[Harp-L] Re: Yet Another Juke Question

[scott <checker758@xxxxxxxxx>]

--- In harp-l-archives@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Bob McGraw" <rmcgraw@xxxx> wrote:
> 
> Was Juke improvised or "arranged?" I've got a LW CD with an alternate take
> of Juke that is very different;this might suggest that the Juke we know was
> improvised,or it could it be that it was more-or-less an arrangement that LW
> had worked out on the bandstand while playing the tune with Muddy's
> group,and the alternate take was the improvisation?[if that makes
> sense]Maybe Scott Dirks would be kind enough to weigh in on this if he's
> still on the list?Otherwise,opinions?
> WVa Bob
> 

 
Happy to comment, for whatever it's worth.
 
When I first heard the alternate take of Juke a few years ago, it sounded so completely different from the issued take that I said to a friend, "Wow - now I really want to hear what transpired between the issued take and this one", thinking that there must have been some sort of gradual evolutionary process as many successive takes of the song morphed from whatever take the alternate was into whatever take the issued version was.
 
While I was researching the Little Walter book, I had the opportunity to listen to some Chess/Checker session tapes, among them the original reel from the "Juke" session, with the all the between-songs chatter and etc.  It was very enlightening.  As it turned out, NOTHING transpired between the two takes.  The entire session is on one 7 inch reel of tape, and the reel begins with the engineer calling out "take 2" (which  suggests to me that "take one" broke down immediately, and since it was the first thing on the reel, they just rewound the tape and started it again at the beginning) at which point the band immediately launches into the take that we're all familiar with.  After it ends, the next thing heard on the tape is Jimmy Rogers saying, "I'll give you that boogie...", and take 3 begins immediately, with the new intro that we now recognize from the alternate take.  But the band falters about :10 seconds into it, and stops.  The tape keeps rolling as they take about :15 or :20
 seconds to discuss how to smoothly get into the next take.  As they're talking, the engineer interupts by calling out "take 4", and the band immediately launches into what we now know as the alternate take.  And that's it, they're done with "Juke" (listed on the session log at the time as "Your Pat Will Play"), and they move on to the next song.  
 
So there were only two complete takes recorded at the session, the first of which was issued at the time, and the second, dramatically different take issued many years later as the alternate.  The entire time they spent on "Juke" was probably less than 6 minutes total.
 
This suggests to me that "Juke" was a completely fluid and improvisational thing that they'd played around with on the bandstand, probably to the extent of "let's do that shuffle in E", but was never even close to being played the same way twice, and that the famous head from the issued take was not even firmly in place as the standard intro to the song.  Of course LW plays that head crisply enough that it seems like he must have played it before, but the same is can be said of the completely different intro on the alternate take, and from the way the band faltered on their first attempt at that, and the discussion about it before take 4, it's clear that they HADN'T played it that way before, even though it sounds perfectly rehearsed when we listen to it now.
 
So the answer to the question, was "Juke" improvised, as my Magic 8-Ball used to say, "All signs point to yes".
 
BTW, I think it's amazing, and worth noting, that the first complete take of the very first song attempted at the very first session Little Walter recorded for Chess ended up being a #1 hit single, and as far as I know, is the only blues harp instrumental ever to become a #1 hit on the Billboard charts.
 
Scott
 
 


		
---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - Helps protect you from nasty viruses.