[Dixielandjazz] re: melody, chords, etc.

[Elazar Brandt]

Shalom Jazz Fans,

I'm jumping into this thread kind of late, but I had an interesting experience at a recent gig that others must have had too but
nobody has mentioned yet.

My band recently added Basin Street Blues to our repertoire, and we were performing it in a restaurant gig (yeah, we really got
one--looks like it will become a weekly job for awhile!). We had a young, very young Israeli girl from the audience who asked to
sing it with us, and we let her, and she did a great job on the vocal. Then it was my turn with the trombone. Playing in Bb, I took
a deep breath, did an arpeggio up to the high D, and just held it for something like 6 of the first 8 bars. All that was behind me
was banjo and drums doing rhythm and straight chords. I varied the volume, tone color and amount of vibrato, and eventually resolved
it back into the melody of bars 7 and 8. Well, out of all the solos that got played that night, this simple thing is what drew
applause (aside from at the end of whole songs, of course) -- one long note artfully executed. You can't get any simpler than that,
except maybe the solo on 4:33 (the "song" that's 4 minutes 33 seconds of silence).

So a solo doesn't have to be complex to be good. Then again, you can't do this too often or you wear out the effect.

Elazar "I'm a professional; don't try this at home" Brandt
Misrad HaJazz
Doctor Jazz Band
Jerusalem, Israel
<www.israel.net/ministry-of-jazz>
Tel: +972-2-679-2537
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