The Early Blues

There’s a certain excitement about early blues music, as if the composers just wanted to see what effect they could create with a sharped note here or a flat note there. Things we’re used to — the repetitive chords and the twelve-bar phrase — were new; so new that some publishers were resistant to put the blues on paper. They wanted sixteen bar verses. Where were the last four bars?

St. Louis piano/percussion duo Cherry and Jerry will take the stage with stories behind some of the songs and composers that put blues on the map. They’ll perform landmark songs such as “St Louis Blues” and “Crazy Blues” and also look at a few lesser-known tunes, from the ragtime influenced freewheeling songs of the 1910s to the later songs that looked forward to today’s music.