Gabrielle Bacarella Professor James
History of Jazz Davenport Blues
Meter: 4/4 Introduction (4 bars)
0:00 Band (2 bars) → Cornet Solo (1 bar) → Clarinet Solo (1 bar)
**Solo break at Bar 3**

Verse (16 bars)
0:06 Band (8 bars)

0:18 Band (8 bars)

Chorus 1 (32 bars)
0:31 A Cornet Solo (8 bars)

0:43 B Cornet Solo (8 bars)
**Solo break at Bar 7**

0:55 A Cornet Solo (8 bars)

1:08 C Cornet Solo (8 bars) **Solo breaks at Bars 1 and 3 (stop time)**

Verse (16 bars)
1:21 Band (8 bars)

1:34 Band (8 bars)

Chorus 2 (32 bars)
1:47 A Cornet Solo (2 bars) → Clarinet Solo (2 bars) → Cornet Solo (2 bars) → Clarinet Solo (2 bars)

2:00 B Band (6 bars) → Trombone Solo (2 bars)
**Solo …show more content…

The Chicago style has very similar instrumentation, except its usual switch from banjo to guitar was not made in “Davenport Blues.” Overall, the Chicago style would probably be the best fit for the “Davenport Blues” if one was required to classify the entire piece into one style. The dominance of the cornet, polyphonic theme statements, aggressive rhythms, and sheer amount of improvising simply cannot be ignored, even though there is still a significant amount of New Orleans style found in the piece.
The second section is the 16 bar chorus which is a more distinctive, jaunty melody. The band is playing together for the most part, and when there are solos, they mostly come in the form of short solo breaks and stop-time. Even the first eight bars of Chorus 2, which is all soloing, doesn’t feature one player. Instead, the cornet and clarinet share the spotlight by “trading twos.”
“Davenport Blues” features quite a bit of soloing, and there are certainly a few that stand out. Bix Beiderbecke’s cornet solo during the first chorus is a very memorable one due to its length. After the head, Bix plays the first 32 measures in a solo without a single repeat. The fact that consistently plays the solo for 32 measures keeps his solo engaging and interesting nonetheless. The clarinet interacts during the cornet’s solo by harmonizing with each other. Both instruments play inside for they both don’t stray out of the scale whatsoever.