St. James Infirmary Blues
for Dixieland Band
"Musical works that are highly popular with audiences are called ‘hits’. In jazz music, they have come to be called ‘standards’. These are generally jazz compositions, although they also include adapta-tions of folk tunes. One such reworking is St James Infirmary. [...] Jazz interpretations of this work take their melodic line from the original, whilst the lyrics have altered down the years. There are two basic versions. The first is the tale of a soldier who has lost his health and all his money in a brothel. He turns up in a bar to drown his sorrows in drink and talks about visiting St James Infirmary, where he saw his dying child. That version was sung, for example, by Dave Van Ronk in 1959. Louis Armstrong, meanwhile, in the more popular version of the work, recorded in 1927, left out the bar scene and began his story with the visits to the infirmary. The two variants end the same: with instructions relating to the hero’s burial.
This work has been performed very often at funerals in New Orleans. Contemporary versions can be heard in concerts by Dixieland bands".
Antoni Krupa
- Editor: Adam Brzozowski
- Editor of graphic design: Joanna Rusinek
- Series:
- ISMN 979-0-2740-1857-3
- Language of edition: eng, pol
- Cover: softcover
- No. of edition: 1
- Published: 2017
- Type: score and parts
- Size: N4 vertical (235x305 mm)
