Phil Doleman - he's Doctor Jazz!

Aren't I lucky - here is Phil Doleman, and for the last few months, he's been my uke teacher. This song is currently my favourite; it's on Phil's CD "Phil Doleman Old Is The New New" and if I've played it once over the last few days I've played it twenty times. I love this stuff - this is great playing - and I want to play like this.

I searched for the chords online and haven't found them, so I've worked them out by ear... these are the basic chords anyway, if they are any fancier, I'll find out soon! You'll see that Phil is playing up the dusty end of the neck - of course.... but to play and sing along, the chords at the bottom end that we all know and love will suffice!

Doctor Jazz
By Joe “King” Oliver and Walter Melrose 1926

[C] Hello central [G7] give me doctor [C] jazz [G7]
[C] He's got what I [G7] need, I'll say he [C] has [C7]
[F] When the world goes wrong and [C] I've got the [A7] blues
[D7] He's the guy who makes me put on [G7] both my dancin' shoes

[C] The more I get, the [G7] more I want it [C] seems [C7]
[F] I see doctor jazz in all my [E7] dreams
When [A7] I'm in trouble bounds are mixed
[D7] He's the guy who gets me fixed
[C] Hello central [G7] give me doctor [C] jazz

Enjoy - if you need perking up, Doctor Jazz will do the trick!

Want the record? Get it here...

And if you want to catch Phil live at a uke festival, he'll be in Dublin in August for the Ukulele Hooley 2015... as will Andy Eastwood, Del Rey, and George Elmes! Also the wonderful Dead Man's Uke, Ken Middleton, Ukulele Uff and Lonesome Dave Trio and the Mersey Belles! Wow, I wish I was going.....

Progress at last, I'm playing Mr Sandman instrumental!

I was talking about progress a couple of weeks ago. A piece I've been working on for just about a year is Mr Sandman, the instrumental version so beautifully showcased by Ukulelezaza, Remco Hautmann-Janssen. Here is Remco's,, complete with tutorial and TAB....

It's a catchy tune, quite well-known, and part of the appeal for a uke player keen to develop instrumental skills is that the chords used are easy, basic ones in the basic position... all except for a few.... they are the ones that challenge you. I've put them in bold here..

intro
C | G7 | C | G7 |

C | B7 | E7 | A7 |
D7 | G7 | C | G#7 G7 |
C | B7 | E7 | A7 |
Dm | Fm6 | D7 G7 | C |

They are four-finger chords up the neck with the chord melody built on them, and you need to be pretty nifty on the changes. It's the final G7 (fingered 4535) that had me struggling the longest and hardest. I had to think about which fingers to use on the melody on the preceding D7 (which is 5655), and I'm using the little finger on 7th fret of the A string and leaving it there whilst moving to the other frets of the G7...453(7) then moving the little finger to the 5th fret. It's not easy to play quickly and cleanly. I tended to get lost on the fingerboard, then I'd play it on time but muted, or late but clean! But once you've got used to finding it quickly, turning the hand very slightly whilst fretting that chord helps to exert more pressure on the strings, for a clean sound. And of course, the old mantra - practice, practice, practice!

I don't usually post my own videos on here, I'm no budding star... but I am pleased that persistence with this has paid off at last, so I thought I 'd share. This isn't perfect, but it's as good as it's going to be for a while yet!

Thanks to Remco Hautmann-Jannsen (Ukulelezaza) for the tutorial and TAB... (see link above!)

"By Special Permission of the Copyright Owners I Love You" - John Bianchi...

In my little corner of the UK, there are several degrees of frost, and there's fog... morning tea in bed, and an extra five minutes under the duvet... or ten.

Then I watch John Bianchi in New York, playing his uke first thing in the morning, in his car, at the side of the road, doing what he has to do to comply with parking restrictions... and I feel at least a little sheepish.

As a lover of 20's and 30's Tin Pan Alley music, I always enjoy John's singing and playing, and he never, but never disappoints. Please share the gem he has come up with this time.... sitting in his car in wintry New York...

He introduces the song in this wise...

"Here's one of the tens of thousands of tunes from the first part of the last century that pretty much no one living has ever heard. From the Broadway flop, "The Gang's All Here" - which starred Ted Healy (of Ted Healy and His Three Stooges - later shortened by giving Ted his walking papers), this 1931 tune is played on a rock-like Cordoba uke that has a nice THICK top, so I don't mind playing it in the 34F temperature of Monday morning."



Wonderful... if 20's and 30's music is a tiny bandwagon to be on - well I, for one, am up there on it with John B. And oh, to be able to play like that...

Another one to knock your socks off - St. James Infirmary Blues - Eugene Ukulele

I just love Eugene's work, and there are many more folk who do, too... here's another great piece, St James Infirmary Blues. Eugene writes "This song has been adapted and performed by countless jazz, blues and folk musicians. Consequently, numerous versions abound with variant verses that focus on different aspects of the story. In my rendition I have left out the bar room scenes to highlight the death of the girl and the meditations of the protagonist on his mortality."The song was first collected in England in its version as "The Unfortunate Rake" by Henry Hammond by a Mr. William Curtis at Lyme Regis, Dorset in March 1906. Read more here.

Eugene has a great talent for putting over a blues song - he has a feel for the music and the lyrics that in the delivery of them just grabs you and won't let let you go until you've listened - at least twice.

Please Eugene, keep these comin'....... and your original songs, too!

Living Water Strings by Ken Middleton - Review

Just over a week ago, before rushing off to spend a few days mooching around Devon with a very nice bunch of WI ladies, I put a set of the new British made fluorocarbon Living Water strings by Ken Middleton on my Tanglewood Cove Creek concert uke before I packed it to take for a sing-along at the end of the trip. We had such a busy schedule each day, rushing off to see the sights and going out in the evenings for meals (fabulous!) that until the last evening I had only a minute or two each day to play my ukulele. Just enough time to tune it up and strum a few chords and pick a few notes.

I now feel ready to give you my review.

First of all, remember - I'm relatively inexperienced, uke-wise... so please read what I say with that in mind. I can't give you any personal comparisons with other brands of fluorocarbon strings, because I've never used them; this is my first experience of fluorocarbons. (I do have a set of American ones ready to put on my banjo-uke, but that wouldn't count, anyway; a banjo-uke sounds so different.)

I have allowed just over a week for the strings to settle in, as they are flexible and stretchy. I did not tug at them in an attempt to stretch them and make them settle more quickly; I felt that was the safest approach so as not to risk spoiling them.

So this is my review, now that the new strings have pretty well settled in, and I have relaxed and played, and listened.....

First impression on receiving the strings was of the packaging, which is very attractive. Strings for each size of ukulele are packaged in a different metallic shade; e.g. concert size are in silver. Each string is in its own sellophane packet, clearly labelled by name and by position.

The strings are made of 100% clear fluorocarbon; they're colourless. They are, like all fluorocarbon strings, I believe, thinner than Aquila New Nylgut, which are the highly acclaimed brand leader in ukulele strings, and the strings I have bought and used up to now.

Here are the diameter measurements so you can see the difference.

Living Water fluorocarbons in the concert size are in diameter

1 = 0.52mm
2 = 0.66mm
3 = 0.74mm
4 = 0.57mm

Aquila New Nylgut concert strings are

1 = 0.62 mm
2 = 0.80 mm
3 = 0.95 mm
4 = 0.67 mm

Being thinner, the Living Water strings feel quite different under the fingers for fretting. The biggest difference is in the thicker middle strings, especially the C string. I like the feel of them very much. Although I love Aquilas and do swear by them, Aquilas feel thick and hard in comparison when I turn to my other ukes, which are still strung with them.

The sound of these Living Water strings is beautifully bright and crystal-clear. The more I play them, the more I love them, especially in finger-picking. The sound reminds me of the clear resonant sound when you flick the edge of a crystal glass. When I first put them on my uke and played it, I was immediately aware that I needed to get used to fretting them in a more precise way; I was getting some buzzing and the strings were showing up my lack of expertise. But it hasn't taken me long to adapt, and the sound is heavenly. Apt, I think, because Ken states on the front of the packets "Made in Heaven!"

This difference in diameter does make a difference to the sound. Generally speaking, thicker strings are louder, and I have noticed a difference in volume when strumming a song accompaniment. Aquilas are the loudest strings on the market, I think I can safely say! But this is only a small part of the story. For more information on strings generally see Ian Chadwick here.

I love the sound and feel of Ken's Living Water strings; the name is a stroke of genius... try them, and think about it!

In my last post on strings, last week, I mentioned that Aquila have now released a new line; their "Red Series" of unwound low G strings. Ken Middleton will also be releasing his own low Gs very, very soon.... so I await both kinds with anticipation!

The thing about Ken's strings is that he himself is a wonderful ukulele player, and he has researched and sourced his type of fluorocarbon string to get the sound and feel that he wants.

That itself says an awful lot about these strings! My advice - get some - they're going like hot cakes!

From his website; also now from ebay!

The Tanglewood Cove Creek - I Finally Succumb to its Wiles!

Back in March - the 21st March, actually - I wrote how I'd been wowed by a Tanglewood ukulele in one of the local music shops. It was the Tanglewood TU7 XM Lacewood concert.

Well... more than two months later... it is mine.

I hadn't gone in the shop to buy it - on the contrary, I went in to buy the little Ashton union flag soprano uke as a gift for a friend. But the action at the nut of the little union jack uke was a bit high, and Mike the guitar techy who served me obligingly offered to file the slots down a bit.

That's when it got me. The Tanglewood. I wasn't even playing it.... after all, I'd decided to save for a nice solid wood tenor, most likely an Ashbury solid rose cherry... anyway, I was playing around while I waited on a very pretty solid koa Luna tenor with a pickup - £350 - more than I would, spend anyway... when I heard a lovely sound that jerked my head right up - and it was the Tanglewood Cove Creek I'd been so impressed with before. Bright but liquid, bell-like... and it has the long neck, 14 frets up to the body.

Then came the coup-de-grace - the offer of the sort of deal that's hard to refuse.... but I didn't give in without a fight. "Will you throw a gig-bag in with that?" Done.

So that's how I came to return home with my lovely Tanglewood Cove Creek "exotic" wood long neck concert uke. For a laminate ukulele, it really is lovely.


As for LSH...well, he really doesn't understand. Non-players don't; simple as that. But I'm happy with my little collection of ukuleles; I've put a low G on my original Greg Bennett so I can experiment with jazzy chords, as recommended by Glen Rose, as well as start trying to tackle John Moen's tab of the Bach Prelude for Cello piece - one bar at a time. My little blue Mahalo soprano is handy to leave lying around just anywhere, and hand over to interested friends... and as for my lovely 1920's Slingerland Maybelle banjo-uke - well.... she's going with me to Blackpool this weekend... to play with the George Formby fans at the meeting of the GFS!

If someone had told me six months ago that I'd be doing that, I'd have said they were mad...for my generation, for whom the Beatles and the Stones were nothing short of gods, George Formby was the antithesis of Cool... but watch this space, I'm going for it!

Tango'd by a Tanglewood

If I keep taking deep breaths and panting, perhaps it'll go away, I don't NEED another ukulele. My little Samich Indonesian-built Greg Bennett UK50 is a sweetie.... lovely intonation, a warm pleasing sound, especially since I put Aquila "new nylgut" strings on. Low action... why would I want another wooden uke?

I've been to slow to realise that guitars, ukuleles and banjos produce different sorts and qualities of sound "timbres" - watching a concert, I'd be mystified, why a guitarist had two or three different instruments on stage with him - "What's wrong with just one?" I'd think. George Harrison always had his Gretsch, Paul McCartney his Hofner bass.....but now I know. A whole new world of sound has opened up to me, and I realise a Stratocaster does not sound like - well - anything else. And if a musician wants a particular guitar sound, they have a guitar to suit.

I have come to realise that all ukuleles do not sound the same... yes, dear reader, I was slow there. Of course, until recently I had only ever played the one - and I have no complaints about it, it's a great little ukulele, I know that for the price, it's particularly good quality. The trouble is, I went into a music shop a few months ago and picked up a couple of ukes - and heard a difference. So now I have an itch - to get a ukulele that's better. That's prettier, with a sound that's somehow superior.

So the research has started. Trip number one to a music shop, to explore the wonderful world of ukulele.

I think I played every concert and tenor size in the shop, and played them against my own ukulele, to compare. I had a blast. I'll return to that.

Now I'm not looking for a top-of-the-range ukulele - just the next step up, within a limited budget. The thing is I think I have been Tango'd...... in the UK there was a TV advert a few years ago for Tango, a fizzy, soft orange drink - so fizzy and full of flavour, (allegedly), that when you tasted it you got zapped - or "Tango'd" - and the bright orange bursts exploded all over the screen.

Well, there was a Tanglewood concert ukulele in their exotic wood range, in "mango" - or, according to the Tanglewood website, lacewood. And it is very bright - not actually what I had in mind - quite "orange" with a very unusual pattern in the grain. But the sound is beautiful. I find that the very bright sound of a spruce-top ukulele does not appeal; my little Greg Bennett is mahogany, with a voice at the opposite end of the spectrum to spruce - warm and full. I don't have the technical vocabulary to accurately describe the difference in the sound of the Tanglewood lacewood to my UK50 mahogany; I can only say that it is better - hence the higher price tag. (Still very moderate.) Perhaps it's that the Tanglewood has more definition and a more bell-like voice - rather like the difference between a bel-canto tenor, like Paverotti and any other tenor singer.

But it is beautiful, and I have the itch to possess it.

Here it is - the Tanglewood TU7 XM Lacewood concert ukulele

Deep breaths girl - and the itch will go away.