Royal Firewater Musick, 5th Mvt. (P. D. Q. BACH) Performer: New York Pick-Up Ensemble/Professor Schickele A Little Nightmare Music (Vanguard VSD 79448)
Two Blues
After Hours (PARRISH) Performer: Erskine Hawkins & His Orchestra Blues Masters, Volume 1 (Rhino R2 71121)
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[music]
[Schickele snaps his fingers and sings]
Here's the theme.
[theme: Mozart, Symphony No. 24]
Hello there, I'm Peter Schickele, and this is Schickele Mix, a program dedicated to the proposition that all musics are created equal, or as Duke Ellington put it, if it sounds good, it is good. And it is good, believe me, to know that our bills are paid by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, by the National Endowment for the Arts, and by this fine radio station, Where I am given space to do my thing, which thing, having been done, is distributed at large by P.R.I., Public Radio International.
Passacaglia and Chaconne are two terms that crop up in Baroque music, and there's been a lot written about what distinguishes one from the other. They were both originally dances, Spanish I believe, and in the realm of absolute music were associated with continuous variations. But 17th and early 18th century composers were blithely inconsistent in their use of the terms. I've seen articles about Passacaglia and Chaconne by modern authors who actually sound a bit put out, really rather testy, about how sloppy those old guys were when it came to what they called one and what they called the other. But of course those old guys didn't care about consistency. They just used the terms as they understood them.
They didn't go to the library to make sure their use was consistent with everybody else's use. I can just hear some baroque cat saying, Passacaglia, man, either you got it or you don't, you know what I mean? I mean I don't care, 3-4, 4-4, minor, major, 8 bars, 6 bars, if it doesn't tear you up it ain't a Passacaglia, man. Now to be able to look at it from their point of view, think about the blues, musically I mean, what is a blues?
It implies a sad song and yet there are plenty of happy blues. It's used as the name for a 12-bar harmonic pattern, but there are hundreds of blues that don't fit that pattern. The blues can be slow or fast, major or minor, in duple or triple time. You want to talk about consistency, why does triple only have one P in it? Why doesn't it have two like ripple and nipple and cripple? Now I think that most Americans, from the hippest to the squarest, Feel that, musically, the blues means something without feeling any necessity to pin it down.
We're going to talk about the blues today, but first, let me tell you what we're not going to talk about. We're not going to talk about the history of the blues, how they went up the river from New Orleans to Beverly Hills. We're not going to talk about who has a right to sing the blues and who doesn't. In fact, we're not even going to deal with the great blues singers, which, right off the bat, will seem heretical to some. Blues comes from singing. You can't deal with the blues without talking about the singers.
In fact, I guess the credo for a composer working in this area should be, I've got to sing to write the blues. No, we're going to talk about the blues as an influence. But to do that, we'll have to at least touch on a couple of the most common characteristics of the blues. I'm going to swing over to the authentic instrument here.
I've got a new updated model here, okay, let's turn it on, and put the floppy disk in, now, let's see, what do we want, Steinway, Baldwin, Yamaha, Bosendorfer, Kawai, Mason & Hamlin, Hamburg Steinway, Chickering, International Harvester, Mattel, well, let's go with the 9-foot Concert Black & Decker, okay, now, there are just two basic things I want to cover: two very common characteristics of the blues. One is so-called blue notes like the flatted third here's the third one two three major third and then you flat it you got the minor third now the minor scale has a minor third but it's sort of implied this isn't always true but it's sort of implied when you say the flatted third in the blues that the accompaniment has the major third and the melody has that minor third against it, so you get a little bit of salsa there.
And then there's the flatted seventh. That's the regular seventh and here's the flatted seventh.
[music: keyboard demonstration]
I don't know why Tchaikovsky didn't think of that. Anyway, with those two altered notes, you've got a blues scale going.
[music: keyboard demonstration]
Okay, then you add the flatted fifth.
You know, that's one of the main intervals in West Side Story.
[music: keyboard demonstration]
Okay, so that's sort of basic blues scales. Now we've got the blues changes, in other words, the chord pattern. Now as I say, a lot of blues don't follow this, but if you get together with a bunch of musicians and say, what should we do, we do the blues in B flat, everybody's going to be able to play together and be, you know, on the same wavelength. The basic pattern is 12 bars long. You've got three groups of four bars going there. Now the first four bars are the tonic that is based on the main note of the scale.
Then you got two bars of the subdominant based on the fourth note of the scale. And two back on the tonic. And then two on the dominant, fifth note of the scale. And then back to the tonic. So you got 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11,
[music: keyboard demonstration]
11, 12, oh, beat me daddy, eight to the bar. Okay, now there are a lot of variations there, little chords that get put in between, but that's the basic pattern, one of the most common variations is to break up that last 5 chord, the dominant chord into 2, the dominant and going back to the subdominant.
[music: keyboard demonstration]
The little extra notes in there aren't part of the blues pattern, that's due to incompetence, but that's one of the most common variations and there are a whole bunch of other
Those two things are most of what you need to know about the blues, technically wise speaking. That blues chord pattern is so recognizable. Back in the days when I was doing P.D.Q. Bach concerts with orchestras, I used to love rehearsing the last movement of the Royal Firewater music. It starts with a two-bar phrase that could almost come out of one of J.S. Bach's Brandenburg Concertos. And then it moves that phrase around through the blues chord changes. For the first four bars, you don't suspect anything. Even when you go to the subdominant in bars five and six, that's more or less plausible baroque. But by the time it goes back to the tonic in bar seven, some musician, usually a bass player, has started to smile. And when the dominant-subdominant thing happens in bars nine and ten, everybody realizes that the Brandenburg Castle has been invaded by the blues.
[music excerpt: P. D. Q. Bach, "Royal Firewater Musick, 5th Mvt." (A Little Nightmare Music); New York Pick-Up Ensemble/Professor Schickele]
The beginning of the last movement of P. D. Q. Bach's Royal Firewater Music. I mentioned that it was usually a bass player who was the first to smile. Why is that? Well, I think it's because bass players are quite likely to play other kinds of gigs in addition to the symphony orchestra. And if they do play jazz, they've got to be very aware of the chord structure because they're laying it down all the time. Now here's a pair of piano blues, the first straight out of the blues tradition and the second a classical piece, marked in a slow blues tempo.
They both employ the traditional chord pattern, although the opening number uses another common variation, just quickly breaking up the first four bars of tonic by going tonic, subdominant, tonic, tonic, trust me. The second number doesn't always move when you think it's going to, it's very slow and there's no bass and drums keeping the beat audible but if you check it out you'll hear that it's following the changes. Two blues. I'll be back in less than eight minutes
[music: Barber, “Excursions,” Opus 20, “In slow blues tempo” (Samuel Barber: The Complete Music for Solo Piano); Jeffrey Jacob]
Two blues, both of them following the traditional pattern but taking a few liberties here and there after hours was the first with Avery Parrish backed by Erskine Hawkins and his orchestra, and the second of Samuel Barber's Excursions for piano The part of the announcer is being played by Peter Schickele, and the show being announced is Schickele Mix, from PRI, Public Radio International.
Today's show is called, I've Got a Right to be Influenced by the Blues, and I consider that an inalienable right. Here's another pair of pieces. This time, they're both classical. They're both influenced by the blues, but in very different ways.
The first by the feeling of the blues, the second by the form. The first piece doesn't follow the standard chord pattern at all, but it does have some bluesy notes and a sort of a sad feeling. Not very sad, actually, more like wistful. In the second piece, although the chords are considerably altered, the basic 12-bar pattern is followed almost till the end. Even when single line melodic writing takes over, the chords are implied.
I call this suitelet, The Feeling, The Form, and it lasts about five and a half minutes.
[music: Copland, “Four Piano Blues,” 2nd Mvt.; Eric Parkin]
The feeling, the form. The first was the second of Aaron Copland's Four Piano Blues, played by Eric Parkin, followed by the Audubon Quartet playing an excerpt from the String Quartet No. 1, American Dreams, by one of the most prominent composers ever to come out of Fargo, North Dakota, Peter Schickele. That's the last of the four studies that make up the second movement. And it's Tidbit Time here at the old Bar 12 Ranch.
Everybody talks about having the blues. Well, what if I woke up this morning whistling a happy feeling, drinking brand new water, breathing like I'd never breathed? What do you call that?
[music: Woodbury, "The Oranges"; Brian Woodbury & His Popular Music Group]
The Oranges, Brian Woodbury and his popular music group. Very nice cut, great words.
Orange, it doesn't rhyme with anything. I've heard that since I was 11. But that had never stopped me revving up and getting down because I got the oranges. A worthy addition to the lexicon of phrases. So anyway, let's get back to the blues. Who was it I saw on TV saying that hundreds of years from now, when they look back, they'll say that America's three great contributions to the world were the U.S. Constitution, Jazz, and Baseball.
Like jazz in general, the blues had an African mother and a European father. The blues probably takes after her mother more than jazz in general does, but she's quintessentially American. As American as American can be. And I suspect that I'm not the only American who finds this next selection a little, well...weird.
You know, come to think of it, maybe this is what it's like for an Italian to hear grand opera sung in English.
[music: Daniele, "Un uomo in blues" (Un uomo in blues); Pino Daniele]
Pino Daniele singing his song Un uomo in blues, a man with the blues, I assume that means. I bought this CD in Venice and I don't speak much Italian. Pino is a handsome man here with a sort of scraggly beard and long salt and pepper hair flowing down way below his shoulders. The credits on this album are interesting.
You got music and lyrics, musicians, special guests, sound programming, additional keyboards, background vocals, recorded at Logic Studios in Milano, and mixed by Greg Allman, cutting, Abbey Studios, London, and then you got Thanks to Hair by Rossano D'Aios for Olimpio Hairmania Roma. This may be the first album I've seen that has a hair credit.
The credits for this show run like this. I'm Peter Schickele. The program is Schickele Mix from PRI, Public Radio International.
I've got a right to be influenced by the blues. And so does Pino Daniele in Italy. And so does Maurice Ravel in France. The second movement of Ravel's sonata for violin and piano is called blues. The American input is strongly felt, but the piece makes the freest use of blues influences of anything on this show. Well, except, of course, the Brian Woodbury song.
But that's not a blues. That's an oranges. Did the composer of the violin piano sonata we're considering here, did he feel a little defensive about it? He said that, in spite of the movement's American character, it is French music by Ravel. Hey, no problem.
I see no reason to argue with that. If you're looking for a guy with purist attitudes about what's the blues and what isn't, or what's French and what's American, you've got the wrong guy. So, you can let go of my lapels. I'm cool. Man, he may look like an iceberg, but he's got quite a temper on him.
Anyway, it had to happen. The blues in French. I'll see you in ten minutes.
[music: Ravel, Sonata for Violin & Piano, “Blues”; Regis Pasquier, violin/Brigitte Engerer, piano]
[music: Chenier, "Tous les temps en temps"; Steve Riley & the Mamou Playboys]
The middle movement of Ravel's Sonata for Violin and Piano, played by Régis Pasquier and Brigitte Engerer, I hope that pronunciation is close, followed by some Cajun blues by Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys, Tous les temps en temps. Ok, well looks like we've got time for another tidbit here. We've followed the blues from America to Italy and to France and back to America again.
Let's hop across the ocean once again.
[music: Clare/Crombie/Porter, "The Eaton Square Blues (For Musicians Only)"; Peter Sellers]
Peter Sellers and a second voice (recorded): I say, Peony. Oh, hello. Hello. Hopefully good of you people to come tonight. Oh, it's a pleasure.
Especially because I'm feeling terribly low. Oh, really? Yes. I gave this party. I hoped everyone would enjoy themselves. And here am I, the host, and my girlfriend's gone off and left me in another cellar. What a shame. Yes. I feel like singing the blues. Could you play a blues, a 12 bar or however many you think you could play a blues?
Yes, I think so. I think that can be played. No, no, because I do love them. I've followed Dizzy Armstrong and Lord Ellington for years and I know exactly how to sort of sing, so if you could ask the boys Yes Drink sauce and everything I'll just follow them and they just do whatever they want Would you do that? Yes, of course I would.
[theme: Mozart, Symphony No. 24]
Peter Sellers singing the Eaton Square Blues for Musicians Only. Brings Schickele Mix to a close this week. Our program is made possible with funds provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, by the National Endowment for the Arts, and by this radio station and its members. Thank you members. And not only that, our program, if it is deemed to have achieved a minimum level of competence, is distributed by PRI, Public Radio International.
We'll tell you in a moment how you can get an official playlist of all the music on today's program with album numbers and everything. Just refer to the program number. This is program number 98. And this is Peter Schickele saying goodbye and reminding you that it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that certain je ne sais quoi. You're looking good. See you next week.
[theme: Mozart, Symphony No. 24]
If you'd like a copy of that playlist I mentioned, send a stamped, self-addressed envelope to Schickele Mix, that's S-C-H-I-C-K-E-L-E, Schickele Mix, care of Public Radio International, 100 North 6th Street, Suite 900A, Minneapolis, MN 55403.