Styles: Jump Blues (aka Boogie-Woogie) 2

In the jump blues style of rhythm and blues, performing riffs is an important compositional/performance technique. A good example of a song with a riff section unto itself is Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats' 1951 recording "Rocket 88," where at two different points in the recording (00:38-00:56 and 02:24-02:42) there are twelve-bar instrumental sections in which a two-bar (four counts in each bar) riff is simply repeated over and over. This is fundamentally different from using a riff as a central part of the accompanying texture in a vocal section. Some pieces, such as Roy Milton's "R.M. Blues,"♫ feature a single two-bar riff that is heard from the beginning to the end of the recording without a break. Such riffs, of course, change pitch according to whatever chord is being played but their rhythmic and intervallicThe distance between two pitches. relationships remain consistent. Riffs also exhibited considerable range from being nearly exclusively rhythmic in terms of interest to having substantial melodic shape. A recording such as Big Joe Turner's "Flip Flop and Fly"♫ used a primarily rhythmic riff in a two-bar call-and-response with the vocalist in the first two verses, a simpler rhythmic riff in the chorus, and then a much more melodic but extremely syncopated riff for the third verse.