Th e early Henderson band was dramatically eff ective in person: “We used to rock the walls,” remembered Coleman Hawkins. But it was notoriously im-perfect in the studio. Some of the best-known records from the early 1930s sounded, according to Hawkins, “like cats and dogs fi ghting.” By 1936, the band had perfected its public presentation, and is in particularly splendid form on “Blue Lou.”
Th e piece was composed by Edgar Sampson, a saxophonist and arranger with the Chick Webb band who also wrote for Henderson and later for Benny Goodman (among his tunes are “Stompin’ at the Savoy” and “Don’t Be Th at Way”). It was arranged in the Henderson style by Fletcher’s brother Horace, who oriented it toward the band’s chief soloists: the brilliant trumpeter Roy Eldridge and one of Coleman Hawkins’s most gifted followers on tenor saxo-phone, Chu Berry (see Chapter 9).
Like many swing tunes, “Blue Lou” is built around a simple idea. Th e tune is in major, but the opening riff —a descending two-note fi gure—introduces a fl atted scale degree from the minor mode. Th at peculiarity gives the piece its tension, and gives musically astute soloists an idea to use in their harmonic improvisation. Listen, for example, to the opening of Chu Berry’s solo, which mimics the opening riff , and to the last eight bars of Roy Eldridge’s solo, where the dissonant fl atted note is blasted at the top of his range.
Although “Blue Lou” begins with a relaxed two-beat feeling, the four-four dance groove gradually takes over. Th e fi rst chorus introduces the original tune (note how the tune is expanded in the second A section into an elabo-rate soli), while the fourth (and last) chorus deforms it through ecstatic starts and stops. But the piece doesn’t end there: with half a minute to go, there is a sudden modulation to the unusual key of A major (notoriously diffi cult for brass instruments). Th e new sixteen-bar section doesn’t last long, but its pres-ence suggests that this arrangement may have been fl exible. Perhaps the drum stroke that precedes the modulation was a cue to follow if the band wanted to keep dancers on the fl oor. Eldridge’s solo at the end sounds as though it could have gone on forever.
fl atted scale degree note played a half step lower
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176 ■ CHAPTER 7 SWING BANDS
LISTENING GUIDE
blue lou
FLETCHER HENDERSON AND HIS ORCHESTRA Dick Vance, Joe Thomas, Roy Eldridge, trumpets;
Fernando Arbello, Ed Cuffee, trombones; Buster Bai-ley, Scoops Carey, alto saxophones; Elmer Williams, Chu Berry, tenor saxophones; Horace Henderson, piano; Bob Lessey, guitar; John Kirby, bass; Sidney Catlett, drums
■ Label: Vocalion/OKeh 3211; Fletcher Henderson:
1924–1936 (Giants of Jazz 634479088476)
■ Date: 1936
■ Style: big-band swing
■ Form: 32-bar popular song (A A B A)
What to listen for:
■ two-note riff at beginning, echoed in trumpet (chorus 2) and tenor saxophone (chorus 3) solos
■ soli by saxophones in chorus 1 and by trum-pets in chorus 4
■ modulation to new key and new 16-bar tune at chorus 5
CHORUS 1
0:00 A The tune begins immediately with the saxophones playing a simple yet dissonant two-note riff, colored with a note borrowed from the minor mode.
0:01 The saxophone section is immediately answered by the brass, with short chords.
0:05 The saxophones continue with a soli—a simple syncopated melody.
0:09 A The chord progression is repeated, but the saxophones now play a complicated soli in the style of an improvisation.
0:19 B On the bridge, the tune modulates to a new key. The saxophone section plays an-other simple riff, answered by brief chords from the brass.
0:29 A Return of the opening two-note riff.
CHORUS 2
0:38 A Eldridge takes a dominating trumpet solo, jumping quickly from his lower to his highest register. Behind him, the saxophone section plays jumpy background riffs or sustained chords.
0:48 A
0:57 B On muted trombone, Cuffee plays a melodic paraphrase of chorus 1’s bridge.
1:06 A Searching for a dramatic reentry, Eldridge begins in his highest register, playing the fi rst few dissonant notes slightly out of tune.
CHORUS 3
1:16 A Berry, on tenor saxophone, begins his solo with the opening two-note riff. Under-neath him, the brass section swells in volume on background harmonies.
1:25 A
1:35 B As Berry increases in intensity, the bass fi nally begins playing a walking-bass line.
1:44 A CHORUS 4
1:53 A The brass section plays a simpler soli, with short staccato notes, opening up a lot of space.
2:03 A
2:12 B Berry returns to take an eight-bar solo, accompanied only by the rhythm section.
2:22 A As if interrupting, the trumpets reenter on a new variation (of the original two-note riff).
2.1
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BENNY GOODMAN ■ 177
BREAKTHROUGH
In the early 1930s, the music industry resembled the nation by being fi rmly divided by race. In economic terms, segregation clearly worked to the advan-tage of white musicians. In the South, where Jim Crow rules still required black people to use “colored” water fountains and duck off the sidewalk to make room for whites, black musicians walked a tightrope, working their gigs at night while hoping not to draw attention from drunk, racist mobs or surly law enforcement offi cials. In the North, the rules were more relaxed, but the best jobs—major hotel ballrooms, radio shows—were restricted to whites on the grounds that Southern customers might be off ended by the sight or sound of a black band.
For a time, black musicians, who had never challenged the stereotype that insisted their music was naturally “hot,” kept jazz as their racial specialty. To survive in the world of dance music, black bands had in fact to be versatile:
capable of performing all kinds of dance styles, including the waltz and the mambo as well as swing. Th e best bands played both sides of the fence. A small but signifi cant number of bandleaders, including Duke Ellington, pursued their careers even as the Depression discouraged most of their colleagues.
But white musicians were keenly interested in jazz. We have already en-countered Chicago’s Austin High Gang (Chapter 6). In the 1920s, future swing bandleaders Artie Shaw, Glenn Miller, and Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey increasingly gravitated toward jazz, mastering it and even adding their own innovations. Some were hired by Paul Whiteman to play hot solos, while still others made small-group jazz with bands like Red Nichols and His Five Pennies. Most found jobs playing demanding if uninspiring arrangements in white dance bands and radio orchestras while dreaming of the chance to play some “real” jazz late at night in a jam session. All that changed with the surprising breakthrough of the orchestra led by Benny Goodman.
■ BENNY GOODMAN (1909–1986)
Goodman grew up in the slums of Chicago, where his father, a recent immi-grant from Warsaw, worked in the stockyards. Th e boy showed a prodigious talent on the clarinet, which gave him a way out of menial labor. He was ac-cepted into the band at the Hull House, a settlement house founded by Jane Addams to provide educational and cultural opportunities to the city’s poor, and acquired a solid training from Franz Schoepp, the clarinetist from the
CHORUS 5 (NEW TUNE: 16-bar A A)
2:31 A Signaled by a drum shot, the tune suddenly modulates to a new key, A major, offering a new melody over a new harmonic progression. The bass returns to a (mostly) two-beat feel.
2:41 A CODA
2:50 The band repeats a short, four-measure harmonic fi gure.
2:54 As the fi gure is taken up by the saxophones, Eldridge takes a muted solo.
3:03 Eldridge’s solo is cut short by a brief cadence fi gure, ending the piece.
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178 ■ CHAPTER 7 SWING BANDS
Chicago Symphony. At the same time, he heard the jazz that was buzzing around him and modeled his improvisation on its clarinetists, both white (Leon Rappolo) and black ( Jimmie Noone). By the 1920s, he was a bluesy and elegant soloist, distinguishing himself in white bands that had an inclina-tion toward jazz, like Ben Pollack’s.
Goodman’s tastes led him to create a band that would bridge the gap be-tween the jazz he loved and the realities of commercialism. Taking advice from vocalist Mildred Bailey, who advised him to “get a Harlem book” of arrangements, he hired some of the best underemployed black arrangers he could fi nd: Benny Carter, Edgar Sampson, and Fletcher Henderson, who was struggling to hold his own band together and eager for extra cash.
In 1935, Goodman’s band was featured as the “hot” orchestra on a national radio program, “Let’s Dance!” and went on a national tour. Th eir reception in places like Salt Lake City and Denver was so discouraging that Goodman felt ready to quit. But in August, at the Palomar ballroom in Los Angeles, where the late-night broadcasts had been inadvertently positioned in prime time for California listeners, everything changed: Goodman’s swing repertory suddenly found its audience. Th rough their vigorous, almost violent enthusi-asm for this new Harlem-based sound, white teenagers awakened the music industry and launched the swing revolution.
Goodman’s success electrifi ed the country. White fans celebrated him as a hero, much as they would Elvis Presley two decades later. Th e more extreme enthusiasts, known as “jitterbugs,” adopted black dancing and “jive” slang, driving their parents and even musicians over the edge. In theaters, fans eager to see Goodman clogged traffi c in lines that stretched for blocks; inside, they danced in the aisles. It was enough to make some people feel that the bounds of civilization had begun to part.
But in the end, America accepted his music gracefully. Goodman’s band blended his swing rhythms with up-to-date arrangements of current pop
“Let’s Dance!”
The quartet led by Benny Goodman brought racial integration to the public and invaluable opportunities to its members. Within a few years, each musician—pianist Teddy Wilson, vibraphonist Lionel Hampton, and drummer Gene Krupa—had become a band-leader. New York’s Paramount Theater, 1937.
FRANK DRIGGS COLLECTION
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