"C Jam Blues" is a jazz standard

Jazz standard

Jazz standards are musical compositions which are an important part of the musical repertoire of jazz musicians, in that they are widely known, performed, and recorded by jazz musicians, and widely known by listeners. There is no definitive list of jazz standards, and the list of songs deemed to be...

 composed in 1942

1942 in music

- Events :*July 21 - In celebration of its 25th anniversary, the Goldman Band performs a unique concert, playing all original works. This was the first time a concert of music originally composed for the wind ensemble had been performed....

 by Duke Ellington

Duke Ellington

Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...

 and performed by countless other musicians, such as Dave Grusin

Dave Grusin

David Grusin is an American composer, arranger and pianist. Grusin has composed many scores for feature films and television, and has won numerous awards for his soundtrack and record work, including an Academy award and 12 Grammys...

 and Django Reinhardt

Django Reinhardt

Django Reinhardt was a pioneering virtuoso jazz guitarist and composer who invented an entirely new style of jazz guitar technique that has since become a living musical tradition within French gypsy culture...

. As the title suggests, the piece follows a twelve-bar blues form in the key of C major

C major

C major is a musical major scale based on C, with pitches C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. Its key signature has no flats/sharps.Its relative minor is A minor, and its parallel minor is C minor....

.

The piece typically features several improvised solos. The final solo, by Barney Bigard

Barney Bigard

Albany Leon Bigard, aka Barney Bigard, was an American jazz clarinetist and tenor saxophonist, though primarily known for the clarinet....

 on the clarinet

Clarinet

The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...

, continues in the upper register as the entire ensemble comes in and the music grows to a climax. The melody likely originated from Bigard in 1941, but its origin is not perfectly clear.

It was also known as "Duke's Place", with lyrics added by Bill Katts, Bob Thiele and Ruth Roberts
Western Swing

Western swing

Western swing music is a subgenre of American country music that originated in the late 1920s in the West and South among the region's Western string bands...

 band leader Bob Wills

Bob Wills

James Robert Wills , better known as Bob Wills, was an American Western Swing musician, songwriter, and bandleader, considered by music authorities as the co-founder of Western Swing and universally known as the pioneering King of Western Swing.Bob Wills' name will forever be associated with...

and His Texas Playboys recorded the song sometime between mid-1945 through 1947 as part of the Tiffany Transcriptions.