Post 603: PLAYING THE ODJB'S 'OSTRICH WALK'

'Ostrich Walk' was first devised and recorded in 1917 by The Original Dixieland Jazz Band, so it was credited to their players Edwin B. Edwards, Nick LaRocca, Henry Ragas, Tony Sbarbaro and Larry Shields.

You can hear them over a hundred years ago playing the tune - at a good pace - BY CLICKING HERE.

This is a simplified lead sheet.

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 595: ELLINGTON'S 'BIG HOUSE BLUES'

For anybody interested in studying traditional jazz, 'Big House Blues', composed by Duke Ellington in 1930, is a good illustration of what makes the music endlessly fascinating and interesting.

For a start, like plenty of other pieces from our standard repertoire, it has two sections of which one is in a major key (in this case Eb) and the other in the related minor key (C minor).

Next, it reminds us that not all tunes in the 1920s and 1930s were structured in 12-bar or 32-bar formats. In fact, the first theme (Section A - see below) consists of 20 bars. Other examples of 20-bar tunes from our early repertoire are After You've Gone, Oh You Beautiful Doll, The Darktown Strutters Ball, I Guess I'll Have To Change My Plan, Keeping Out of Mischief Now, You've Got the Right Key but the Wrong Keyhole, You Got Me Crying Again, and Papa De Da Da.

The tune uses riffs – again typical of our music – and they are unusually pretty and rhythmically interesting. Note what happens in bars 17 and 18 of the A section, for example. 

It is possible to go straight from section A into section B , though bands with a piano often get the pianist to play a four-bar link between the two, just as Ellington did.

Now look at the second theme - section B – in the key of C minor. It has a 32-bar AABA structure, again using a pretty, dramatic riff for the A sections. The middle eight has its own striking, defiant melody ending with a powerful use of the G7 chord.

Improvisations are normally played on this B section and they can be very dramatic. The melody and the minor key lend themselves to growling, muted work, for example. Actually, the chord sequence is much simpler than it sounds: it is possible for a musician of average ability to produce something quite impressive from this material. I think that is why it is popular with trumpet and trombone players.

I have heard some bands also introducing a 12-bar blues chorus in Eb, and using this for improvisations. I think that spoils the overall impact of all the minor chord stuff. Ellington himself didn't do it in 1930, so why should we?

A very good way to end the tune is to play Section A again, with those bars 17 to 18 sustaining the drama and bar 20  bringing the piece to a striking sudden halt.

You can hear the tune being played by Ellington himself BY CLICKING HERE. And you may watch a band playing the piece in 2008 BY CLICKING HERE.

Post 594: DISENTANGLING 'TANGLED BLUES' (SHAYE COHN AND TUBA SKINNY)

An 18-bar vocal from Erika

I first heard Tangled Blues when Tuba Skinny performed it at The Louisiana Music Factory on 14 April 2015. It was a new composition by Shaye Cohn, with words by Erika Lewis.

Tangled Blues is a very pleasant tune, somewhat country-and-western in feel and played in the Key of F.

But something about it struck me as strange. You form the impression  that you are listening to one melody. But listen carefully and you find there are two separate tunes. Let's call them A and B. They have a lot in common. For example there are motifs such as this one that occur in both A and B (giving the piece that feeling of unity).

It occurs twice in A, played (I think) on the chord of F. It also occurs twice in B, but this time (I think) played on the Bb chord. So we begin to see what a clever 'tangle' Shaye has woven for us. Part A has a lyric and comprises 18 bars. How many tunes can you think of that consist of 18 bars (not counting tunes that are really 16 bars with a 2-bar tag, such as Sister Kate)? Can you think of any? Apart from Miss Otis Regrets by the wonderful Cole Porter, I can't. So Shaye has played a very clever trick here.

However, Part B is a conventional 32 bars but with no lyric.

Despite their similarity of 'feel', the two parts sound (to my ear, which may be misleading me) quite different in chord structure. It seems A starts with, and twice uses, the I - IV - V - I chord pattern whereas B starts on the V chord (dominant - C7th, followed of course by the tonic), of which it makes much use later.

The whole performance goes like this:

4-bar Introduction
18-bar A (Ensemble)
32-bar B (Cornet 16 + Ensemble 16)
18-bar A (Todd on Tuba playing the melody)
32-bar B (Clarinet 16 + ensemble 16 - trombone with melody)
18-bar A (the only occurrence of the vocal - sung by Erika)
32-bar B (Ensemble, cornet-led)

Total = 154 bars; performance time about 4 minutes 20 seconds.

What a clever, pretty and intricate tangle indeed! Well done, Shaye!

'Tangled Blues': Todd plays
the  18-bar melody.

You can watch a street performance filmed by RaoulDuke BY CLICKING HERE or digitalalexa's video (the performance at which I first heard the tune) BY CLICKING HERE.    

My friend Peter Petrovič, who lives in Maribor, Slovenia, enjoys the challenge of trying to work out tunes by ear. He sent me his attempt to decipher Tangled Blues; and I think he has done really well.

Post 591: 'DREAMING THE HOURS AWAY' AND WILLIAM DULMAGE

Though history has not treated his memory kindly, William E. Dulmage was an important figure in American music during the first half of the Twentieth Century.

Born in 1883, he became a musician, composer and music publisher. He grew up in Michigan and spent much of his life there. His parents ensured that he had a good music education and he found employment in a large store in Detroit - the Grinnell Brothers Music House. Grinnell sold pianos of their own manufacture and these were considered some of the best at the time. William Dulmage worked there for 22 years, rising to become manager of the Band and Orchestral Department. In his spare time he played in the band and orchestra run by George and William Finzel in Detroit. It was not a jazz band but it played for dances in Detroit and for boat trips on the nearby Lake St. Clare.

In 1930 he moved on to an executive post with the Wurlitzer Company, well before its decline, and he worked there for twelve years.

During all this time, William was composing. Early on there were his patriotic World War One songs. Later there were soundtracks for films and television shows. He wrote Tigers on Parade as the theme song for the local baseball team. Two of his hits were Tenderly Think of Me and When It's Night Time in Nevada. 

In his final years, Dulmage ran a music store of his own, with the help of his wife and son.

William died in 1953.

Why am I telling you all this? Because one of Dulmage's songs was called Dreaming The Hours Away and, since 2015, it has been very successfully revived by traditional jazz bands, notably Tuba Skinny.

What a fine song it is! It has a 16-bar Verse, using plenty of minor chords, and a repeated pattern in two-bar phrases. The words for the first phrases are: 'When evening comes along....The night bird sings his song....It makes me sad and blue.... Because he sings of you...'.

Then there is a beautifully-phrased 32-bar Chorus (with a 16+16 structure). The words of the first 16 are: 'Dreaming....the lonesome hours away... Longing... for you all through the day...and in the twilight.... beneath the starlight...thoughts of you...make me blue...'.

But the words are not important. When the Clarence Williams Jazz Kings recorded the tune in 1928 - the year after Dulmage composed it - they chose not to have a vocal at all. You can hear the seven-piece band playing the song BY CLICKING HERE.

This enterprising arrangement makes the most of the opportunities for 'breaks' in Bars 15 and 16 of the Chorus. But it begins with a 4-bar Introduction, followed (at 09 seconds) by 16 bars distinctively led by the clarinet and freely based on the first 16 bars of the Chorus. This is followed (at 28 seconds) by the final 16 bars of the Chorus by the full band, powerfully led by the cornet. Then it's back (at 46 seconds) to the Verse (which is played only once in the entire recording), played much 'as written' by Dulmage, with syncopations stressed by the whole band.

At 1 minute 05 seconds, we embark on the next run through the 32-bar Chorus, but the first sixteen are led by Ed Allen's muted cornet, unsupported by trombone or reeds. From bar 16 (1 minute 22 seconds), the alto-sax of Coleman Hawkins takes over the lead, backed for his first eight bars by tricky rhythmic pattern played by the rest of the band - notably banjo, brass bass and piano. At the end of the Chorus (1 minute 42 seconds), the trombonist Ed Cuffee takes the lead in another Chorus, and is immediately backed by a delightful little riff from the reeds, until the unmuted cornet (at 2 minutes 10 seconds) takes the lead back for the final eight bars. Then, to finish, we have a complete Chorus with the whole band freewheeling - excitingly improvising but without loss of control.

It's not surprising that this tune and arrangement appealed to Tuba Skinny. They must have worked hard at mastering this number for their own very slick public performances. Here's one - filmed by my friend James Sterling: CLICK HERE.

Note how strongly they have been influenced by the 1928 recording. They use the same Introduction and then copy the idea of having a clarinet take the first 16 bars of the first chorus and the cornet leading the second 16 bars. Then (at 45 seconds), like Clarence Williams, they play the Verse. Like him, they will play it only once. At 1 minute 06 seconds, we embark on the next run through the 32-bar Chorus, but the first sixteen are led by Shaye Cohn's cornet, unsupported by trombone or reeds. From bar 16 (1 minute 26 seconds), the clarinet takes over the lead, backed for his first eight bars by those same tricky rhythmic patterns played by the rest of the band.

At the end of the Chorus (1 minute 46 seconds), the trombonist Charlie Halloran takes the lead in another Chorus, and is backed from time to time by that Clarence Williams delightful little riff from the clarinet and cornet. Then, to finish, we have a complete Chorus with the whole band excitingly improvising. Both bands play the tune entirely in the key of Ab.

Interesting, isn't it, to note how closely, despite their slightly different instrumentation, Tuba Skinny have respected the structure of the original recording?

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 585: 'I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT MUSIC.' REALLY?

'He plays piano queer. He only plays by ear'. Those are the words describing the pianist 'Mister Brown' in the 1916 jazz song Down in Honky Tonky Town.

A very good English clarinet player once told me: 'I know nothing at all about music. I play by ear. That's all you need for jazz.'

But on another occasion I overheard him saying to a pianist, 'You played a D minor chord in the third bar. It should have been F diminished.'

So much for 'knowing nothing about music'!

That gentleman died five years ago, but I have met several other musicians who have also proudly claimed they can't read music and know nothing about it. Presumably they thought they were natural geniuses.

I have become sceptical about such claims.

I can recall only three gentlemen who obviously could not read music and played entirely 'by ear'. But they were very limited in what they could offer in traditional jazz bands and in their understanding of tune structures and conventions. I noticed they were unable to gain acceptance in any regular band and managed only to pick up occasional gigs as deputies.

Of course, the ear is an essential tool in the learning of tunes when - as often happens - you can't get hold of printed music. Play along a few times with a good clear recording. Use the pause button and write the tune down as you go along. You may even be able to work out the chord progression reasonably well. I am sure most jazz musicians have mastered dozens of tunes in this way. But you need to know what you are doing. You must have at least some rudimentary understanding of keys, note lengths, time signatures and tune structures. 

Many of the older generation of traditional jazz players depended very much on their ears in order to learn music, as they put it, 'closely enough for jazz'. But the younger generation is more academic in its approach to the repertoire. Some have studied both jazz and classical music at colleges. So they practise hard to memorise correctly the melodies, harmonies, structures, rhythmic patterns and grammar of the music. For an example of the finished product:

CLICK HERE.

=========
COMMENT RECEIVED FROM BARRIE MARSHALL:

I used to dep with a band that had a trumpet player who boasted he was an ear player and knew nothing at all about music. We were doing this gig in the back garden of a pub, we started a tune and on the first chorus the banjo player played a chord that was not right He played it again on the second chorus. Then when he played it on the third chorus the trumpet played turned to him and said, 'That should be a C7, not an F7!'

Post 584: 'RED MAN BLUES'; AND TRADITIONAL JAZZ TUNE STRUCTURES

Start with a standard 12-bar (12-measure) blues structure in Eb:

Eb | Eb | Eb | Eb7 | Ab | Ab | Eb | Eb | Bb7 | Bb7 | Eb | Eb

Now, just for fun, let us extend it to 16 bars by playing the two Bb7 bars three times:

Eb | Eb | Eb | Eb7 | Ab | Ab | Eb | Eb | Bb7 | Bb7 | Bb7  |  Bb7 | Bb7 | Bb7 | Eb | Eb

Now let's think about the melody. Over bars 7 and 8 (both Eb bars), let's have the band playing this motif in unison:

Next, over the six Bb7 bars, let's have the clarinet playing this pretty two-bar pattern three times:

The reason why I'm saying all this is that I have been listening to Armand Piron's Red Man Blues (composed in 1925); and the devices I have mentioned are exactly what he uses in the first theme of the piece.

Listen to Piron's Orchestra playing this tune: CLICK HERE; and note in particular the part from 15 seconds until 28 seconds. You will hear what I have been describing. (You can hear it again when it is repeated at 42 seconds and again at 2 minutes 06 seconds and 2 minutes 31 seconds.)

You will note that Red Man Blues has a second theme that actually uses a standard 12-bar blues structure. And the piece then has a kind of 'Interlude' 16-bar third theme featuring the clarinet. It provides contrast by being minor-key in mood (using plenty of Eb minor chords). After this it returns to Theme A in which those tricks I described occur again, leading up to the Coda.

I remember hearing bands in England occasionally playing Red Man Blues in the 1980s and 1990s but I don't recall hearing it played in recent years. I hope it has not dropped out of fashion. It is a very pleasant and pretty number. And it is an important and interesting part of our heritage.

Post 579: SHAYE COHN - TRADITIONAL JAZZ COMPOSER

Shaye Cohn is considered by many to be the best traditional jazz band leader, the best traditional jazz cornet player and one of the best traditional jazz piano players and violin players in the world today. I think it's time also for us to recognise her achievement as a composer of our kind of music.

While only in her early 30s, Shaye had already given us some wonderful compositions. Think of the very entertaining and clever Blue Chime Stomp. Remember the haunting Owl Call Blues. And there was Salamanca Blues - a lovely melancholy piece with themes in F and then Ab, giving plenty of opportunities to the trombone and guitar.  Watch it in this performance: CLICK HERE.  As you can hear, it starts with a pleasant 12-bar blues theme in F, played by Barnabus. After that, so many interesting things happen: an other-worldly 16-bar theme led by Shaye; then a switch to the key of A flat and some lovely 12-bar blues sequences (including those played with a 'break' on bars 7 and 8 by Craig and Barnabus and Todd - always signalled by Shaye's outstretched leg). It's an early example of the beauty and complexity of Shaye's compositions. I should think she must still be very proud of it.

The medium-tempo Tangled Blues is a particularly clever composition: as its title suggests, it sets us plenty to 'untangle', with pretty, wistful phrases popping up in different keys and in two different themes - one of which runs for the highly unusual length of 18 bars.

In some of her work, we might say she is following the Schoebel School of Composition. By this I mean that, just as Elmer Schoebel in such pieces as 'Stomp Off, Let's Go' and 'I Never Knew What a Girl Could Do' has unconventional linking passages that catch us off balance, so Shaye does not restrict herself to nothing but such 8-bar blocks of music as constitute about 95% of traditional jazz tunes. 

Indeed, Shaye often challenges the ubiquitous 32-bar structures [four 8-bar sections, a – a – b – a] followed by popular music composers of the 1920s and 1930s. Some of her structures verge on the byzantine.

Pearl River Stomp (from 2016) springs another Shaye surprise. It begins with a bright 16-bar theme in the key of Ab. This is played through several times. Various instruments in turn take the lead, with interesting backing from the others. But just when you think it will continue like this, no doubt ending with some ensemble choruses, there is an abrupt drop to the key of Db and an entirely new 16-bar theme is played (very much like Bogalusa Strut and complete with the break in Bars 7 and 8). And it is with this theme - played only two or three times - that the piece ends.

Elysian Fields includes some apparent 8-bar sections that weirdly morph into 9 bars, with the barely perceptible addition of a holding pause.

Then there is the mighty Mortonesque Pyramid Strut, composed while the band Tuba Skinny was touring in Australia. This is the most complex of Shaye's creations. It has four themes, as well as an 8-bar bridge, and uses two keys. Lots of 'breaks' are built in and there are witty moments - such as the Coda. You can find videos of all these tunes on YouTube.

A favourite of many fans is the hauntingly beautiful Deep Bayou Moan. To my ear, it's in Ab (F minor). Elegiac, introspective, Arcadian: it has all these qualities.

Shaye's composition Nigel's Dream sounds so authentically 1920s that you could easily be fooled into thinking it was a previously undiscovered manuscript by King Oliver.

You can hear Shaye and Tuba Skinny performing Nigel's Dream either at

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1-vc0YVodU

or at

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mH63AsRRuw.

As ever, we must be grateful to the video-makers (in this case James Sterling and RaoulDuke504) for bringing this tune to our attention.

Its cheeky two-bar introduction involves nothing more than one 'Charleston' bar from the washboard followed by a single chord from the banjo, guitar and tuba. Then we are into Theme A - 32 bars in the key of C. Great use is made of a phrase (reminiscent of the Middle Eight of East Coast Trot) in which a flattened third is accentuated. Actually these 32 bars comprise two almost identical 16s; and at the end of the first sixteen (Bars 15 and 16) we have a 'break' (played by the banjo first time through and by the cornet and clarinet in a witty King Oliver-style mini-duet when the Theme is played again, led by the trombone, later).

The final bar of Theme A takes us through a modulating chord into the Key of Eb, in which Theme B is played. Twice through the sixteen bars (apparently both beginning with the chord sequence IV - IV - I - I) gives us a merry 32 bars. We then go straight back into Theme A (key of C again), with the trombone taking the lead. Then Theme B (in Eb) is re-visited. This is played through a couple of times with some boisterous, polyphonic ensemble, giving the piece a great ending. There is a neat Coda of just one bar.

What a composition! It's just as well written and well played as those King Oliver Jazz Band classics from the 1920s.
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Post 573: REPEAT EIGHT BARS FIFTEEN TIMES

Can a band take a tune of just eight bars that lasts less than 20 seconds, and play through it FIFTEEN times without boring the audience? Can the band even keep it interesting and produce a little work of art?

Yes, it can be done. Tuba Skinny and other great bands frequently show us how.

Consider Jet Black Blues, an 8-bar tune based on a very simple chord progression (think The Magnolia Progression).

Lonnie Johnson wrote and recorded it in 1929. You can find his original recording (in which King Oliver also features) on YouTube.

Tuba Skinny added the tune to their repertoire some years ago.

At one of their performances, my friend David Wiseman filmed them. You may see the result BY CLICKING HERE.

Note how they vary the presentation and constantly provide fresh interest, in the fifteen runs through the tune:

1. Shaye on cornet states the tune.

2. The clarinet and trombone join in for an ensemble chorus.

3. Another ensemble chorus.

4. Craig on clarinet takes the lead, with quiet support from the cornet and trombone.

5. Another clarinet-led chorus.

6. Charlie on trombone takes the lead, with interesting stop-chord support from other members of the band.

7. The trombone again leads, this time with an amusingly different pattern of stop-chord support.

8. The cornet provides an improvisation on the eight bars.

9. Another cornet improvisation.

10. Jason on banjo takes the lead, with lovely tremolo work.

11. Jason again leads.

12. The clarinet leads, with long-note backing.

13. The clarinet again leads, with gentle backing.

14. The full ensemble plays the chorus.

15. A final run-through by the full ensemble is neatly rounded off with a 2-bar coda.

That's how it's done!

Post 570: TRADITIONAL JAZZ? LET'S PLAY 'NEW ORLEANS WIGGLE'

Today I would like to bring to your attention another early classic from our heritage - one I haven't heard played much in the last couple of years. I think it deserves a revival.

I am speaking about New Orleans Wiggle. This was one of the tunes given to us by the violinist, composer and bandleader Armand J. Piron. 

Between 1923 and 1925, his orchestra made about fifteen influential recordings. The tunes included Bouncing Around, Red Man Blues, Kiss Me Sweet, Bright Star Blues and Mama's Gone, Goodbye - all of which were originals that Piron himself helped to compose.

But there was also New Orleans Wiggle, jointly written by Piron and his trumpet player Peter Bocage.

You can hear the recording they made of this tune BY CLICKING HERE.

What makes it such a good tune for our bands to master?

First, it provides a contrast with the many war-horses that most bands play. It offers the musicians more of a challenge and more interest than many tunes in our repertoire, because it has a structure that you need to study, and includes a key change. It offers plenty of syncopation and plenty of breaks - both of them essential elements in classic New Orleans jazz.

Despite what I have just said, the tune is easy to learn, without being too easy. This is because all three of its themes are underpinned by pleasant, straightforward chord progressions.

There is a four-bar introduction. Then comes Theme A, 16 bars in length. The melody takes us up through a series of syncopated arpeggios. This is great fun. The Piron Orchestra plays it twice.

Then Theme B begins with a sequence reminiscent of I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate (which Piron also wrote, a few years earlier). But at the second round of this chord priogression, it is extended beyond the 'Sister Kate' structure to 20 bars, with a series of breaks that occupy six bars. The Piron Orchestra also plays this theme twice, with the clarinet taking the breaks both times.

We then go straight into Theme C, with the key change. (Usually it means going from Bb into Eb.) This final theme consists of 32 bars and lends itself to breaks at several points. The melody is merry enough. And you will find the chord familiar from dozens of other tunes. It even ends with that simplest of progressions - The Sunshine Chord Sequence. Piron plays Theme C twice, doing some clever things with the breaks.

Finally, there is a neat 4-bar Coda, well worth learning and playing.

Piron's recording lasts only two and a half minutes, partly, no doubt, because of the restraints of recording processes at the time. But of course today's bands could extend it by playing Theme C more than twice.

However, as I have mentioned in earlier articles, there is much to be said for brevity.

I noticed that when Michael McQuaid's Piron's New Orleans Orchestra played the piece at the Whitley Bay Festival in 2015 (CLICK HERE to view), they paid due homage to Piron, strictly retained his structure, and finished the piece in an even shorter time.

Post 569: TRADITIONAL JAZZ COMES IN FOUR-BAR BLOCKS

It seems to be the case that humans (in the Western world at least) like their popular music to be served in digestible phrases containing four bars, or multiples of four bars. This was almost invariably the case in the popular music written between 1850 and 1950 and still played by traditional jazz bands. There is something in the DNA of composers and audiences that makes them expect little statements of music to fit perfectly into 4-bar or 8-bar shapes. Maybe it has something to do with the natural rhythms of walking (left-right-left-right) and our capacity to sing up to four bars with one intake of breath.

It's amazing to think that about 80% of all the popular songs were written with precisely 32-bar choruses (i.e. 8 batches of four bars). The tune could take the form of a 16-bar statement followed by another similar 16-bar statement with a conclusive resolution. Think of Indiana or Won't You Come Home Bill Bailey? or Moonlight and Roses or From Monday On or It's a Sin to Tell a Lie or Marie.

The very common alternative was to write 4 batches of 8-bars in which the first, second and fourth more or less used the same musical phrase, but with a 'middle eight' providing a contrast. This structure became known as A - A - B - A. The 'middle eight' bars (B) are often referred to as the 'bridge' or 'release'.

To get the feel of this type of tune, think of Making Whoopee or Smoke Gets in Your Eyes or I'm Crazy 'Bout My Baby or Lonesome Road or That's My Weakness Now.

But what about other possible multiples of 4?

I don't know of any tunes consisting of ONLY four bars. Skid Dat De Dat might be considered as one: it seems to require nothing but four bars plus improvised two-bar breaks. But there are quite a few in the jazz repertoire that comprise only eight bars. Sallee Dame and Ice Man are good ones using only two chords. Old-Time Religion uses an eight-bar theme with a very simple chord structure. So does Don't Worry, Be Happy. Leroy Carr's How Long, How Long Blues has the feel of a 12-bar blues but in fact it comprises just eight bars. Similarly, The Girls Go Crazy is an eight-bar tune, using the harmonies of the final eight bars of a standard 12-bar blues structure. Crow Jane is playable as a striking and unusual 8-bar blues, though it sometimes has a tag - repeating the final two bars. Postman's Lament and 'Taint Nobody's Business If I Do and Vine Street Drag and Jelly Roll Morton's Blue Blood Blues comprise a basic 8-bar block and chord progression that can be developed ad infinitum. The same is true of Too Tight Blues, Mississippi River Blues, All I Want is a Spoonful and I'll See You in the Spring. Spicy Advice, made famous by Bunk Johnson, has a very simple 8-bar structure. These are all very effective tunes for traditional jazz bands.

[By the way, there are two tunes called Vine Street Drag. I am referring to the one by W. Howard Armstrong. The other (by J. Brown) is essentially the 32-bar main theme of Tiger Rag.]

The next multiple of 4 brings us to tunes of 12 bars. I need hardly write here about the massive topic of the 12-bar blues format (obviously using three batches of four bars). There are simply hundreds of these 12-bar tunes - and no traditional jazz programme is complete without one or two of them.

There's a large repertoire of really good 16-bar tunes that bands don't play often enough, in my opinion. Some are particularly good for jazz effects, as they allow for 'breaks'. Think of Do What Ory Say or Up Jumped the Devil or If It Don't Fit, Don't Force It, Sweet Like This, or Don't Go Away, Nobody or How Come You Do Me Like You Do or Hot Nuts, Get 'Em from the Peanut Man (and the almost identical Hurry On Down to My House, Baby) or Walkin' The Dog or Winin' Boy Blues or You've Got To See Mamma Ev'ry Night or Oh Miss Hannah, or Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down or Rip 'Em Up Joe or Jamaica March or Walking With The King or I'm Watchin' The Clock.

These are all terrific numbers to play and (because of their simple chord progressions) not too difficult to make sound exciting. And there are some more gentle 16-bar numbers - Careless Love and Royal Telephone and Faraway Blues and Bye and Bye and My Life Will be Sweeter Some Day with lovely but simple harmonies to be milked. The Ellington tune Saturday Night Function is something special. And Of All The Wrongs You've Done to Me is another good one from the 1920s. Early Hours, composed in 1953 by Monty Sunshine and Lonnie Donegan for the Ken Colyer Jazzmen, is a touching 16-bar tune, lovely in its simplicity.

Some of the 16-bar tunes are given an additional two-bar tag at the end (virtually repeating the final two bars). This can happen on the final chorus only or (as in My Sweet Lovin' Man and It's Right Here For You and I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate) on every chorus.

During the years 1912-1928 (and less frequently later), some popular composers experimented with 20-bar tunes (yes - the next multiple of four). Think of After You've Gone, What Do You Want to Make Those Eyes At Me For?, New Orleans Stomp (second theme), Oh You Beautiful Doll, The Darktown Strutters Ball, Drop That Sack, Hard-Hearted Hannah, Take Me To The Land of Jazz, I Guess I'll Have To Change My Plan, Keeping Out of Mischief Now, You've Got the Right Key but the Wrong Keyhole, Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries, You Got Me Crying Again, What-Cha Gonna Do When There Ain't No Jazz? and Papa De Da Da. There is also the famous Chorus of Wa Wa Wa, written in 1926 by Mort Schaeffer for King Oliver's band. Here too there was usually an opportunity for 'breaks'. In Drop That Sack, Papa Dip and Wa Wa Wa, for example, the breaks come in bars 13, 14 15 and 16. I'm Making Believe is a fine 20-bar song from a later period (1944).

In a later stage of traditional jazz development, we find Chris Barber in 1959 producing Hush-a-Bye - a delightful minor key tune of 20 bars.

There's a lovely 24-bar song by Georgia White and Richard M. Jones. It's called I'm Blue and Lonesome (Nobody Cares for Me). You can find it performed exquisitely on YouTube by Tuba Skinny. The Chorus of Over in the Gloryland also comprises 24 bars. So does the Chorus of Sing On - and the Chorus of Tailgate Ramble. And I'm Coming, Virginia. And there are plenty of 24-bar blues (essentially a 'doubling up' of the 12-bar blues chord progression). Also there was a fashion in the first two decades of the Twentieth Century for songs that had VERSES of 24 bars, even though the better-known CHORUS had a conventional 32 bar-structure. Examples are Dardanella, San and I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles.

Oh Daddy (sometimes sung as Oh Papa) is a 28-bar tune (next up in the multiples of 4). This interesting example, which also has a Verse of 12 bars, was composed in 1921 by Will Russell and Ed Herbert. You can hear Erika Lewis singing both Verse and Chorus at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3o1ox_dcUs

The 28-bar Way Down Yonder in New Orleans allows for the inclusion of some hiccuping breaks starting at Bar 13; and the 1928 composition I'll Get By As Long As I Have You, with music by the prolific Fred Ahlert, cleverly uses two similar statements of 14 bars each to make up the full 28, and leaves you feeling that you have been listening to a 32-bar tune.

I have already mentioned the 32-bar structures. About 80% of all the songs traditional jazz musicians play have 32-bar themes. They constitute the bulk of our material. So there is no need for me to give examples here.

An interesting curiosity is the haunting Goodnight My Love, which could have sounded fine as a 32-bar tune (16 + 16) but which has an extra four bars inserted (starting at bar number 25), making it an even more emotional 36-bar tune.

There once was even a fashion for 40-bar tunes (essentially 10 batches of four bars). Think of Somebody Stole My Girl, If You Were the Only Girl in the World, Toot Toot Tootsie Goodbye, Sailing Down the Chesapeake Bay, and Cakewalking Babies from Home. Amor comprises 40 bars, but with a structure that involves a 16-bar segment followed by a 'Middle Eight' and then another 16-bar.

The lovely French tune La Mer (though rarely attempted by traditional jazz bands) uses the conventional a - a - b - a structure but substitutes 12 bars for the usual 8 in each section, with the result that it runs out at a very unusual 48 bars instead of the usual 32. And Cole Porter's Samantha uses 48 bars in an interesting way: essentially there is what could be a complete 32-bar tune [16 + 16] but Cole Porter then adds a further 16-bar theme.

James Hanley's Zing Went The Strings Of My Heart extraordinarily comprises 56 bars. It sounds like - and is - a song of standard a - a - b - a construction. But the 'a' sections consist of 16 bars, while the 'b' is the conventional 8 bars. So the total 56 comprise three 'a' sections (3 x 16 = 48) plus the 'b' section (8 bars), making the 56-bar total.