[Trombone-l] book/tape by jazz trombonist who sings rhythms?

[Chris Tune]

I think what you are discussing is an interesting subject.  This idea of 
being given the song from a Broadway musical and having a set of jazz 
musicians play it is a real phenomenon.  This is particularly so with the 
dixieland contingent that was transitioning into Swing, during the 1920's 
and early 1930's.  A typical dixieland oriented group of the time could 
improvise over a "known" melody pretty easily.  The "conventions" are pretty 
simple, but they don't involve reading THE NOTES.  The notes as shown on 
some sort of score just give the players the structure and the core of the 
tune.  They will memorize the entire tune (by melodic content, harmony and 
by tune structure--including any unique "hook" material that must be 
included to identify the tune)and then immediately jump to a "syncopated" 
and elaborated version of it.

The dixie convention is:

Trumpet takes the melody, with an embellished version of the real melody of 
the tune.  The embellishing is really important. . .can't just do a straight 
rendition of the thing

Clarinet plays an arpeggiated obligatto over this.  There is simple, stupid, 
square arpeggio treatment and then there is real GOOD arpeggio treatment. 
You have to just listen to get this thing down.  After a while you DON'T 
NEED notation for this stuff.

Trombone puts in a sort of baritone/tenor mid-support filler, with some 
aspects of  a bass part particularly when adding in "gliss" effects (it just 
turns out that a fourth cadence is a great place to move the entire slide. . 
.wouldn't ya know??) -- thus the need to have this elongated plumbing hangin 
off the end of the cart or truck. . thus TAILGATE.

Basically, the rule of jazz is that there is much more syncopation.  Notes 
are accented and made short, marcato notes much more often.   There is often 
an elimination of equal value eighth notes in favor of an uneven, SWING feel 
(basically two: one)

By the heydey of SWING arranging was more the thing.  You have many great 
arrangers who would set a tune from a broadway hit to a specific swing bands 
players.  Like Sy Oliver, or Neal Hefti, or similar.  These arrangements 
are readily available (and analyzing them would be a GREAT idea) and there 
are fine works on how this kind of arranging works.   I understand that 
Sammy Nestico's book on arranging is "killer".

For examples for someone not having a good dixie collection I'd suggest you 
get the Dixieland collection put together by Pete Fountain (its got really 
good clarinet playing on it. . .basically a tour to the great dixie clar 
persons) and old Louis Armstrong, in fact, any of Louis's groups is good. 
While you are at it, you should get some Jack Teagarden.  I recomend the 
current double album thing with "Coast Concert" on it.  It has T and also 
Abe Lincoln, another dixie trombone great.

Chris


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Karla Harby" <kharby at yahoo.com>
To: <trombone-l at server5.samford.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, July 18, 2006 6:16 AM
Subject: [Trombone-l] book/tape by jazz trombonist who sings rhythms?


> Greetings everyone,
>
> I'm looking for a book by a jazz trombonist that is accompanied by a tape 
> in which he sings jazz rhythms.
>
> Alas I don't remember the trombonist's name, nor do I know the name of the 
> book/tape. He might be European, or he is an American who teaches swing 
> feel somewhere in Europe. (But it's not the magnificent Bob Brookmeyer, 
> whose name I would have recognized.)
>
> My interest is in the conventions of how to play (articulate, phrase) 
> notation from things like Broadway shows or pop music and turn it into a 
> big band jazz performance.
>
> I'm told that in the old days, big band members were handed the charts 
> from new Broadway shows and told to play in a jazz style. There were 
> conventions about when to play legato, when to play staccato, etc., that 
> were know and accepted within big bands.
>
> If this rings any bells for anyone, I would greatly appreciate hearing 
> from you!
>
> Thank you,
>
> Karla Harby (flute player)
> kharby at yahoo.com
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