OK, the blues. Now that I’ve talked about the philosophizing, mythologizing, and identifying, let’s set that mess aside and get down to it. Let’s listen to some examples and see how they work.
W.C. Handy was known as the Father of the Blues – a sobriquet I believe he gave himself. He wrote our first example tune, “St. Louis Blues.” Bessie Smith was known as the Empress of the Blues; she’s singing it. Louis Armstrong was known as Satchmo; he’s responding to Bessie. She calls, he responds. That’s how the blues works. When performed by a single musician accompanying himself with a guitar, the voice would call and the guitar would respond, all the while continuing to preserve the ground beat and keeping the harmonic structure moving along.
I don’t know whether “St. Louis Blues” was the first blues I ever heard. Could have been, who knows? But it wouldn’t have been this recording; I didn’t discover this recording until my college years.
This version was recorded in 1925, by which time the blues had been doing all right. We don’t know just when the blues was born. That’s one of those things hidden in the mists of time and obscured by myth. But it likely wasn’t more than two or three decades before this recording.
What’s important about “St. Louis Blues” is that it is in three parts. The first and the third exhibit the formal characteristics we have come to recognize as the blues. The second does not. It has a tango rhythm, a bit of what Jelly Roll Morton called that “Latin tinge.”
You should be able to pick out these three sections pretty easily without me giving you the timings. They’re obvious:
Let’s break down the first chorus – “chorus” is a standard term for one repetition of a tune that’s repeated several times in a single performance. It’s twelve bars long and divided into three four-bar sections, what’s become known as the standard blues form.
First section: We have a single introductory chord and then the song-proper begins. Bessie sings, “I hate to see…” That’s the call. Armstrong responds with a little trumpet riff. And that’s the response. That’s one bar. Bessie continues, “…the evening sun go down.” That’s the second bar. Armstrong then responds in bars three and four. Notice how clever that is: Within the first two bars we have a call-and-response structure which itself is the call within the larger call-and-response structure. Such nesting is not itself obligatory. It’s the larger call-and-response structure that is common, though by not obligatory. The blues leaves you plenty of options.
Second section: It’s just like the first, same words, same nested call-and-response structure. The melody is the same. But, and this is very important, the underlying harmony is different on bars five and six. That’s one of the defining features of the form, the shift in harmony on bars five and six. On bars seven and eight we’re where we were on three and four.
Third section: Big change. Bessie sings some new words: “It makes me think, I’m on my last go ‘round.” The call and response structure is as before. The harmonic structure changes, again, on nine and ten, and back to ground on eleven and twelve, like in 3 & 4, 7 & 8.
That’s one chorus of the blues, text-book perfect: twelve bars; three sections; call-and-response; first line of lyrics repeated for the second section, then new lyrics for the third; I IV I V I harmony. Don’t worry just what those roman numerals are about. They come from notation that’s standard in harmonic analysis from the common practice period of European classical music. W.C. Handy was a well-educated musician and was likely familiar with it. Traditional bluesman were not. You don’t need to know the analytical language in order to perform and listen to the music to which it is applied.
That’s an awful lot of prose for such a little bit of music. That’s how it goes. Music is a physical thing, and physical things often resist easy prose description. And I haven’t said a word about nuance, how Bessie bends notes, about microtones and blues notes (that don’t even exist in standard European theory, nor on the piano) and how about Armstrong varies his responses. I’m leaving that up to you.
The second chorus is like the first, but with different lyrics. The third chorus (c. 1:36) is not yet another repetition of the musical forms and practices we heard in the first two choruses. The tune switches into a minor key, a different melody, and a different underlying beat, the tango. But Bessie and Louis are still engrossed in their call-and-response conversation. This goes on for 16 bars, divided into two 8-bar sections – the second 8-bar section starts at about 2:04. You hear things start to shift at about 2:27, when Smith repeats the phrase, “no where.” The repetition is on a rising phrase.
It rises to the final chorus, which repeats the standard 12-bar blues form. But we have a different melody and lyrics from the one in the first and second chorus. We get one chorus of this second blues form. I leave it as an exercise for the reader to figure out what’s going on. Hint: It’s not quite the same as we saw the first time, but it is still the blues. There’s lots of fish in that sea.
Let’s try another example of the traditional blues form, an original tune by Louis Armstrong, “Muggles.” “Muggles is old New Orleans slang for marijuana, a substance Armstrong used freely for most of his adult life.
Earle “Fatha” Hines improvises a first chorus on piano – it may not sound much like the blues we heard in “St. Louis,” but is the same 12-bar I IV I V I form. Fred Robinson, trombone, takes the second chorus. Jimmy Dodds on clarinet, three. And now the tempo picks up and Armstrong himself takes a hit. The tempo slows back down when we get to bar nine in the form. Armstrong moves into the upper register for the final chorus (c. 2:10). Listen to how he is ever so slightly behind the beat, so he can nudge it forward.
Let’s take it out with a traditional tune that is a variant of the blues form, an eight-bar minor key blues. This is “St. James Infirmary” – one of my favorite tunes in the whole world. This is performed by Henry “Red” Allen, a contemporary of Armstrong’s and is from 1964 on the BBC. Allen is performing with The Alex Welsh Band, which is, I assume, a bunch of local cats, local to somewhere in the UK.
Allen starts off by naming a whole string of New Orleans musicians – I’m not going to transcribe their names ‘cause transcribing is tedious and I assume your hearing is fine. Allen starts playing at about 0:42. He plays the standard melody, with some of his standard embellishments. Listen to that wonderful juicy note at about 0:50. So sweet, so sweet! Second chorus at 0:56, starts with a nice rising phrase, varying the melody, dropping in that same juicy note at the same spot. Allen starts his third chorus with a rough sound (notice his firm stance), fluttering tonguing I believe, leaving the melody far behind.
He starts singing at about 1:28, with traditional lyrics. This song’s got a ton of them. He sings with his whole damn body! Check out his postures and poses. And now Allen calls for audience participation (2:27). We’re going to church and he’s the preacher. Call and response.
Now we get down to business. Notice how Allen begins so simply, one note repeated four times, starting on the second beat of the bar. At 3:01 he’s back on that juicy note, and this time he hangs on to it. Back to vocals: “I went down to St. James Infirmary…second trip.” Call and response. Now it’s the audience’s turn.
I’m done, but the performance isn’t. Surprises ahead. You’re on your own. Don’t need me anymore.
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The first post in this series: Tell me about the blues, a new series on the savanna.
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