June 2026 - C Jam Blues

[M-ster]

We looked at Like Someone in Love in Sep 2014 (!), so our standard for Jun 2026 will be C Jam Blues (Duke Ellington, 1942).

Background:
Jazz Standards Songs and Instrumentals (C Jam Blues)

[GuyBoden]

There's a great video to go with "C Jam Blues"

[ragman1]

Ah yes, C Jam Blues.... I've heard that somewhere, let me think... It's in C, right?

[Strat-itis]

We looked at Like Someone in Love in Sep 2014 (!), so our standard for Jun 2026 will be C Jam Blues (Duke Ellington, 1942).

My car broke down in 2018 so I'm going to have a veggie chicken bacon wrap for dinner tonight.

[Mick-7]

My car broke down in 2018 so I'm going to have a veggie chicken bacon wrap for dinner tonight.

I think the connection is that when you have the C Jam Blues you are Like Someone in Love - or you're at least in the same key.

[GuyBoden]

I enjoy the vocal version called "Duke's Place".

I've have the album a long time.

[ragman1]

An excellent choice

It's not a choice, he has a list!

I did a 5 minute version about ten minutes after I saw the thread but I thought I'd look for a lead sheet just in case. The RB came up with this:


You'll never go wrong using this one!

PS. The Oscar Peterson version is awesome. I couldn't take my ears off it all the way through. But he was a prodigy, of course. A massive natural talent. Nice man, too.

[ragman1]

I did a long one, too long for here, so I speeded it up. Which is when I realised it sounded more like bluegrass than jazz... Sorry!

[Strat-itis]

I agree, needs better changes. Gonna try again.

[Strat-itis]

Thx

[ragman1]

Is it a problem to play a solo in 12 bars of swing blues in the normal way?

We're waiting for you to show us how to do it

[James W]

[ragman1]

Everyone thinks this tune is simple. It's not. Swing isn't Scofield :-)

[Strat-itis]

[ragman1]

You've got something there but the bass is wrong, it's not simple enough. The other instrument in there (and you probably don't need it) is doing something but it's not that kind of tune.

I've got a good ear and your vibes playing is fine, it's the rest of it. I'm being constructive here and I'm not usually, it's usually not worth it, but this has something.

Can you post that again without the vibes it it? Just the backing by itself. Can you do that? Let's have a look at it. There's something odd about it and it's spoiling the overall effect.

[Strat-itis]

I don't understand why you're trying to pose my respectable tune as not only wrong, but beneath your scrutiny. That's really rude. Go work on your own playing.

[Strat-itis]

You play very nice..

Thanks

If you could use the real sound of a double bass in walking bass, it would completely improve the recording.

I agree that all real instrument sounds does sound better. However this isn't always practical for arranging a tune for personal grade presentation to an amateur forum.

I don't appreciate people's response when hearing decent playing being to try to falsely assert superiority or invalidate it. This is extremely rude and I'm not entertaining it, as the playing is not at the level where competence needs to be scrutinized:

Good walking is the basis in this type of swing tunes.

I'm pretty sure I'm aware of the requirements in swing, playing at my level and having been at it for decades. Bass was also my first instrument. I have to use midi now because of a finger injury.

On a good bass backing/walking bass, you can play swinging more freely

It is good walking bass, there's nothing wrong with it. It's just not the real instrument. People on this forum use not ideally real sounding backing tracks all the time, including you. It's not a requirement of posting on the forum to have full production with all acoustically recorded instruments.

and the whole thing will be more coherent.

The recording isn't incoherent. It just explicitly doesn't use pro standard production as it's a personal grade recording for the purpose of posting on an amateur forum.

This kind of sickens me that people's response to decent playing is not only to avoid praising it, but to actively try to falsely invalidate it somehow. If listening to my music causes an adversarial response in you, then just don't reply.

[ragman1]

.If ragman heard the strange bass playing in your recording, I have to admit that he is right.

I know, it hurts, doesn't it :-)

just a joke

[Strat-itis]

I think you're playing the version with the same weird bass - I can't hear any chord changes in it.

That's not my problem that you can't hear the changes. You don't need to make up bs how it's wrong and act like you're my teacher. Here is the bass line. It outlines the changes fine with roots on each downbeat plus chord or scale tones.



C7 / F7 / C7 / G-7 C7
F7 / F#o7 / C7 / E-7b5 A7
D-7 / G7 / E-7b5 A7 / D-7 G7

Every single chord has a root on its down beat plus chord or scale tones in the rest of the measure, with the exception of 2 chromatic notes that I left in for feel.

[ragman1]

Every single chord has a root on its down beat plus chord or scale tones in the rest of the measure, with the exception of 2 chromatic notes that I left in for feel.

You're missing the point. The point is not some technical explanation, the point is how the listener hears it.

You keep saying, more or less, that it's only a clip got together for a forum but actually there's nothing wrong with the recording quality. It's all perfectly audible.

The problem is the content. Your vibe playing is good, both of us have said that. It's the bass line and the other instrument that's the problem.

I've been there a hundred times myself. I do something and think it's wonderful. Then, after I've long forgotten it, I listen to it and cringe. It's partly in the nature of playing music. Professionals have the same issue except they have people round them to keep them focussed. And recordings aren't released immediately, thankfully.

The advice and vids Kris gave you about the bass lines was good. Have another look at it when the dust has settled a bit.

[kris]

I agree, needs better changes. Gonna try again.

Good Luck

[Strat-itis]

Well then you guys need to explain yourselves better. There's the bass line. The notes outline the changes probably more explicitly than your average meandering live feel bassist. I genuinely don't understand what you're talking about. In real vintage recordings you often don't explicitly hear all the changes because of the low volume of the bass's recording, and they change up the notes to have more feel to them, not just arps. I'm pretty sure you guys are making things up. Like a dumbass JGO clip needs this level of scrutiny. YOU CAN'T EVEN HEAR THE ORGAN BASS in James's backing track. That's normal. I don't see you ganging up on him.

[ragman1]

I wanted to say something else too. The word swing can just mean a good beat. When it gets your feet tapping and your fingers clicking it swings.

But Swing is also a genre of music, like Bebop or fusion, or even rock n roll, etc. Most of the Swing tunes are like Take The A Train, It Don't Mean A Thing, and so on. They're AABA form and have major chords, 251's, and so on, as we'd expect.

But C Jam Blues is a blues. It has a blues 12-bar format. That makes it different. Playing swing riffs and lines over the usual standards is much easier than C Jam.

That's why, in my view anyway, this isn't an easy tune. We can just use blues licks on it and, technically, it works. Well, it would. But if you listen to various versions of this tune, and especially that video with Duke Ellington and those players, that's not quite what they're doing. It's as though they're playing, or trying to play, melodic swing lines over a dominant blues.

Not easy, I promise. Just saying, for what it's worth. I can play decent swing but I haven't mastered this one yet, I can tell you.

Easy swing:

[Strat-itis]

I don't have time... sorry.

You're not entitled to pose yourself as my teacher in the first place. I have a teacher, and he's a lot better than you. I'm usually fine with unsolicited advice. This is a new level. Inventing bs that isn't there to invalidate the music. If this is your angle to offering advice then it's not welcome from me and I don't want your input.

[ragman1]

Well then you guys need to explain yourselves better. There's the bass line. The notes outline the changes probably more explicitly than your average meandering live feel bassist. I genuinely don't understand what you're talking about. In real vintage recordings you often don't explicitly hear all the changes because of the low volume of the bass's recording, and they change up the notes to have more feel to them, not just arps. I'm pretty sure you guys are making things up. Like a dumbass JGO clip needs this level of scrutiny. YOU CAN'T EVEN HEAR THE ORGAN BASS in James's backing track. That's normal. I don't see you ganging up on him.

Look at the bass videos.

We weren't ganging up on you. As I said at the start, you have something here, it just needs adjusting, that's all. It's all constructive. I know it's irritating to do it again but when that happens to me I leave it for a while, usually a day or two, and then come back fresh. Works a treat.