Post 273: ALLIGATOR CRAWL

In the beginning there was a composition by the young Fats Waller. He probably composed it in 1927 and he called it Alligator Crawl. It acquired words by Andy Razaf, so it was also available as a song: Alligator Crawl is so appealing - A creepy rhythm that will tickle your toes. Never fails to bring a happy feeling - Its tempo has a charm that grows and grows .... etc.

In 1934, Fats Waller himself recorded it as a piano solo. His version makes it sound like a boogie-woogie blended with a rocking catchy song. You can hear it on YouTube BY CLICKING HERE. I believe this version is still popular as a party piece for solo pianists. Bert Brandsma has kindly supplied me with an analysis of the structure:

1. 16 bars in C (2 times 8)
2. The 24 bar A B A form in C 

Modulation to F

3. Theme in F 

But in May 1927, Louis Armstrong and his Hot Seven (including Johnny Dodds on clarinet, Johnny St. Cyr on guitar and Pete Briggs on tuba) had made a lusty three-minute recording in Chicago of Alligator Crawl. Their version has not much in common with the later recording by Fats Waller. Instead of the 16-bar sections (8 + 8 bars) it has four 12-bar blues sequences. It plays the 24-bar theme only once (from 1 min. 10 secs. to 2 mins. 05 secs. during the performance). Although these 24 bars seem (to my ear) to use the same harmonic sequence as Fats Waller, Louis plays a melody that is almost totally different, apart from the famous opening two bars:

so, in effect, only 55 seconds of Armstrong's 3-minute recording sound anything like Waller's. In most respects the Hot Seven interpretation is so different from the other that the two versions sound like two different pieces of music.

This led me to speculate that Armstrong (and his pianist wife Lil Hardin) took just a musical idea and the harmonies from the Waller 24-bar theme and re-structured them in their own way, allowing for some tremendous fresh invention. My guess was that Lil Hardin's was the brain behind the project. With her classical training and skills as a jazz composer and arranger (constantly in use with this band in the mid-1920s), not to mention that she plays the piano on the recording, I would not be surprised if there is as much Hardin as Waller in the Hot Seven 1927 recording. Even the four 12-bar blues sequences (especially the ensemble one that is repeated) in the Armstrong version are not any old improvisations: they are majestic - and linger in our minds.

But the great Australian jazz researcher Bill Haesler has pointed out to me that there is also a richly-orchestrated and precisely-played recording of Alligator Crawl by 'Doc' Cook and His Doctors of Syncopation. This recording appears to have been made only a month after that of the Hot Seven. You can find it on YouTube and you will note that the composer is definitely given as Waller and that it includes some 12-bar sections reminiscent of Armstrong's, as well as the 24-bar theme.

Could the Hot Seven have started by looking at the the same musical arrangement that Doc Cook used so precisely - re-interpreting it freely in their own way? Quite probably.

So I have to come to the conclusion that Waller probably wrote a 12-bar theme as well as the famous 24-theme when he originally composed the piece, but that he chose to re-write the tune, dropping the 12-bar theme and replacing it with some new 16-bar material, when he came to record it as a piano speciality seven years later.

Unless somebody finds a manuscript or orchestration from 1927, we may never know the full story.

Bill Haesler also pointed me to Ricky Ricardi's Dippermouth Blogspot, where Armstrong's performance is analysed and the writer also provides this information: 
"Alligator Crawl" was originally titled "House Party Stomp" and "Charleston Stomp" before publisher Joe Davis gave it the final title..... 

A theory of Erwin Elvers of Luetjensee, Germany, is that the Alligator Crawl played by Armstrong was based on a Spencer Williams composition from which Fats Waller adopted the 24-theme for his own composition. But this theory - though it appeals to me as plausible - seems unsupported by paper records. See Dick Baker's research at http://dickbaker.org/stompoff/index.pdf.

Parlophone put out a version with the title as Alligator Blues and the composer as 'Williams'. Perhaps that's what influenced Erwin Elvers; but both the title and the composer on this label are are surely incorrect:

Adding a little to the confusion, some early Armstrong recordings do indeed give the tune the alternative title of Alligator Blues; and there actually is a tune called Alligator Blues that was recorded also in 1927 by a band called John Hyman's Bayou Stompers, but I can assure you Hyman's is a totally different piece of music. (John Hyman was the name used at the time by the cornet player John Wigginton Hyman - later better known as Johnny Wiggs). And adding still more confusion, there is a 1927 recording by Fess Williams' Royal Flush Orchestra of Alligator Crawl. It includes echoes of the 12-bar theme but not of the 24-bar, as far as I can tell.

Whoever was responsible for 'composing' its melodies and arranging its structure, it's the Hot Seven version that most bands try to copy these days. Fortunately the Hot Seven recording has survived the passage of time really well, as you can hear on YouTube. It's there for us all to study:

Click hear to listen.

Its structure is as follows. It comprises eight segments:

1. Introduction : 2 bars (cornet) in the key of F.
2. 12-bar Blues in F, solo clarinet.
3. 12-bar Blues in F, ensemble.
4. 4-bar Modulation, clever, mainly on G7, leading to a change to the key of C.
5. 24-Bar Theme ensemble (structured a - b - a) in the key of C (the phrase given above appears in the 'a' parts; and the 'b' part uses some minor chords).
6. One bar in which Louis modulates the key back to F (making the previous theme virtually stretch to a highly unusual 25 bars).
7. 12-Bar blues in F, guitar.
8. As No. 3 above: 12-bar blues in F, ensemble, with athletic improvisations by Louis.

And if you would like to examine a 21st-Century version by the great young band Tuba Skinny, I can tell you they have recorded it on their Pyramid Strut CD, and you can watch them (on YouTube, thanks to the generosity of the great video-maker digitalalexa) playing it in public. You will find that Tuba Skinny take the tune a shade more slowly than Louis but they follow meticulously the structure and spirit of his recording, right down to that 'extra' bar I have called Segment 6 (watch out for it at precisely 2 mins. 13 secs. into the video). But of course, being Tuba Skinny, they (in particular Shaye on cornet) have introduced exciting alternative improvised phrasings of their own. Watch the performance by clicking here.
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Post 213: THE ORIGINS OF TRADITIONAL JAZZ

John McCusker

A most interesting experience while I was in New Orleans in April 2015 was being taken on a conducted tour of the immediate neighbourhood, with John McCusker as guide.

A graduate of Loyola University, New Orleans, John was for thirty years a regional photo-journalist with the Times-Picayune newspaper. He achieved distinction in that work - especially through his coverage of Hurricane Katrina.

John is a knowledgeable, lively and well-prepared speaker. He has spent years researching the origins of jazz in New Orleans. The fruits of much of John's research are to be found in his book Creole Trombone: Kid Ory and the Early Years of Jazz (University of Mississippi Press, 2012).

His findings are convincing because he supports them so well with evidence - such as reports from contemporary newspapers. He is also very proud of being a New Orleans citizen and he loves the early jazz music.

John reminded us of the usual 'myths' and said there may be grains of truth in them, but that essentially they were misleading and should be dispelled.

For example, he had found that all these myths were only partially true:

1. Musicians acquired instruments 'left over' by bands after the Civil War and somehow taught themselves to play. McCusker asks: Why should they do that? There were plenty of new and second-hand musical instruments available cheaply in shops; and there was a strong tradition of young people - black and white - having music lessons in those days. Music shops were a Big Thing in the days when people made their own entertainment, long before television and computers and iPhones. Here's an example, from Canal Street, New Orleans.

2. Lots of the early jazz players used to play in the bordellos of Storyville until it was closed down in 1917. (McCusker asks: Why would you want to waste time with musicians in a bordello? Only a few of the more fancy establishments booked musicians. There were plenty of other places - such as Lakeside - for musicians to find employment.)

3. After the closure of Storyville, the musicians went 'up the river' to Chicago. (McCusker says: Only a tiny proportion of the New Orleans musicians moved north. Most stayed in New Orleans and continued to work there. In any case, if you go 'up river', it doesn't lead to Chicago!)

What Mr. McCusker wanted to impress upon us was that there was a very strong musical tradition in New Orleans. We have to remember there was no TV, no radio and no cinema. At the time, a musical instrument was a 'must have' in most households, just as a computer is today. It was very common to find a mandolin or violin in the home (an interview with the early New Orleans musician Johnny Wiggs confirmed this). And there could well be a concertina, a piano or a harmonium.

Plenty of people made a living teaching youngsters to play musical instruments - piano, string, brass, reeds and so on. Music-making in the home and in public places was commonplace. In some homes, a family band would develop.

John especially impressed upon us the importance of opera in the lives of the citizens. People loved it. There were three well-attended opera houses, so everyone knew the tunes from Verdi, Offenbach, Bizet, Reyer, Von Flotow, Massenet, Meyerbeer and Gounod.  What an inspiration to early jazz musicians and composers they must have been!

Here is the Eagle Saloon, where Buddy Bolden and the other early jazz pioneers played. It has languished for years in a state of disrepair, though there is now strong local pressure to have it restored and used again as a venue for music.

John McCusker told us the Minstrel Shows and Vaudeville - both well attended in the theatres of New Orleans - were of huge importance (usually underestimated) in the early development of jazz. Likewise the 'society orchestras' (made up of trained sight-reading musicians) influenced the approach of such early New Orleans jazz musicians as Kid Ory.

A sad sight: the tumbledown building
behind the scaffolding used to be a theatre
in which at one time you could watch a vaudeville show
or hear Buddy Bolden play.

Of special significance was the craze for syncopated piano music (ragtime), brass band marches and especially the Blues with its genesis in the depths of African culture. The early jazz musicians also worked at a golden time in popular music, when so many of the hit songs were easy to adapt to a 'jazzy' presentation. 

Of course, he told us about Buddy Bolden and took us to some of the places where he used to play. We saw his house and the houses (or sites) where other early jazz stars lived - Nick La Rocca's house, for example. He told us about the early life of Louis Armstrong and he impressed upon us the importance of Edward 'Kid' Ory both as a developer of jazz in the early days and as the man who first recognised the talent of the teenager Louis and then set him on his way by booking him for gigs. Ory - who ran his own band in New Orleans from 1907 - also employed such musicians as Johhny Dodds, King Oliver and Sidney Bechet.

John McCusker also emphasised the importance of brass bands. Such bands became possible only in the mid-Nineteenth Century, after the invention of valved brass instruments (which made all notes of the scales obtainable). In the USA, as in England, there was a massive development of the brass band movement from about 1850 onwards. In England, it eventually became formalised, with national contests, and rules about the numbers of each type of instrument. But in Louisiana matters were more free-style. There were some small and medium-sized bands (undoubtedly forerunners of later jazz bands.

In such small, informal groupings, it would be easy for a player or two to set a fashion for 'jazzing up' a tune.) 

Statues on the edge of 'Congo Square',
in Louis Armstrong Park.

Right from the early days, when the famous benevolent societies operated around New Orleans (they provided mutual help at times of hardship), these social clubs had their own bands; and the bands played at members' funerals.

We tend to think of 'jazz funerals' as a twentieth-century invention. But they are really just a continuation of brass band funerals from long before. John McCusker quoted from a newspaper report of 1857 in which mention was made of the brass band accompanying the coffin.

John took us to various sites including 'Congo Square'. This area had been allocated to the black slaves as a place where on Sundays they were allowed to congregate, play their music and dance. The exciting African dances and the rhythms of their music appealed to all kinds of visitors and onlookers. In these, too, we find a huge influence in the early development of jazz. These Sunday events died out but the Square was used for brass band concerts at the end of the Nineteenth Century.

Congo Square in 2015 -
preserved as a historic landmark.

Frieze in Congo Square:
An attempt to imagine the scene about 180 years ago.

My regular blog-reading friend Phil in the USA told me there is a super video made by John McCusker which enables YOU too to go on his conducted tour. May I strongly recommend that you have a look? Watch it by clicking here.

John McCusker still feels deeply hurt about the lack of support New Orleans received during Hurricane Katrina and the floods, which killed 1000 people in the immediate vicinity. I could sense that his emotions were still raw on this subject ten years after it happened. He took us to a point from which we could see over many square miles of parishes north-east of the City, all of which (he told us) had been flooded to a depth of 15 feet.

With better engineering, it need never have happened. With quicker response from administrators and politicians, the consequent suffering could have been alleviated.

But please may I also recommend that you listen to a talk by John McCusker? If you're interested in the earliest days of New Orleans jazz, I think you will find this truly informative:
CLICK HERE TO WATCH IT.

Post 163: FALSE FINGERING FOR CORNET AND TRUMPET PLAYERS

I'm going to say a few words about false fingering for the cornet or trumpet. This will be boring stuff for most of you, so perhaps you should switch off now and see whether there's a decent football match on TV.

For those still with me, I can tell you I was strictly taught that a cornet player should NEVER - absolutely NEVER - play any note by using the third valve by itself. The correct fingering for such notes as the lower 'E' and the 'A' within the stave was first and second valve combined. The reason for the ban on using the third instead was - I think - that the note would be very slightly out of tune.

But I noticed later in life that many trumpeters - particularly jazz players - habitually and instinctively use third valve alone. You may be surprised to hear that the third valve by itself gets you 'G' AND 'A' AND 'B' above the stave, which the classically-trained are taught always to play as an open note, 1st with 2nd, and 2nd respectively.

So you can go right up the C scale in the higher octave with this simple fingering: C = 0 / D = 1 / E = 0 / F = 1 / G = 3 / A = 3 / B = 3 / C = 0. What a useful trick!

If you find that hard to believe, just try it.

This example of false fingering now seems to me to do no harm and to bring the required result. Unfortunately, the discovery came too late to affect my own playing. The classical rules were ingrained and I was too old to learn new tricks.

Here's another example of false fingering. The higher 'D' within the stave is correctly played with first valve only; and that's how I was taught to play it. But you can also get it (ever so slightly sharp) with a combination of first and third valves.

The most interesting example of this that I am aware of occurs in the 1927 recording by Louis Armstrong of Potato Head Blues - one of the most important and influential recordings in the history of jazz. If you need to, you can find it on You Tube. Note the final stop-time solo (following the Johnny Dodds clarinet chorus) that Louis plays: in the 9th and 10th bars Louis produces an amazing flutter on that 'D'; and he achieves this by hitting the note ten times in a row, alternating the fingering between first valve and first with third.

As you probably know, when you use the second valve, you are lowering an open note by a semi-tone; when you use the first valve, you are lowering the note by a tone; when you use the third valve, you lower it by one and a half tones. This suggests that the third valve can at any time substitute for the first and second together, as either fingering lowers the note by one and a half tones. However, manufacturers do not make the third valve slide exactly the same length as the two other slides combined. That's why the tuning of falsely-fingered notes is not absolutely spot on.

Apart from most of the harmonics (notes played without depressing any valves) all notes in most keys are ever so slightly out of tune and there’s no way of avoiding this. The designers of brass instruments have to compromise in the lengths of the tubing (just as pianos are tuned by ‘equal temperament’).

But enough of this heavy stuff. If you want to study the subject further, start by looking up ‘equal temperament’ on the Internet.

I just want to make a point about the consequences for cornets and trumpets. For every note, we have a ‘correct’ fingering (making the best use of the instrument’s design) but most notes also have at least one ‘false’ fingering which produces the note very slightly sharp or flat – but only to the extent that a passer-by would hardly notice.

I said above that it is possible to play G and A and B above the stave all by depressing third valve alone. In fact you can get any of the following eight notes on a trumpet or cornet with third valve alone:

At a pinch, you can even get the high C above these notes with 3rd valve only.

But please don’t tell anybody this little secret. You would get me into big trouble with serious trumpet tutors. Let’s just keep it between ourselves.

It’s not just third valve that provides some useful false fingering, of course. Here are the third and fourth bars of the most famous cadenza in all jazz – Louis Armstrong’s introduction to West End Blues. I am showing here the classically-correct fingering for the bar of descending quavers.

But if you have trouble playing that, just consider this: you can use first valve alone on five successive notes!

Reminder: don’t let anybody know I told you.

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 126: 'ORIENTAL STRUT', JOHNNY ST. CYR, LOUIS, AND TUBA SKINNY

An appearance on YouTube of Tuba Skinny playing Oriental Strut (CLICK HERE to watch it) prompted me to give some thought to this tune, which is a little more complex than most, and not easy to play.

It was written in 1926 by Johnny St. Cyr and famously recorded that year by Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five (with St. Cyr himself on banjo).

Tuba Skinny take it at a slightly quicker pace than Armstrong. Their performance lasts for 3 minutes 13 seconds (about 4 seconds longer than Armstrong's) but with Tuba Skinny you get 32 more bars.

It may be heresy to say so, but - as an arrangement - I prefer Tuba Skinny's to Armstrong's.

The key for Tuba Skinny is F (and the related key D minor). The Armstrong version today sounds (very improbably) in E, but I think 90 years ago the standard pitch was different; so he was most likely also playing it in F (D minor).

Tuba Skinny differs from Armstrong in going back to play Themes A and B again - after two choruses of Theme C. Also the cornet player (Shaye Cohn) chooses to play only 16 bars against stop chords in her 'solo', whereas Armstrong plays the full 32 bars - not sharing with another player.

	HOT FIVE	TUBA SKINNY
1.	Introduction: 4 bars clearly establishing the D minor key; followed by 4 bars – piano – vamping on the D minor key.	Introduction: 4 bars clearly establishing the D minor key; followed by 4 bars – tuba-led – vamping on the D minor key.
2.	THEME A: 16 bars strongly on D minor, with a vamp (piano) at Bars 7 – 8.	THEME A: 16 bars strongly on D minor.
3.	THEME B: 16 bars - brighter because now in the related major key of F. Using The Salty Dog Chord Sequence and ending on the chord of C7 to lead neatly into THEME C.	THEME B: 16 bars - brighter because now in the related major key of F. Using The Salty Dog Chord Sequence and ending on the chord of C7 to lead neatly into THEME C.
4.	THEME C: 32-bar Main Theme in F. Trombone takes first 16 bars, Clarinet the next 16. Banjo 2-bar link in bars 31-32 (the composer's chance to shine!)	THEME C: 32-bar Main Theme in F. Trombone takes all 32 bars, but with backing from cornet and clarinet in the final 16.
5.	THEME C: 32-bar Main Theme in F. This is Louis's solo and chance to shine against stop chords. But the whole band joins in at the final eight.	THEME C: 32-bar Main Theme in F. Ensemble, but this time the clarinet takes a sprightly lead.
6.	THEME C: 32-bar Main Theme in F. All ensemble but with Louis's cornet dominating (and Johnny St. Cyr again taking a two-bar break at bars 15-16).	A clever 32-bar surprise: Back to THEME A: 16 bars in D minor, with the tuba taking the first eight and the full ensemble the next eight. THEME B: 16 bars in F played ensemble but ending with a washboard two-bar offbeat break.
7.	Very pleasant rallentando coda, two bars.	THEME C: 32-bar Main Theme in F. This is Shaye's solo against stop chords, but unlike Louis she chooses to play only the first 16 bars in this way. We then have the washboard for 8 bars against dotted crotchet double stop chords, and the whole band back in for the final 8 bars.
8.		Two bar tag, no rallentando, with neat 'chopped' ending.

Post 80: DIMINISHED CHORDS

You can sail through most traditional jazz tunes without ever coming across a diminished chord. Some tunes are even playable using only the three-chord trick.

However, I am fond of hearing diminished chords because they almost always inject a spot of drama, contrast and excitement. At the very least they add colour.

For example, in Have You Met Miss Jones?, I love the diminished that accompanies the word Jones, and therefore appears in the first, second and final eights. Another dramatic one occurs five bars from the end of The Very Thought Of You, where the melody leaps to its final high note, accompanied of course by the diminished.

And that good old jazz band favourite The World is Waiting for the Sunrise has a striking diminished throughout bars 3 and 4, and again through bars 19 and 20.

But the most dramatic and noticeable uses of the diminished occur in cascading arpeggio form. Sometimes this can be left to an improviser in a 'break' (such as bars 13 and 14 of the first theme of Fidgety Feet) but more obviously it is part of the written tune, such as the beginning of the second theme of Blame It On The Blues (climbing up the arpeggio ladder):

The first theme of Memphis Shake depends for its effect on its two opening bars being based on the diminished chord of the tonic.

There is another thrilling example in the third and fourth bars from the end of the second theme in Ostrich Walk. After three bars of breaks, the melody glisses down through the diminished version of the tonic chord, leading into a bar of Dominant 7th and then the Tonic.

And most famous of all is the terrific Louis Armstrong Introduction to Dippermouth Blues, which cascades down through the diminished:

Post 20: 'HE LIKES IT SLOW'

Erika Lewis

An Australian reader who introduced himself as relatively new to traditional jazz wrote to ask whether I could offer any help with He Likes It Slow (by W. Benton Overstreet), which he was having difficulty in picking up, having heard it played by Tuba Skinny. Like many who write to me, he over-estimated my powers!

However, I would suggest first going back (as Tuba Skinny must have done) to the 1926 recording featuring Butterbeans and Susie and Louis Armstrong.

Butterbeans and Susie

It is remarkably clear for a recording of such a vintage:

CLICK HERE.

There's a simple Introduction and then a twelve-bar Verse, which is followed by a 20-bar (+2-bar tag) Chorus (with a 'break' on bars 7 - 8) making strong use of The Salty Dog Chord Progression. Note also how the band does a double-speed version of the first half of the Chorus as an interlude.

Tuba Skinny offer us a recording of this song on their CD Six Feet Down (made in 2010) and they are also seen performing it in several videos on YouTube, such as THIS ONE - CLICK ON TO VIEW. (Incidentally, they offer a full two choruses at the double tempo.)

The original Armstrong recording of 1926 was in the key of F. Tuba Skinny happily and brilliantly tackle it in Eb. The key suits Erika's voice perfectly, which is probably why they opted for it.

However, when Shaye (this time on piano) and Erika (singing) recorded the song again as a trio in a run-of-the-mill performance with Norbert Susemihl on trumpet, they played it in the key of F. I wonder why. If you wish to listen to this version,

CLICK HERE.

Post 19: 'WHEN THE SAINTS GO MARCHING IN'

When the Saints Go Marching In (often referred to as The Saints) is one of the best-known and best-loved of all tunes played by the traditional jazz bands. It is even known and sung in many languages throughout the world. Jazz musicians themselves generally don’t care for it. The reason is partly that it is constantly requested, so they are bored by it. But audiences love singing and clapping along to this tune.

When The Saints has a Verse as well as the familiar Chorus. The two are similar; but I shall concentrate on the Chorus.

There are three reasons why it is easy for the audience and lends itself to audience participation. (1) It has a simple 16-bar structure; (2) it offers a singer and echoing chorus possibility (Oh when the saints [Oh when the saints…]); and (3) it is repetitive: there’s nothing much to learn.

But they are also three reasons why the musicians do not much care for it: the tune poses no great challenge.

That is its simple chord structure (without any sophistication).

Note how you can get away with using just three chords: it is what musicians call a three-chord trick. The chords are the most common: the tonic, the dominant and the sub-dominant.

It is believed that this tune is a traditional gospel number dating back to the earliest days of jazz (and jazz funerals) in New Orleans. I am surprised, though, that not one of the early jazz bands - all through the great New Orleans and Chicago eras - ever seems to have recorded it. The only early recordings of When The Saints (dating from the 1920s), are by gospel singers and by singer-guitarist Blind Willie Davis (about whom almost nothing is known). You can listen to his performance by clicking here. But the very first recorded performance seems to have been by The Paramount Jubilee Singers in 1923. You can find this easily on YouTube.

Some scholarly types claim the song was written in 1896 by James M. Black (1856-1938) and Katherine E. Purvis, who died in 1909. They were members of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Pennsylvania. But the song they wrote was actually When The Saints Are Marching In and it has a different melody. I have examined the sheet music.

When The Saints Go Marching In was used in the 1936 film Green Pastures, for which it was claimed that Virgil Stamps wrote the music. It was even copyrighted in 1937 by Virgil Stamps, with words by Luther G. Presley. Stamps was born in Texas in 1892. He got a job with The Tennessee Music Company and started composing songs by 1915. He was also a singer and a keen student and proponent of gospel music. So it is conceivable that he really did compose it in his younger days. Later he had his own music company. He and his singing quartet became early stars of the radio age. Luther Presley, whose name also appeared on the copyright and who may or may not have written the words, died in 1974, having lived to the good old age of 87; so he at least knew what world-wide fame the song went on to achieve.

Incidentally, I received an email in May 2015 from the great-niece of Virgil Stamps. She said her mother had assured her that Virgil composed the tune. 

In 1938, the great Louis Armstrong took it up and recorded it. It was not until then that it caught on and its fame was assured.

The tune has been adopted as a rallying song for sports teams and institutions throughout the world. In my country, it is used by Southampton Football Club (The Saints). Most famously, the tune was taken to its heart by New Orleans and is the probable reason why The New Orleans Saints Football Team was so named.

Its simple chord structure is copied in other tunes. I think you will find I'll Be Glad When You're Dead, Jump for Joy, Peruna, Reefer Man, The Sloop John B, You Rascal You and Red River Valley are pretty much identical; and the tune We Shall Walk Through The Streets Of The City (played these days by most traditional jazz bands) certainly is. The Chorus of Livin' High uses this structure, too. And so do The Coming Tide,  This Train and the Chorus of Who Threw the Whisky in the Well and There Ain't Gonna Be No Doggone Afterwhile.

And a final observation: when I was in New Orleans as a tourist a few years ago, I came across a couple of jazz buskers (trumpet and banjo) in Jackson Square and they were playing When The Saints in the unusual key of E! The trumpeter was producing some amazing improvisations. As he was using a Bb trumpet, it meant he was improvising at high speed in what was for him a key of 6 sharps! It was a brilliant improvisation. I suppose these two gentlemen were playing the tune because they knew it was a crowd-pleaser; but at the same time they were choosing to make it a much greater challenge for themselves.