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 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.
======================

Post 411: TUBA SKINNY - WHAT'S THE SECRET?

How do Tuba Skinny do it? How is it that this group of surprisingly young musicians – who met six years ago while busking on the streets of New Orleans, has become the greatest traditional jazz band in the world today?

Let me offer you twenty-one reasons.

1. They work very hard behind the scenes – researching and learning old material and devising ways of playing it with fresh vigour. And they are perfectionists. Look, for example, at their performances of Deep Henderson, a tricky multi-part rhythmic piece. While showing respect for the 1926 recording of this tune by King Oliver's Band, Tuba Skinny do not slavishly imitate: they show what they can do with their own resources. They have arranged the piece meticulously. And all members of the band have the arrangement firmly inside their heads. They know exactly who does what, and when. And they also know where they have a chance to cut loose for a few bars. Now watch other bands playing this tune. Almost invariably they are dependent on printed arrangements of the music on stands in front of them, and their performances sound far less exciting and more stilted.

2. Although Tuba Skinny could play the familiar worn-out tunes of every trad band's repertoire, their programmes mostly comprise exciting unfamiliar gems they have unearthed from the 1920s and 1930s (e.g. New Orleans Bump, You Can Have My Husband, Chocolate Avenue, Jackson Stomp, Deep Henderson, Banjoreno, Treasures Untold, Russian Rag, Oriental Strut, Minor Drag, Michigander Blues, Harlem's Araby, Me and My Chauffeur, A Jazz Battle, Droppin' Shucks, Fourth Street Mess Around, Carpet Alley Breakdown). The almost-forgotten artists whose music they have revived include Lucille Bogan, Victoria Spivey, Memphis Minnie, Jabbo Smith, Georgia White, Skip James, Merline Johnson, Ma Rainey, Hattie Hart, The Memphis Jug Band, Blind Blake, Clara Smith, The Dixieland Jug Blowers, The Grinnell Giggers and The Mississippi Mud Steppers; and of course they also play tunes associated with the better-known, such as Bessie Smith, Fats Waller, Louis Armstrong and Jelly Roll Morton. They will surprise you by going to some unconventional sources for tunes they turn into exciting traditional jazz - sources such as Ray Charles and the 21st-century Australian original C. W. Stoneking.

3. All the musicians in the group have thoroughly mastered their instruments; and most of them can play more than one (e.g. cornet + piano + violin; tuba + banjo; trombone + banjo; banjo + harmonica + mandolin + guitar). This provides variety of sound and also the ability to 'substitute' if a regular player is unavailable.

4. They prefer collective improvisation to prima donna solos. Their teamwork is exceptional.

5. They have an outstandingly good singer (Erika Lewis). She has a soulful plaintive voice and great intonation. Her phrasing is perfect and she uses rubato very skilfully. Rather than stick to the familiar jazz standards, she has developed a rich repertoire of tunes rescued from obscurity (e.g. Tricks Ain't Walking, Crow Jane, How Do They Do It That Way?, Mississippi River Blues, I'll See You in the Spring, Need a Little Sugar in my Bowl, You Let Me Down, Got a Man in the 'Bama Mines, What's the Matter with the Mill?). Erika also doubles on bass drum.

6. Other members of Tuba Skinny are also very competent vocalists.

7. The Band does not use a conventional percussionist, with full drum kit. Instead, they have a washboard (and recently the bass drum). As a result, there is a clean sound to the rhythm. In many traditional jazz bands, the drumming has a smudging effect, filling every space and sometimes forcing other players to blow too loud. Listen to Tuba Skinny and you can hear clearly the part played by every single instrument: there is no need to over-blow; and there is none of the muddying effect you sometimes notice with other bands. The washboard player is superb is his energy and inventiveness and time-keeping (and I speak as one who used not to care much for washboards as musical instruments).

Erika and Robin

8. Tuba Skinny avoids the dreary succession of 32-bar 'solo' choruses from four or more instruments that we so often hear in traditional jazz performances. Usually, two or three players lead for a few bars each in covering a 32-bar theme. In the rare instances of complete solo choruses, Tuba Skinny musicians add colouring behind the soloist, either with musical phrases or by using stop chords or long notes.

9. Tuba Skinny always starts a tune well. They have devised an appropriate introduction for every one of their tunes.

10. The tuba player Todd Burdick provides a very solid base line for all tunes. It pays from time to time to focus on his contribution and admire its accuracy and solidity.

11. The trombonist Barnabus Jones has absorbed the skills and techniques of the great traditional jazz trombonists in the famous recordings of the 1920s. He and the cornet-player work particularly well together – listening carefully to each other and responding to each other's musical phrases. Recently-introduced reed players (one of them English, I'm pleased to say) proved just as skilful.

12. The band takes great care with the setting of tempos at the start of each tune. Once established, the tempo is maintained with metronomic accuracy. There is none of the speeding up or (worse) the wearying drag-back of tempo that you notice in other bands on YouTube. The combination of Todd Burdick on tuba and a guitar player (such as Max Bien-Kahn) provides a powerful 'engine' that drives the band along; and all the banjo players over the years have been brilliant at providing the rock-steady rhythms that our bands require. The banjoists are good at playing tremolos to add emphasis on stressed notes (as in Jazz Battle) or to add pretty decorations (to such tunes as Memphis Shake and Michigander Blues).

13. The Band is not afraid of key changes within tunes, sometimes because the tune is written that way, sometimes to play the tune in a key that suits the whole band and then in a key with which the singer is more comfortable (e.g. How Do They Do It That Way? and Delta Bound and Dangerous Blues) and sometimes just for the mischief of it. Have a listen to Cannonball. Notice what tricks they can play even with a 12-bar blues. Admire the Introduction, the Bridges and the Coda, and especially the three key changes!
Watch it by clicking here.

14. Tuba Skinny devises interesting endings for its tunes. Listen to their very neat codas.

Left to Right: Shaye, Barnabus and Erika.

15. The cornet player and (it seems) unofficial director of music, the amazing Shaye Cohn (who is also terrific on piano, violin and accordion - and she even plays the double bass in the country music group The Lonesome Doves), is never flashy in her playing. She has a Mozartian instinct for what works best: she contributes to ensembles in the same way that the viola contributes to the 'conversation' in Mozart's string quartets. She can 'bend' notes and knows instinctively when to use this trick to the best effect. Full of bluesy notes and demonstrating a very effective use of mutes (notably the plunger and the stone-lined cup), the fluent phrases and harmonies she produces are hugely more interesting and exciting than the raucous high-note solos that many traditional jazz trumpeters think the music requires.

16. The Band does not stick doggedly to instrumentation that involves a trumpet (or cornet) – clarinet - trombone front line for every tune. Sometimes, their music has elements of bluegrass or klezmer and this can involve a whole tune (e.g. Russian Rag, Jackson Stomp, Papa's Got Your Bath Water On) being played without cornet or trombone.

17. They don't mind including an occasional waltz in their programme – especially if the tune is beautiful (e.g. Treasures Untold, Sunset Waltz). These are played lovingly, allowing the melodies to speak for themselves.

18. The violin is sometimes used – both for melodic and rhythmic effects.

19. Members of the Band have (in a small way so far) composed tunes for their group to play (e.g. Salamanca Blues, Owl Call Blues - a hauntingly beautiful song, Broken-Hearted Blues, Thoughts, the authentically-1920s-sounding Nigel's Dream, Pyramid Strut - a potential classic of Mortonesque structure and complexity, Six Feet Down, the lovely Blue Chime Stomp and the craftily-composed Tangled Blues - with a highly unusual 18-bar theme). These pieces are fully up to the quality of the material from the 1920s that they love so much.

20. The Band is very skilful with 'breaks' – the element Jelly Roll Morton considered so important in jazz. If you don't know what I mean, I am referring to those phrases (typically two bars) where the whole band stops suddenly, except for one instrument – the clarinet, for example – leaving that player to invent a decorative musical phrase to fill the gap before the band picks up again. Tuba Skinny is particularly good at breaks: there never seems to be any doubt about which player will play the break, and all the players cut off together. (So many other bands fail in this matter. It is particularly irritating when – for example – a drummer plays right through a clarinetist's break.)

21. Just like a classical orchestra, they take trouble tuning up. See the start of this video:
CLICK HERE

Finally, as a demonstration of the above points, listen to the way the band interprets and performs Delta Bound on its CD. This is a straightforward 32-bar tune, with a structure of four sets of eight bars. Let's call these four sets A1, A2, B [the middle eight], A3. So how do they make Delta Bound specially interesting and different? Here's what they do:

  Introduction: In the key of D minor, the full band plays A2; then the trombone plays the melody for B; and then the full band plays A3 (total 24-bar introduction – unusual!)

  Song: A sudden switch to the key of G minor! Erika Lewis sings the 32-bar song once right through. In A1 and A2, she is solidly supported by the tuba, banjo and washboard. In B and A3, there is quiet decorative support first from the brass and then from the clarinet.

   Next time through: The clarinet improvises on A1 – 8 bars only - while the brass trio play long supporting notes, including crescendos! Then the clarinet improvises on A2. The cornet takes over, improvising the eight bars of B, with lovely tuba support; and then the trombone leads the final 8 bars of the song – A3.

   Approaching the End: the return of the singer; but Erika picks up the tune not at the beginning but rather at the middle eight – B, while the clarinet provides decorative background. Then the full band joins in for A3 with long-note harmonies.

   Coda: Suddenly we switch back to the opening key - D minor - just for the final eight bars! How cheeky is that? The full band plays A3 again as the coda, with a rallentando to round off.

What about that for an interpretation?

If you would like to hear this performance of Delta Bound, click on this link or paste it into your browser:

http://tubaskinny.bandcamp.com/track/delta-bound
Or you can watch them playing it on YouTube. But this performance was recorded long before the CD. There was no clarinet at the time, so the arrangement is slightly different:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5u0uqoqfMEM

"I think what's unique about our group is that everyone is really dedicated to the music," said Erika Lewis in an interview. "That's the bottom line. How we measure success is all about how well we played."

Post 399: THE FUTURE FOR 'PYRAMID STRUT'?

NOTE: GOOD NEWS. Since I wrote the article below, Tuba Skinny have been filmed near the end of 2015 playing Pyramid Strut in the street: CLICK HERE TO VIEW. Also, I heard them play it twice [once busking in Royal Street and once at a Festival Event] when I was in New Orleans for the French Quarter Festival in April 2016.

I have written before about Shaye Cohn's 2013 composition Pyramid Strut. It is a little masterpiece of ithnographic complexity, very much on a par with the music Jelly Roll Morton was writing in the early 1920s. Pyramid Strut deserves to become another popular classic in the traditional jazz canon.

However, this is not happening. Why? I think there are two reasons.

First, no band other than Shaye Cohn's (Tuba Skinny) plays it. Partly this is because it would require hard preparatory work. There is no sheet music you can buy; so it would be necessary to work out all the melodies and chord changes. This is do-able but would take time and effort by a musician with a good ear, a keyboard and manuscript paper - and then further time and effort by the members of the band to learn and play it. But more importantly, out of respect for Shaye Cohn and her copyright, musicians would not even consider 'pirating' her work in such a way.

The second reason why Pyramid Strut is still unknown to most audiences is that even Tuba Skinny (to judge from YouTube videos) seem to have stopped playing the tune since they put it on their 2014 CD. Why is this? It could be that Shaye is too modest to give prominence to her own work in the band's play-lists. Or it could be that (with occasional changes of personnel) it is difficult to ensure that all musicians in the pool of Tuba Skinny players know the tune well enough. This tune is - after all - one of the most complex the band plays.

So, sadly, I have to report that this fine piece of music risks fading into obscurity. I sincerely hope that will not happen. There is some hope. One of my correspondents says he has received this email from Shaye:
Pyramid Strut is a tune I composed a couple of years ago. I don't believe it's on Youtube. There is no written arrangement for the tune but you're welcome to transcribe it; just please include a credit to me and the band. Thanks, -Shaye

Meanwhile, here's a reminder of  what it offers.

Pyramid Strut begins in the Key of Eb.

It has a 4-bar Introduction which in other contexts could be mistaken for the final four bars of a tune. It runs down the scale of Eb in the third bar and so establishes the key.

Then we have a bouncy first theme consisting of 24 bars and played twice. Bars 1, 5 and 21 contain a distinctive little phrase (a minim each on A and Bb) which give this theme a special character. But its other notable feature is that Bars 17 to 20 inclusive are played as 'Breaks' (exactly what Morton would have approved of). The first time this theme is played, the cornet takes the lead and also the breaks; the second time the clarinet.

Then the tune moves immediately and energetically into a second theme. This consists of 12 bars (on the basic 12-bar blues chord pattern). As you may know, it was also a common practice in the 1920s to slot a 12-bar blues theme into the middle of structured compositions. (Think of The She's Crying for Me, Copenhagen and The Chant, for example.) Shaye's 12-bar theme is played through twice - first vigorously stated by the cornet and secondly with the full ensemble. We are still in the key of Eb.

Straight into the third theme we then go; and we find ourselves now in the key of Ab. What we have here is a 16-bar theme and this too is played twice. But what a tricky theme! In each set of 16 bars, bars 1 and 2, bars 3 and 4, bars 9 and 10 and bars 11 and 12 are taken as Breaks! That gives you four breaks in 16 bars - twice; so eight breaks in all. On the CD, the eight breaks are taken respectively by cornet, clarinet, trombone, tuba, cornet, cornet, cornet and cornet.

This is followed by an attractive 8-bar Bridge passage, which is extraordinary because it teasingly plays around (if my ear serves me correctly) on the F minor arpeggio. But the Bridge ends by running down through the Eb7 chord which of course leads us back beautifully into Ab. This will remain the key of the fourth (and final) theme.

This fourth theme consists of 16 bars on a simple chord sequence. It is played three times. The clarinet leads us through it the first time, playing a tricky melody almost entirely of semi-quavers. Next, the banjo and tuba take the lead (a nice touch) in the second 16-bar chorus. Finally the whole band joins in for a climactic ensemble improvising over the 16 bars.

And there's one more (Mortonesque) cheeky surprise: in a brief coda, those two minims from the opening theme bring the piece to an end, rounding it off perfectly. But this time (because the key has changed to Ab) they are played on the notes D and Eb.

You can hear this recording (and better still buy it if you have not yet done so) by clicking here.

Footnote

My book 'Tuba Skinny and Shaye Cohn' is available from Amazon:

Post 365: 'DAISY BELL' - A BICYCLE MADE FOR TWO

As someone who is interested in both old-time popular music and vintage bicycles, I enjoy the 123-year-old song Daisy Daisy because the lady is offered a chance to ride on a tandem (‘a bicycle built for two’).

You probably know how the song starts: 

Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do! 

I'm half crazy all for the love of you. 

It won't be a stylish marriage: 

I can't afford a carriage.

But you'd look sweet upon the seat 

Of a bicycle built for two. 

The song, actually called Daisy Bell, was written (both words and music) by Harry Dacre – the pen name of Frank Dean.

Harry Dacre and his own bicycle.

Harry was English but he visited the United States, complete with his bicycle, in about 1891. Apparently at immigration he was charged import duty on the bicycle and a friend told him he was lucky it was not a bicycle built for two, because he would then have had to pay double duty. Those words gave Harry the idea for the song.

It was composed in America and published in London by the company Francis, Day and Hunter in 1892.

Very shortly afterwards it was published by their partners Harms and Co in New York.

The English music hall singer Katie Lawrence was then working in America. She liked the song, brought it back to England, and made it so famous that it has become one of the best-known songs of all time.

It is possible that Harry Dacre used the name ‘Daisy’ as the lady of his song in tribute to the lovely 'Daisy' Greville, Countess of Warwick. She was an early advocate of women’s rights and she also cycled – in ‘modern’ clothes. (She was involved in many scandals in later life – but that’s another story.)

'Daisy' Greville

Harry tried writing a sequel - Fare You Well, Daisy Bell, but it did not achieve success. However, he hit the jackpot again when he wrote I’ll Be Your Sweetheart - another beautiful and deceptively simple melody in 3/4 time, like Daisy Bell.

Harry died in 1922.

What has all this to do with traditional jazz? Not a lot; though I have occasionally heard a traditional jazz band play Daisy Bell; and several play I'll Be Your Sweetheart, especially adapted into 4/4 time.

Post 308: 'THOUGHTS' (COMPOSED BY ROBIN RAPUZZI)

A lovely new tune to appear on YouTube is Thoughts, played by Tuba Skinny and composed by their percussionist Robin Rapuzzi. It is a tune of which he has every right to feel proud.

You can hear Tuba Skinny playing it by clicking here (with thanks to the excellent video-maker RaoulDuke504 for capturing the performance and alerting the world to it).

Thoughts is played wistfully, at a gentle tempo. In this video (click on) you can see them taking trouble to get the tempo just right before playing it.

When you first hear it, you can easily fall into the trap of thinking it has a standard 32-bar structure (A - A - B - A) because it begins like that and also it runs to 96 bars (measures) in total - which normally would suggest it's played through three times (3 x 32).

But listen carefully and you find it is much more complex. The initial tune seems to comprise 40 bars, not 32 (A - A - B - A - A).

The 'A' theme is of a pretty rocking and 'descending the ladder' type. Its first four bars sound to me like this:

and the 'B' theme seems to have a deliberate echo of 'Mood Indigo'. It begins:

But after these forty bars, something different happens. There is a 16-bar 'Interlude' (let's call it Theme 'C') which seems to me to be using the related minor key. It begins something like this:

By the end of that, we have completed 56 bars.

So, 40 bars to go? Presumably the Main Theme (A - A - B -  A - A ) to be played again?

Well, yes, but not quite. What we get is A - A - (a strange) B - B - A.

In these final 40 bars, the first sixteen (led by the clarinet) are indeed the same as the opening sixteen (Theme A twice). But then we have the first four bars only of the 'B' (Mood Indigo) theme followed by 4 leaping new bars of melody. Then the full 'B' (eight bars) again, but with a slightly different ending from the first time it was played.

88 bars completed. 8 to go. These 8 turn out to be a final run through of Theme 'A'.

So in total, the 8-bar theme 'A' has been played seven times. It lingers is your head and you will be humming it for the rest of the day.

Robin wrote this piece during the band's Summer 2015 tour. It was - as he puts it - at first planned as a tune for 'Squeaky Violin'! But, he says: 'Sure sounds a lot better when the band plays it'!

I had the great pleasure of meeting Robin at the French Quarter Festival in April 2015.We had a very enjoyable chat as he prepared his washboard (and his fingers) to go on stage.

I hope we shall hear more of Robin's compositions in the future.

Post 275: 'PYRAMID STRUT'

Tuba Skinny's fifth CD - Pyramid Strut - is available for digital download direct to your computer. And Tuba Skinny's sixth CD - Owl Call Blues - is also now on sale.

All you need to do to download Pyramid Strut is this. Go to
https://tubaskinny.bandcamp.com/album/pyramid-strut

and follow the instructions. You can pay for it easily (e.g. by PayPal) even if you do not live in the USA. You can even listen on line before you buy.

This CD was recorded in Tasmania during the band's Australian tour in 2013 and in my opinion is their best. It has excellent sound quality and of course the technical standard the musicians had reached by 2013 was so high that this CD is truly outstanding.

Talking about it, washboard-player Robin Rapuzzi said: Recording 'Pyramid Strut' was far different from any recording experience I think any of us will ever have again, as the space in which we recorded was very beautiful and sacred. A man named Chris Townsend had us over to his home outside of Hobart in the middle of Virgin Tassie Forest. He welcomed us and let us camp out on his property in some old fruit-picker shacks as well as recorded the album in its entirety. It was a pleasure to work with him and get to know his style. Normally we just record our music at home with blankets hung on the wall or a mattress leaned up against a corner to act as a sound barrier. I'm sure the sheer beauty of jungle around influenced us, as well as having the time and space to do it.  Often when we record, we don't give ourselves that much time to get the job done and it can feel rushed. In Tassie, we recorded I think it was over 20 tracks the first day and a similar amount the following day. Recording on that property allowed us to discuss a lot of everything and everyone's own ideas about the album.

15 tracks were eventually used on the CD, including such gems as Alligator Crawl, Deep Henderson and Big Chief Battleaxe. The polished, disciplined performances are stunning. There is also some terrific singing from Erika in such numbers as Slow Drivin' Moan (in a great arrangement making good use of Barnabus's trombone) and in Lonesome Drag, for which she wrote the lyrics. Here's the full list:

Big Chief Battle Axe

Lonesome Drag

Freight Train Blues (Lorraine Walton composition from 1938)

Pyramid Strut

I Got The Cryin' Blues

Cold Morning Shout

Hesitation Blues

Skid Dat De Dat

Mean Blue Spirits

You've Got To Give Me Some

Sweet Lovin' Old Soul

Alligator Crawl

Blood Thirsty Blues

Deep Henderson

Slow Drivin' Moan

May I draw your attention especially to the eponymous Pyramid Strut, an amazing composition by Shaye Cohn, who also plays a prominent part in its performance? This is a complex Mortonesque piece. In fact it's in the spirit of such tunes as Red Hot Peppers Stomp, recorded by Morton and His Red Hot Peppers in 1928.

Pyramid Strut is a tune of ithnographic complexity. It begins in the Key of Eb. It has a 4-bar Introduction which in other contexts could be mistaken for the final four bars of a tune. It runs down the scale of Eb in the third bar and so establishes the key. Then we have a first theme consisting of 24 bars and played twice. Bars 1, 5 and 21 contain a distinctive little phrase (a minim each on A and Bb) which give this theme a special character. But its other notable feature is that Bars 17 to 20 inclusive are played as 'Breaks' (exactly what Morton would have approved of). The first time this theme is played, the cornet takes the lead and also the breaks; the second time the clarinet.

Then the tune moves immediately and energetically into a second theme. This consists of 12 bars on the basic 12-bar blues chord pattern. As you may know, it was also a common practice in the 1920s to slot a 12-bar blues theme into the middle of structured compositions. (Think of The Chant and Copenhagen, for example.) Shaye's 12-bar theme is played through twice - first vigorously stated by the cornet and secondly with the full ensemble. We are still in the key of Eb.

Straight into the third theme we then go; and we find ourselves now in the key of Ab. What we have here is a 16-bar theme and this too is played twice. But what a tricky theme! In each set of 16 bars, bars 1 and 2, bars 3 and 4, bars 9 and 10 and bars 11 and 12 are taken as Breaks! That gives you four breaks in 16 bars - twice; so eight breaks in all. On the recording, the eight breaks are taken respectively by cornet, clarinet, trombone, tuba, cornet, cornet, cornet and cornet.

This is followed by an attractive 8-bar Bridge passage, which is extraordinary because it teasingly plays around (if my ear serves me correctly) on the F minor arpeggio. But the Bridge ends by running down through the Eb7 chord which of course leads us back beautifully into Ab. This will remain the key of the fourth (and final) theme.

This fourth theme consists of 16 bars  on a simple chord sequence. It is played three times. The clarinet leads us through it the first time, playing a tricky melody almost entirely of semi-quavers. Next, the banjo and tuba take the lead (a nice touch) in the second 16-bar chorus. Finally the whole band joins in for a climactic ensemble improvising over the 16 bars. And there's one more (Mortonesque) cheeky surprise: in a brief coda, those two minims from the opening theme bring the piece to an end, rounding it off perfectly. But this time (because the key has changed to Ab) they are played on the notes D and Eb.

Wow! I feel exhausted simply writing about it. Listen carefully to this piece. You will love it. Admire the discipline, the tightness of the playing and the technique of all seven players. You are witnessing what will come to be seen as one of the masterpieces of recorded jazz history.

What a girl Shaye Cohn is! (By the way, she even did the extraordinarily detailed and painstaking artwork on the CD cover - see top of this post.)

By the way, also note especially Shaye's busy playing on Big Chief Battleaxe. She can take a simple theme and create so much out of it, whether soloing or supporting the other players.

Aren't we lucky to be able - all over the world - to enjoy the fruits of her marvellous composing, arranging and playing?