St Louis Blues

[AllanAllen]

Can someone recommend a nice fingering for : Am7/D D° : D7 %:

I feel like there should be a way to do it with ascending voicings but I can’t find it.

[ragman1]

St Louis Blues? Am? Do? Show us your lead sheet. It's usually in Gm/G and has an A7 on the t/a. Apart from that it's a 3-chord trick.

[pauln]

Can someone recommend a nice fingering for : Am7/D D° : D7 %:

I feel like there should be a way to do it with ascending voicings but I can’t find it.

I think what you have written is:

first measure
A minor seventh with a D on the bottom
followed by
D diminished seventh (full diminished)

next measure
two D sevenths

If I understand, you could try this...

x 5 5 5 5 x Am7/D

x 5 6 4 6 x Ddim7

x 5 7 5 7 x D7

ascending voices G G# A and E F F# (also C B C, so the last two ascend)

so Am7/D to Ddim7 has two ascending and one descending
Ddim7 to D7 has three ascending

[ragman1]

Luvly, but them's not the chords.

[AllanAllen]

The turnaround from minor to major.

I can’t seem to add a picture. I’m using the lead sheet from the 557 songs pdf.

[pauln]

Let's all get on the same page...

You are asking about the 2nd ending at line six... Gm A7 D7 G

[ragman1]

No, he was asking about

: Am7/D D° : D7 % :

[AllanAllen]

https://www.dropbox.com/s/xzjvj7dlbr...20PM.jpeg?dl=0

different changes bar 16 here. 2nd time through the A section.

[ragman1]

Thanks, Allan. So here it is:




I'd like some time to play around with that version!

Off the cuff with very little time (things to do) the obvious thing for the ascending line D-D#-E-F-F# is

Gm 3(5)533x

Eb7 x6564x

Am7/D x5555x

Do x5646x

D7 x5757x

[pauln]

Thanks, Allan. So here it is:

Am7/D x5555x

Do x5646x

D7 x5757x

Hmm... that looks familiar.

[sgosnell]

[AllanAllen]

Thanks everyone

[ragman1]

Hmm... that looks familiar.

Sorry, Paul, I was rushing last night. I hadn't read your post properly, I'm afraid. So great minds, great minds :-)

I just took took the simplest shapes for those chords and realised the treble line was going up chromatically... thankfully. There are probably fancier ways to play the thing and some chord melody person might well enlighten us. Well, me, anyway

Does anyone know who used that arrangement on a recording? The RB charts often have a performer's name on them but not this one, apparently.

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

This is the original sheet music:

[sgosnell]

I don't think that's the original music, which was published in 1914, long before Louis became famous. But it is better than the Real Book versions.

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

I don't think that's the original music, which was published in 1914, long before Louis became famous. But it is better than the Real Book versions.

I happen to have four vocal/piano/uke versions of this song in my collection of original sheet music. If you examine the following three versions carefully you can see that they all use the same engraving:

Saint Louis Blues 2.pdf

Saint Louis Blues 3.pdf

Saint Louis Blues 4.pdf

[ragman1]

I see zero point in this at all. Piano music doesn't translate well for guitar - if one can be bothered to write it all out. It might give a hint as to what fills to use but that rather defeats the object of creating them oneself.

In any case, the chords don't matter. St Louis Blues is exactly that, a simple blues. It can be played as a 3-chord trick or embellished with the usual jazz insertions, it makes no difference.

[AllanAllen]

It’s not a simple blues. It has an A and a B part. The Gm D7 rhumba section comes back through the song.

[sgosnell]

Many of Handy's compositions with "Blues" in the title aren't simply what are usually called blues progressions, although that may be part of the full composition. It's not uncommon to drop the rest of the song and play only the blues progression, however. But this one is usually played in its entirety, IME.

[ragman1]

It’s not a simple blues. It has an A and a B part. The Gm D7 rhumba section comes back through the song.

No, it's simple, honest :-)

The Gm bit is just

Gm - % - D7 - %
D7 - % - Gm - %

Don't tell me that's not simple! All right, the last bar of the repetition goes A7/D7. Is that difficult? Your version complicates it a bit with an Eb7 instead of A7 but that's all. It's fundamentally the same chord.

The next part is just a three-chord trick in G:

G7 - C7 - G7 - %
C7 - % - G7 - %
D7 - C7 - G - D7

The third part is just

G6 - % - % - G7
C7 - % - G7 - E7#9
Am7 - D7 - G - D7

Which is like any other jazz blues.

Of course it can all be complicated but solo-wise it makes no difference, or very little. Depends how it's approached. Bar 6 can include a C#o. And/or you can put in a fancy turnaround, like

G/Bb7 - Am7/Ab7b5

or

G7/E7#9 - A13/D7#9

But you just stick a blues line over it.

None of that is complicated.

[ragman1]

I admit to being confused about one thing, though, and that's the order of things.

Your chart says rhumba, A, B, A, B, but that may be to include all the lyrics, of which there are a few. But I haven't checked out enough instrumental versions to see what they do.

[AllanAllen]

You're confusing "simple song" with "simple blues" a simple blues is a well defined chord progression and St Louis Blues is not just a simple blues progression. It IS a simple song. But if you plow though the 2 chord vamp with a standard 12 bar progression at a jam people are going to look at you.

A blues is one progression the whole way though over and over, there are two parts to this song.

I just like to have things clear, you never know who is going to read this thread in 5 years and think they can play I IV V over St Louis Blues.

[ragman1]

Depends how pedantic you want to be. Each part is simple in itself. There are three of them and one follows the other. Even that's not hard to do. The rhumba is the rhumba, the dominant blues is the dominant blues, and the jazz blues is the jazz blues.

Sorry, but it's not difficult. We're supposed to be jazz guitarists. Playing these easy blues forms is not difficult... except if you haven't practiced it enough. Not exactly Giant Steps, is it!

Just go over it slowly. I'm not trivialising it, I know what I'm saying.

play I IV V over St Louis Blues

I never said that, this is jazz blues.

[AllanAllen]

You are being fast and loose with your terms. It’s a simple tune, but it’s not a basic standard blues.

I can’t understand why you are arguing this.

The blues is a simple form and this is a simple song, but it’s not a simple blues. A simple blues would be one progression over and over, this has two parts.

Like you said before. This is simple stuff and not worth all this discussion.

If you go up to jam and ask someone if they know the song and they say no and you say “it’s a simple blues in G” then start playing a 2 chord vamp in Gminor they’ll be lost.

[Bobby Timmons]

It seems to be 2 8 bar sections in G minor then 2 12 bar blues sections in G major. A full tune arrangement including a 12 bar blues section and an 8 bar blues-y section, called blues, but not a standard 12 bar blues. Nothing difficult to play but somewhat of an elaborate arrangement of a tune.