Tell me about the blues: All Blues, Footprints, Simone

Now that we’ve listened to a bit of Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong, and Reds Allen, it would seem logical to move ahead in time, just a bit. That is, to take a historical approach. Perhaps the logical thing to do would be to look at Count Basie and Duke Ellington. That would kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. It gets us into the Swing Era, which it the next major style, and big bands. But that’s not the logic I have in mind. Oh, we’ll get around to Basie and Duke soon enough, but want to jump ahead several decades, to mid-century.

Why? To give you a sense of just what can happen to a musical form over time, to give you a sense of scope and boundaries of the blues.

All Blues

“All Blues” doesn’t really sound like a blues, not a down home, dyed in the wool, old time blues. But it IS a blues, it really is, it says so in the title – but we already know that’s not a sure indication, don’t we? Moreover it’s on an album called Kind of Blue, the best-selling jazz album of all time and, for that matter, one of the very best. Think of it as a modern high speed “bullet” train, like they have in Japan, in contrast to one of those old trains pulled by a steam engine. But it still runs on two rails.

Miles Davis released the album in 1959. He’s credited with “All Blues.” The musicians on the date are stellar: Davis on trumpet, Julian “Cannonball” Adderley on alto Sax, John Coltrane on tenor sax, Paul Chambers on bass, and Jimmy Cobb. Let’s listen to it before figuring out why it’s a blues. The tune proper starts at about 0:19 with the entrance of the trumpet:

It sounds sleek and modern. Notice, first of all, that it isn’t in 4/4 time, which is standard for the majority of jazz tunes, blues as well. It’s in 6/8, giving it a lilting feel.

It starts with an intro consisting of a piano tremolo and a repeating bass line, called an ostinato. Then the two saxes enter in harmony, playing a line that mirrors the bass line. The trumpet enters at 0:19, playing a simple line that alternates between only two pitches; the bass and saxes continue as before. Four bars later, at roughly 0:29, things change. The harmony changes – as the blues form dictates – and the trumpet joins the saxes in a simple moving line for two bars while the bass continues as before. Then it’s back to the initial pattern, both saxes and trumpet, for two bars. The bass continues. Everything changes nine bars into the form, at 0:42.

Of course the harmony changes. The saxes have a different line, but a simple one; same for the trumpet. Not only that, but the bass drops the ostinato it had been playing since the beginning, but only for two bars. In bars 11 and 12 the bass returns to the ostinato and the harmony changes accordingly; the trumpet and saxes harmonize on a simple melodic phrase.

So, while “All Blues” doesn’t sound like either “St. Louis Blues” or “Muggles,” it does follow a 12-bar structure that is divided into three different 4-bar phrases. It IS a blues, albeit of a different kind.

That first chorus is followed by a 4-bar interlude where the saxes mirror the bass, as in the introduction, but the trumpet drops out. Then we have another full chorus, as before. That’s followed by another 4-bar interlude. Miles enters at roughly 1:46 for the first solo. The bass continues its ostinato. Miles plays four continuous choruses, no interludes between them. Then:

• a 4-bar interlude, four choruses by Cannonball Adderley on alto sax;
• a 4-bar interlude, four choruses by John Coltrane on tenor sax;
• a 4-bar interlude, four choruses by Bill Evans on piano, and finally:
• a 4-bar interlude, and we return to the tune, playing it twice as in the beginning;
• there’s another 4-bar interlude, and Miles does a very simple solo for one last chorus – it could almost be mistaken for a vamp.

Here’s another version of “All Blues.” It’s from a live performance in 1964 in Milan. Except for Miles, the personnel has changed: Wayne Shorter on tenor sax, Herbie Hancock on piano, Ron Carter on bass, and Tony Williams on drums. It’s at a much faster tempo than the previous version. Shorter mirrors the bass, then Miles comes in on the melody, playing more freely. You can figure out the rest if you wish.

Footprints

Let’s look another of these sleek modern blues in triple time. This is Wayne Shorter’s “Footprints” from Adam’s Apple (1967). Shorter is playing tenor sax, with Herbie Hancock on piano, Reggie Workman on bass, and Joe Chambers on bass. I’m not going to go into the level of detail I did for “All Blues,” but I will note that it is in 6/8 time and has an ostinato bass, except for bars 9 and 10. That bass line is part of the composition.

Here’s another recording of “Footprints.” This is with Miles Davis, again in 1967, Miles Smiles. Ron Carter is on bass, Herbie Hancock on piano, and Tony Williams on drums. Notice the faster tempo. But we have the same ostinato bass line; as I indicated, it’s part of the tune.

Here Wayne Shorter is playing a duet with bassist Esperanza Spalding in 2013. Shorter starts and Spalding picks up with the ostinato. Notice how she elaborates on it.

Simone

One more time. “Simone” is by Frank Foster. I learned this tune when I studied improvisation with him at SUNY Buffalo in the mid-1970s, which I recount here, Connecting with the Jazz Tradition: Studying with Frank Foster in Buffalo. This recording is a big-band version that was recorded in 1977.

It's in a medium-fast three-quarter time (3/4) (but alternates with a 6/8 feel) and the form runs 24-bars long, broken into three 8-bar phrases. Think of it as a double-blues. We start with a short introduction and then the first chorus starts at roughly 0:14 with the saxophones playing the melody. Elvin Jones is on drums. The second chorus starts at roughly 0:39 with Bill Saxton soloing on tenor sax, followed by Kiane Zawadi (trombone) and Mickey Tucker (piano). The full band comes in at about 5:45, wailing for two choruses and the drops out for Elvin Jones’s drum solo (6:34). The opening piano vamp returns at 8:01 followed by the whole band, which plays a chorus and ends with a short coda.

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What have we got? Three blues, all in triple time, none sounding like a blues. And all were written and recorded in 1960 or later. It couldn’t have happened much before that time. That’s what it took for the music to evolve from the 1920s though three generations of music and into a fourth.

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This is the third post in my series, “Tell me about the blues.” The series is tagged with the label, tell me blues.