Clarence Williams’ tunes became jazz standards!
Clarence Williams was an American jazz pianist, composer, promoter, vocalist, theatrical producer, and publisher.
In Clarence Williams’ early career, he worked at the local Vaudeville Theater in New Orleans where he honed his skills as a pianist, arranger, and writer.
Touring and recording with some of the most legendary blues artists of his time, Clarence Williams spent time with W.C Hardy, Bessie Smith, and Louis Armstrong.
As one of the first composers and publishers of music, he released Baby Won’t You Please Come Home in 1919 and Ain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do in 1922.
Both of these tunes are early examples of Blues turning into jazz blues. For the serious songwriter or improviser, this is a genre that simply must be studied in great depth as it is here we find the birth of popular music.
Understanding what scales are used and being to play over changes like these tunes really is the bread and butter of any musician’s arsenal of tricks. Whenever someone has skipped this bit and, for example, gone straight to rock music, it is bleedingly obvious to their peers.
Clarence Willimas’s early jazz blues compositions became some of the first jazz standards and the rest is as they say, history, or in this case, music history.
Clarence Williams tunes | Related pages
Baby Won’t You Please Come Home
| D7 | B7 | Em7 | A7 |
Baby won’t you please come home, ’cause your mama’s all alone.
| D7 | B7 | Em7 | A7 |
I have cried in vain, never no more to call your name.
Baby Won’t You Please Come Home chords.
Clarence Williams on the web
