{"id":2698,"date":"2025-07-26T12:39:24","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T16:39:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/?p=2698"},"modified":"2025-09-14T00:56:29","modified_gmt":"2025-09-14T04:56:29","slug":"quotation-and-creation-w-c-handys-memphis-blues-as-a-repository-and-source-of-musical-quotes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/2025\/07\/26\/quotation-and-creation-w-c-handys-memphis-blues-as-a-repository-and-source-of-musical-quotes\/","title":{"rendered":"Quotation and creation: W.C. Handy’s ‘Memphis Blues’ as a repository and source of musical quotes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Published in 1912, W.C. Handy\u2019s \u2018Memphis Blues\u2019 was, according to its composer<\/a>, \u2018the first of all the many published ‘blues’ and it set a new fashion in American popular music and contributed to the rise of jazz, or, if you prefer, swing, and even boogie-woogie.\u2019\u00a0 (Memphis Blues was published two years before Handy\u2019s better known Saint Louis Blues.) \u00a0The opening strain of Memphis Blues exemplifies the connection between ragtime and early jazz, as Handy consciously or subconsciously incorporates two quotes from Scott Joplin\u2019s\u00a0 The Entertainer<\/em>.\u00a0 The sheet music for The Entertainer,<\/em> published ten years before Memphis Blues<\/em>, is said<\/a> to have sold over a million copies in Joplin’s lifetime, so it is likely it would have been known to Handy, who was an active and well-traveled performer by the time The Entertainer <\/em>was published and starting to be widely played.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the six-note phrase at the beginning of the intro to Memphis Blues (C4-D-Eb-E-C5-Bb), the middle four notes (D4-Eb-E-C5) are not only the same melodic pattern as the first four notes of The Entertainer<\/em>, they are the exact same pitches with which Joplin\u2019s piece opens.   The six note phrase that starts with the last three notes in measure four of Memphis Blues, which also begins its first twelve-bar strain, features the melodic pattern that opens the second strain of Scott Joplin\u2019s The Entertainer <\/em>(E-F-F#-G-A-G) transposed it up a fourth (A-Ab-B-C-D-C). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are also examples which suggest that jazz composers from the bebop movement used melodic material from The Entertainer <\/em>for tunes recorded in the 1950s. In Sonny Rollins\u2019 composition \u2018Doxy\u2019, in which the five note phrase that opens the 3rd<\/sup> and 7th<\/sup> measures closely resembles the opening five notes in m. 7 of the Entertainer.\u00a0 The chord progression of Doxy is also the same length and harmonically similar to the first strain of The Entertainer. \u00a0The opening of Thelonious Monk\u2019s Blue Monk can also be heard as a variation on Handy’s second Joplin quote.\u00a0 Monk takes the four-note chromatic ascent from the third to the fifth of a major chord, that Handy and Joplin place on an upbeat (the second sixteenth note of beat two in a measure of 2\/4 time) and moves it to the downbeat of the first bar of the blues form.\u00a0 In typical Monk fashion, this four note motive is one of only two short melodic \u2018cells\u2019 around which the entire tune is built.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Memphis Blues also appears to have influenced the melodies of a number of popular songs from its own era. Starting on beat one of the ninth measure in the second strain of \u2018Memphis Blues\u2019, Handy sequences four groups of three sixteenth notes each against the four quarter note pulses of 2\/4 time signature.\u00a0 This pattern is echoed in Euday Bowman\u2019s Twelfth Street Rag, published two years after Memphis Blues in 1914. While Handy in Memphis Blues has a pattern of scale steps 1-2-3 ascending four times in a row, Bowman\u2019s opening phrase in Twelfth Street Rag is an inversion of that shape, with scale steps 1-7-6 descending five times in a row.\u00a0 In Memphis Blues, a varation of the threes-against-four pattern appears in m. 7-8 and 19-20 of the third strain, with the groups of three sixteenths beginning on the \u2018and\u2019 or upbeat of beat one this time.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The popular song Peg O\u2019My Heart, published the year after Memphis Blues in 1913, features a four-note melodic gesture in its eighth measure that can be heard as a variant on the five-note phrase beginning on the last two notes of m. 4 in the third strain of Handy\u2019s composition.  This gesture also appears in Jelly Roll Morton\u2019s New Orleans Blues, recorded in 1923, Louis Armstrong\u2019s trumpet solo on Hotter Than That, recorded in 1927, and Terry Pollard\u2019s solo on Yusef Lateef\u2019s Oboe Blues, recorded in 1959. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the closing strain of Memphis Blues, the six-note phrase starting on the last two notes of the second measure matches the six notes that follow the three opening notes in the first section of Louis Armstrong\u2019s version of Joe \u2018King\u2019 Oliver\u2019s West End Blues, first recorded in 1928.\u00a0 In his version of Memphis Blues, Armstrong heightens this similarity by changing the pickup notes to the last strain so that they too match the opening of West End Blues.\u00a0 West End Blues seems in turn to have inspired the opening of \u2018Stormy Weather\u2019, published in 1933 by Harold Arlen, a friend and admirer of Armstrong\u2019s.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although Handy’s original published versions of Memphis Blues were for solo piano and piano and voice, it had a far-reaching effect on multiple generations of jazz arrangers. The 1919 recording of Memphis Blues by James Reese Europe’s 369th<\/sup> Infantry Band<\/a> follows Handy\u2019s published sheet music fairly closely.\u00a0 The improvised breaks Reese\u2019s band members add during the last 24-bar section of the piece are a precursor of the tailor-made features Duke Ellington would create for band members including Cootie Williams, Johnny Hodges and Lawrence Brown.\u00a0 In 1946, the Ellington Orchestra recorded \u00a0a version of Memphis Blues arranged by Ellington and Billy Strayhorn<\/a> which, true to form, is a showcase for a number of Ellington\u2019s soloists, including Hodges.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ellington and Strayhorn\u2019s arrangement of Memphis Blues is based on the 1912 sheet music version with lyrics by George Evans that omits the Joplin-influenced opening strain from the instrumental piano version published in 1912.  It is a fine example of Ellington and Strayhorn\u2019s gift for creating arrangements that allowed the soloists in the group to be featured in quick succession, each one playing to their strengths.  It begins by moving backwards through the two sections of the 1913 score.  It opens with the first eight measures of last strain of Memphis Blues reimagined as a dialogue between Hodges\u2019 alto saxophone and Ellington\u2019s piano,  followed by the entire opening strain from the 1913 Memphis Blues as a feature for the trombone section.  The interlude between the second and third strains becomes a featured moment for the trumpet section.  The last strain is then revisited as a feature for a trumpet soloist (most likely Cat Anderson or Ray Nance).  This time the solo continues all the way through the twelve bar blues form with harmony updated to include Ellington and Strayhorn\u2019s signature voicings.  This halfway-through rendition of the last strain is followed by a new interlude created by Ellington and\/or Strayhorn redolent of the high harmonic sophistication of the late swing era.  The interlude sets up a key change to Ab major, the harmonic location in which the last strain is visited a third time, this time as a clarinet solo (played by either Jimmy Hamilton or Russell Procope) with punchy trombone backgrounds.  The arrangement concludes with two Ellington\/Strayhorn signatures: a harmonically adventurous trombone cadence followed by a concluding chime in the high range of Ellington\u2019s piano. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his 1954 version of Memphis Blues<\/a>, Louis Armstrong sings a version of George Evans\u2019s lyrics to the song that removes Evans\u2019s use of racist terms.  Nat King Cole, whose version<\/a> stays melodically closer to the tune as published, makes a similar revision. Memphis Blues has recently appeared on Jason Moran\u2019s 2023 album From The Dancehall To The Battlefield<\/a>, a modern tribute to James Reese Europe. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Published in 1912, W.C. Handy\u2019s \u2018Memphis Blues\u2019 was, according to its composer, \u2018the first of all the many published ‘blues’ and it set a new fashion in American popular music and contributed to the rise of jazz, or, if you … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":865,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/865"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2698"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2716,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2698\/revisions\/2716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}