{"id":8558,"date":"2011-11-02T07:00:29","date_gmt":"2011-11-02T11:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=8558"},"modified":"2011-11-02T06:53:03","modified_gmt":"2011-11-02T10:53:03","slug":"midweek-music-break-the-swingin-shepherd-blues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2011\/11\/midweek-music-break-the-swingin-shepherd-blues\/","title":{"rendered":"Midweek Music Break: “The Swingin’ Shepherd Blues”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Alto saxophonist and flautist Moe Koffman had been kicking around the Canadian and US jazz world for years by the time — in 1957 — he composed a number for the jazz flute he originally called “Blues \u00e0\u00a0la<\/em> Canadiana.” His producer suggested a title change; ever since, it’s been known as “The Swingin’ Shepherd Blues.”<\/p>\n

Whether “Swinging”\u00a0should or should not include the terminal “g” seems never to have been answered authoritatively; but the sheet music I’ve seen always omits it, and that’s how I’ve always remembered it anyway. As for the shepherd who swings, my assumption has always been that he’s supposed to be tootling this on panpipes.<\/p>\n

The song’s initial album\u00a0release was on Koffman’s Cool and Hot Sax<\/em>\u00a0(1958), whose cover is shown at the top right for some mid-’50s atmosphere. As a single, it got up to #23 on the Billboard pop charts that year.<\/p>\n

Which, in the grand scheme of things, isn’t all that high. Yet it was enough to really solidify Koffman’s career and his place in jazz history. And without a doubt, it left its mark in my brain, becoming — thanks to its playing and replaying on Philadelphia-area radio stations — possibly my very first introduction to what I’d later know as earworms<\/a><\/em>. (Eventually of course something else supplanted it. Maybe, a few years later, it was Pepsi’s takeoff on “Makin’ Whoopee,” the “Now It’s Pepsi (For Those Who Think Young)” theme song (which just now popped into my head and is threatening to lodge there).)<\/p>\n

Here’s Koffman’s original version of the tune. (Later, for 1967’s\u00a0Moe Koffman<\/em>\u00a0album, he recorded it again, this time at five minutes-plus — mostly by adding a lot of free-form flourishes that don’t have the same, uh, earworm power<\/em>.)<\/p>\n

[Below, click Play button to begin <\/em>The Swingin’ Shepherd Blues. While audio is playing, volume control appears at left — a row of little vertical bars. This clip is 2:14 long.]<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

[audio:swinginshepherdblues_moekoffman.mp3|titles=’The Swingin’ Shepherd Blues’|artists=Moe Koffman]<\/div>\n

When I began this post, I assumed the song had been covered many times, and so it has — some accounts say by “over 100 artists,” some say in “over 300 versions,” so take your pick. But I didn’t know that it had ever included lyrics. These were added some time later, and were recorded by Ella Fitzgerald, among others. Below, Natalie Cole gives it a scatty big-band treatment:<\/p>\n