10/18/18 someone asked is is blues jazz? This answer applies to students in high school jazz bands, so I may generalize and skip over a few things.
Blues is an African-American folk music that developed from work songs and field hollars around 1895. No one knows much about the blues until they were discovered and adapted by the music industry.
Blues, as a musical style becomes adapted by Ma Rainey around 1903 when she discovered/found/borrowed/adapted a “sorrowful “ song from a cleaning woman and added it to her act as a professional performer. Around the same time, W.C. Handy, a professional band leader, discovered/found/borrowed/adapted a style of song he heard a guitar player sing at a train station in Tutwiler, Mississippi. The singer pressed a knife blade against the guitar strings (slide guitar) and sang, “I’m going down where the Southern crosses the Dog.” That means something, but ask me later.
During this “turn of the 20th Century” time period the popular dance music styles was called ragtime, but around 1909-1913 the word Blues can to applied to this new African-American style. W.C. Handy wrote Memphis Blues as 1909 as a campaign song for Mayor Crump and published it in 1913.
The first instrumental jazz was recorded was 1917 by The Original Dixieland Jass Band (ODJB) and one side is Livery Stable Blues. This song is Public Domain, but that’s another lesson. This song has multiple sections that are all in the 12-bar blues form we discussed in class.
In the 1920s, the first Vocal Blues recorded by an African-American (yes, there is an earlier blackface blues recording) Crazy Blues was released in 1920 by Mamie Smith. This recording was not in the blues form but was a huge hit recording.
Probably the most important vocal blues recording was St. Louis Blues in 1925 by Bessie Smith (no relation to Mamie), but they did perform in the same traveling show). Side note: Louis Armstrong played on this recording). There is a video from a 1929 movie called St Louis Blues that contains her only filmed performance. Remember that this is a movie script and not a reality movie.
In the 1920s, Louis Armstrong, the first important jazz soloist, was just beginning to earn an international reputation as a trumpet player and singer. In 1927, he recorded West End Blues with his band The Hot Seven. After his famous solo introduction, the song begins with the same blues form that we spoke about in class.
In the 1930s, Jazz developed into the Swing Era and the electric guitar was invented, thus making it useful in a band situation. At this intersection we see both jazz and rock developing its use of the blues. Guitarists T-Bone Walker and Charlie Christian were schools friends and played together. T-Bone walker’s family was friends with Blind Lemon Jefferson, a very famous country blues performer.
In the 1930s, the Count Basie band moved out of Kansas City and started playing nationally and on the radio. The big band was known for it soloists and the way they used the blues in a big band jazz format. Here is a recording of the Basie band from 1938.
In the 1940s, a style called Jump Blues began to emerge, first in a band led by Louis Jordan. A Jump Band was a scaled-down big band that specialized in fast songs with a Boogie Woogie beat. These Jump band songs became the Rhythm part of Rhythm and Blues (R&B). This Boogie Woogie beat also became the basis for early rock and roll. A good example is Choo Choo Ch-Boogie which Louis Jordan recorded in 1946. Note that this recording is a combination of 12-bars blues for the verse and an 8-bar chorus.
Rock & Roll entered the Billboard Magazine charts in 1955 with Bill Halley and the Comets’ Rock Around the Clock. This recording sold enough copies to be in the Top Ten for the year. Bill Haley had been a country performer who started putting R&B on the flip side of the record. Soon, those R&B songs became more popular than his country songs. In 1956, Bill Haley recorded Louis Jordan’s Choo Choo Ch-Boogie.
Music Business side note: Milt Gabler worked for Decca Records and was Louis Jordan’s record producer. Ten years later Milt Gabler was still at Decca and he was now Bill Haley’s record producer! In a book called Honkers and Shouters Milt says he taught Bill Haley’s band the song. This is not the best example of Bill Haley, but it works to show how copied R&B performer Louis Jordan.
In the 1940s, T-Bone Walker became the first blues player to use the electric guitar in the 1930s and when you search for the roots of rock guitar players you end up with T-Bone. T-Bone Walker’s popularity faded before rock became popular, but another blues artist, B. B. King, took his place for the next generation and had a career that lasted until just recently. The guitarist/singer/composer most remembered at the beginning of Rock & Roll is Chuck Berry. That’s a lot of history all at once, but I told you this was a quick answer to the question.
Here is T-Bone Walker from 1966 demonstrating his guitar style, Slow Vocal Blues at 1:44 and Jump Blues at 5:20. Trumpet Players alert: Clark Terry plays a blues solo on his mouthpiece at 3:05. Jump Blues is the meeting place of jazz and rock.
Notice that the blues T-Bone plays is the version I demonstrated in class:
12-Bars long, 3 basic chords (I, IV, V), lyrics grouped in 4-bars chunks (2 bars voice, 2 bars guitar answer)
B. B. King had is first hit in 1950 and continued playing until his death in 2015….yes, a long and respected career. Most guitar players know his name and guitarists like Eric Clapton built a career on B. B. King’s foundation. The song Every Day I Have the Blues has long been a vocal blues standard and has been played by jazz bands, blues groups, and rock groups. The blues doesn’t change, but it can dress in many different costumes.
This B. B. King version of Every Day I Have the Blues is in a jump blues style. Note that the song and solos all follow the 12-blues form.
Bass Players note: pay attention to and learn these walking bass lines. They swing.
Here is a jazz version with the Count Basie Band and Joe Williams.
Bill Haley was the first rocker to score a big enough hit to make the year’s end top ten, but his career did not last long because he was overshadowed by Elvis Presley. Elvis’ hits began in 1955 with Heartbreak Hotel, but before this he recorded country songs in a R&B style on one side and a R&B song on the flip side.
In 1947, Wynonie Harris had a hit on the R&B charts with the blues Shake, Rattle, and Roll.
Elvis Presley recorded Shake, Rattle, and Roll for Sun Records in 1955. Notice that there are no drums……..that’s because Elvis was a country act and there were no drums in country music back then.
The End: A quick tour of the path Blues took to alter America’s popular music.
Here are a few other early rock recordings using the blues form.
Chuck Berry: Johnny B. Goode
Jerry Lee Lewis: Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On
Rolling Stones: Route 66