Interlude' is copied from the original Armstrong recording.)

Perhaps Max hadn't played this number with the band before. (In fact it is a song they seem to have played very rarely over the years.)

After Jim encouraged me to listen more carefully to it again, I realised Droppin' Shucks is not really as complicated as I had thought. Basically it has a simple and pretty 16-bar minor-key Verse played once (Tuba Skinny play it in C minor); and then the Chorus - played several times (in the key of Ab) - is simply one of those 16-bar standards (with 'breaks' on Bars 9 - 12), very similar to How Come You Do Me Like You Do Do Do? or If It Don't Fit, Don't Force It or Don't Care Blues or Don't Go Away, Nobody, or Forget Me Not Blues.

The only little extra ingredient is that 12-bar 'Breaks Interlude' I mentioned - which may be regarded as optional.

But what makes Droppin' Shucks special - perhaps unique among sixteen-bar tunes - is that the whole of Bar 12 is based on a diminished chord. That certainly adds a bit of excitement.

So it's easy to pick up. Let's have more bands playing it!

As for what the title Droppin' Shucks means, I think you may be able to find out. But I shall say nothing on the subject. Regular readers will know that I limit the contents of my pages to the decorous, the refined, and the tasteful.

Post 423: 'WORKING MAN BLUES'

In 1923 the 37-year-old cornet-playing band-leader Joe 'King' Oliver and his 25-year-old pianist Lil Hardin (who had a music diploma from Fisk University, Nashville, and who later became Mrs. Louis Armstrong) composed Working Man Blues - sometimes written as Workingman's Blues.

At the time, King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band had a residency at Lincoln Gardens, 459, East 31st Street, Chicago - not far from the Lake. (As far as I can tell, there is today a glass office block on the site.) The band made a recording of Working Man Blues for the Gennett label in Richmond, Indiana, on 3 October 1923. You may listen to it BY CLICKING HERE.

It's a really good piece for the repertoire of our bands and easy to master. 

As you see, there are just three short and simple sections. The first (A) is only a 12-bar blues, using a pretty riff. The second (B) is a 16-bar theme using The Four-Leaf Clover chord progression. (You can read about that progression BY CLICKING HERE.)

Section (B) is structured to include three opportunities for 2-bar breaks. Johnny Dodds makes the most of those in that 1923 recording.

The third 'theme' (C) involves free-style improvising over another 12-bar blues structure, but this time allowing a 'break' in bars 7 and 8. Oliver's band had the clarinet, cornet and trombone (Honoré Dutrey) respectively taking these breaks.

The tune is rounded off by a neat 2-bar CODA.

Some bands today, unlike Oliver himself, make more of Themes (A) and (B), staying on them for longer, or even dropping Theme (C) altogether.

Oliver chooses to devote the whole of the second half of the performance to three choruses of Theme (C).

He was constrained by the limited amount of time for which a 78 rpm record could play. Bands today are freed from such constraint and - with more choruses - tend to make the tune last much longer. However, as I have said elsewhere, a short performance can often be more effective than a longer one (especially if the musicians have nothing special to 'say'). For me, Oliver's original recorded version feels just right.

On the choice of key, some bands today play the piece in F. It sounds fine in that key and is perhaps for some musicians a little easier than Lil Hardin and Oliver's choice of Ab.

To watch a clear and reverential performance of Working Man Blues by a much later band (The Peruna Jazzmen) CLICK HERE.

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The book Playing Traditional Jazz by Pops Coffee is available from Amazon.

Post 417: KING OLIVER'S CREOLE JAZZ BAND: THE GENNETT RECORDINGS

Some of the most important recordings in the history of our music were made in 1923. I am referring to the 14 tunes King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band recorded in April and October that year for Gennett Records in Richmond, Indiana.

You can enjoy all of the tunes on YouTube and I hope you will have great pleasure discovering them - or exploring them again - for yourselves. You could start by clicking here.

The Gennett Company had been set up only six years earlier and was still using fairly primitive pre-electric recording methods.

The tunes were:
Alligator Hop
Canal Street Blues
Dippermouth Blues (King Oliver was nick-named 'Dippermouth' because he used to keep on the bandstand a bucket of water with a dipper in it)
Chimes Blues
Just Gone
Snake Rag
Sugarfoot Stomp
Working Man Blues
Zulu's Ball
(all the above were composed or co-written by Oliver himself)
AND
Froggie More
I'm Going Away to Wear You Off My Mind
Krooked Blues
Mandy Lee Blues
Weatherbird Rag.

We have only to read that list to appreciate what a contribution Oliver made to the history and repertoire of traditional jazz. (It is often forgotten that he also wrote Doctor Jazz. I have sometimes heard band-leaders, announcing this tune, wrongly say that it was composed by Jelly Roll Morton. We must also remember that it was Oliver who later composed those classics Snag It and West End Blues.)

But these Gennett recordings are also important because they are regarded as the first to document well an authentic black traditional New Orleans jazz band. (In fact, Kid Ory's band had made half a dozen recordings just  a few months earlier - for the Nordskog company.)

So who was Oliver?

Cornet player Joe Nathan 'King' Oliver was born on 11 May 1885. Unfortunately, he lost the sight of one eye in his childhood. But by 1908 he was playing in several bands in New Orleans, including the famous marching bands. He worked with Kid Ory and the two of them moved to Chicago in 1918. They joined Bill Johnson's Original Creole Jazz Band. Bill Johnson at the time was 47 years old. He played bass and banjo and was an elder statesman and entrepreneur in the music business. He had toured and made New Orleans jazz known outside the South. His band currently played at The Dreamland Ballroom in West Van Buren Street, close to the centre of the City of Chicago. (The building has long since disappeared.)

We have to remember that, in those days, the movies and radio were in their infancy; television and computers were things of the future. Most people went out for entertainment. So this was a boom time for dancing, for dance bands and for jazz bands. In Chicago there were plenty of cafés, bars, ballrooms and clubs where you could hear such bands.

As well as The Dreamland Ballroom, think of The Royal Gardens Ballroom, The De Luxe Café, The Sunset Café, Kelly's Stables, The Nest (later The Apex Club - of 'Apex Blues' fame), The Plantation and Friar's Inn. The Royal Gardens Ballroom (which regularly accommodated 1000 people) burned down and was replaced by The Lincoln Gardens; and that is where Oliver's Creole Jazz Band had its residency.

This was some way south from The Dreamland Ballroom - at 459 East 31st Street. As far as I can tell, the Lincoln Gardens Ballroom was bulldozed years ago and - with the help of Mr. Google - I find a glass office block on the site today. 

It seems that Bill Johnson was quite happy to hand on his own band to the younger man - King Oliver - to develop in his own way and then to evolve it into King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band.

Who played in Oliver's Creole Jazz Band?

Everyone thinks first of Louis Armstrong, because he went on to become a big star in the entertainment world and in the movies. He was to develop a phenomenal technique, a great tone, and virtuoso skill in improvising solo choruses. But in 1923, he was a junior member of Oliver's band - and we should not forget that. However, there's a clear and very enjoyable hint of future glories in the famous solo that Armstrong takes in Chimes Blues. Oliver had invited him to move to Chicago from New Orleans and this was the launching pad for Armstrong's stellar career. When you think of the energy and stamina needed for the band's performances (playing for dances long into the night), it is easy to understand why Oliver invited Armstrong to join and help him: it must have been a huge strain on Oliver's lip to sustain such long, hard gigs, with few breaks from playing.

But more important than Armstrong at the time, in my opinion, was the clarinet player Johnny Dodds (1892 - 1940). He had also worked with Kid Ory in New Orleans from 1912. Dodds made a huge contribution to the ensemble style and sound of Oliver's band: his fluency and his soulful, bluesy playing and tone have been an inspiration to generations of clarinet players. In a tune such as Canal Street Blues, his decorative runs around the melody and his memorable solo are outstanding. But listen for him even on lesser-known numbers such as Just Gone and Mandy Lee Blues and you will be impressed. I suppose it was Johnny's good fortune that the clarinet could be heard so clearly, despite the primitive recording process of the time.

Then there was Bill Johnson himself (1872 - 1972), the bass player and former leader who had achieved much even before King Oliver (at Johnson's invitation) became established in Chicago. It is said that he had to switch to banjo in the Gennett studio because the bass would record badly and spoil the sound.

Of enormous importance (and much under-rated by jazz history in my opinion) was the band's pianist Lil Hardin. She had been born in Memphis on 3 Feb 1898 and had worked for some time on the Chicago music scene: she had studied music at Fisk University, obtaining a diploma there (she also obtained a qualification later from the New York College of Music), and had played with various bands, including one of her own, even before her partnership with Oliver.

Lil Hardin's Band playing at The Dreamland Ballroom

I think hers must have been one of the principal 'brains' shaping the band's music-making. Lil was also the co-composer (with Oliver) of Alligator Hop, Just Gone and Working Man Blues. The label on 'Just Gone' gives the composers as 'Oliver and Johnson' but it seems that the 'Johnson' was in fact Lil (not the band member Bill Johnson), because at that time she was very briefly married to a singer called Jimmie Johnson. My guess is that she had a big say in the arrangements of the band's tunes and possibly even in organizing the many two-bar breaks that occur in several of them and which listeners have often thought to be magically spontaneous (such as the famous breaks involving Joe and Louis together in Snake Rag). Lil's playing throughout these recordings is a model for all later pianists in New Orleans-style bands - solidly providing the chords on the beat and yet capable of a pretty solo chorus if required, as in I'm Going Away to Wear You Off My Mind. And how moving it is to hear those piano chimes of hers coming to us across more than nine decades in Chimes Blues!

Within the next three years, after marrying Louis Armstrong, Lil composed (originally for Louis' Hot Five) such core tunes in our repertoire as Knee Drops, I'm Not Rough, Lonesome Blues, Skid-Dat-De-Dat, Two Deuces, Hotter Than That, Jazz Lips, Droppin' Shucks and Struttin' With Some Barbecue. Her other compositions include Perdido Street Blues, Papa Dip, Tears, and Gatemouth. What an achievement!

Lil died on 27 August 1971.

The trombonist in Oliver's band was Honoré Dutrey (1894 - 1935). He had played in bands in New Orleans. He joined the Navy in 1917 and had an accident that damaged his lungs and eventually caused his premature death. Dutrey strikes me as just right for this band - keeping things simple but always accurate. A good clear illustration of his style is to be heard on Working Man Blues.

Warren 'Baby' Dodds, 24-years-old at the time of the recordings, is one of the all-time best drummers. He too had started in New Orleans and had played with Ory there, before working on the riverboats. He was of course the younger brother of Johnny Dodds. In these Gennett recordings, you do not hear the full range of his kit but his presence is strongly felt throughout. Enjoy his breaks on the wood blocks in Weather Bird Rag.

Other occasional band members (only on the October Gennett recordings) were Johnny St. Cyr (banjo) and the less-known Paul Anderson 'Stump' Evans (C melody sax).

The recordings were made without the benefit of electricity or microphones. The sound had to be picked up through a large megaphone-funnel. Certain musical instruments had to be omitted or restricted in use because their effect would spoil or unbalance the recording (Baby Dodds could use only part of his drum kit, and Johnson could not use his string bass). The players had to be positioned at various distances from the funnel, to achieve some kind of balance. This photo of a Gennett recording studio (alas, not of King Oliver's Band) gives some idea of the conditions. Note the funnel picking up the sounds.

Clearly, what we hear on the records is not exactly how the band normally sounded at Lincoln Gardens. But the wonderful polyphony and energy are captured really well.

The tunes are all multi-part, with tricky head arrangements, including introductions and codas. There's none of the simple repetition of one 32-bar theme, such as we are offered these days in most performances by traditional jazz bands. 

Oliver was proud and professional in his attitude to work and expected the  highest standards from his musicians. He was strongly self-disciplined. He drove his band hard. Baby Dodds in an interview years later  stated how strenuously all the band members worked at gigs: they would really exhaust themselves. Sure enough, all members of the band sound constantly so busy. Listen again to Dippermouth Blues and judge for yourself.

Oliver's personal interest in tone (he produced a throaty vocal sound on his cornet) and the use of mutes have had a massive influence on brass players ever since. You can sample his tone and his mutes throughout but of course they are specially conspicuous in Dippermouth Blues.

On top of all this, also in 1923, calling his band simply King Oliver's Jazz Band (drawn from a pool of players that included Barney Birgard, Paul Barbarin, Kid Ory, Luis Russell and others as well as those of the Creole Jazz Band), Oliver also recorded in Chicago for the Okeh, Paramount and Columbia labels a total of 23 numbers, such as Riverside Blues, Mabel's Dream, Southern Stomps, Tears, Buddy's Habit, Sweet Lovin' Man, High Society, Sobbin' Blues, and Camp Meeting Blues  - and others.

But Oliver's Creole Jazz Band of 1923 was short-lived. It disintegrated the following year. Oliver went on to play in various combinations and bands (sometimes run by himself). His struggles and decline have been well documented. And it is sad to think he died in poverty on 10 April 1938.

Listening to all these Gennett recordings again has made me realise what an example to us all King Oliver's band of 1923 was. That's the way to do it. Many others have set out to emulate  his music. But there's nothing quite like the originals.
------------------
FOOTNOTE
Reader Barrie Marshall sent me this email:
Hi Ivan,

King Oliver was the mute master. Considering Louis' massive respect for his playing, I have never heard Louis use a mute.

Regards

Barrie 

Post 325: 'DROPPIN' SHUCKS'

I doubt whether many of you could hum 'Droppin' Shucks' to me if I asked you to do so. I even doubt whether many of you would know the title if you heard a band playing it.

But it is a terrific little tune - yet another of those minor classics composed by Lil Hardin (mostly for her husband Louis Armstrong and for King Oliver) in the 1920s. So often, I think Lil's contribution to the history of our music has been under-rated.

I decided to have a go at working this tune out, so that I could play it on my cornet. You can see at the foot of this page what I came up with and have entered in my music notebook.

This witty little tune begins with 16 bars in the minor key. I call them the 'Verse'. They lead up very cleverly to a change of key to the related major, and then you have a catchy tune (which I call the 'Chorus') - aided by repetitions of phrases. It is only 16 bars long and - like several such tunes of the 1920s - lends itself to 'breaks' on bars 9 - 12.

But what makes Droppin' Shucks special - perhaps unique among sixteen-bar tunes - is that the whole of Bar 12 is based on a diminished chord. That certainly adds a bit of excitement.

Bands can do a lot with this excellent material. Listen, for example, to Tuba Skinny playing it at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZUcZ4FmFcQ

Post 304: 'MY SWEET LOVIN' MAN'

Lil Hardin

While roaming around YouTube videos of jazz bands in New Orleans, I chanced upon one put up by Thomas Balzac. It showed Sarah Peterson singing My Sweet Lovin' Man with the famous Smoking Time Jazz Club Band at The Spotted Cat Music Club in Frenchmen Street:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCTXmjXIleA

I remembered that I have the tune on one of my King Oliver CDs. It turned out that it was written by Lil Hardin in 1923.

I also noticed that - after its 12-bar Verse - it has a Chorus based on The Hot Nuts Chord Progression - popular in the 1920s. This is basically a 16-bar progression, with breaks possible on Bars 9 to 12 inclusive. The final two bars of the sixteen are in many songs repeated as a tag. That is what happens in My Sweet Lovin' Man, making 18 bars in all.

I like it; so I decided to add this tune to my mini-filofax collection. I wrote it out, and it sounds quite good on my keyboard.

Post 130: 'SKID-DAT-DE-DAT' - FROM ARMSTRONG TO TUBA SKINNY

Skid-Dat-De-Dat (sometimes spelled Skit-Dat-De-Dat) is a real curiosity within the traditional jazz repertoire. I suppose some would describe it as a 'stop-start' tune because on six or more occasions the band stops playing and leaves one instrument alone to improvise a two-bar 'break'.

Certainly this tune does not fit into any conventional pattern of composition: there's no 32-bar a-a-b-a or 12-bar blues structure to be spotted here.

Lil Hardin composed it in 1926 for her husband Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five to develop. Basically what she gave Louis was a 4-bar phrase, plus the idea of attaching two-bar breaks.

Putting my examples in the key of D, the four-bar phrase goes like this. Let's call this Segment A:

The two-bar 'break' seems to be normally played on the basis of the chord of D, or D minor. This is an example of the shape it might take. Let's call this Segment B:

The main 4-bar theme is mostly played with all the band harmonising through the long notes. But occasionally - for variety - the players may cut loose and improvise over those four chords, as in this example (Segment C):

Finally, there is a slightly different 4-bar chord sequence [G7  -  G7  -  D7  -  D7] which may be used to give variety. Let's call this Segment D:

Regard these four little units of music as your building blocks. Put them together and there you have it - Skid Dat De Dat!

How does the tune turn out in performance? Well, unfortunately, because most bands find it impossible to memorise a 'knitting pattern' for this tune, they tend to play (usually a shade too slowly) from a printed arrangement on music stands in front of them. The result can be laboured and stodgy.

But it can sound really good, as in the original Louis Armstrong performance, which runs for 3 minutes and 14 seconds. Here and there, Louis uses his voice for a few notes at a time ('scatting') as an alternative to his cornet.

A concise but exemplary performance is given on their CD ('Pyramid Strut') by Tuba Skinny. You can hear it by going to

http://tubaskinny.tk/

and clicking on the title of the tune. This version comprises just 46 bars in total and the recording lasts for only 96 seconds. But all you need is there.

The 'break' is taken 7 times - by cornet, cornet, clarinet, trombone, tuba, banjo and cornet respectively. The piece is beautifully book-ended by the first and last cornet breaks. To bring the piece to a satisfactory conclusion, the whole band joins in on the final chord of the final break - an important point to note. This is a great way to tackle the tune.

B  -  A  -  B  -  A  -   B  -  A  -  D
B  -  C  -  B  -  A  -   B  -  D  -  D
B - all in on final chord

As far as I know, there is only one YouTube video of Tuba Skinny playing this piece. It runs for about 140 seconds - longer than on the CD because extra breaks are given near the end of the piece to the clarinet and trombone.

This is well worth watching if you fancy studying Skid-Dat-De-Dat; or even if you just want to get the feel of the 'stop-start' nature of this curious tune. It was generously filmed by the video-maker codenamed stolpe31 at Rapperswil in 2013:
CLICK ON HERE.
I do not possess original sheet music or definitive information about Skid Dat De Dat. All I have told you is simply what I have observed. So if you have any more accurate information, I would be grateful to hear from you.

Post 99: 'GATEMOUTH'

Here's another easy but effective tune for your band to play - if you don't already have it.

Gatemouth was written in about 1926 by the pianist Lil Hardin (possibly in collaboration with her husband Louis Armstrong). It has two catchy themes. The first is a 16-bar, using the Sweet Sue Chord Progression, and allowing for breaks - if desired - on Bars 7 - 8. You can even have breaks right through a chorus of this theme, as The New Orleans Wanderers did in 1926 when they recorded it. You can hear their performance if you

CLICK HERE.

That first theme - by the way - is virtually identical to other good old standards, such as Do What Ory Say, Mamma's Baby Boy, Get It Right and the main theme of South.

The second theme is also 16 bars. Normally, bands play both themes a couple of times and use the first for solo improvisations.

You can hear Gatemouth played more recently by The Peruna Jazzmen.

CLICK HERE.

The tune certainly lends itself to a variety of New Orleans treatments, taking advantage of the opportunities to incorporate breaks and stop chords.

It is generally played in Eb: