Heebie Jeebies

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Heebie Jeebies
Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five
publication April 1926
length 2:52
Genre (s) jazz
Author (s) Boyd Atkins
Label Okeh Records

Heebie Jeebies is a song recorded by Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five in 1926. It was written by Boyd Atkins . The song can be assigned to the genre of jazz .

admission

Louis Armstrong and the Hot Five recorded Heebie Jeebies on February 26, 1926 in Chicago, Illinois, with the following cast:

For the recording of Heebie Jeebies no standing microphones available, instead played the musician in a big bell inside.

Musical structure

The piece consists of an 18-bar chorus and a twelve-bar verse . After the introduction, played by piano and trombone, the first chorus and verses follow as collective improvisation. The clarinet improvises over the second chorus, the third chorus is sung. In the fourth chorus, Armstrong scatters twelve bars and then sings another eight bars. Another chorus follows with a collective improvisation without a cornet. The song ends with an eight-bar coda .

The lyrics describe the dance craze that grabs you when you hear the song.

Publications and cover versions

Heebie Jeebies was first published in April 1926 by the OKeh label as a shellac record with Muskrat Ramble as the B-side . In the following decades the song was also published on LP , CD and MP3 . He can be heard on the box set Hot Fives & Sevens, among others .

For the compilation Satchmo - A Musical Autobiography of Louis Armstrong from 1957, Armstrong Heebie Jeebies recorded again with a different band and a different arrangement .

Ethel Waters covered Heebies Jeebies as early as 1926, followed by The Boswell Sisters in 1930 and The Mills Blue Rhythm Band in 1931 . The following musicians recorded the song in Germany from autumn 1927: Bernard Etté with his dance band, Fred Bird with his Salon Sinfonie Jazz Band, and Marek Weber and Dajos Béla together with Arthur Briggs as the Merton band . The title was also available as a piano roll for electric pianos .

reception

Heebie Jeebies was a huge hit in 1926 - the first by Louis Armstrong and the Hot Five: more than 40,000 records were sold within the first few weeks of its release.

In retrospect, the song, like almost all recordings by Louis Armstrong and the Hot Five or the Hot Seven, is considered one of the most important documents in jazz. In addition, Heebie Jeebies is the song that popularized the singing technique of scat.

The music database Allmusic rates the song as follows: " Heebie Jeebies is a historically extremely important record and also a funny masterpiece."

Trivia

Armstrong himself told the anecdote that while recording the song, he fell off the text sheet and, since he did not know the text by heart, he instead shadowed it. However, this anecdote is commonly considered a legend.

What exactly Heebie Jeebies is supposed to mean is not entirely clear. Possibly it is a quote from a cartoon called Barney Google , in which this phrase was used in the sense of "nervous" or "jerky".

In Chicago, contemporaries often used the title of the song as a winged word in greeting - when one said “I got the Heebies!”, The other replied “I got the Jeebies!”.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Louis Armstrong: The Complete Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings (Liner Notes)
  2. ↑ www.allaboutjazz.com: The Complete Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings (review)
  3. ↑ a b c Gene Henry Anderson The Original Hot Five Recordings of Louis Armstrong p. 61.
  4. ↑ a b Brent Hayes Edwards Epistrophies: Jazz and the Literary Imagination Harvard University Press 2017, p. 27.
  5. ↑ www.discogs.com: Heebie Jeebies (release details )
  6. ↑ Louis Armstrong: Satchmo - A Musical Autobiography of Louis Armstrong (Liner Notes)
  7. ↑ Entry at secondhandsongs.com
  8. ↑ Heebie Jeebies. Foxtrot (A. Attkins, Richard M. Jones) Bernard Etté Jazz Symphonie Orchester, Vox 8503 (Matr. 1895.1 BB), open. 08.27
  9. ↑ Heebie Jeebies. Foxtrot (Atkins and Jones) Fred Bird The Salon Symphony Jazz Band. Homocord 4-2394 (Matr. M 19 394), apply. 08/31/27
  10. ↑ Heebie Jeebies. Foxtrot (Atkins and Jones) Marek Weber and his orchestra. Electrola EG 650 (Matr. Bw 1127-3), also His Master's Voice AM 971. September 14, 1927.
  11. ↑ Heebie Jeebies. Foxtrot (Boyd Atkins & RMJones) Dajos Béla dance orchestra. Odeon O-2239 (Matr. Be 6120). September 17, 1927.
  12. ↑ Heebie Jeebies. Slow Drag (Boyd Atkins & RMJones) Merton Chapel [d. i. Dajos Béla], Beka B.6232-I (Matr. 34 256), renumbering of Odeon-Matr. Be 6120, Arthur Briggs, tp.
  13. ↑ Coinola CX “A” -roll piano roll, to be heard on youtube.com
  14. ↑ www.allmusic.com: Heebie Jeebies (review)
  15. ^ Gary Giddins: Satchmo: The Genius of Louis Armstrong. Da Capo Press, 2000, p. 63.
  16. ^ American Music. Volume 22, Number 2, University of Illinois Press, 2004, p. 335.