Post 474: 'SHAKE IT AND BREAK' - SORTING OUT THE CONFUSION

You may have noticed that our jazz bands play two quite different tunes that are both called Shake It and Break It. This used to cause me confusion and I learn from correspondents that it has puzzled some of you too.

Although I may be wrong on some points, I will try to sort out the confusion by explaining what seems to have happened, as far as I can tell.

SHAKE IT AND BREAK IT  (1)

This tune was composed in 1920 by Lou Chiha (music) and H. Qualli Clark (lyrics). No, I did not make these names up!

It consists, after an Intro, of three strains of 16 bars each.

As played by our jazz bands, the first strain (normally played twice) seems to be in a minor key and involves some arpeggios being prettily run around. The second strain is in the related major key and its main characteristic is that it is a stuttering melody allowing for two two-bar breaks.  This is the strain used by most bands for the improvising of solo choruses.

The original words of the song suggest that it's about a 'new dance' in which the ladies 'shake' their taffeta dresses.

There is a terrific recording of the King Oliver Band playing what I have described so far. They play that first strain and then stick entirely on the second strain. Listen to the recording by clicking here.

Today's top band - Tuba Skinny - uses only the same two strains as King Oliver: CLICK HERE.

Many other bands (like Oliver's and Tuba Skinny) omit the third strain completely - finding quite enough to work on in the first two strains.

However, the tune and lyrics of the third strain dominate in blues singer Charlie Patton's recording entitled Shake It and Break It from 1929. So, although this has the same title, it sounds quite different from the King Oliver version. Charlie plays just this melody - not the two strains heard on the Oliver recording.

When the tune is played today by jazz bands, the third strain is sometimes added to the two previous strains and is played in the same key as the second strain and there is a vocal for this third strain only - a vocal that freely adapts the words of the original.

A reader has kindly sent me a photo-copy of Chiha and Clark's original printed music:

SHAKE IT AND BREAK IT (2)

This tune is often introduced by bands as Shake It and Break It; but it is actually Weary Blues, composed in 1915 by Gates, Matthews and Green. As you probably know, Weary Blues (which sounds anything but weary), has three strains. The first two are both 12-bar blues, usually played in F. The melodies are snappy and memorable.

Then there is a third strain, usually in Bb. This is exciting, with rapid riffs full of quavers, and a chord sequence on which musicians love to improvise. So this is the strain on which solo choruses are played.

Why do some bands announce this tune as Shake It and Break It? I am fairly sure it is because they fit words to that third strain. They are pretty well the same as those of the third strain in the 'official' Shake It and Break It ('Shake it! Break it! Hang it on the wall', etc). That, I think, is what has caused the confusion.

CLICK HERE for a performance of Weary Blues - played brilliantly by one of today's greatest bands and without the vocal - but under the title of Shake It and Break It.

For a performance of Weary Blues (correctly titled) but with the Shake it and Break It lyrics sung by Ben Polcer at  4 minutes 11 secs, click here.

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FOOTNOTE
The books Enjoying Traditional Jazz and Playing Traditional Jazz - both by Pops Coffee - are available from Amazon.

Post 416: ONE TUNE - TWO TITLES?

It is surprising how many tunes in the traditional jazz repertoire have with the passage of time acquired more than one title. There must have been various reasons for this, one of which was that a later performer wanted to disguise the fact that he was plagiarising a tune from an earlier band. But I am sure there were other reasons too, that had more to do with mere memory loss.

Here are over fifty examples. Maybe you can send me some more?

Algiers Strut is You're all I Want for Christmas (composed by Glen Moore and Seger Ellis)

Astoria Strut is also known as Climax Rag

Atlanta Blues (final strain) is also known as Make Me a Pallet on the Floor

Babik is a variation on I Got Rhythm

Barnyard Blues is also known as Livery Stable Blues

Black Bottom Stomp is also known as Queen of Spades

Blame it on the Blues is also known as Quincy Street Stomp

Blue Bells Goodbye was actually composed in 1905 as Bright Eyes Goodbye

Bogalusa Strut is a re-interpretation of the first two strains of Scott Joplin's Rose Leaf Rag

Bugle Boy March is also known as American Soldier

California Blues is also known as Blue Yodel No. 4

Can I Sleep in Your Arms Tonight, Lady? is the same tune as Red River Valley and is the same tune as We Shall Walk Through the Streets of the City

Chant of the Tuxedos is virtually the same as Ol' Man Mose

Chicago Breakdown is the same as Stratford Hunch

Chimes Blues is also known as Mournful Serenade

Corrinne Corrinna is also known as Alberta Blues

Creole Love Call is basically the middle theme from Camp Meeting Blues

Creole Song is also known as L'Autre Can Can and is also known as Madame Pedoux

Dauphine Street Blues (first strain) is also known as Nobody Knows the Way I Feel This Morning

Deep Bayou Blues is also known as The Three Sixes

Dippermouth Blues was re-created by the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra as Sugarfoot Stomp

Do Lord (tune) is also known as It Takes a Worried Man to Sing a Worried Song

Don't Go 'Way, Nobody (tune) is also known as  How Come You Do Me Like You Do Do Do? and  is also known as Everybody's Talking About Sammy and  is also known as I'm a Ding Dong Daddy from Dumas and  is also known as If It Don't Fit, Don't Force It and is much the same as Walk Right In

Don't You Feel My Leg is also known as Don't Make Me High

Down Home Rag is also known as Black Rag

Duke's Place is also known as C-Jam Blues

Fidgety Feet is also known as War Clouds

Frogimore Rag (trio) is also Sweetheart of Mine

Frosty Morning Blues is also known as Lost Your Man Blues

The Eyes of Texas (tune) is also known as I've Been Working on the Railroad

Garbage Man Blues is also known as Call of the Freaks and is also known as New Call of the Freaks 

Get a Working Man is identical to Pinchbacks, Take 'Em Away (and the chorus is harmonically the same as It's a Long Way to Tipperary)

Golden Leaf Strut is also known as Milenberg Joys

Good Time Flat Blues is also known as Farewell to Storyville

Hesitating Blues is also known as How Long, How Long Blues

Hiawatha Rag  is also known as Lizard on a Rail and as A Summer Idyll

San Jacinto Stomp is based on You Can't Escape from Me and is also known as In the Groove and  is also known as Baby, I Don't Mean Maybe and is harmonically identical to The Kat's Got Kittens

I Hope Gabriel Likes My Music is also known as I Hope You Like My Music

In The Highways (I'll Be Somewhere Working for My Lord) is pretty much the same as Down By The Riverside

In The Sweet By and By is also known as The Preacher and the Slave

Joe Avery's Piece is also known as Victory Walk and also as The New Second Line

Jones Law Blues is also known as Muscles Blues

La Harpe Street Blues (theme) is also known as We Sure Do Need Him Now

Lily of the Valley is also known as Everybody Ought To Know and was probably plagiarized from the final theme of Red Onion Drag

London Blues is also known as Shoe Shiner's Drag

Lotus Blossom is also known as Sweet Lotus Blossom (it started out as Sweet Marijuana, of course; but that title came to be considered politically incorrect)

Loveless Love is also known as Careless Love

Love Me Tender is also known as Aura Lee

Martha is also known as Mazie

Memphis Blues is also known as Mr. Crump

Milneberg Joys is usually mis-spelt Milenberg Joys [The New Orleans suburb took its name from Scotsman Alexander Milne]

Midnight Mama - see under Tom Cat Blues

Mississippi Wobble is also known as Quality Shout

Montmartre is also known as Django's Jump

Mood Indigo is also known as Dreamy Blues

Moonlight and Roses is actually Lemare's 'Andantino'

The chorus of Celestin's My Josephine (1926) is remarkably similar to Some of These Days

New Orleans Bump is also known as Monrovia

Old Stack o'Lee Blues (not Stack o'Lee Blues) is virtually identical to Faraway Blues

Oriental Jazz was called Soudan by its composer

The 1919 March is also known as The Rifle Rangers

China Boy is also known as Pacific Rim Stomp

Poor Old Joe is also known as Old Black Joe

Lazy Luke (composed in 1905 by George J. Philpot) was misleadingly renamed Red Flannel Rag by Turk Murphy when he recorded it many years later

Moanful Blues is actually Some Day Sweetheart

My Good Man Sam is virtually identical to Doctor Jazz

After You've Gone (1917) seems to have plagiarized Peg o' My Heart (1913)

Riverboat Shuffle was originally Free Wheeling

Riverside Blues is also known as Dixieland Shuffle

Root Hog or Die is virtually the same as Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen

The final theme of Royal Garden Blues is also the main theme of Georgia Bo Bo

Savoyager's Stomp is also known as Muskrat Ramble

Sidewalk Blues is also known as Fishtail Blues

Silver Bell (second theme) is also known as Sometimes My Burden's Too Hard to Bear

Si Tu Vois Ma Mère is also known as Lonesome

Soap Suds is also known as Fickle Fay Creep

South is also known as Pork Chop

Storyville Blues is also known as Those Drafting Blues  and is also known as Bienville Blues

Gully Low Blues is also known as S.O.L. Blues

Original Dixieland One-Step (final strain) is also known as That Teasing Rag

Take My Hand, Precious Lord is the same tune as Maitland

Tar Paper Stomp is also known as Hot and Anxious (one theme) and is also known as In The Mood

The Midnight Special is also known as Shine a Light on Me

Till Times Get Better and Smokehouse Blues are almost identical to Up a Lazy River

Ting-a-ling started its life as Waltz of the Bells

Tom Cat Blues is also known as Midnight Mama (or Midnight Papa)

Two Nineteen Blues is also known as Mamie's Blues

Uptown Bumps was originally The Long Lost Blues (by Paul Wyer, 1914). Its final theme is also known as The Bucket's Got a Hole in It. It also became Keep a Knockin' But You Can't Come In. The Bucket's Got a Hole in It is also known as Ta-Wa-Bac-A-Wa and was used again in If You Don't Want Me, Please Don't Dog Me Around

Viper Mad is also known as Pleasure Mad

Washington and Lee Swing is also known as Tulane Swing and Louisiana Swing

Way Down upon the Swanee River is also known as The Old Folks at Home

Weary Blues is also known as Travelling Blues and much of it is often played as Shake It And Break It (but note there is also a different Shake It And Break It recorded by King Oliver)

When Shadows Fall is also known as Home

Yaaka Hula Hickey Dula is also known as Hawaiian Love Song

BUT:
Please note that Red Onion Rag (by Abe Olman, 1912) is a quite different tune from Louis Dumaine's Red Onion Drag.

Correspondent Robert Duis writes:

Dear Ivan, 

1) BLACK ORPHEUS
MANHA DO CARNAVAL

2) MOULIN A CAFE
THE COFFEE GRINDER

3) OLD FOLKS AT HOME
SWANEE RIVER

4) SEE SEE RIDER 
EASY RIDER

5) QUIET NIGHTS OF QUIET STARS 
CORCOVADO

Best regards, 

Robert Duis.

Post 331: 'ST. LOUIS TICKLE' AND 'BUDDY BOLDEN'S BLUES'

The famous Buddy Bolden's Blues is played occasionally by most traditional jazz bands. It's the one beginning with the words 'I thought I heard Buddy Bolden say You're nasty, you're dirty, take it away....'.

I'm not the first person to notice that the tune of Buddy Bolden's Blues is in fact the second theme in the composition St. Louis Tickle.

St. Louis Tickle was composed in about 1904 (when Buddy Bolden was a star on the New Orleans music scene).

The composers were named on the original sheet music as 'Barney and Seymore' (elsewhere 'Seymour'). But it is probable that these names were a pseudonym for Theron Catlan Bennett (1879 - 1937) - who became a well-known composer, music publisher (in Chicago) and music-shop owner (in Denver).

Having examined the sheet music, which is a well-structured through-composed early rag, I assumed that Bolden's Band 'lifted' the second theme from this composition, put words to it and made it their own.

However, internet sources claim the tune was composed by Bolden himself. Or that it was composed by the trombone player in his band - Willie Cornish - or at least that Cornish put the words to it. If Bolden's Band composed it, the composer of St. Louis Tickle must have lifted it from them.

But he did not live in New Orleans, so would he even have heard it in those days before mass media? And why would a composer of his obvious talent need to steal an idea for a theme? And how do we account for his distinctively 'raggy' rhythms and notes in Bars 7 and 8 and Bars 14, 15, and 16? They are more subtle and complex than the simplified version used in the song.

My theory would have been that Bolden's band lifted and adapted the tune from St. Louis Tickle. But we are confidently assured by the experts that Bennett stole the tune from Bolden and sneaked the melody into his composition.

Whatever the truth, Buddy Bolden's Blues exists and you can hear many performances of it on YouTube, notably a very relaxed, soulful one by the late Pat Halcox:

CLICK HERE.

And you can hear a lovely, tasteful version of St. Louis Tickle played (in 2015) by some of our favourite New Orleans-based musicians BY CLICKING HERE. This is a most delightful performance. May I urge you to watch it? Listen out for the 'Buddy Bolden' theme at 55 seconds.

Elsewhere, you can hear St. Louis Tickle performed by various artists, for example the California Feetwarmers. Note the Bolden theme, starting at 30 seconds into the film.

CLICK HERE.

Finally, here's the original 1904 sheet music. I have marked in RED where the Bolden theme begins. It runs just for the repeated 16 bars. Then the composition moves into its next theme.