Tuesday, November 11, 2014

What Did You Miss This Week? (Week 379 #423)

Juke - the Head!!!

What better place to start studying our new Song of the Session, than at the beginning - the head. Juke kicks off with a powerful head that rings of horn lines and horn sections as we discussed last week. (With acknowledgement to Les Brown and Leap Frog.)

Armed with Joe's transcription, we listened to the original for nuances - RickEy is hearing a clear vamp on the 5 blow, for example, that feels like it influences the rhythmic emphasis. Grant pointed out this chorus has a form that is prevalent throughout the tune - one strong form over the first eight bars, followed by a different melody over the last four bars, often played with extremely different dynamics. For extra credit, the "ending" of this first chorus is almost identically repeated on the second chorus which lends solid structure to the song as well.

We also listened to a variety of versions, both released and bootleg, to hear how others interpret the head. Thanks to folks like David Barrett, Dennis Gruenling, Nat Riddles, Charlie McCoy, James Cotton, Junior Wells, Walter Horton and more, we had rich material to check out!

Class Notes
  • Joe returns next Monday! All group classes as well as private lessons proceed as normal.
  • Fun to have Javier visiting us from Spain this week and next too!

Apologies

Staff here at You Missed Monday newsletter central would like to apologize for the double email sends the past two weeks. Our newsletter program changed on the back end and learning the ropes with a new interface seems to be leading to user errors. With any luck it won't happen this week and we'll have this new system figured out.

- Grant Kessler, B1 Blues Crew