It appears that the tricky part of this song is the doubled melody at the beginning, but for me that hardest part is knowing which hand to look at when I’m playing the boogie line in the left. The hand I’m not looking at is always begging for attention. Floyd insists that I do better watching my left hand boogie while letting my right hand stab at the melody.
That brings up the question, for me, of blind piano players.I’ve always been fascinated by the appeal of the piano, surely the most visual of instruments, for blind players. There are so many – Ray Charles, Marcus Roberts, George Shearing, Art Tatum, Stevie Wonder, to mention a few – a long list that includes many of the best piano players ever. But why the piano, rather than the guitar? Yes, there are blind guitar players, but they’ve never dominated the instrument the way that their colleagues on the piano have done. My current theory is that the large visual field that the piano provides is easily internalized, because it is a series of repeating patterns that allows the blind player to “see” it in his imagination. Also, of course, the piano is so harmonically rich that it provides a sensual playground that no other instrument can offer. See the liner notes on Marcus Roberts’s “Alone with Three Giants,” for instance, in which he talks about there being fifteen different pedaling choices, and his appreciation of the different coloration each register of the piano offers. Anyway, when I’m having trouble keeping my eyes on one hand or the other, I think about the blind genius, Ray, and wonder what he saw when he played this song.
By the way, notice the book on the music stand: Katie Hafner’s wonderful account of Glenn Gould’s quest for the perfect piano, “Three Legged Romance.” It’ll break your heart!
Years ago, my piano teacher at the time, George Oldziey, insisted that I play in a recital. My family would have none of it, so I was a lone adult among twenty or so prodigious children whose fingers moved with blinding speed and confidence through their selections, all of which were more impressive than mine - “Love Walked In,” by George and Ira Gershwin. Finally, it was my turn, and I walked onstage, took in the audience - mostly, parents younger than I - and sat down at the piano. I got through maybe four bars. My fingers had turned into water pistols and were spraying all over the keys. I stopped, apologized, and started again. Three bars. Then I stood up and walked off stage. The single most humiliating moment of my life. Ever since then, Gershwin has held a negative charge for me. But I’m hoping that “Lady Be Good” will help me over the hump. Here, Floyd takes one of Gershwin’s best known songs and improvises on it in a distinctive Count Basie style. The relaxed right hand is a little deceptive, because the left does so much work. But it all goes toward a very beautiful improvisation on a classic in the American songbook.
Floyd Domino demonstrates how to analyze the elements of a song you may never have heard, using Gershwin’s “Lady Be Good” as an example. I’ve always been afraid of Gershwin, because his chords changes are so sophisticated, but Floyd assured me that “Lady” is one of the most approachable of Gershwin’s many tunes. He also insists on spelling out the chord changes the same way that sidemen do in the studio – a kind of code that demystifies almost any popular song. In the case of “Lady,” the code for the verses, for instance, is “Fourteen eleven, fifty-five eleven.” Written in a more conventional chart:
1 4 1 1 5 5 1 1The bridge is forty-four eleven, twenty-two fifty-five. There’s only one trick in here - the four chord is usually raised to a sharp diminished on the second measure, so it’s written out this way: 4 4#o 1 1 2 2 5 5By learning the code, Floyd assures me, you can easily transpose any song to a different key. Here is his lesson on “Lady Be Good.”
My band, WhoDo, played the Manhattan barbecue emporium, Hill Country, in Sept. 2009. I rarely sing in the group, for obvious reasons, but this number flushed me out of the closet. It’s a Huey “Piano” Smith piece.
You can’t build a base of Texas-based blues without dealing with Bob Wills. His music touches so many Texas musicians. Floyd played at one time with a latter-day incarnation of the Texas Playboys, Wills’s legendary band. The music is a fusion of country, jazz, and blues, which is exactly where I fit in, musically. This song, “Texas Blues,” is a Wills classic. Marcia Ball once played it with the Texas Playboys at Knotts Berry Farm, then years later played it with my band, WhoDo, at the Texas Book Festival. Floyd and Johnny Gimble, the “king of the swing fiddle,” who also played in the Playboys, joined us for an unforgettable jam.
This is Floyd explaining where Wills fits in to the musical progression and gives an exemplary rendition of “Texas Blues.”
My two favorite players at a house party trading boogie licks. They finally land on a swinging version of Count Basie’s “One O'Clock Jump.” What a romp!
To introduce another member of my personal piano hall of fame: here is Marcia Ball with her terrific band, doing “Play with Your Poodle.” Her solo approaches a kind of madness, an absolute transport to a place every musician longs to achieve.
Floyd makes the 8 to the bar pattern look easy in his rendition of the Stephen Foster classic. What I’m trying to do is learn to play this pattern evenly. I think Floyd has an unfair advantage: he’s left-handed.
Moon Mullican typically used the pentatonic, rather than the blues scale, in his compositions. Here Floyd shows how to use those scales in improvising over Moon’s “I’ll Sail My Ship Alone.” He also talks about the connections between Moon and Count Basie.