Boogie Stop Shuffle Essay

518 Words2 Pages

Charles Mingus creates an appropriately named jazz bop tune in his song “Boogie Stop Shuffle”. His band is comprised of Willie Dennis on the trombone, John Handy, Shafi Hadi, and Booker Ervin on saxophones, Horace Parlan on the piano, Charles Mingus himself playing the bass, and Dannie Richmond taking on the drums. The song has quite a fast tempo and a very hot feeling is created throughout. Boogie Stop Shuffle gets it’s name from the way the bass transitions from stop time to shuffle and then back again as the song progresses. The boogie part of the name becomes very apparent right at the very beginning. Polyphonic texture is employed heavily by Mingus and his band, and the song begs the listener to engage with it and catch all of the different …show more content…

Of the five minutes, I believe that the most interesting segments are the first solo and the last minute or so; I will be analyzing these particular portions in depth. From the very start, this song is hot and fast. To open, the entire band plays a fast phrase that follows the 12 bar blues scale and this phrase remains central throughout the entirety of the song. The bass and piano hold this phrase while the horns transition into a separate rhythm to compliment it. These two phrases are repeated until the beginning of the first saxophone solo at :56. During this solo the bass transitions to a shuffle line while the piano compliments. The other horns join in with riffs after the first two choruses of the solo. The solo continues for another two choruses with the whole band playing before it is rounded off. The final minute of the song begins with a repeat of the third, fourth, and fifth choruses. In the final 20 seconds, things begin to get very interesting. The horns hold the last note of the chorus as the rhythms comes to a sharp halt. The horns engage in a brief agglomeration of notes that exhibits a strong use of polyphony and could be described as somewhat hectic. The drummer begins to shine with a solo of his own which he continues for the final seconds of the song, before resolving the entire song with a final

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