West End Blues – Louis Armstrong

Authors Avatar

West End Blues –

Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong and his ‘hot five’ would have performed this piece in the late 1920s.  Ko-ko was actually composed by Joe “KING” Oliver, when Louis Armstrong was a member of King Oliver’s band before it split up in 1924.  Joe Oliver, cornetist, bandleader and composer, was one of the earliest influential Blues pioneers. His work was typical of the New Orleans’ style, which had developed from the Black African slave chants of the cotton fields, influencing the “folk” or local popular music of the era and area.  

Join now!

The set up of the ensemble would have been:

Brass – trumpet and trombone

Reed – clarinet

Rhythm – piano, banjo, drums

This piece starts with a solo trumpet (Armstrong) playing six bars of syncopated, rubato arpeggios and broken chords in the key of Eb major using the blue notes of the key which are F# and Db.

The main 12 bar blues starts with a swung rhythm played by the trumpet and clarinet whilst the trombone plays a simple harmony.  The piano provides

the beat to the piece using a steady right hand ...

This is a preview of the whole essay