How Long, How Long Blues.

May 31, 2007 9:12 AM

What's the relationship between this recording of Leroy Carr I'm listening too, and the solo piano arrangement of "How Long, How Long Blues" that I'm looking at?

I've got this book, titled Jazz, Blues, Boogie, and Swing for Piano, and in it there is a piece called "How Long, How Long Blues" attributed to Carr. Curious to know how he performed it, I went and found a recording of the song. It's really nothing at all like the same thing. Sounds to me like it's got some of the same chord progression, but otherwise completely different. The arrangement in the book isn't credited to anyone else, and the front cover makes a point of mentioning that it uses THE ORIGINAL arrangements in some cases, though it doesn't mention this one.

So where'd it come from? I don't know much about this kind of music. Is this likely to be something that Carr wrote down while writing the song, well before it evolved into what eventually got recorded? Or is it someone else's interpretation that came later?

posted by sfenders to media & arts (5 comments total)

In my experience any song condensed to a solo piano arrangement only vaguely resembles the actual recording--a lot of arranging pieces from larger ensembles into this format is identifying what parts are most distinctive or hold the song together, transcribing those parts, and then throwing out everything else. It has always seemed that the arrangers of most songbooks just want to put together something that can be 1. banged out as a recognizable tune by someone of intermediate talent, or 2. will fit in as background music at a wedding. These arrangements are almost useless for learning about the techniques and style of the original recording.

(Sorry, I'm still bitter about my "Charlie Brown Songbook" from the 8th grade...)

If you can find a transcription of the piece instead of a solo piano arrangement you'll probably be able to learn a lot more--generally these are note-for-note with the original recording and focus only on the part of a single instrument.
posted by Benjy at 10:00 AM on May 31, 2007

a lot of arranging pieces from larger ensembles into this format is identifying what parts are most distinctive or hold the song together, transcribing those parts, and then throwing out everything else.

Sure, I've seen a lot of that with modern rock music for example. This case is nothing like that; the song is not recognizable as being similar to the well-known version unless you really listen carefully, and even then I'm not so sure. If it's a later arrangement like that, whoever did it chose to leave out the most recognizable parts, keep some of the basic structure, and add a new melodic line. Which does still seem possible, but so does the other alternative.
posted by sfenders at 10:10 AM on May 31, 2007

hmm, well that's certainly different. The only things I could thing of is an arranger who decided to get "inventive" or that it's from an alternate version or recording. And sorry if it seemed like I was talking down earlier, I decided to err on the safe side and explain it as if you were a piano newbie.
posted by Benjy at 11:19 AM on May 31, 2007

Sounds to me like it's got some of the same chord progression, but otherwise completely different.

That's just the nature of jazz arranging, I think. Generally there's some effort to keep a recognizable tune, but often pieces get completely transformed when they're played by different people. Keeping the chord structure intact and changing everything else is one way to do it.
posted by ludwig_van at 11:19 AM on May 31, 2007

Yeah, I didn't realize this jazz rearranging stuff went so far.

So actually it turns out to be Count Basie. This was actually mentioned in the index of the book, where I'd neglected to look before now (didn't even realize it had one.) He's apparently among the many who did a song with that name. In the recording of him that I acquired, though it sounds even less like Carr's version, and still not much like the version I have on paper, there are some of the same riffs as in the latter. It must be a transcription of some other performance by Basie without the orchestra, or something like that.
posted by sfenders at 3:04 PM on May 31, 2007