Blue Tail Fly, The

David A. Myers

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General Info

Year: 2008
Duration: c. 1:35
Difficulty: I (see Ratings for explanation)
Original Medium: Folk song
Publisher: Grand Mesa
Cost: Score and Parts (print) - $40.00 | Score Only (print) - $8.00

Instrumentation

(Needed - please join the WRP if you can help.)

Errata

None discovered thus far.

Program Notes

Musical surprises abound in this imaginative arrangement of the American folk classic. A cameo appearance by the fly (trumpet mouthpiece) is cut short by an unexpected whip note.

- Program Note from publisher

Jimmy Crack Corn or Blue Tail Fly is an American song which first became popular during the rise of blackface minstrelsy in the 1840s through performances by the Virginia Minstrels. It regained currency as a folk song in the 1940s at the beginning of the American folk music revival and has since become a popular children's song. Over the years, several variants have appeared.

Most versions include some idiomatic African American English, although General American versions now predominate. The basic narrative remains intact. On the surface, the song is a black slave's lament over his white master's death in a horse-riding accident. The song, however, is also interpreted as having a subtext of celebration about that death and of the slave's having contributed to it through deliberate negligence or even deniable action.

- Program Note from Wikipedia

Media

Audio: Reference recording. Ensemble and conductor unknown
Audio CD: Rutgers University Wind Ensemble (William Berz, conductor)
Audio CD: VanderCook College of Music Symphonic Band (Stacey L. Larson, conductor) - 2008

State Ratings

None discovered thus far.

Performances

To submit a performance please join The Wind Repertory Project

Rittman (Ohio) Middle School Seventh Grade Band – 11 March 2017
VanderCook College of Music (Chicago, Ill.) Symphonic Band (Stacey L.Larson, conductor) – 19 December 2008 (2008 Midwest Clinic)

Works for Winds by This Composer

Bagatelle for Flutes (2003)
The Blue Tail Fly (as arranger) (2008)
A Christmas Spiritual
Highlander Lullaby (as arranger) (2017)
Mississippi Sawyer (2017)
Of Emerald Shires (2015)
Regalia (2001)
Siegfried’s Super Sensational Circus March (2011)
Variations on a Boboobo Song (2002)

Resources

Jimmy Crack Corn, Wikipedia Accessed 15 July 2021
Myers, D. (2008). The Blue Tail Fly [score]. Grand Mesa Music: Grand Junction, Colo.