“Monday Date” (PDF) from the TBC Brass Band album, To Be Continued.

Please contact TBC Brass Band regarding official sheet music.

Originally from Pittsburgh, pianist Earl Hines became prolific as a songwriter during the 1920s while performing in Chicago, perhaps most famously alongside Louis Armstrong.  This tune, otherwise known as “A Monday Date,” “Our Monday Date,” “Don’t Forget Our Monday Date,” or “Alright, This Is The Last Time I’ll Mention It So Put It In Your Calendar Because I’m Getting Tired Of Feeling Foolish After Being Stood-Up Yet Again, Ya Hear Me, I Can’t Wait.”  It shares a similar form as McHugh and Fields’ “Exactly Like You,” as well as “Darktown Strutters’ Ball” by Shelton Brooks, another song about about anticipation and/or anxiety.

With the help of Dr. Michael White on clarinet, the TBC Brass Band performs its version of the early jazz traditional.  During the solo section, two of the trombonists trade eight-bar phrases (or fours, with a cut-time feel), however when the background horns enter during the bridge, both trombones play over each other as the music becomes more of a collective improvisation that you would hear on the corner of Bourbon and Canal.  This transcription is a hybrid of the two trombones as if it were a solo melody.

Recommended viewing: From The Mouthpiece On Back. Dir. Jason DaSilva and Colleen O'Halloran. Perf. To Be Continued Brass Band. Awl Films, 2008. DVD.