Blues The Blues Often misunderstood Can imply a
Blues
The Blues • Often misunderstood • Can imply a mood, emotional state, a chord progression, tonality by embellishing a melodic line • Used in songs that had nothing to do with the blues • Lyric tells the story of lost love, persecution or troubles
Blues • Originated as folk music with solo singers who improvised the melodies and lyrics • Accompanied themselves on guitar an piano • High degree of spontaneity • No consistent length, chord progression or meter. • Rhythm, accent and meter of lyrics determined the beats to the measure and number of measures in the chorus
Blues • Vocal inflections such as bends, shakes, scoops, shouts and varying vibrato speed Important aspect of the blues: emotion Accompaniment could be a drone note or a simple repeating blues melody, from a pentatonic or blues scale
Blues • Many Styles of blues: classic, country urban, etc. . • No agreement on character or form until early 1920 s with blues singers like Mamie Smith, Ma Rainey “Mother of the Blues”, Bessie Smith and Robert Johnson • Collaboration between singers and instrumentalists led to standardization of of the blues form of today
Blues Form • 12 bars and uses three chords I, IV and V • As jazz matured, it became a skeleton for more complex progressions • Minor or major key • Not always down or melancholy • Swing and bebop blues uplifting
Blues Form • Sometimes 16 measures or 8 measures • Sometimes a middle section or bridge will be added (8 bars); extends to 32 bars in ABA form • 12 bar in 3 four measure phrases • 1 st line repeated with the 3 rd as contrast or summary to 1 st 2 lines
Blues from • Each verse follows same form • Lyrics 1 st two measures; last 2 usually instrumental solo or part • Lyric: call; instrumental: response
Robert Johnson (1911 -1938) • King of the Delta blues • Wrote about his own experiences as a sharecropper and farm workers • Work recognized world wide , influencing rock and roll and R&B styles • Performed mostly at juke joints and roadhouse catering to loggers
Robert Johnson • Wasn’t until recording that he became known • Addicted to alcohol, women and gambling • Tried to find the right woman (led to his death by poisoned whisky) • 1 st hit was Terraplane Blues • Scheduled to be opening act for John Hammond’s “From Spirituals to Swing”
Bessie Smith(1894 -1937) Empress of the Blues Usually Performed with the musicians who Were backed her
W. C. Handy (1873 -1958) • • • Father of the Blues Composer, cornet player “Memphis Blues” 1912 (some claim to write in this style before this tune) Son of a preacher who was freed from slavery Blues based on black folk songs, also heard music sung on the streets of St. Louis
W. C. Handy • Minstrel Musician • The minstrel show, or minstrelsy, was an American entertainment consisting of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music, performed by white people in blackface or, especially after the Civil War, black people in blackface. • Minstrel shows lampooned black people in mostly disparaging ways: as ignorant, lazy, buffoonish, superstitious, joyous, and musical.
W. C. Handy • The minstrel show began with brief burlesques and comic entr'actes in the early 1830 s and emerged as a full-fledged form in the next decade. By the turn of the century, the minstrel show enjoyed but a shadow of its former popularity, having been replaced for the most part by vaudeville. It survived as professional entertainment until about 1910
W. C Handy • Handy travel all over playing in minstrels • Travel to Havana Cuba, where he 1 st heard Afro-Latin rhythms that would be a major influence on his compositions
W. C Handy • Wrote “Memphis Blues”, 1912 but it was “St. Louis Blues” in 1914 that earned the title “father of the blues” • St. Louis Blues was recorded in 1915 and became the most recorded song in America • By 1930, best selling song in all mediums of the time
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