Saint Louis Blues (song)

St. Louis Blues is a classic blues, WC Handy wrote. He was one of the first blues songs, as the pop song was successful. Through interpretations of Sophie Tucker and Bessie Smith Louis Armstrong, Glenn Miller, the Boston Pops Orchestra and has The 12 Cellists to Archie Shepp and Aki Takase, but also repeated use in feature films, the composition has established itself not only as a jazz standard, but is seen as Evergreen due to the high degree of awareness ..

The song

Although the title suggests that this is a play about the city of St. Louis, it actually tells of a refined woman of this city, which has stretched out the friend of the singer. The first line, I hate to see did evenin 'sun go down has high recognition value and has been adopted in many later blues songs.

The genesis of the song is mysterious and not backed up. Handy said in his autobiography that he quite run down once stood in front of a fish-fry in St. Louis when he discovered next to a woman who was probably even worse. She told me that her boyfriend had left her and then sang a line of text (Ma man's got a heart like a rock cast in de sea), a key phrase of the song. About the history of different versions to be told, but in which the meeting and expressed the phrase to be mentioned consistently. This suggests cell phone to at least that the composition could not come from him alone.

The composition

The type of composition is unusual because the lyrics in the normal 12-bar blues pattern ( shuffled ) is played, but also a 16 -bar bridge in the habanera rhythm, also called " Spanish Tingle " or " Straight" called enthält.In the Bridge Blue harmony scheme is abandoned, and the key changes between Variant key and dominant.

By 1914 the tango was great fashion, so was the song a mobile tango introduction, from which he, however, suddenly changed into a Blues to trick the dancers. While many other blues songs are simple and repetitive, contains the " St. Louis Blues " many mutually complementary and contrasting elements, similar to classic ragtime compositions. Handy said he had had the goal in writing of the song to join the ragtime syncopation with a real melody ..

Reception history

The first instrumental hit version comes from the Prince 's Orchestra under the direction of G. Hepburn Wilson. It was recorded on 18 December 1915 published in May 1916 (Columbia # 5772 ) and reached # 4 on the U.S. charts. The first vocal version is by Al Bernard, published in May 1919 and reached number 9 for the time being, the biggest success was the version by Marion Harris granted because their recorded on April 16, 1920 version was after the publication in August 1920 for three weeks at No. 1 in 1921 also took the original Dixieland Jazz Band with Al Bernard singer on the title, thus reaching into the American charts Place 3 the WC Handy Orchestra of the composer recorded the song on until June 4, 1923, later published it in November 1923 at Okeh Records, and was thus the charts at # 11.

Other successful covers of the next few years are from:

Gilda Gray used the published in September 1914 piece in order to introduce the shimmy in the 1920s. The development of the Foxtrot was influenced by the song. The Ethiopians made ​​the song in 1935 even to their war anthem, when the Italians began the Abyssinian War and occupied the country; The song has been played previously at the court of Emperor Haile Selassie.

The title of the song was also the namesake of the American professional ice hockey team, " The St. Louis Blues" from St. Louis, Missouri.

More versions

An important role for the dissemination of the song in Europe has played Alberta Hunter. Not only Louis Armstrong, but many singers have the St. Louis Blues repeatedly added: Sophie Tucker, Lizzie Miles, Mildred Bailey, Maxine Sullivan, Billie Holiday, Lena Horne and Ella Fitzgerald. Many other important jazz bands and performers have recorded the piece over the years, including (in brackets recording date):

  • Edythe Baker ( Universal / Mel -o -dee 3463 ), ( 1919-1925 )
  • Fats Waller (Victor 20357 ), (17 November 1926)
  • Rudy Vallee (Victor 22321 ), (February 19, 1930)
  • Duke Ellington
  • Milton Brown and his Musical Brownies ( Decca 5070 ) (27 January 1935)
  • Earl Hines ( Boogie Woogie on St. Louis Blues, Bluebird B- 10674 ), (February 13, 1940)
  • The Delta Rhythm Boys (Victor 20-2462 ), ( November 1947 ) (also one of their Soundies the early 40s )
  • Metronome All-Stars ( Billy Eckstine & Teddy Wilson, Lester Young, Max Roach, MGM 11573 ) (9 July 1953)
  • Count Basie (1957 )
  • Dave Brubeck (1961 )
  • Jaki Byard (1967 )
  • Jessica Williams ( 1997)
  • January Jankeje, Frantisek Havlicek (2005)
  • David Sanborn (2008)
  • Hugh Laurie on his album Did not It Rain ( 2013)

A total of 132 versions are listed, 15 of which came in the charts. The song is now copyright- free (" public domain " ), after all, cell phone in the mid- 1950s, the U.S. dollar may occupy 25,000 royalties annually.

Use in the film

A first film titled St. Louis Blues, which was produced one year after the advent of sound film in 1929 with Bessy Smith as an actress and singer and the band of James P. Johnson, was never shown in cinemas .. The song was frequently in movies used:

  • Is Everybody Happy? (1929, Ted Lewis and His Orchestra )
  • Baby Face (1933 )
  • Banjo on My Knee (1936 )
  • Mississippi Melody (1938 )
  • St. Louis Blues (1939, with Dorothy Lamour and then Maxine Sullivan )
  • The Birth of the Blues (1941, Ruby Elzy )
  • Is Everybody Happy? (1943, Ted Lewis and His Orchestra )
  • Jam Session (1944, Louis Armstrongl )
  • The Glenn Miller Story (1954, as St. Louis Blues March )
  • The St. Louis Blues ( 1958)
  • The Client (1994, The Preservation Hall Jazz Band )
  • The Thirteenth Floor (1999, Johnny Crawford and His Dance Orchestra )

Trivia

The piece was played at his personal request, among other things, the grand tattoo for the adoption of the Federal President Horst Köhler. However, it was developed by the Glenn Miller adaptation St. Louis Blues March. In addition to the St. Louis Blues include Beale Street blues and Memphis blues, both also from the pen of mobile phone, to the classics of the blues.

The 12 cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic Swing (jazz performance style) Bridge (music) Habanera (music) Tango music Rudy Vallée Ted Lewis (musician) The Client (1994 film)
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