Born
1994

Instrumentation
Two flutes (first doubling piccolo) two oboes (second doubling English horn), two clarinets, two bassoons, (second doubling contrabassoon), four horns, two trumpets, timpani, solo piano and strings

Work Composed
2019

World Premiere
January 25, 2020, in Germantown, Tennessee, with the composer as soloist with the Iris Orchestra.  Commissioned by the Iris Orchestra to commemorate the bicentennial of the city of Memphis, Tennessee.

Duration
11 Minutes

Program Notes
Written by composer

“... Obviously [blues] served a purpose, filled a need. For one thing, it was unbeatable dance music; one or two guitarists or a pianist were enough to get a whole barrelhouse rocking.” Robert Palmer, Deep Blues

Charlie Patton’s “A Spoonful Blues” is a great dance tune. In the song’s 1929 recording, the meter seems stable at first blush but, upon closer listening, is constantly expanding and retracting, wriggling out of any single time signature and into a more elusive, irregular, groovy rhythmic space. The tempo, too, slides forward from its initial easygong stroll—imperceptibly at first—and then the whole tune is bouncing by the end, careening at last into a hard 4/4 swing.

“A Spoonful Blues” is also a song about cocaine addiction. Patton’s first utterance is spoken, not sung: “I’m about to go to jail about this spoonful.” This is the only time the word “spoonful” actually is heard in full: for the rest of the song, “spoonful” is abstracted, a twanging gesture played by the slide guitar, “spoon-ful,” the first syllable a blurred rising semitone. The craving, relayed with near-giddiness, is so great, so full, that it can only be expressed in excess of language. And so Patton’s slide guitar finishes his sentences:

“It’s mens on Parchman (done lifetime) just ‘bout a... [spoon-ful]” “I go to bed, get up and wanna fight ‘bout a... [spoon-ful]”

My piece is in two movements. The first movement is a kind of dance music: spoonfuls perpetually on the verge of overflowing, outgrowths of different grooves, the music trying to keep its balance while also holding in relation to one another all the particular excesses of the song, the malleable pulse, the embracing of noise. The second movement hones in on the chord progression of Patton’s tune and luxuriates in it.