“Will there be cold beer?” the guitarist asked.
“Not sure, why?”
“I’ll come if there is.”
What is an evening of twelve-bar blues without beer? It doesn’t go with herbal tea, which is what I have been brewing each Wednesday evening for our ukulele jam session. Last week, I brought chocolate cake for “Easy Beatles.”
Herbal tea makes sense for “Earth Day Jam” next Wednesday. But tonight — it’s cold beer for cool blues.
Back in March, I asked Charlie to lead a jam session for our ukulele group. As one of the founders of the Ukulele Union of Boston (UUoB), he knows what’s interesting to play. He chose the twelve-bar blues. Instinctively I visualised twelve measures of four quarter notes with roman numerals above each measure. The three chords I, IV, and V7 represent the first and fourth major triads and the dominant seventh chord on the fifth note of any major scale.
For most people, however, twelve-bar blue progression is not a theoretical study but a formula to improvise to. The predictability makes it easier to play and follow.
Last summer, my ukulele club in London chose the Blues Brothers theme for costume and music in the annual Hanwell Carnival. I put on my turquoise-framed black sunglasses from Maui, a crisp long-sleeved white shirt, and a borrowed tie, playing on a float decorated with black and white balloons that popped loudly, starting at the old school that Charlie Chaplin had attended, parading slowly through the streets of west London until we arrived at Elthorne Park where the festival took place. We played songs like “Got My Mojo Working” and “Folsom Prison Blues.”
One ukulele player, who attended the first & third Thursday UUoB session in Stewart’s photography studio on Albany Street, played a 12-bar blues song she made up. It was pretty neat, I thought. If we know the formula, surely we can make up our own. Now won’t that be fun?
The common room in the Walter Baker Artist Lofts where our ukulele jam session takes place each Wednesday evening (pictured above) is now free of any exhibit thus a playground for our imagination. What can we do with twelve empty bars?
We will find out tonight when we meet at 7 pm. Chief Noda will bring his electric bass. Cold beer is always welcome!
