[Dixielandjazz] RE: Wow on WING...; humor in music

[Bill Gunter]

Listmates,

Dan Augustine askes:

>Lots of bands (in fact, some of the best bands) use humor, but do any 
>deliberately play badly for a comic effect?

Oh yes . . . especially the band I'm associated with (The Boondockers) - on 
one of our tunes we resurected a comic bit we heard the Gaylords (Ronnie 
Gaylord and Burt Holiday) do on the old Reno/Tahoe/Vegas circuit back in the 
70s when lounge acts were popular. It features the song "Fascination" and it 
involves an outrageous French accent and what is perhaps the worlds worst 
violin playing. -

I play the violin (having taken violin lessons in my youth) with just enough 
accuracy to make the tune recognizable but with enough bad intonation and 
bowing to make it absurd. It always gets a big laugh.

Also, Gary Church (a Boondocker sideman), who is a fine 
cornet/trombone/keyboard/guitar player who spent years on the road with 
Merle Haggard and also in Branson with the Mel Tillis band, does really 
funny things with the horn (reaching for impossibly high notes with 
disastrous results in the lower intestinal tract, making his horn sound like 
a car with a dying battery in the song "I Can't Get Started" etc.).

Generally speaking, however, we play fine dixieland what with the likes of 
Jim Maihack, Gary Church, Bob in the band and we normally play our music 
straight but we have been known to digress for the sake of a laugh.

Check us out at the Washboard festival in Logan, Ohio this weekend.

Cheers,

Bill "Perfect Pitch" Gunter
jazzboard at hotmail.com

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