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Stomping the Blues
This study of the blues by one of America’s premier essayists and novelists will change old attitudes about a tradition that continues to feed the very heart of popular musica blues that dances, shakes, shimmies, and exchanges bad news for stomping, rollicking, pulse-quickening good times.
264 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1976
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July 8, 2024
“Stomping the blues” may sound loud – but as Albert Murray explains in his 1976 book Stomping the Blues, it has nothing to do with volume, and everything to do with the right way of delivering jazz and blues music in a way that expresses the artist’s sensibility and gives joy to the audience.
The Alabama-born Murray, who studied alongside Ralph Ellison at Tuskegee Institute, wrote novels, essays, biography, literary criticism – and music criticism, as with Stomping the Blues. In discussing blues and jazz music, Murray suggests that “what is ultimately at stake is morale, which is to say the will to persevere, the disposition to persist and perhaps prevail; and what must be avoided by all means is a failure of nerve.” He sees the genre as an “artful and sometimes seemingly magical combination of idiomatic incantation and percussion that creates the dance-oriented good-time music also known as the blues.”
One of the misperceptions that Murray is interested in correcting is the idea that “the blues” has to mean sadness, hopelessness, depression. He acknowledges that “a number of blues lyrics express an urgent and unmistakable concern with defeat, disappointment, betrayal, misfortune, not excluding death”, reflecting how “life is at bottom, for all the very best of good times, a never-ending struggle.” But he wants the reader to be aware that “the irrepressible joyousness, the downright exhilaration, the rapturous delight in sheer physical existence, like the elegant jocularity and hearty nonsense that are no less characteristic of blues music, are unsurpassed by any other dance music in the world.”
That distinction is one that Murray emphasizes throughout Stomping the Blues, as when he writes that “The blues as such are synonymous with low spirits. Blues music is not. With all its so-called blue notes and overtones of sadness, blues music of its very nature and function is nothing if not a form of diversion….Not only is its express purpose to make people feel good, which is to say in high spirits, but in the process of doing so it is actually expected to generate a disposition that is both elegantly playful and heroic in its nonchalance.”
He takes pains to draw a distinction between what “the blues” says in terms of lyrics, and how “the blues” is delivered in musical terms, writing that “What blues instrumentation in fact does, often in direct contrast to the words, is define the nature of the response to the blues situation in hand, whatever the source. Accordingly, more often than not, even as the words of the lyrics recount a tale of woe, the instrumentation may mock, shout defiance, or voice resolution and determination.”
Having taught English at the higher-education level for almost 40 years now, I have read many too many papers that start with a dictionary definition of whatever a student writer wants to write about. Perhaps it is in part for that reason that one of my favourite passages from Stomping the Blues came when Murray pointed out all that is wrong with with all that is wrong with the way most dictionaries try to define the blues:
Nothing…is more misleading than the standard dictionary emphasis on gloomy lyrics, the so-called blue notes, and slow tempo – as if blues music were originally composed to be performed as concert music, if not at a prayer meeting or at a convention of beggars. But just as the down-home church elders know better, so do the dance-hall patrons, not to mention working musicians, to whom it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing was a basic operating principle long before the so-called Swing Era.
Murray also writes thoughtfully about blues culture, with a particular focus on Louis Armstrong – “Promethean Culture Hero that he was,” as Murray puts it. Murray waxes eloquent regarding Armstrong’s influence on the larger blues culture for which he was a founding father:
[T]he extent of his influence on the speech, professional mannerisms, and grooming of blues musicians everywhere is comparable to that which he has had on their instrumental and vocal technique. Much of the ritual jive talk and many of the ceremonial gestures used by most sophisticated blues musicians (and dandyish hangers-on, also known as hipsters) are derived directly from Armstrong during his heyday back in the late twenties and the thirties. It was Armstrong who started musicians referring to each other as cats, and to their control and stamina as their chops (originally the brass player’s lips), and to playing well as getting away (and hence, being gone!).
I wish that I could hear Murray trace the ongoing musical and cultural influence of Louis Armstrong, and other artists of his time, within the African American popular music of the present day.
Stomping the Blues is also richly illustrated with photographs of blues artists, blues records, and blues sheet music. One of my favourite of those photos is of Big Joe Turner. Sharply dressed in a dark double-breasted suit, leaning his head back as he looks up at a suspended microphone, Big Joe Turner looks confident and focused, ready to blast out a blues number like “Shake, Rattle, and Roll.” (Note to the Reader: if the only version of “Shake, Rattle, and Roll” you know is the one by Bill Haley and the Comets, take a moment to listen to the Big Joe Turner version. You can thank me later.)
And as a Marylander who lived for years in the Baltimore area, I was particularly pleased to see a label for Billie Holiday and her Orchestra’s “Them There Eyes,” on the Vocalion label. It is listed as recording number 5021, and the label describes the song as “Fox Trot Tempo” – fair enough, though the descriptor doesn’t quite do justice to the rich, soulful beauty of the song as delivered by Ms. Holiday.
Like many suburban youngsters who came of age during the “classic rock” era, I learned about the blues at second hand. When I saw how the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and the Who and Led Zeppelin were including on their albums remakes of blues songs by Larry Williams and Robert Johnson and Slim Harpo and Sonny Boy Williamson and Muddy Waters and Otis Rush and Willie Dixon and Bukka White and Memphis Minnie, I wanted to seek out the originals, as the great D.C.-area disc jockey Donald “Cerphe” Colwell regularly encouraged his listeners to do. I listened to those original classic songs by great blues artists, and my life was transformed.
Anyone who appreciates this great music – for that matter, anyone who appreciates greatness in musical criticism – should make a point of seeking out Albert Murray’s Stomping the Blues.
The Alabama-born Murray, who studied alongside Ralph Ellison at Tuskegee Institute, wrote novels, essays, biography, literary criticism – and music criticism, as with Stomping the Blues. In discussing blues and jazz music, Murray suggests that “what is ultimately at stake is morale, which is to say the will to persevere, the disposition to persist and perhaps prevail; and what must be avoided by all means is a failure of nerve.” He sees the genre as an “artful and sometimes seemingly magical combination of idiomatic incantation and percussion that creates the dance-oriented good-time music also known as the blues.”
One of the misperceptions that Murray is interested in correcting is the idea that “the blues” has to mean sadness, hopelessness, depression. He acknowledges that “a number of blues lyrics express an urgent and unmistakable concern with defeat, disappointment, betrayal, misfortune, not excluding death”, reflecting how “life is at bottom, for all the very best of good times, a never-ending struggle.” But he wants the reader to be aware that “the irrepressible joyousness, the downright exhilaration, the rapturous delight in sheer physical existence, like the elegant jocularity and hearty nonsense that are no less characteristic of blues music, are unsurpassed by any other dance music in the world.”
That distinction is one that Murray emphasizes throughout Stomping the Blues, as when he writes that “The blues as such are synonymous with low spirits. Blues music is not. With all its so-called blue notes and overtones of sadness, blues music of its very nature and function is nothing if not a form of diversion….Not only is its express purpose to make people feel good, which is to say in high spirits, but in the process of doing so it is actually expected to generate a disposition that is both elegantly playful and heroic in its nonchalance.”
He takes pains to draw a distinction between what “the blues” says in terms of lyrics, and how “the blues” is delivered in musical terms, writing that “What blues instrumentation in fact does, often in direct contrast to the words, is define the nature of the response to the blues situation in hand, whatever the source. Accordingly, more often than not, even as the words of the lyrics recount a tale of woe, the instrumentation may mock, shout defiance, or voice resolution and determination.”
Having taught English at the higher-education level for almost 40 years now, I have read many too many papers that start with a dictionary definition of whatever a student writer wants to write about. Perhaps it is in part for that reason that one of my favourite passages from Stomping the Blues came when Murray pointed out all that is wrong with with all that is wrong with the way most dictionaries try to define the blues:
Nothing…is more misleading than the standard dictionary emphasis on gloomy lyrics, the so-called blue notes, and slow tempo – as if blues music were originally composed to be performed as concert music, if not at a prayer meeting or at a convention of beggars. But just as the down-home church elders know better, so do the dance-hall patrons, not to mention working musicians, to whom it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing was a basic operating principle long before the so-called Swing Era.
Murray also writes thoughtfully about blues culture, with a particular focus on Louis Armstrong – “Promethean Culture Hero that he was,” as Murray puts it. Murray waxes eloquent regarding Armstrong’s influence on the larger blues culture for which he was a founding father:
[T]he extent of his influence on the speech, professional mannerisms, and grooming of blues musicians everywhere is comparable to that which he has had on their instrumental and vocal technique. Much of the ritual jive talk and many of the ceremonial gestures used by most sophisticated blues musicians (and dandyish hangers-on, also known as hipsters) are derived directly from Armstrong during his heyday back in the late twenties and the thirties. It was Armstrong who started musicians referring to each other as cats, and to their control and stamina as their chops (originally the brass player’s lips), and to playing well as getting away (and hence, being gone!).
I wish that I could hear Murray trace the ongoing musical and cultural influence of Louis Armstrong, and other artists of his time, within the African American popular music of the present day.
Stomping the Blues is also richly illustrated with photographs of blues artists, blues records, and blues sheet music. One of my favourite of those photos is of Big Joe Turner. Sharply dressed in a dark double-breasted suit, leaning his head back as he looks up at a suspended microphone, Big Joe Turner looks confident and focused, ready to blast out a blues number like “Shake, Rattle, and Roll.” (Note to the Reader: if the only version of “Shake, Rattle, and Roll” you know is the one by Bill Haley and the Comets, take a moment to listen to the Big Joe Turner version. You can thank me later.)
And as a Marylander who lived for years in the Baltimore area, I was particularly pleased to see a label for Billie Holiday and her Orchestra’s “Them There Eyes,” on the Vocalion label. It is listed as recording number 5021, and the label describes the song as “Fox Trot Tempo” – fair enough, though the descriptor doesn’t quite do justice to the rich, soulful beauty of the song as delivered by Ms. Holiday.
Like many suburban youngsters who came of age during the “classic rock” era, I learned about the blues at second hand. When I saw how the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and the Who and Led Zeppelin were including on their albums remakes of blues songs by Larry Williams and Robert Johnson and Slim Harpo and Sonny Boy Williamson and Muddy Waters and Otis Rush and Willie Dixon and Bukka White and Memphis Minnie, I wanted to seek out the originals, as the great D.C.-area disc jockey Donald “Cerphe” Colwell regularly encouraged his listeners to do. I listened to those original classic songs by great blues artists, and my life was transformed.
Anyone who appreciates this great music – for that matter, anyone who appreciates greatness in musical criticism – should make a point of seeking out Albert Murray’s Stomping the Blues.
December 8, 2016
I learned of the existence of this book from Stanley Crouch (because it is from a period of music prior to the 60s when he thinks jazz died) and found it to be a great and fun read about the origins of the blues by college professor and blues researcher Albert Murray. A must read for lovers of the blues of Robert Johnson, Son House, Lightning Hopkins, Pink Anderson and the like!
November 27, 2014
This one gets three stars, at least in part because it is such an influential book... but ever so earnest. You can see Murray's fingerprints all over Wynton Marsalis and the whole Jazz at Lincoln Center "cabal". Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington are the most important extensions of the blues tradition, and Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie its most important innovators. Coltrane figures, but only in terms of his pre-"A Love Supreme" work. Somewhat surprisingly Ornette Coleman is well received as an extension of the tradition, but there is no sign of any other innovative, free, or challenging music from the 1960s. That's a bit odd, given that Murray wrote this in the mid 70s.
There is also an assumed opposition between the spirituals (and the church...) and the blues, and the latter definitely trumps the former. Thing is, Murray published this book five years after James Cone's "The Spirituals and the Blues"; didn't he read that book? Probably not... the hostility to the black church is palpable, which narrows his vision so terribly.
But you know, if you want to wrestle with the world of jazz and blues, you have to read this. Even if it drives you crazy, you have really do.
There is also an assumed opposition between the spirituals (and the church...) and the blues, and the latter definitely trumps the former. Thing is, Murray published this book five years after James Cone's "The Spirituals and the Blues"; didn't he read that book? Probably not... the hostility to the black church is palpable, which narrows his vision so terribly.
But you know, if you want to wrestle with the world of jazz and blues, you have to read this. Even if it drives you crazy, you have really do.
January 10, 2008
It's a bit thick in its language, but you're going to be hardpressed to find a book that better addresses the blues from every possible angle.
July 3, 2018
Ottima analisi della forma musicale blues/jazz, che parte dalla distinzione tra i blue devil e il blues come musica e prosegue sgretolando una serie di luoghi comuni (sullo spirito della musica, sul ruolo della tecnica, sullo stile, sulla presunta ingenuità del folklore) che purtroppo animano la maggior parte delle riflessioni su queste musiche.
June 4, 2023
Murray often talked in elegant certainties about fiction keeping order, art keeping order, and that order being the part and parcel of the artist and the blues dinger keeping the blues at bay. His beliefs are at their most heart rendering when he is talking about the dancehall’s jazz and artists’ role in giving communal joy to black audiences.; and how that role is tied into the aspirational dynamics of the spirituals.
Where that trips him up is his blindness to the Pentecostal aspect of gospel music. that his focusing on the dancehall’s transcendence of pain came at the expense of understanding intuitions one foot outside it; that the slave breaker plantations that Thomas Doresey’s metaphor-laden sorrow songs came from might not have had "Aspirant black people" or "heroes in the Campbell archetype", but they contained a cultural reference language and complex poetry that Murray unconvincingly tries to dismiss in a few sentences. His inability to distinguish between wallowing in sorrow and merely naming it was his biggest flaw as a writer; blinding him to understanding that the gospel of Aretha Franklin's Mary Don’t You Weep is as tied to black survival as much as the blues, jazz, and spirituals he so eloquently champions
Murray would come to understand this better in his novel series, as his scooter, the most stoic of all stoic protagonists, shifts and evolves when he realizes he cannot will fate by personal transcendence. There is also his poetry, his most against type writing, full of vulnerability, and a superb eye for symbolic imagery.
Where that trips him up is his blindness to the Pentecostal aspect of gospel music. that his focusing on the dancehall’s transcendence of pain came at the expense of understanding intuitions one foot outside it; that the slave breaker plantations that Thomas Doresey’s metaphor-laden sorrow songs came from might not have had "Aspirant black people" or "heroes in the Campbell archetype", but they contained a cultural reference language and complex poetry that Murray unconvincingly tries to dismiss in a few sentences. His inability to distinguish between wallowing in sorrow and merely naming it was his biggest flaw as a writer; blinding him to understanding that the gospel of Aretha Franklin's Mary Don’t You Weep is as tied to black survival as much as the blues, jazz, and spirituals he so eloquently champions
Murray would come to understand this better in his novel series, as his scooter, the most stoic of all stoic protagonists, shifts and evolves when he realizes he cannot will fate by personal transcendence. There is also his poetry, his most against type writing, full of vulnerability, and a superb eye for symbolic imagery.
June 5, 2020
What a Trip: The Meaning of Blues Music wrapped up in its History and its People
I thoroughly enjoyed this Lesson, and it was that, in the real meaning of the Blues Music I so much enjoy listening to. Murray is a scholar, philosopher, Historian of the Black, specifically, the The Black American Experience and of the Afro-American Music he analyzes so thoroughly in this book.
He traces its Folk and Dance Hall roots in The Saturday Night Function, its relation to the Sunday Morning Worship Service, its popularization in the 20’s and 30’s, and its evolution into the Jazz of the 40’s and 50’s.
He introduces the people, their Music and their personalities who have carried on the tradition from its earliest days. And, most importantly, he preaches the Meaning deeply informing every component of the vamps, riffs, and outchoruses of the songs that are so important a part of the American soundtrack.
Stomping the Blues can be a little scholarly and didactic at times and I had to, no, I needed to, maintain a notebook to capture its salient points, but it is highly readable and the accompanying photos, bring Blues History to life. Five Stars. I highly recommend it to anyone who has ever found themselves tapping their feet to the Blues.
I thoroughly enjoyed this Lesson, and it was that, in the real meaning of the Blues Music I so much enjoy listening to. Murray is a scholar, philosopher, Historian of the Black, specifically, the The Black American Experience and of the Afro-American Music he analyzes so thoroughly in this book.
He traces its Folk and Dance Hall roots in The Saturday Night Function, its relation to the Sunday Morning Worship Service, its popularization in the 20’s and 30’s, and its evolution into the Jazz of the 40’s and 50’s.
He introduces the people, their Music and their personalities who have carried on the tradition from its earliest days. And, most importantly, he preaches the Meaning deeply informing every component of the vamps, riffs, and outchoruses of the songs that are so important a part of the American soundtrack.
Stomping the Blues can be a little scholarly and didactic at times and I had to, no, I needed to, maintain a notebook to capture its salient points, but it is highly readable and the accompanying photos, bring Blues History to life. Five Stars. I highly recommend it to anyone who has ever found themselves tapping their feet to the Blues.
August 20, 2013
A review written the night Murray (1916-2013) died. Read this one in my twenties. One immediate result of my reading it was to offer up my respect to dance music, of whatever kind. Marcus, Guralnick, and Samuel Charters had written books I liked that argued over the blues, but none had put it into the context of dance music, a very specific communal context. Reading Stomping the Blues intensified my response to groups as varied as X (the L.A. punk band) and Michael Jackson, and my awareness that dance music was the music that mattered most to me. Music and dance are the co-terminus art forms. Blues is a modality of something going on in dance. Lead players in jazz watching dance hall patrons stomp the blues, two-in-one, is how soloing in jazz becomes an art form. Murray understood all this and much more.
January 29, 2010
One of the best books about music I've ever read. Murray manages to capture the tone, rhythm, and flow of the blues and jazz as he illuminates these musical traditions in an extremely educated way. You also get a whirlwind tour of the history of the blues with some great anecdotes and information about Bessie Smith, Jelly Roll Morton. Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Charlie Parker and many more. The pictures and their captions alone make this book worth skimming, and the prose makes it worth reading at least once. Any student of jazz history should know and love this book.
November 14, 2021
Over the decades I have read better stories of the blues, but never a better illustrated one. The avalanche of photographs here includes many classics and bunches of rarely if ever seen examples.
These are the instrumental blues, from New Orleans, from Buddy Bolden and King Oliver, brought to us by Louis Armstrong. Indeed, Armstrong and Duke Ellington are the most examined players here.
The white big bands are ignored as are the guitar-based blues, as is the question of race. Oh, a few asides here and there, yes, but nothing substantial. Just as there are a few snide comments tossed out about this or that.
The 'Stomp' of the title refers to the theme of dancing: the Blues are not made for the concert hall or to make us sad. They are to be energized and to make us dance.
The writing begins with a Southern preacher shouting cadence then transforms for the most part into newspaper-style reporting with lists and repetition added. The facts and points are laid out, but the musicality stays off the page in the well-cited recordings. But it is mostly the photographs that entrance.
Recommended, as noted.
These are the instrumental blues, from New Orleans, from Buddy Bolden and King Oliver, brought to us by Louis Armstrong. Indeed, Armstrong and Duke Ellington are the most examined players here.
The white big bands are ignored as are the guitar-based blues, as is the question of race. Oh, a few asides here and there, yes, but nothing substantial. Just as there are a few snide comments tossed out about this or that.
The 'Stomp' of the title refers to the theme of dancing: the Blues are not made for the concert hall or to make us sad. They are to be energized and to make us dance.
The writing begins with a Southern preacher shouting cadence then transforms for the most part into newspaper-style reporting with lists and repetition added. The facts and points are laid out, but the musicality stays off the page in the well-cited recordings. But it is mostly the photographs that entrance.
Recommended, as noted.
June 10, 2018
A series of essays on the blues and jazz as a natural extension of it. Intellectual, literary, but also grounded in reality and commonplace experience.
Insists that the blues is a music of movement and dancing, that it signifies the heroic stand.
Insists that the blues is a music of movement and dancing, that it signifies the heroic stand.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 27, 2023
ok so….we only read half for class but i got a feel for the flavor of the text!! okay!!!! he’s long winded af but makes quite a few good points. also love the pictures but they interrupt the text really awkwardly. do better publishers🤬
April 16, 2022
Masterpiece!!!
Beautifully written, 100% recommend
Beautifully written, 100% recommend
August 13, 2023
Foundational
Read
February 12, 2018A diligently researched, proudly pugilistic book about the connection between a music's formal qualities and the yearnings of the people who created it. Murray positions the blues within a larger history of black American expression and emotion, and I tried to do something similar with country music and the white working class.
April 18, 2010
There are some really interesting insights and nuggets of history contained in Murray's book, but I found it difficult to get past the diction and organization. The book is loosely chronological, and starts with the origins of Blues music. In fact, the intro and first chapter are excellent, but then moves into discussion of various jazz musicians without adequately describing the turning point from jazz to blues. Murray does write the blues is dance-hall music and jazz concert-hall music, but doesn't do enough to explain the differences or how the "jazz" sound was often Blues music. I would say the book is worth reading, but I was disappointed with the execution. Also, Murray's writing style is a bit verbose and takes some getting used to.
August 11, 2016
View the original review on my blog, A Slice of Ky!
This book is being used in my Blue's Literature class as the “textbook” because it is a nonfictional look at the complexity of blues music and the culture of the blues. It has been so interesting to learn the full history and depth of this music style. I was never really an avid listener and so this class, with the help of this book, has been completely eye opening. Not only does the book teach about the blues, but through the context it also illustrates the history of certain aspects of African-American culture.
This book is being used in my Blue's Literature class as the “textbook” because it is a nonfictional look at the complexity of blues music and the culture of the blues. It has been so interesting to learn the full history and depth of this music style. I was never really an avid listener and so this class, with the help of this book, has been completely eye opening. Not only does the book teach about the blues, but through the context it also illustrates the history of certain aspects of African-American culture.
November 26, 2016
Interestingly, when Murray speaks of "the blues" as music, he's really talking about jazz. My take on his angle here is that jazz is the pinnacle of what the blues, as a folk form, represents. Murray is a little tough on the musicians we'd consider the great bluesmen, such as Lead Belly, Blind Lemon Jefferson, and Muddy Waters, labeling them folk stylists more than top-level artists. He reserves his greatest praise for Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, and others.
All that said, this is a beautifully written census of the jazz greats from the 1920s to the 1950s.
All that said, this is a beautifully written census of the jazz greats from the 1920s to the 1950s.
August 11, 2014
Slow going at times, until you fall into the rhythm of the words and language the author uses. Great perspective on blues history and blues dance.
February 15, 2023
excellent. a must read for jazz fans looking for a philosophical exploration of the music.
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