"Yellow Dog Blues" - Kid Ory

SONG: “Yellow Dog Blues” (PDF)
ALBUM: Kid Ory Plays the Blues
YEAR: 1985
LABEL: Storyville Records

In Max Haymes’ Origin of the term Yellow Dog, he discusses the influence of railroad transportation on the early blues. “Yellow Dog Blues,” composed by W.C. Handy and inspired by the march-and-trio form of ragtime, features a modulation from the key of Bb to the key of Eb where the melodies become improvised solos. Additionally, the first four bars of each twelve-bar chorus uses an ensemble “shout” pattern to launch the soloist into an eight-bar solo starting on the Ab chord, or the IV of the IV of the original I.

Recommended reading: Creole Trombone: Kid Ory and the Early Years of Jazz by John McCusker.  Published by University Press of Mississippi.