Fellow Swingology Students We Will All Rise and Join In Our Alma Mater "Swingin' at the Daisy Chain"
What is the actual melody of “Swinging At The Daisy Chain” and does Count Basie’s piano feature near the start of the original January 21, 1937 recording done in the studio for Decca represent that melody?
It seems more likely that Count Basie’s solo is a freely ornamented melody statement rather than a fully adlibbed solo. That means that the piano solo is the melody - and that would mean the final 32 bars of the 36 Count plays, as Basie’s first 4 bars are the second part of a 10 bar introduction.
As support to this evaluation, listen to the live recording of “Swinging At The Daisy Chain” from February 10, 1937. At first listen, this live recording does not seem to support the theory that the piano solo is the melody - the performance’s routines are so different. Specifically, Basie’s 32 bar solo comes very late in the live version. But the piano solos on both versions of “Swingin’ At The Daisy Chain” retain the same anchors: melody, motif, and mood. In both cases, Basie plays freely in his solo chorus but, to reiterate the interpretation, Basie’s bars 5 through 36 on 1/21/1937 and the differently decorated 32 bar solo chorus on the live version of 2/10/1937 are the melody or represent the melody or the melody’s spot for “Swinging At The Daisy Chain”.
I have listened carefully to both versions of “Swingin’ At The Daisy Chain” with its composer, Eddie Durham; Earle Warren, who, while not on the surviving recordings, did play this work with Basie, and, in fact, played the led alto part for Basie to prove he was a good reader when he arrived in Pittsburgh during early April 1937 to join the band; Buck Clayton; Jo Jones; and, many years later, with Fiddler Claude Williams, who is the guitarist on both versions. Claude endorsed the widely held knowledge that Eddie Durham wrote the piece and that Count Basie named it. Their guidance is essential to my observations and whatever quality they hold. That I even conferred with them provides a most remarkable authority to my information.
And their more general instruction on matters Count Basie directs me to also point out that that if Basie’s solos do not infer the melody, then “Swinging At The Daisy Chain”:
1. may have no melody;
2. or that the melody goes unplayed on the two known versions and is, therefore, unknowable;
3. or the melody is the 6 bar orchestral device followed by the rhythm section’s 2 bar reaction that occurs on 1/21/1937 after the chorus split by Buck Clayton’s trumpet (the three ‘A’s) and Herschel Evans’ tenor (bridge) and after Basie’s 32 bar passage on the 2/10/1937 live version.
4. Note that this 6 bar orchestral passage is related to the 6 bars played by the orchestra in the 10 bar introduction: whether THEmelody or not, these 6 bars of music are structural to “Swinging At The Daisy Chain”.
There may be another avenue to proving what is exactly the theme. It would be wise to have somebody check the copyrighted music to “Swinging At The Daisy Chain” down in Washington, D.C. and learn what passage was documented as the melody when this work was registered in 1937.
It would also be wise to note that Eddie Durham had a pattern of revealing the melody late in an arrangement. A classic example would be the original “One O’Clock Jump” recorded on July 7, 1937. Still further, in “Texas Shuffle” recorded by the Count Basie Orchestra on August 22, 1938 from an Eddie Durham arrangement of a Herschel Evans composition there is no melody and no place that could be called the melody’s spot. Was the melody passage deleted to provide more solo time? What is the music to the Herschel Evans melody that is copyrighted under the title “Texas Shuffle”? They are not on the record and unless documented in the copyright, will almost certainly remain unknown.
I should point out that I have examine this approaches to exposition of them in Count Basie music with the just deceased Eddie Bert who visited the Count Basie Orchestra regularly in the summer of 1938 while studying with a trombonist in the band, Bennie Morton. There may be as many as concepts:
1. There is no theme, but there is a place for a melody that doesn’t exist.
2. There is no theme and there is no place in the music that represents a spot for the theme.
3. The theme is masked by being played in a highly decorated and somewhat adlibbed solo.
4. The theme is subtly revealed very late in the performance.
5. Backgrounds behind and between solos, setting moods or fleshing out the feeling are the core to the piece; a concept that replaces the role of the melody as well as the melody, itself.
Given all the above, a genuine realization on playing Swinging At The Chain can be derived from my now long ago listening sessions to the music with no fewer than four of the primaries.
1. Eddie Durham wrote “Swinging At The Daisy Chain” under a different and long forgotten title when he and Count Basie were in Bennie Moten’s Kansas City Orchestra. His arrangement was for 5 brass (3 tp & 2 tb) and three reeds with four piece rhythm (the arrangement used by Basie incorporated a fourth sax). This work was one of the prime illustrations when Eddie Durham confronted Count Basie about his (Eddie Durham’s) music being played by the Count Basie Orchestra under newly created titles and without composer credit to Durham. In 1937, this “discussion” led to Eddie Durham joining Count Basie and becoming the band’s first staff arranger, a ‘de facto’ Music Director.
Eddie Durham explained that “Swinging At The Daisy Chain” thrives on the concept of backgrounds. [There are 7 different backgrounds.] They were to be played at times naked: not with the solo on top; and, also, at times, to disappear and let the solo go for itself with rhythm.
[Neither version contains a real illustration of a background played naked, without a solo on top.]
2. Earle Warren was completely aware of the central concept of backgrounds. He told me about it and he knew that I had learned about it from Durham, himself. Furthermore, Earle Warren, in 1937, complained to Count Basie about the simplicity of the backgrounds, specifically the ones played by the sax section that Warren led. Count Basie cut Earle off, stating that they were supposed to be that way. Earle Warren stated that occasionally in performing “Swinging At The Daisy Chain”, Eddie Durham’s idea of the background played naked was utilized. It set off the solo when the soloist suddenly emerged.
3. Buck Clayton was the first to point out to me that his second solo, the essential part of the ending and so well done in both versions, does not use the bridge, just the ‘A’. Buck also told me that although the announcer on the live version assumed that “Daisy Chain” referenced to the famed sorority launched at Vassar – an all female college until 1970 – it actually immortalizes Count Basie’s favorite whorehouse in Kansas City.
4. Jo Jones confirmed the true meaning of the “Daisy Chain”.
5. Claude Williams: see above.
In conclusion, I will provide a blueprint to the two versions. Neither performance is definitive, but the clues to play it well and with authentic authority are here.
JANUARY 21, 1937
10 bar introduction (6 bars orchestra and 4 bars piano)
Melody – 32 bar AABA stated by Count Basie piano with orchestral punctuation
I. Background #1 with Basie in the three ‘A’s – 2 note stings by brass
II. Background #2 behind Basie on bridge – moaning sax section sustain
Solo Chorus (Buck Clayton’s trumpet for the three ‘A’s and Herschel Evans’ tenor on the bridge)
III. Background #3 – moaning sax section descends a minor third (down half, down whole) on ‘A’s
IV. Background #4 – brass plays a 5 note clave (delay for 5th note) on the bridge
Thematic Music For a Chorus:
1st and 2nd ‘A’: 6 bars orchestra, 2 bar rhythm section response
Bridge: 1 beat band sting, 7 beats Jo Jones drums; 2 beat band sting; 6 beats Count Basie piano; 1 beat band sting, 7 beats Walter Page bass; 2 beat band sting, 6 beats Jo Jones drums
Last ‘A’ is truncated or shares two bars with the next passage {note: merged choruses is a huge Eddie Durham ploy and became copied in KC by people such as Mary Lou Williams} – THE LAST A is the 6 bar orchestral passage responded to by Buck Clayton’s trumpet, Buck’s first two bars conclude the ending chorus’ 6&2 concept, but is really the beginning of a new ‘A’
Ending: 32 bars of four ‘A’s to feel like two ‘16s’ by Buck Clayton on trumpet
V. Background #3 is used again dropping out as the flavor of a tag emerges
Note: fades out on record before the 32nd bar concludes
FEBRUARY 10, 1937
10 bar introduction (6 bars orchestra and 4 bars piano)
First Solo Chorus: Lester Young on tenor saxophone
VI. Background #5 (2nd version’s background #1) on the ‘A’s– Brass: choke/tied sting 3x, then 2 note boo-wah 4x
VII. Background #6 (2nd version’s background #2) on bridge – moaning brass sustained
Second Solo Chorus: Buck Clayton on trumpet
VIII. Background #3 (2nd version’s background #3) on the ‘A’s
IX. Background #2 prime (2nd version’s background #4) on the bridge
Third Solo Chorus: Herschel Evans on tenor sax
X. Background #7 (2nd version’s background #5) on the ‘A’s – brass deploying stems in 2 note stings
XI. Background #4 (2nd version’s background #6) on the bridge
Melody – 32 bar AABA stated by Count Basie piano with orchestral punctuation
XII. Background #1 (2nd version’s background #7) on the ‘A’s
XIII. Background #2 (2nd version’s background #4 prime) on the bridge
Thematic Music For a Chorus: NOTE STINGS ON THE BRIDGE HANDLED DIFFERENTLY TO 1/21/1937
1st and 2nd ‘A’: 6 bars orchestra, 2 bar rhythm section response
Bridge: RHYTHM SECTION DOES ITS OWN STINGS 1 beat sting, 7 beats Jo Jones drums; 2 beat sting; 6 beats Count Basie piano; 1 beat sting, 7 beats Walter Page bass; 2 beat sting, 6 beats Jo Jones drums
Last ‘A’ is again truncated by sharing two bars with the next passage THE LAST A is the 6 bar orchestral passage responded to by Buck Clayton’s trumpet, Buck’s first two bars conclude the ending chorus’ 6&2 concept, but is really the beginning of a new ‘A’
Ending: 48 bars of six ‘A’s to feel like three ‘16s’ by Buck Clayton on trumpet
XIV. First 16 bars: Background #3 (2nd version’s background #3)
XV. Second 16 bars: trumpet solos without the background
XVI. Third 16 bars: 14 bars trumpet clearly establishing extended tag & 2 bars Basie for ending
