“I Ate Up The Apple Tree” (PDF) from the New Birth Brass Band album, D-Boy.

New Orleans blues pianist Dave “Fat Man” Williams’ “I Ate Up The Apple Tree” is my most frequently featured tune, this being my third transcription and my second version from New Birth Brass Band. Along with the Rebirth recording, its original appearance on the 1984 Dirty Dozen Brass Band album, My Feet Can’t Fail Me Now, was what established the R&B tune as a brass band standard. Yet the forgotten lesson from the Dirty Dozen is that if you’re going to play a cover song, play it better and make it your own.

What sets this 1997 New Birth recording apart from the others is the linear motion of its melodies. By using slightly different scales and melodic cells, both the similarities and subtleties of the chords are highlighted through the use of the blues. The scales that connect the I, IV and V chords demonstrate their shared qualities, but the altered scale degrees, emphasized with a rhythmic feel, are what make the performance unique. And all within the range of a G-flat to A-flat or a D-flat that can move in either direction.

Here is a YouTube video of the Treme Brass Band playing the brass band standard:

Recommended reading: Roll With It: Brass Bands in the Streets of New Orleans by Matt Sakakeeny. Published by Duke University Press.