Post 567: THE GENEROUS MAKERS OF GREAT VIDEOS

If, like me, you spend many hours watching YouTube videos of traditional jazz bands playing in the USA - and particularly in New Orleans, you must have noticed that dozens of the videos have been put up by two video-making enthusiasts who use the code-names digitalalexa and RaoulDuke504. And more recently James Sterling has also come on to the scene. And there others - such as Wild Bill and jazzbo43, who have captured many good New Orleans performances for us. We owe them a huge debt of gratitude; and I think the bands too must be grateful to these people for spreading their fame to many thousands throughout the world. 

A great experience I had in New Orleans during April 2015 was meeting two of these video-makers. They were enthusiastically filming at the French Quarter Festival.

RaoulDuke504 has the advantage of living near New Orleans. I met him while he was filming the Tuba Skinny performance at the Festival. Here he is:

I had the great privilege of shaking his hand and thanking him for the pleasure he has given me (and so many thousands of people) with his wonderful videos.

Digitalalexa is actually two people - husband Al and his wife Judy from New Jersey. They travelled down frequently to New Orleans and had a grand time filming their favourite bands. Al and Judy film the same performance from different angles and when they return home Al edits the two videos into one, trying to make the most of the best shots they have obtained between them. It was a great honour to meet Al and Judy several times at various events. Al told me his videos by 2015 had over three million 'hits'. It was through their videos that I (and hundreds of other fans) first discovered Tuba Skinny and some of the other great bands. So I am deeply grateful.

Here is Judy at The Louisiana Music Factory, where they were about to film a Tuba Skinny Concert.

And here at the same event is Al.

These wonderful modest people enjoy their relative anonymity. But I hope they won't mind my featuring them on this Blog and saying a Big Thank You to them on behalf of us all for bringing us such pleasure.

Good news is that Al and Judy produced the first video of Tuba Skinny to be viewed more than a million times: THIS ONE - CLICK ON TO WATCH IT.

By the way, Al and Judy also founded The 2015 French Quarter Festival and Tuba Skinny Appreciation Society. Al and Judy designed and then Judy embroidered a batch of these lovely souvenir bannerettes. They distributed them to several fans to wave during the Parade and they also gave some to the members of Tuba Skinny.

What terrific souvenirs. I treasure mine!

James Sterling lives in Florida and can get to New Orleans in five hours by car. In January 2015, he came upon a YouTube video of Tuba Skinny (probably one of digitalalexa's). He told me it changed his life for ever. (Exactly the same experience had happened to me a year or two earlier.) He said: 'I watched Tuba Skinny videos for 6 hours straight, finally stopping at 1am'. Since then, James has made the journey three or four times each year. In 2016, I had the pleasure of meeting James and his wife, too. Here he is in Frenchmen Street. Thank you, too, for all the good work, James!

Post 505: 'MOTHER'S SON-IN-LAW'

I put up on YouTube a video of Tuba Skinny playing Mother's Son-in-Law at the 2015 French Quarter Festival. To watch it:
CLICK HERE.

You don't have to have a hanker
To be a broker or a banker.
No sir-ee, just simply be
My mother's son-in-law.
Needn't even think of trying
To be a mighty social lion
Sipping tea, if you will be
My mother's son-in-law.
Not got the least desire
To set the world on fire.
Just wish you'd make it proper
To call my old man 'poppa'.
You don't have to sing like Bledsoe*
And you can tell the world I said so.
Can't you see you've got to be
My mother's son-in-law?

(* Jules Bledsoe - a famous Afro-American singer and the original performer of Ol' Man River - was 36 years old at the time when My Mother's Son-in-Law was written.)

The song was composed by Alberta Nichols, who had studied piano at the Louisville Conservatory. The lyrics were written by her husband, Mann Holiner. As a partnership, they wrote over 100 songs, mainly for Broadway shows. Alberta died in 1957.

The song can be performed either as My Mother's Son-in-Law or Your Mother's Son-in-Law - according to the gender of the singer.

When they recorded it for their Garbage Man CD in 2011, Tuba Skinny played a vigorous version in which Kiowa Wells, their guitarist at the time, featured prominently. They played the song in keys that some Bb instrument players would consider tricky, starting with several choruses (including one vocal from Erika) in E minor and then switching to A minor for the finish - with Erika singing the words for the final part of the Chorus.

Watching again my video of Tuba Skinny playing the song at the French Quarter Festival in April 2015, I was struck first by the amazing energy and drive of the performance. But I then noticed it had moved on a bit since the 2011 recording. Obviously Kiowa was no longer with the band and greater prominence was given to all the other instruments, Shaye being especially busy. But more than that: I noticed that we now had not one key change, but TWO, each preceded by a 4-bar Bridge. The band started in G minor and then followed the 2011 structure by going into E minor (including a vocal) and ending (after Robin's solo) in A minor (with Erika singing in that key too). It's a truly invigorating performance.

I then checked out Billie Holiday's recording from 1933 (available on YouTube). Sure enough, her performance also went through the keys G minor, E minor and A minor - in that order. So I guess Tuba Skinny took their inspiration from that recording.

Also, although I have not been able to find the sheet music anywhere, I tried to pick the tune out by ear and put it in my little notebook. I chose a key (A minor) to suit myself.

By the way, my friend Tony Harris (guitarist) has introduced me to another song that has a similar mood and theme. It is called It's All Your Fault and was composed by Cindy Walker in 1941. Cindy was a good composer and deserves to be better known. This (click on) is a version worth listening to.

Post 386: ROBIN RAPUZZI

During my April 2016 visit to New Orleans, I had the great pleasure of meeting Robin Rapuzzi again. Robin is best known as the washboard player of Tuba Skinny. I had met him for the first time during the French Quarter Festival of 2015, when we had some conversations that I enjoyed and from which I learned a lot.

Before he became a celebrated washboard player, Robin was a full-kit percussionist. He played the drum set at a young age and this led to participating in punk rock bands at high school. At that time, he also learned the guitar and harmonica. He enjoyed playing sea shanties, Woodie Guthrie tunes, and compositions of his own. He considered himself a 'folk musician' up to the time when he moved to New Orleans, where he took up the washboard specialism, joined Tuba Skinny and  ...... the rest is history.

On some occasions, he told me, he has felt a bit limited in using the washboard only. For example, for such a tune as New Orleans Bump, he said that with the snare and Chinese tom-drum and china-crash cymbal he could access the depth and true texture that such a 'stompy' number deserved.

Since early 2015, he has returned to playing a full percussion set even in the streets. How has he managed to transport so much kit? The answer is that he hauls it around in a trailer attached to his bicycle. (He calls pedalling this load into the French Quarter his 'daily work-out'!)

Most of the New Orleans musicians use bicycles: it's almost impossible to park a car in the French Quarter.

Here then is Robin's transport. He kindly allowed me to photograph him and the kit when he arrived to set up in Royal Street. Neat, isn't it? (Note added: I received the shocking news that someone stole Robin's trailer on 16 December 2018. )

I also had the very great pleasure this year of meeting Robin's lovely wife, Magda. She is Polish and is a highly-talented artist: she has produced some amazing work, often of dwellings in New Orleans but also sometimes combining mythical animal and human images with tremendous attention to detail. Her silk-screen prints are sold at The Foundation Gallery in Royal Street and the Hall-Barnett Gallery on Chartres, as well as in other galleries.

I realised a few days after meeting her that I had long admired Magda's work (through the internet) before discovering that she was married to Robin.

And here is the amazingly intricate and creative piece of art-work that Magda produced for the cover of the first CD by The Wit's End Brass Band in which Robin plays:

Although most fans think of Robin as a member of Tuba Skinny, he actually performs in several bands. He clearly enjoys the variety of work and is proud of them all. I think he was particularly pleased that I turned up to hear him with The Rhythm Wizards; and I made a video of them playing Ice Cream, in which you can see Robin at work in close-up. View it by clicking on here. I also filmed them playing Cotton-Picker's Drag. You can watch that performance by clicking here. I'm afraid the sound isn't exactly perfect (my fault for walking round while they were playing) but I hope this video gives a genuine feel for what it is like to be a member of a street band in New Orleans.

On another day, I found Robin playing with The Hokum High Rollers. I made a video of them playing Michigander Blues. You may see that by clicking on here.

There are hundreds of videos on YouTube of Robin playing with Tuba Skinny. But if you would like to watch one I made of them playing Hilarity Rag during this April 2016 visit, click on here. This is of historic interest because Robin told me it was a tune the Band had only just learned and this was its first public performance.

Robin was in England during June 2016. (His mother is English.) He teamed up with his friend Ewan Bleach - the great English reed player (not to mention pianist and singer) who worked in New Orleans with Tuba Skinny for several months.

One of the interesting things Robin also told me is that it's not just the fans who enjoy the YouTube videos. He said many musicians - including himself - use them as learning tools. They analyse their own performances and consider what improvements could be made. He found it particularly interesting to spot how his own backing of, say, trombone solo choruses varied according to which trombonist he was playing with.

I think there's a message for us all: we should not just enjoy videos but also use them as tools for analysing and improving playing.

Post 371: A BEEF ABOUT COMPOSERS

Walter Coleman

Here's something that irritates me. I am not happy when someone puts up a video on YouTube and writes that the tune 'was composed by ....', naming the person who is performing it - rather than the real composer.

Similarly, I am annoyed by comments submitted beneath the videos when someone writes 'This was composed by....' and then names someone who perhaps made an impressive earlier recording of the song but certainly DID NOT compose it.

Adding to the problem, it sometimes happens that the titles of tunes get slightly changed with the passage of time, even though the tune remains exactly the same. So the person who recorded the song with the later title is sometimes wrongly thought to have composed it.

Composers deserve respect. It was the composer's imagination that created and shaped the tune. It was the composer who painstakingly worked on it, with pen, paper and piano. It was the composer who gave it that elusive and magical quality that makes us still want to hear it decades after the composer has died.

It takes remarkable skill and great talent to compose a tune that will catch the public's imagination and then endure. Even the best composers struggled and most of them had 'flops' from time to time. So let us recognize supreme creativity when it's there.

I am writing about this today is because three instances came to my notice in just one week.

The first concerns a tune Tuba Skinny frequently play. They also recorded it on their album 'Blue Chime Stomp'. It is called 'Oh Papa Blues'. Time and again, we find comments incorrectly telling us that this was 'composed by Gertrude 'Ma' Rainey'. Well, Ma Rainey certainly recorded it well in 1927. But she did not compose it. The truth is that it had been recorded six years earlier by Ethel Waters. Her version, composed by Ed Herbert and William Russell, was entitled 'Oh Daddy Blues'. Listen to it:

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

and you will immediately recognize that it is exactly the same song as the one called 'Oh Papa Blues', recorded by Ma Rainey and by Tuba Skinny.

Another example - also in the repertoire of Tuba Skinny - concerns 'Papa Let Me Lay It On You'. We are customarily told it was 'by' Blind Boy Fuller; and yet the composer was Walter Coleman. He composed it for male singers as 'Mama Let Me Lay It On You' in 1934. You can hear his own recording of it from 1934:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fce_gJv9rXQ

but Blind Boy Fuller did not record it until a couple of years later.

Then there's 'In The Wee Midnight Hours', so often attributed to Blind Willie McTell and Curley Weaver (who recorded it in 1950); yet the true composers (who recorded it eighteen years earlier) were Leroy Carr and his partner Scrapper Blackwell, possibly together with Scrapper's sister Mae:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4_b_3ddIL4

So let's try to get our facts right and show due respect to composers.

Post 368: CHLOE, CONRAD, AND THE SHOTGUN JAZZ BAND

In case you missed it when I wrote about it several months ago, I must recommend to you a delightful video that is highly appropriate at this time of year. It features Chloe and Conrad.

But first I must tell you about a wonderful coincidence.

Nearly a year ago one of my readers - Phil in America - recommended that I should look at this particular video made by these two people of whom I had never heard. I was completely charmed and bowled over by it and I have since watched it many times.

It was Chloe Feoranzo and Conrad Cayman playing (and singing) What Are You Doing New Year's Eve? - a Frank Loesser song from 1947. Have a look. You won't regret it.
CLICK HERE TO WATCH.

And here's the coincidence: on Wednesday 8th April 2015, I happened to be visiting New Orleans for the first time in very many years. That night, at The Spotted Cat, I thought I recognised the guitarist guesting with The Shotgun Jazz Band. It was none other than Conrad Cayman. I had admired his work and he had enjoyed my blog. Although we had never met, we were instantly so happy at this chance encounter. As Conrad said, isn't this indeed a wonderful world - in which technology can bring together as instant friends two people from opposite sides of the globe?

Conrad told me he is now a full-time professional musician, working mainly in traditional jazz in the Los Angeles area (for example with Chloe in The JC Jazz Crew and in The Big Butter Jazz Band), though he has various other musical projects. You can find a good range of the work of both Conrad and Chloe on YouTube.

We also discovered an interesting example of how ideas spread in the world of traditional jazz. I had commented in one of my posts about the way Tuba Skinny - in a particular tune - had reversed the usual situation by having the 'front line' play stop chords as support to a solo chorus from a banjo. Conrad decided to try a similar technique on his forthcoming JC Jazz Crew album with guests Katie Cavera and Corey Gemme (see their Facebook page): the horns hit the 2nd and 4th beats while the bass takes the melody in a Verse. Conrad said it worked really well.

Chloe and Conrad are both regular members of The JC Jazz Crew, together with Justin Au.

Conrad is rightly proud of the videos of himself and Chloe and also those of Justin with his brothers and uncle. You could try these and then explore where they lead:
CLICK HERE
or (including Katie Cavera)
CLICK HERE.
Like me, Conrad was having a holiday in New Orleans and getting involved in the jazz scene as much as possible.

I meet Conrad Cayman

We have this photo souvenir of our meeting; and I'm pleased to say Conrad immediately emailed it to Chloe, who was touring in Australasia.

And you can watch the video I made that evening of The Shotgun Jazz Band (including Conrad) giving a storming performance of Climax Rag. Just click here  and you will see why I considered that one of the highlights of my visit to New Orleans. With Conrad - John, Twerk, Haruka, James and Marla were all on terrific form.

Happy Christmas and a Happy New Year to you too, Chloe, if you read this!

Post 342: 'PERCOLATIN' BLUES' AND THE SMOKING TIME JAZZ CLUB

Percolatin' Blues was written in about 1925 by Lemuel Fowler.

He was a composer of 57 tunes and an important pianist. He featured in many early jazz recordings. Percolatin' Blues was recorded by the great blues singer Clara Smith in 1926, with Fowler himself at the piano.

To my ear, Percolatin' Blues has this structure:
(1) a 4-bar Introduction
(2) a verse of 16 bars (played twice, with different words the second time)
(3) a 32 bar Chorus (16 + 16 - with no Middle Eight). Bars 25 - 28 inclusive are treated as 'breaks'. The words of the Chorus give the 'instructions' for the  'Percolation' dance ('You hop to the left; then you hop to the right; then perrrrrcolate...'). If you would like to add it to your repertoire, it's a simple, catchy, riffy little tune to pick up and I would suggest Eb as a comfortable key.

It was a fine modern video on YouTube that brought me to this song. I chanced upon The Smoking Time Jazz Club with their radiant singer Sarah Peterson giving a performance of Percolatin' Blues in a New Orleans street. Compared with the original, they simplify the Verse down to one set of 16 bars only.

The film (in HD) was made by Beau Patrick Coulon and his team. The video is of the highest professional quality: it uses more than one camera; and a splendid range of shots takes us all round the band and the street dancers with great attention to detail. You watch this video and immediately want to get on the next plane to New Orleans. The joyful atmosphere is so infectious. These are people who know how to have a good time.

Click here to watch it.

I have been four times to New Orleans - three of them long before Katrina. I'm hoping I shall be able to make it there one more time before heading to the Gloryland.

It will be such joy to see and hear the wonderful new generation of street performers.

Post 334: THE CALIFORNIA RAMBLERS; OR, THE ONOMASTIC CHALLENGE!

So you need a name for your band. You will probably settle for something local and alliterative – such as The Stratford Stompers. Perhaps you would like to use a different name occasionally – for the more sophisticated gigs – The Palace Beach Serenaders, for example.

But surely your band won't need more than two names?

I hope not. But there was throughout the 1920s a band that was said to use over a hundred different names in its various combinations and manifestations!

Some of The California Ramblers

This was The California Ramblers. In those days, the main reason for using different names was of course to get round legal contractual commitments to various recording studios. (For some interesting information about this and similar practices, see the comments at the foot of this article.)

Incidentally, their principal name was hardly appropriate. The members of the band had little or no connection with California (most came from Ohio) and they were based mainly in the New York area. Over the years, the band – which was largely studio-based – made a huge number of recordings, many of which were of high quality and extremely popular at the time. They drew from a wide pool of musicians. Their stars included Adrian Rollini and Tommy Dorsey.

The band's most famous pseudonym was The Golden Gate Orchestra. Others included The Little Ramblers, The University Six, Cotton Blossoms Orchestra, The Goofus Five, Ed Blossom and His New Englanders, The Five Birmingham Babies, Ted White's Collegians, Palm Beach Serenaders, The Vagabonds, The Varsity Eight and The Baltimore Society Syncopators. You can find many delightful examples of their work on YouTube.

==============

My good friend Carsten Pigott, who has a vast collection of 78 rpm records and vintage gramophones, has kindly sent me these further comments about 'working for labels':

Your text is spot on; and, although many jazz (and dance) bands, both in the US and here recorded under a variety of pseudonyms, for the reason you give, the California Ramblers are probably the best example - and a great favourite of mine, in any case.

My 78 collection contains many records with pseudonymous accreditation. I try to label and file them under the name by which the band is best known. Brian Rust's unsurpassed discographies of vintage jazz and British and US dance bands - sadly no longer in print (and second hand copies now sell for small fortunes) - are still the finest tools available for unravelling the true identities of all those groups that recorded under more than one name.

A side issue, not directly related to your text, relates to the sometimes quirky decisions musicians made over which labels to record for (other than when recording for a multitude of labels using multiple aliases). There was quite a significant price difference between the major ones (e.g. HMV, Columbia, Decca) and the budget ones. Some musicians stuck with the more expensive labels, reasoning that the prestige of an expensive label reflected their own status as top musicians. Others took a more pragmatic and 'commercial' approach, opting for the budget labels (which, with luck, would sell more records and bring in more income), particularly after they'd already established themselves on the full-priced records and/or on the stage and radio. Examples that spring to mind are the wonderful Australian baritone, Peter Dawson, who insisted on recording for the 'plum' label on HMV (not exactly cheap), rather than the even more expensive red label that was designated for classical music. Sir Harry Lauder decided to go with Zonophone, the budget HMV brand, but only on condition that their green label be made red for any of his records. Jack Payne, after leaving the BBC and the Columbia label, signed up with the budget Imperial label, but on condition that the Imperial crown trade mark at the top of the label was replaced by an image of his face and a facsimile of his signature! Collecting 78rpm records offers up a wonderful field of fascination!

Post 322: THE GREAT SHAYE COHN ON SPOONS!

Shaye (left) on Spoons

You constantly come across fresh delights on YouTube. For example, have you spotted the multi-talented Shaye Cohn playing THE SPOONS in a heart-warming street version of Peg Leg Howell's 1928 Banjo Blues? Watch it by

CLICKING HERE.

Oh, what fun! Among the musicians in this 15-piece orchestra, you may spot such other familiar New Orleans street performers as trombonist Barnabus Jones (this time on guitar) behind Shaye, Raychel on washtub bass, Michael Magro contributing richly on clarinet, and Ryan Baer on mandolin. Dizzy is on washboard; and at the centre of it all, leading the singing, is Scottie Swarers (Stalebread Scottie).

We must be grateful to Nicole Birrer for uploading this video.

Post 302: OUR MUSIC GOES GLOBAL

A correspondent from Connecticut set me thinking. She said it is a wonderful thing that - thanks to YouTube - performances by the bands on Royal Street, New Orleans, can be enjoyed within hours by viewers all over the world. She said it's as if we are all attending a 'Global Concert'.

That's exactly how it is. I constantly receive e-mails from fans saying 'Have you seen this latest YouTube  video? It's terrific.' In my turn, I pass on such tips to other friends. So these performances become what journalists call 'Breaking News', spreading rapidly throughout the world.

The quality of much of the video work is first-class. A recent e-mailer told me that watching some of the videos is 'almost like being right there in the street'. We are all grateful, I'm sure, to the video-makers - those with the codenames digitalalexa, RaoulDuke504, jazzbo43, Dmitriy Prityikin, Wild Bill, guitarded71 and many more.

The musicianship is some of the best to be witnessed anywhere. So we must also be grateful to the musicians, who do not mind their performances being enjoyed free of charge throughout many different countries.

In its turn, however, YouTube is helping to spread the fame of these great bands. Correspondents often tell me they would never have heard of such bands as Tuba Skinny and The Smoking Time Jazz Club and The Shotgun Jazz Band, had it not been for YouTube. And many say they decided to take a vacation in New Orleans as a result of watching these videos.

Yes, how things have changed since the days when the best that fans could do was to save up for the latest 78 rpm record of Jelly Roll Morton or Louis Armstrong. We are indeed fortunate to enjoy the immediate aural and visual gratification that comes from living in the great technological age of Traditional Jazz Concert 'Breaking News'.
=================
FOOTNOTE
The book Enjoying Traditional Jazz, by Pops Coffee, is available from Amazon.

Post 294: LOUIS DUMAINE'S JAZZOLA EIGHT GIVE US SOME LESSONS

What a great historical document the Victor Recording Company provided for us in March, 1927, when they took equipment down to New Orleans and recorded four tunes (one of them twice) played by Louis Dumaine's Jazzola Eight.

These recordings give us the genuine article – authentic New Orleans jazz of the 1920s and of the kind so many of us are still trying to reproduce.

Louis Dumaine

Louis Dumaine lived from 1890 until 1949 and was a leader of brass bands and marching bands in New Orleans, as well as running his 'Jazzola Eight'. From this only known photo, he appears to have been a tall, thin man, taking care to dress smartly.

The Jazzola Eight were:

Louis Dumaine (leader and cornet and trumpet)

Morris Rouse (piano and composer)

Louis James (clarinet and tenor sax; born 1890, he played with such big names as Frankie Duson, Dumaine and even Percy Humphrey at Preservation Hall in his final years)

Earl Humphrey (trombone; one of the famous Humphrey brothers, he was still playing in New Orleans in the 1960s; and died in 1971)

Willie Joseph (clarinet)

Leonard Mitchell (banjo and vocals)

Joe Howard (tuba; born in 1870, he worked with many of the famous early bands, such as Celestin's, and went on playing well into his seventies)

James Willigan (drums; he had a short life but played in some famous early bands).

There were other musicians, such as Yank Johnson (trombone) who worked in this band, but not on the recordings.The tunes the company recorded (with the composers as named on the 78s) were:

Franklin Street Blues (Louis Dumaine and Eddie Jackson)

Red Onion Drag (Louis Dumaine and Eddie Jackson)

Pretty Audrey (Louis Dumaine and Morris Rouse)

To-Wa-Bac-A-Wa (Louis Dumaine and Eddie Jackson)

The Good News is that you can still hear all these performances on YouTube.

Franklin Street Blues is an example to us all – with excellent teamwork, clear driving leadership by Dumaine, unpretentious pleasant solos from clarinet and cornet; and a good blues vocal.

Red Onion Drag is in F. What an interesting and curious piece this is! Incidentally, it's very easy to pick up. It has a 16-bar introduction and then goes into a 16-bar chorus which to me sounds very similar to the tune known later as Rip 'Em Up Joe. And there's a third theme slightly different and even a fourth that sounds like (and may have been the source of) Lily of the Valley. The whole piece is another great example of teamwork, with some fine but unpretentious ensemble playing. Note Rouse's piano solo.

Pretty Audrey is a spirited up-tempo piece in Bb. After an 8-bar introduction and spikey 16-bar 'Verse', it goes into a 32-bar Chorus on the good old 'Bill Bailey / Golden Leaf Strut' type of chord structure. There is exciting, energetic ensemble work; and Dumaine chooses to play a chorus against offbeat stop chords. Willie Joseph shows great fluidity on clarinet.

To-Wa-Bac-A-Wa is a piece we have come to know better as The Bucket's Got a Hole in It. The tune is well arranged, played in F, with varied ensemble choruses. There's a clarinet solo chorus against offbeats; and even a neat little front-line ensemble one-bar 'break' (King Oliver style) in the final chorus.

Give them a listen! Start by by clicking HERE.

By the way, we should all be deeply grateful to Andy Wolfenden, who has made this and many other recordings of past greats available on YouTube. Check out his Channel.

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.
======