This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

This week we feature a song of the season.

Of all the tunes we do, none is more evocative than “Autumn Leaves,” Joseph Kosma’s post World War II composition that quickly became a jazz standard in America from the 1950s right up to today.

Memorable renditions have been recorded by everyone from Miles Davis and Chet Baker to Erroll Garner and Mel Tormé. 

And while certainly the lyrics are beautiful and touching, as this instrumental track from a recent Flood rehearsal demonstrates, it’s the melody itself that so stunningly captures the magic and the melancholy of autumn.

Listen as Doug Chaffin, Paul Martin and Veezy Coffman find new things to say with this gorgeous classic tune.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

 Here’s a tune that we started doing back in the foggy ruins of time, inspired by the original that was recorded 90 years ago thi

s year by some of our heroes, in this case, the great country blues band, The Mississippi Sheiks. 

Of course, we did have to fool with it to make it our own. We don’t know how Walter Vinson and Lonnie Chatmon would feel about that A-flat that we added to the fifth bar of their lovely E blues, but, hey, that’s just how songs get Floodified. 

Here from last night’s rehearsal is the latest rendition, with double servings of solos by Doug, Sam, Vanessa and the two Pauls. It’s our 2020 take on “Sittin’ on Top of the World.”

 

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

 In this sad, dark year, The Flood has been graced with a bright light in the person of Vanessa Coffman. The 19-year-old saxophonist we call Veezy started sitting in with us back in January, hardly missing a

weekly jam session right up until mid-March, when, of course, the COVID-19 pandemic shut everything down.

It’s only now that we’re starting to get back to something like our regular rehearsals, and Veezy’s right there in the mix making it happen. 

You know, The Flood has always an affinity for songs that are older than we are — which in our case is saying something! — but to make that work, you really got to pay attention, to listen closely to each other so you can find new ideas in all those great old classic lines. 

Well, Vanessa is teaching us that sometimes the wisest ears in the room are the youngest. Here from last night is last tune of the session — “Georgia on My Mind” — and just listen to everybody listening.

 

http://1937flood.com/audio/podcasts/floodcast532.mp3 

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

This week we feature a song from one of our minimalistic COVID jams.

Doug Chaffin is the guy you want by your side if you’re setting out to the have a good time. He’s the perfect example of a good musician.

For instance, if there’s a whole bunch of pickers in the room, Doug knows how to play well with others. He’ll step up to play a memorable solo when it’s his turn, then step back again to share the moment, playing sweet riffs and fills to support and amplify other players’ ideas.

On the other hand, when just a few come together to play — like last night with Danny Gillum and Charlie Bowen — Doug will be your solo-playing machine!

Now, The Flood has been doing this old Sonny Terry-Brownie McGhee song for, well, a hundred years or so, but Doug always takes it on like it’s brand new. In fact, on this track, we come to Doug five times for solos and each time he’s got something different say.

Shoot, Doug had more ideas, but we just ran out of song! Click to hear the tune.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

This week we feature a song that takes on a new meaning in the 21th century.

Eighty years ago, the great Duke Ellington had no idea he was writing the perfect anthem of frustration for our 21st century pandemic world of COVID-19 and loneliness of quarantine. “Don’t Get Around Much Any More”? Hey, brothers and sisters, we can all feel that!

For instance, until this week, we in The Flood hadn’t been all together in one room at one time for nearly six months. But we just couldn’t take the separation any more, and last night our new bass player, the good Paul Callicoat, invited us to come to the big room at his store, Route 60 Music Co. in Barboursville, for a little safe socially distance jam session.

So, with washed hands and masked faces, we came together for a sweet 90 minutes of music. And of course, once there, we had to start with that Duke Ellington classic that has taken on such a new meaning in this strange days. Click to hear the tune.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

This week we feature another tunes from our COVID-19 mandated mini-sized rehearsals.

Any musician will tell you that the “meaning” of a song is much more than merely the words. While the lyrics can tell a story, maybe explain the title and conjure up a few images in your head, the real mood, the richness of the tune is in the melody and the harmonies. It’s the notes with which the players fill the spaces around and between all those words.

Now, we in The Flood are frankly in awe of the infinity that Doug Chaffin and Paul Martin have and how each plays in ways that often beautifully complement the other, echoing and building on each other’s musical ideas throughout a tune.

You can hear that on this track from a mini-rehearsal last month. The vehicle is our rendition of an old folk song we’ve been playing for years, “Come All Ye Fair and Tender Maidens.” If you listen closely to Doug’s fiddle and then Paul — first on mandolin, then on guitar — you’ll hear conversations that have absolutely nothing to do with nouns, verbs and adjectives. Click to hear the tune.

This Week's Freebie from The 1937 Flood

This week we feature a couple of tunes from our birthday boy.

The tribal elder of the Flood clan these days, Doug Chaffin, has been playing music for about 70 years, almost a third of them with us. Since the year 2000, Doug has played a slew of instruments with the band, from upright bass and mandolin to fiddle, but he’s probably most at home with the guitar, the instrument he started playing back in the 1950s with the pickers in his own family.

Nowadays, whether on stage with the whole Flood in front of an audience or just kicking back on his front porch at his homestead in the hills overlooking Ashland, Ky., Doug always rocks us. For instance, this track opens with Doug tearing it up on “East Tennessee Blues.”

Oh, and by the way, Doug celebrated another birthday recently — he turned 79 last week — but he doesn’t seem to be slowing down much. Witness the way the track ends, with Doug roaring through a little bit of “Black Mountain Rag,” with Danny Gillum and Charlie Bowen huffing and puffing beside him just trying to keep up! Click to hear the tune.