[Dixielandjazz] Exceptions

[Butch Thompson]

Stephen Barbone writes:

> Sidney Bechet was one who had it in his ears. Couldn't read notes,
> didn't know chords, but still made some beautiful music.

I agree that Bechet didn't "know chords" in the theoretical sense we're
discussing here, but he did know enough to play piano on his one-man band
session of April 1941.

This reminds me of the New Orleans clarinetist Raymond Burke, whom I got to
know fairly well. I asked him what he thought about when he took a solo, and
specifically whether he was thinking about the changes.  He adamantly denied
it, and in fact I'm sure he didn't consciously manipulate the chords.  But
one day, while he was trying to teach me some obscure tune -- I can't
remember what it was, but it doesn't matter -- he sat down at the piano and
played through all the changes.  I had never seen him play piano before, and
never did again. 

Raymond's playing was extremely melodic -- you could never accuse him of
"running the changes" -- but somewhere in the deep background was this
feeling for the harmonic direction.  What many of us try to do consciously
while we're improvising is to create something that overarches the
individual changes, arriving at the target at the same place as the
progression does, but without literally outlining every change, which is
just plain dull.  Louis was a master of this, of course, as well as Bechet,
Bix, et al. 

Butch Thompson