When I was a boy, I was fascinated by the classification of instruments into their various groups: wind, string & percussion. But what fascinated me most was the fact that the instrument I myself played, the piano, was sometimes classified as a stringed instrument (or chordophone) & sometimes as a percussion instrument (or idiophone.) Of course, the sound on a piano is ultimately produced by the strings, but in order to produce that sound there’s a lot of “striking” going on, both by the fingers on the keys & the hammers on the strings themselves. & anyone who has listened to the great Thelonious Monk know very well how much the piano can be percussive.
I love Monk’s music—it’s a rich & deep & playful & lyrical—& I love his playing. Not all have shared this opinion; poet Phillip Larkin described Monk as “the elephant on the keyboard,” & as Monk was in the forefront of Bebop, he most certainly had his detractors among the Trad Jazz & moldy fig crowd. But by & large, history has borne out his significance; Monk’s compositions are the second most recorded songs in the jazz world, following only the compositions of the great Duke Ellington (who wrote considerably more), & some of them are among the best known jazz standards: today’s song, “Straight, No Chaser,” would certainly fit in that category, as would “Round Midnight,” “Well, You Needn’t,” “Epistrophy” & “Ruby, My Dear,” just to name a handful.
“Straight, No Chaser” is harmonically a straightforward 12-bar blues in the key of Eb that follows the “quick change” pattern—in other words, the IV chord appears in the second measure rather than waiting until the fifth measure. In addition, there are chord substitutions in the eighth & ninth measures. In a completely straight 12-bar blues, the eighth measure would contain the I or tonic chord, while the ninth measure would contain the V or dominant chord; here, however, Monk substitutes the iiim7 & the VI7 in the eighth measure, & the iim7 in the ninth—these are all fairly standard jazz chord substitutions, & those of you who are up on your music theory will see that the progression there is moving along the Circle of Fifths. One characteristic of the song—& indeed, a characteristic found in other Monk melodies—is that the melody shifts in terms of how the notes fall in relation to the beat, which takes a relatively simple melodic idea & adds great complexity. Mary Lou Williams—who was a mentor to Monk & to the Bebop crowd in general—also did that with many of her melodies.
The original recording (which is the version in this video) was recorded for Blue Note in 1951. The session included Monk on piano, Art Blakey on drums, Al McKibbon on bass, Milt Jackson on vibes & Sahib Shihab on alto sax. Miles Davis recorded a famous cover of “Straight, No Chaser” (in the key of F) on his Milestones album, & Carmen McRae covered the tune as a vocal titled “Get It Straight.”
Great composition—enjoy!
A happy Monday, folks! We’re here at last with a much belated edition of the Monday Morning Blues, & coming at you once again with a piece of music that explores the intersection of blues & jazz.
Up to now this series has only explored songs from the “hot jazz” era of the 1920s. While I love music from that era, I didn’t want the series to turn into a sort of “moldy figs” appreciation of traditional jazz to the exclusion of later developments in the music—both because I love later jazz as well, & also because there are some prime examples of blues meeting jazz from all points in jazz history, & even from some composers who have been considered quite radical.
Today’s song comes from one of the most talented composers & pianists in the history of jazz, tho sadly she is still all too often overlooked. That is the great Mary Lou Williams, of whom Duke Ellington wrote:
Mary Lou Williams is perpetually contemporary. Her writing and performing have always been a little ahead throughout her career. Her music retains, and maintains, a standard of quality that is timeless. She is like soul on soul.
Mary Lou Williams began her performing career in the 1920s when she was still in her early teens, & at age 15 she was performing with Duke Ellington’s Washingtonians. She made the claim—a true claim at that—that in her long career she played in “every era” of jazz, & in fact she composed & performed in the hot jazz era, thru the big band time & was an important tho frequently neglected figure in the development of be-bop. Williams continued to be a significant force in the jazz world up to her death in 1981.
In addition to the fact that Mary Lou Williams was a masterful pianist, she was also a composer & arranger of note. Her Zodiac Suite from the mid 1940s is a great extended composition, & she also composed a number of noteworthy songs, including today’s selection, “Roll ‘Em,” which she wrote in 1937 in response to Benny Goodman asking her to come up with a theme song for his band. “Roll ‘Em” is a hard driving boogie, & the version we have today showcases Williams as a performer backed by the Benny Carter Orchestra. In its basic structure, “Roll ‘Em” is a 12-bar blues, but it’s transfigured by Williams’ inventiveness & her powerful flow of musical ideas.
Hope you enjoy it!
When you’re talking about the great early jazz soloists, one of the first names that must come to mind—perhaps the first name after that of Louis Armstrong—is Sidney Bechet. In fact, if one looks at the recorded history, Bechet actually beat Armstrong to the punch with some of his 1923 sides with Clarence Williams’ Blues Five (a group that also featured Armstrong’s cornet playing.)
For those who may be less familiar with Bechet (whose name is usually pronounced buh-SHAY, tho it reportedly is pronounced BAH-shay by the family), he was born in New Orleans in 1897 to a Creole family. Sidney Bechet was a prodigy, first performing with his brother’s band at age six, & performed with such New Orleans luminaries as Bunk Johnson, King Oliver & Freddie Keppard in his teens, even touring as far north as Chicago. Sidney Bechet’s instruments were the clarinet & the soprano sax. In fact, prior to Coltrane, Bechet was probably the most noteworthy jazz performer on the latter instrument. Bechet’s style on both instruments was passionate, & he favored a broad vibrato tone—a characteristic that has made listeners tend to form strong opinions either favorable or unfavorable about his sound; but he most certainly made a huge mark on jazz history along the way.
“Wild Cat Blues” comes from a 1923 recording by Clarence Williams Blues Five made for Okeh. The band for the session was Sidney Bechet (soprano sax), Thomas Morris (cornet), John Maysfield (trombone), Clarence Williams (piano), & Buddy Christian (banjo). The song, which was composed by the great Thomas “Fats” Waller & Clarence Williams, isn’t technically a blues at all—it features four separate 16-bar patterns rather than the conventional 12-bar pattern of blues, & the structure owes more to formal rags. However that may be, "Wild Cat Blues" is a fine example of hot jazz, with the typical New Orleans polyphony forming a basis from which Bechet’s solo can soar up & away, & soar he does!
This ought to chase your blues away—enjoy!
You really can’t talk about the history of jazz without talking about Jelly Roll Morton—the self-professed “inventor” of the idiom. Jelly Roll’s claim is of course spurious; still, he was a larger than life figure—a combination of musical genius both as a composer & a performer, promoter (mainly of Jelly Roll Morton), pimp, pool shark, hustler, nightclub owner & legend both in his own time & in his own mind. If you are interested in learning more about him, more about early jazz or turn of the 20th century New Orleans culture, or simply reading an amazing story, I highly recommend Alan Lomax’s biography (much of which is in Jelly Roll Morton’s own words) Mister Jelly Roll.
Born Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe in New Orleans in 1885 (or possibly 1884, 1889 or 1890), & didn’t become Jelly Roll Morton until he began work as a brothel piano player in his teens. He continued to work in the fabled New Orleans red-light district known as Storyville, but toured the south with various minstrel shows (& also as a general hustler & pool shark—apparently his pools skills were considerable.) Later in the teens he spent time in Chicago, California & Vancouver, British Columbia, always finding work in nightclubs & in vaudeville shows based on his extraordinary piano playing abilities.
He returned to Chicago in the mid 1920s & he assembled one of the most important bands of the “hot jazz” era, the Red Hot Peppers. The personnel of this band shifted considerably over the years (& was based both in Chicago & later in New York), but among the notable musicians who joined Morton in the Red Hot Peppers were trombonist Kid Ory, clarinetist Johnny Dodds, banjoist Johnny St Cyr & drummer Baby Dodds—of course all of these musicians also played with Louis Armstrong around the same time.
Jelly Roll Morton & the Red Hot Peppers recorded a number of sides between 1926 & 1930. The Chicago sessions of 1926-1927 are especially renowned, & today’s selection, “Sidewalk Blues,” comes from those recordings. “Sidewalk Blues” was recorded for Victor Records on September 21, 1926 in Chicago. According to the Doctor Jazz website, Victor based a large ad campaign around “Sidewalk Blues.” According to the Music Trade Review in November 1926, “Upon its initial release it enjoyed an unprecedented demand for a “blues” number.”
“The Sidewalk Blues” is essentially a 12-bar blues in its bare musical bones, tho there are some interesting harmonies that complicate the basic structure. It’s also a bit of a novelty item, with the opening dialogue & the sound effects—but then, Jelly Roll was always a showman!
Great song here—hope you enjoy it!
In fact, if you’ve been following here for awhile, you know that I often try to underline ways in which musical genre “typing” of songs is more of a marketing device than descriptive of anything intrinsic to given pieces of music. The fact is, especially in the first half of the 20th century the dividing lines between genres was pretty blurry. That’s not to say there were no distinctions made—the fact that music was divided racially obviously imposed a big distinction. But beyond that, categories were much more fluid.
This is perhaps most true when we look at the distinction between jazz & blues. Now I acknowledge the differences between, for example, the music of Charlie Patton & the music of Sidney Bechet. But it’s also true that both these musicians & many were drawing from a common pool of musical ideas. The flatted thirds, fifths & sevenths of blues are also the flatted thirds, fifths & sevenths of jazz—to non musicians, it means the rather than the scale running simply do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti-do, the tones mi flat, sol flat & ti flat are added in blues & jazz. These tones don’t replace the unflattened forms, especially in the case of mi & sol, but exist alongside them as complementary forms that add depth & color to the underlying scale.
Today’s recording dates from 1923, & as such it’s an early example of fusing jazz & blues. “Dippermouth Blues” (a 12-bar blues in its harmonic bare bones) was co-written by King Oliver & Louis Armstrong, & is here performed by King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band, which featured Oliver & Armstrong on cornets, Johnny Dodds on clarinet, Honore Dutrey on trombone, Lil Hardin (soon to become Lil Hardin Armstrong) on piano, Bill Johnson on banjo & Baby Dodds on drums—however, for the purposes of recording Dodds is playing a wood block. This recording was done thru an acoustic horn, & these devices couldn’t reproduce either drums or bass instruments without considerable distortion, so early jazz recordings featured drummers playing something less resonant than a kit.
It’s worth noting that the cornet solo on “Dippermouth Blues” is taken by King Oliver, not by Armstrong—Armstrong was “second cornet” in the band—tho the song’s title refers to Armstrong’s large mouth! Oliver’s three chorus solo is justifiably famous—here’s what music critic Ted Gioa has written about Oliver’s playing on this song:
Early New Orleans jazz was about the quality of sound rather than the quantity of notes, and Oliver was the great master of getting the cornet to speak with a vocal tone. His range is limited here, and his phrases are built on only two or three notes of the scale. But his down-and-dirty sound captures the ethos of jazz as it emerged at the dawn of the American century.
Terry Teachout in his Louis Armstrong biography Pops also writes about Oliver’s sound: “Oliver used mutes to alter the timbre of his cornet, making it cry like a baby or curse like a man….” This is important when we consider the blues-jazz link, because both the “down & dirty sound” described by Gioa & the use of an instrument to replicate the human voice as described by Teachout are prominent elements in both blues & jazz.
This is a great song, folk—enjoy!
