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DANCE ST. LOUI S | COL L AG E DA N C E CO L L E C TI V E
JAZZ & BLUES THE MUSIC OF MEMPHIS Collage Dance Collective is very much influenced by the culture and music of their community in Memphis, Tennessee. Memphis is synonymous with names like W. C Handy and Riley B. King who were pioneers of Blues music. The earliest references to blues date back to the 1890s and early 1900s. In 1912, Black bandleader W.C. Handy’s composition “Memphis Blues” was published and was an instant hit. He wrote the
W. C. HANDY PLAYING AT THE FIFTH ANNUAL AMERICAN NEGRO MUSIC FESTIVAL IN ST. LOUIS’S SPORTSMAN’S PARK IN 1944. [State Historical Society of Missouri, Arthur Witman 120mm Photograph Collection (S0732), 732.31462]
original melody of the song that was originally instrumental. It contained both 16-bar melodies that the audience was used to, and innovative 12-bar sections, and mixed regular two-four time with the Afro-Cuban habanera dance rhythm.
transitional flat thirds and sevenths... by which I
As for the melody, it uses “what have since
was attempting to suggest the typical slurs of the
become known as ‘blue notes’,” said Handy, “the
Negro voice”. In 1914, Handy followed up Memphis Blues with his next hit, another 12-bar blues piece with a 16-bar habanera section. The song was called St Louis Blues. It was even more popular and influential than its predecessor and it went on to become a jazz standard played by musicians such as Louis Armstrong, Count Basie and, the queen of 1920s blues, Bessie Smith. While Handy did not invent the blues as a musical style, it had deep roots in AfricanAmerican culture. But the Memphis Blues did start the commercial blues craze. In Handy’s words, the song introduced “the blues form to the general public”, and the American public introduced it to the world. The blues went on to have a major influence on jazz, soul, rock and roll, and heavy metal.
