1. Blues

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. Blues Many Styles of blues: classic, country urban,etc..
No agreement on character or form until early 1920s 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

6. 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

7. 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
1st line repeated with the 3rd as contrast or summary to 1st 2 lines

8. Blues from Each verse follows same form
Lyrics 1st two measures; last 2 usually instrumental solo or part
Lyric: call; instrumental: response

9. 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

10. 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)
1st hit was Terraplane Blues
Scheduled to be opening act for John Hammond’s “From Spirituals to Swing” at Carnegie Hall.

11. Bessie Smith(1894-1937) Empress of the Blues
Usually Performed with the musicians who
Were backed her

12. 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

13. 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.

14. W.C. Handy
The minstrel show began with brief burlesques and comic entr'actes in the early 1830s 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

15. W.C Handy Handy travel all over playing in minstrels
Travel to Havana Cuba, where he 1st heard Afro-Latin rhythms that would be a major influence on his compositions

16. 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