[Trombone-l] Billy May . . .more <see my digression on last - Off topic, but funny>

[Chris Tune]

I'm listening to "Solving the Riddle", which John Mitchell, told me was not
appreciated at all by Nelson Riddle.  It is an attempt to figure out and
display what arranger-isms you might get across that are pure "Nelson
Riddle", style ideas. 

I think the arrangement is a success and I also think it is one of the best
on the "Big Fat Brass" album.  Clearly it is not just pure Nelson stuff,
because the same sense of humor with sudden stabs is being used, where
Nelson does the same kind of licks and sets of voice settings, but does it
generally seriously. Of course, Nelson also excelled at vocalist backing
arrangements, and also underscoring.  So, really the Billy May arrangement
is really kind of a compliment, since he took the time to pick out and do
the idioms that had been such a success.  Naturally, I'm sure Nelson "spun"
the thing into a bad thing.  After all, Billy is a trumpet player.  We bone
players find it hard to forget all that blasting into the back of our heads.


Incidentally, one very cool thing about the Big Fat Brass is you have horn
section AND you have Tuba.  They both are really exploited.  You even have
some really cool "Dragnet - like" stuff.  Shows you why full brass sections
can be a boon to a movie score.

Also, I like the general absence of detectible clams in the trumpet and horn
sections.  Bone sections really are generally less prone to gacking all the
time (well, I'm not sure if it is a real tendency, but I think somehow bone
sections are less likely to just screw up. . .maybe the difficulty in
getting basics down weeds out the goofballs). 

Chris 



-----Original Message-----
From: trombone-l-bounces at samford.edu [mailto:trombone-l-bounces at samford.edu]
On Behalf Of Chris Tune
Sent: Sunday, September 07, 2008 4:42 PM
To: 'Craig'; emrose79 at sonic.net; 'Chris Waage'
Cc: 'Trombone-L'
Subject: Re: [Trombone-l] Off topic, but funny

Luckily for us, if you want to get into Billy May, instead of Billy Mays,
everything is OK. Have been listening to a great deal of Billy May.  Pierce
College Jazz Band is doing several of these charts, so we are reviewing
carefully.

I've just had the extreme pleasure of listening to a two-fer type CD, I'd
never heard before, with these albums:

Billy May's Big Fat Brass
Bill's Bag

The two are quite different and really, in both cases, something of a
departure from Billy Mays famous "All of Me" style sax swoops and sudden
surprises kind of approach. 

The BFB album has a full horn section with Vince DeRosa and the other, very
familiar names of 1958's studio scene.  The contrast between the bones and
the horns is made much more obvious by using the bones as "singing voice"
style TD approach ensemble section.  Sy Zentner is lead bone.

On Bill's Bag, the 1963 album is really more like modern jazz and therefore
has modal approaches, many Funk style jazz things, and even the Bebop "Suede
Shoes". Maynard is no there with screaming high notes (John Mitchell and I
both thought it didn't really add as much to the thing so as to make it
really worth it. . .I think this is better when the arranger goes and
specifically sets up to exploit the high note soloist as solo or ensemble,
i.e. as a part of a fully stretched out "section" voicing or question-answer
up and octave, up two octaves, etc.-I'm thinking Brisbois on Kenton in
Bossa)



-----Original Message-----
From: trombone-l-bounces at samford.edu [mailto:trombone-l-bounces at samford.edu]
On Behalf Of Craig
Sent: Saturday, September 06, 2008 7:50 PM
To: emrose79 at sonic.net; 'Chris Waage'
Cc: 'Trombone-L'
Subject: Re: [Trombone-l] Off topic, but funny

I want to punch that Sham-Wow guy.

Trombone content: I have a 2B and a 42BO

-----Original Message-----
From: trombone-l-bounces at samford.edu [mailto:trombone-l-bounces at samford.edu]
On Behalf Of emrose79 at sonic.net
Sent: September 6, 2008 12:24 PM
To: Chris Waage
Cc: Trombone-L
Subject: Re: [Trombone-l] Off topic, but funny

Good one Chris, but if you look up Billy Mays bio, you'll probably find 
that he's a closet Accordian player... but wait! that's not all....

(Hi, Vince here with ShamWow)





Chris Waage wrote:
> About a year ago, my dad almost had a fire due to an overheated dryer.  He
> discovered that the exhaust ductwork had filled with lint, and became
> overheated - fortunately he smelled something getting hot.  We were at a
> loss how to clean it without buying some Billy Mays infomercial tool.  It
> would probably work, but the guy's too annoying for my tastes.
> 
> Probably a trumpet player.
> 
> Anyway, I came up with a fun solution, and it's become an annual ritual
> around our house.  I unhook the ductwork from the dryer and use the leaf
> blower - the results are usually spectacular.
> 
> This year, my youngest observed, "Why don't you see if you can just blow
it
> out like you do your trombone, dad?"
> 
> I stuck with the leaf blower, with the excuse that my mouthpiece wasn't
> large enough to fit the ductwork . . .
> 
> Chris
> 
> Chris Waage, Bass Trombonist | chris.waage at gmail.com
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Trombone-l mailing list
> Trombone-l at samford.edu
> http://maillists.samford.edu/mailman/listinfo/trombone-l
> 
> 

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