by Howard Marshall 
            The version of Cotton Eyed Joe considered the older fiddle tune is sometimes associated with Appalachian and Southern fiddling due to its appearance in 1926 on a recording by Gid Tanner and His Skillet Lickers. The celebrated north Georgia string band recorded a series of seven 78 rpm records (fourteen sides) collectively known as “A Corn Licker Still in Georgia.”[1]  The Skillet Lickers recorded from 1925 to 1931 and over a million copies were sold, with the records marketed as “Entertaining Novelty Records.” The recordings were essentially …

 
by Anthony Barnett
 SP
What do you think of the effect of pickups on jazz violin’s acceptance and whether it is a positive, negative or neutral trend?
Any opinions on the
    1. current crop of pickups?
    2. acoustic vs. solid body instruments?
    3. appearance of 5 string models?
AB
I am not a practicing violinist myself so I am unable to answer from a musician’s point of view. But I do have some observations from a listener’s point of view, partly as a result of my own listening but also as a result of exchanges, …

Carl Rahkonen returns for a description of the violin related instruments of Scandanavia. 
Then the Boswell of jazz violin, Anthony Barnett, begins by discussing the trend towards electric violin and then has some trenchant opinions about other recent currents in jazz fiddling.
Professor Emeritus Howard Marshall continues to explore the nexus of fiddle tunes called Cotton Eyed Joe.
Tim Woodbridge is back with the musical biography of Canadian great, Don Messer.  In conjunction with that I contribute the music for one of the tunes that Don famously recorded, Big John McNeil.
Hope you enjoy …

By Tim Woodbridge
1939 found Don Messer in something of a quandary.  Despite the successes chronicled in Part 2 and continuing, it must have seemed that he was constantly required to justify himself to distant CBC executives. In 1936 the network had reduced the proportion of musical programming from 70% to 50%.  In 1938, following a change in administration, the network required all performers to re-audition.  What was probably the final straw came when Messer’s request to be included in the lineup of programs from a proposed CBC studio in Halifax …

Craig Duncan is a Nashville fiddler and multi-instrumentalist. Craig is recognized internationally for his many books and arrangements published by Mel Bay. This is his Mel Bay Artist Interview with Erica Cantrell. He also teaches a Mel Bay Pro Lick.
www.melbay.com –
www.craigduncan.com

Cookie Segelstein completes her current series on klezmer violin with a look at an introspective, usually rubato style of music from East Europe, the doina.
Anthony Barnett continues his musing on the history and current state of jazz violin with  a trenchant view of the opposite (perhaps an overstatement on my part) pole to Stuff Smith, Stephane Grappelli and the phenomenon of “gypsy jazz”.
Carolyn Osborne completes her essay about preparing to learn upper hand positions on your fiddle.
Finally, the first of what I hope will be a series of essays, by …

Bob Wills played this this version of Cotton Eyed Joe on the 1947 recording with his band, The Texas Playboys. Louis Tierney played harmony, which is not transcribed. See Howard Marshall’s essay on this tune, elsewhere in this issue.
This is related to the commercially successful Cotton Eyed Joe of the Urban Cowboy fad, but the latter is in the key of A and has two strains of four measures apiece. Here’s an example of what that tune spawned – the hit recording and line dance.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9VMZBgKO_s&feature=related
This transcription is taken from the …

by Cookie Segelstein
 
One of the forms in klezmer music that uses the character of MISHEBEYRAKH (the mode covered in the previous article) is the doina . Here is an explanation of Doina from the introduction by Joshua Horowitz of Kale Bazetsns and Doinas, by Cookie Segelstein and Joshua Horowitz*:
Doina is the Romanian term used to denote families of both vocal and instrumental pieces with a recitative character. There exist countless thousands of doinas throughout all the states of Romania, some of which show specific regional characteristics, while others are shared …

“Boil the Cabbage Down” first position fingering pattern (2^nd finger close to 3^rd finger, typical beginner’s pattern). Tonic note is an open string (e.g., A, in Boil the Cabbage). This position is typically taught to beginners without regard to staying in a single key across the instrument. So, you get a major scale if you start on the G string 0123 and then go to the D string 0123 (G scale). You get the D scale by starting on the D string 0123 and going to the A string 0123 and the A scale is A:0123 E:0123. However, if you wanted to play a second octave of any of these scales, you would use a different finger pattern. This chart represents the beginner finger pattern, then, rather than proper notes for a particular scale.

by Howard Marshall
In a section on couple dances in my forthcoming book on the history of fiddling in Missouri, the Cotton-Eyed Joe dance and tune became a focus of interest. The following essay is offered to readers for discussion. Readers are encouraged to contact me by email at MarshallH@Missouri.Edu with corrections and ideas for improvement. 
Relatively few people have seen dancers perform a schottische or varsouvienne, even if they remain favorites at old-time country dances. Today, no couple step dance is better known than the Cotton-Eyed Joe – a dance that …