Post 118: WALTER DOYLE'S 'EGYPTIAN ELLA' - A FINE TUNE FOR JAZZ BANDS

I had never heard of the song Egyptian Ella until 2012 when on YouTube I came across some of the New Orleans street bands performing it. The music appeals to me because the Chorus (32 bars, structured a - a - b - a) is a moderately fast, catchy tune with the 'a' section tumbling down the chromatic scale. Also it's a tune in a minor key and we don't get enough of those in traditional jazz. There are plenty of versions of it on YouTube but beware: some of them do not include the Verse.

This song is very much of its time. It would not be considered 'politically correct' today. But it is fun.

It was written in 1931 by Walter Doyle who was a popular vaudeville composer. I guess he wrote the words as well as the tune. He also composed Mysterious Mose, which is still sometimes heard.

As well as its 32-bar chorus, Egyptian Ella has a 24-bar verse - worth including if you have a singer, as it sets the scene with regard to Ella's biography.

I doubt whether I shall ever get to perform this tune with a band but I decided to add it to my mini-filofax collection, so that I could learn it, at least for my own amusement. It sounds good in C minor, so I put it in D minor to suit my Bb cornet.

The words tell the story of a dancer called Ella who 'started getting fat'. She soon got the sack and also 'lost her fella'. So she went off to Egypt and started a new life. But she found they liked fat dancers there! So she is now a big star. 'She weighs two twenty but they don't care; they like 'em plenty that way out there'. When she dances by the River Nile, 'the boys all take their old sweethearts and throw 'em to the crocodiles'! 'How they love Egyptian Ella!'

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Post 56: THE EARLY DAYS; AND THE ABUNDANCE OF GOOD SONGS

Historians have given many reasons why jazz developed in New Orleans when it did. There were so many influences and so many sources of inspiration.

But one reason that is often overlooked is that there were so many tunes available at the time that lent themselves conveniently to interpretation in a 'jazzy' way. I sometimes wonder whether early jazz would have developed without the abundance of good suitable popular music at the time.

It was the age when you made your own musical entertainment in the home or you went to the music halls to find it. The early jazz bands had hundreds of tunes to choose from. Most have been long forgotten but just think about this: you could still today make up a good traditional jazz programme entirely from well-known tunes written more than 100 years ago.

Already by the early 1900s, such songs as these were available to the bands:

Beautiful Dreamer
After the Ball
You've Been a Good Old Wagon But You Done Broke Down
A Hot Time in Old Town
Way Down Upon the Swannee River
Ciribiribin
Smoky Mokes
Whistling Rufus
At a Georgia Camp Meeting
Maple Leaf Rag
My Wild Irish Rose
You Tell Me Your Dream
Creole Belle
Hiawatha
High Society
Indiana
Bill Bailey
The Entertainer
In the Sweet Bye and Bye
Oh Didn't He Ramble
Under the Bamboo Tree
Ida, Sweet as Apple Cider
Meet Me In St. Louis

And in the next ten years these were among the hundreds composed:

My Gal Sal

In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree

Redwing

Down in Jungle Town

Dusty Rag

Shine on Harvest Moon

Ace in the Hole

Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland

Put on Your Old Grey Bonnet

That's a Plenty

I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now

Chinatown

Down By the Old Mill Stream

Some of these days

Silver Bell

Washington and Lee Swing

I Want a Girl Just like the Girl

Alexander's Ragtime Band

Oh You Beautiful Doll

Ballin' The Jack

Curse of an Aching Heart

You Made Me Love You

Down Among The Sheltering Palms

If I Had You

St Louis Blues

Twelfth Street Rag

When You Wore a Tulip

Yellow Dog Blues

Blame it on the Blues

Georgia Grind

Hesitating Blues

Memories

Paper Doll

When I Leave the World Behind

No wonder those early players - Buddy Bolden, Kid Ory and the like - could put on an entertaining programme for dancers. Such a thing would not be possible today. It's hard to think of much pop music of the last thirty years that lends itself readily to traditional jazz treatment.