Silver Bell - Sometimes My Burden...

Subject: Silver Bell - Sometimes My Burden...
From: jazzhistoria
Date: 21 Feb 07 - 03:12 PM

The second theme of Percy Wenrich´s rag "Silver Bell" is often played by traditional jazz bands with the title "Sometimes my burden is (so) hard to bear". Did Wenrich use an existing spiritual / gospel or is it the other way round? As far as I know, there are no recordings of "Sometimes my burden..." before Bunk Johnson 1942.

Ingemar
Gota River Jazzmen
http://listen.to/gotariver

Subject: RE: Silver Bell - Sometimes My Burden...
From: wysiwyg
Date: 21 Feb 07 - 04:02 PM

I'd have to hear it to know if it resembles any spirituals' tunes I know.

You seem to have a better record collection that I do!

~Susan

Subject: RE: Silver Bell - Sometimes My Burden...
From: jazzhistoria
Date: 22 Feb 07 - 06:44 AM

Susan: I will send you files with Silver Bell and Sometimes my burden!

From the sleeve notes of Bunk Johnson´s Jazz Band LP Cadillac SGC/MLP 12-112: "The tunes recorded were a cross-section of old favourites (- - - )a spiritual in jazz time, Sometimes My Burden Is So Hard To Bear". Written by Eugene Williams in 1942. But was it a spiritual???

Ingemar

Subject: RE: Silver Bell - Sometimes My Burden...
From: wysiwyg
Date: 22 Feb 07 - 09:03 AM

Looking forward to hearing it. I hope to hear a tie to other spirituals I know.

But-- the best we can say about most songs that might be spirituals is that they might be spirituals. The whole genre is one of speculation, because of the several conditions in place at the time. And because part of the point of the genre was improvisation, new songs could and did flow out of them at any point in time. (Image of squeezing what we think is an orange and finding a river of colors and flavors that never stops flowing.)

Sorry I can't be more definitive! The more I study them and sing them, the less a "definitive" approach seems possible or healthy! :~) I like the messiness of it! :~)

Attribution problems, about how to indicate whether something is or isn't a spiritual, can be solved by just using something like this line: "Believed to be a spiritual" or "Said to be an old spiritual."

~Susan

Subject: RE: Silver Bell - Sometimes My Burden...
From: wysiwyg
Date: 22 Feb 07 - 06:17 PM

Got the clips.

Separating out the jazz style in which these were done, I hear a chord progression and melody very similar to "Down By the Riverside." Taking just the melody and the pitch intervals, it sounds more like a white spiritual (TO ME), a name applied to songs very different from "Negro Spirituals."

Also separating out the jazz style in which these were done, it also sounds like the text pattern and pitch pattern of some minstrel songs I have heard, which were constructed, in some cases, to mimic what was then known of spirituals but which often had this happy-happy sound.

Now, onto style considerations. The stylistic difference between minstrel music and this jazz stlye is a much shorter road to travel than the road we could imagine if we were to assume it started as a lament in the mouth of a poor, hardworking field slave, and then someone jazzed it up later, and several other bands copied that exact same jazz approach. From spirituals to blues to jazz is a little more likely than straight from spirituals to jazz, so I would wonder if there is a blues tune like this one out there.

Unless someone else knows a spiritual that spawned gospel versions like these great, upbeat jazzy pieces-- or a blues song that links to this-- I would think it is probably not a spiritual. I could be wrong-- there are parts of the South whose music I don't know well including New Orleans. I do not know how New Orleans music may bave intermixed with slave music, or what may have grown there from a base in the spirituals.

It's a fun piece, though! I may take the sung part and slow it down just the tiniest bit for a congregationally-sung church song. I did that once with a minstrel piece known as Gideon's Band, and a little text adjustment to fit better in a church setting. But still quite upbeat and percussive.

~Susan