Episode 3: Anatomy of a Tune – The Blues

Another common form used by jazz musicians is the 12-bar blues. Here, there are just three 4-bar phrases following an AAB structure. Twelve-bar blues shouldn’t be confused with a “bluesy” feel or mood. You can have that in any song. But the structure of the classic blues song has worked its way into the jazz lexicon.

Some point to W.C. Handy’s St. Louis Blues as the first “jazz” treatment of the blues, but the blues, of course, goes back to the earliest days of American music. The blues tradition might be thought of as distinct from jazz—a separate stream. But it parallels the jazz terrain, and the two often crossover.

Here’s an example of a traditional blues song played by one of the great bluesmen, Muddy Waters’ “Got My Mojo Working”:

In a traditional blues song, you can usually hear the song structure in the lyrics:
I got my mojo working, but it just don’t work on you.
I got my mojo working, but it just don’t work on you.
I want to love you so bad, darlin’, I don’t know what to do.

 The first line is the “A” section, and that line and melody is repeated once more before the chorus winds up with the “B” section. Each of these sections are four bars (usually with four beats to a bar)—hence the name: 12-bar blues.

As with a jazz song, the players play through the tune several times. Here, the foundation of the music is the drums, piano, bass and rhythm guitar (Waters often plays lead guitar, but here he only sings). We hear a couple of choruses, with Sonny Boy Williamson playing tasty “fills” on harmonica between the vocal lines (to 1:11). There’s a call and answer chorus (1:11-1:35) before Williamson steps in to play a solo for two choruses (1:35-1:59). Then Waters sings two more vocal choruses (1:59-2:42) and the song closes with two call-and-response choruses that end with common blues finale—playing the last couple of measures in a slow, dramatic flourish (2:42-3:35).

Jazz singers can sing traditional blues as well. Here’s Ella Fitzgerald performing “Any Old Blues” in 1960. It’s a great example of how a great jazz singer like Fitzgerald can make a song her own.

She starts with a few choruses that fit the traditional blues mold (0:07-0:47)—it’s credited as written by Fitzgerald. Then it shifts to a tribute to Joe Williams (0:47-0:59), the great blues singer who worked with the Count Basie Orchestra from 1954-61. After mentioning him by name, she starts to stretch out, improvising lyrics as the song drives forward. First it’s a string of “Well-oh-well-oh-well” that gets more complex and spirited as the music goes on (0:59-1:31). Then she continues to improvise by “scat singing," using non-verbal syllables to create a melody just as a saxophonist or trumpeter would if he or she were to play a solo (1:31-2:00). She mentions Joe Williams by name again, and ends with the simple sung statement, “We’ve sung the blues for you people; we’re finished.” (2:00-2:22). It’s a tour de force through several jazz styles, all compressed into the space of a short, pop song.

With those two examples in your ears, let’s talk about what makes the blues, “the blues.” As I said before, any music can have a “bluesy” feeling, but when a musician calls out “blues in b-flat” from the bandstand, the players know it refers to a very specific musical structure.

The 32-bar song form (AABA) refers to the basic structure of the song. The harmonies of an “A section” is repeated three times with a “B section” tucked in the middle. In that form, the harmonies and the melodies more or less follow that structure. The lyrics—if there are any—vary, but they follow the general shape of the melody. Think of Paul McCartney’s “Yesterday.” The melody of the first line, (“Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away. Now it looks as…”) is the same as the melody of the next line (“Suddenly, I’m not half the man I used to be. There’s a shadow…”).

As you heard in Muddy Waters’ “Mojo,” the AAB structure refers to the lyrics as well as the melody. Any blues chorus has two repeated lines followed by a different final line. But the harmonies behind those lines are slightly different.

Here’s a “chart” of the basic harmonies of a blues song. Instead of letter chords to indicate harmonies, it uses roman numerals so that it can be used in any key signature. So if you were playing a blues in the key of C, the “I” chord would be “C major,” (“C” is the first note on the “C” scale) the “IV” chord would be “F major”(“F” is the fourth note on that scale) and the “V” chord would be “G Major” (“G” is the fifth note).

Although the melody is basically the same in the two “A” sections, the harmony underneath it is slightly different the second time. So while the 32-bar song form (AABA) is about the basic structure of a song. The “blues” form refers to a specific progression of harmonies over 12 bars, and to the pattern of the melody and lyrics.

Any musician playing today—whether they play rock, soul, folk, jazz, funk or country—knows this form. It is the foundation of many a “jam session,” when musicians get together to play without rehearsing an elaborate arrangement or unfamiliar song. As with a lot of jazz “standards,” the idea is to have a common structure that all the musicians know so they can take turns soloing over the chord changes.

Jazz songs using the 12-bar blues form can have very basic melodies that repeat just like a traditional sung blues.

Duke Ellington’s band played one of the simplest blues songs, “C-Jam Blues,” with a melody that consisted of only two notes.

But some jazz musicians opt to go beyond a simple tune. Bebop pioneers like Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie loved complex, sinuous melodies, so they wrote songs using blues changes that skittered around the scales with irregular rhythms and knotty riffs. Here’s Charlie Parker playing “Cheryl” with his quintet in 1949. (Miles Davis, trumpet; Bud Powell, piano; Tommy Potter, bass; Max Roach, drums.)

Go to the Spotify playlist for this episode, and you’ll here jazz tunes using the 12-bar blues form which span the history of the music. Try to listen to the harmonies and the 12-bar format (you can count the measures) and develop a knack for recognizing the blues form.

After you’ve listened to some blues, continue on to the next module, “The Solo,” and explore the idea of improvisation, the defining characteristic of jazz music.