The Blues
The blues as a separate jazz form has been the subject of much research since its
popular acceptance during the early 1900s
o Some say the blues are not related in any way to jazz
o Claim the harmonic structure of the Blues proves that the blues is definitely not
African-American in nature since the early African slaves didn’t have harmony as
one of their working “musical tools”
In the U.S. the blues was always taken for granted by most and hidden by the rest
In the 1940s most “so called-intellectual blacks” were ashamed to admit that they liked
the Blues
o Attitude prevailed until the beginning of the 1960s when young whites adopted
the Blues as the “official” revolutionary music of their time
The acceptance of African-American Blues by young whites in America and eventually in
Europe signaled interest in identifying with the struggles of their oppressed black
brothers and sisters
o Prompted the people in the music industry to take a serious look at what was
then called R&B or Rhythm and Blues
During this period, the Blues again proved capable of bringing together thousands of
people from various cultural backgrounds
The Blues physically brought thousands of young Americans together
o Also gave insight into the African-American lifestyle
There is no official birthdate for the Blues
The Blues is an African-American creation
The closest thing that people can fund resembling the blues in Africa are the Bantu rain
song and the African “signifying” songs, or songs of “ridicule”
o Both of these forms do have strong Blues-like features
o Both use blues tonalities that suggest a strong tie to African-American folk blues
The Delta area – Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and most of the Gulf area
The territories – Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri
The southeastern seaboard – Georgia and Florida
These areas represent the geographical locations most saturated by a particular type of
music
Country blues was born in the rural areas and has no specific geographical boundaries
o Later migrated to the urban areas of the North, underwent a few changes in
character, and became known as urban Blues
During the early development of Blues it was unheard of to find a professional Blues
singer
Anyone could sing the blues
There was no definite form in the Blues during its early stages
o Each person shaped his or her own melody
The idea of a definite form in Blues did not come until much later in its development
during the 1900s Form was introduced in the Blues simply to facilitate the playing of the Blues by more
than one or two people
Historians looked for a connection between British folk music and Blues since both
forms tended to use the drone as base for melodic movement
The bending of certain notes, namely the third, fifth, and seventh degree, gave Blues its
blue, or low-keyed, sound
To flatten a note is to lower the note one half step
To bend or lower the note suggests lowering the note anywhere from one half step to
three or more steps
One of the major problems in interpreting the blues, and other forms of African-
American folk music today, is that we have not developed a system for analyzing the
music, we cannot expect to preserve its originality
A technique often used by the Delta area Blues singers was bottlenecking
o The performed slides his or her hand up and down he strings of the guitar,
producing a slide effect
o This sound was originally produced by placing the broken tips of whiskey bottles
on the fingertips and sliding the fingers along the strings
Another fascinating fact about the structure of Blues, is that Blues singers developed the
habit of singing a musical statement and immediately repeating that statement before
finishing that statement before finishing the idea with a closing statement
Some historians believe that the blues performer repeated the first line of the Blues for
two reasons
o He or she wanted to be sure that the message reached the audience
o The performer was improvising the lyrics and the repetition gave him or her time
to think of the next phrase
Jazz is Blues and Blues is jazz
o One cannot exist without the other
Urban Blues:
Urban Blues with all of its “modernization” was still country Blues
The major difference between urban Blues and country Blues was the lyrics
Country Blues tended to be about working habits, love affairs, and general problems of
the country
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