[Dixielandjazz] Re: Weird or Funny Intros

[Stephen Barbone]

> Duck Broadie wrote:

> This is a fascinating thread.  How many of you musicians use wierd or funny
> intros to songs?  I've got a few to contrubute but don't dare get started at
> this minute since I promised to take my wife out to dinner in a few minutes.

Intro to The Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gives to Me. (Night Clubs)

We're going to play a song about blue people. This is the real Blues.  Back in New Orleans in the
20s if you got a "social disease, there was only one possible cure. A medicine containing Mercury
which in the necessary dosage, would give a bluish tinge to the user. So you could always easily
spot folks who were fooling around. The tune "The Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gives To Me." was for
them.

Or when I introduce our guitarist who, among his other credits, toured with Peggy Lee for a year.

"She was not only a great singer, she was a wonderful composer. She wrote a song for Sonny,
called "Is That All There is."  BIG LAUGH

Then Sonny comes up and makes a big show of correcting me. Then I say. Oops, that was the wrong
song, he says it was "I Got The Fever."

This kind of thing takes 30 seconds, makes the audience laugh and gives them a connection to the
performers. It's as if we've been friends for years.

We're dedicating this next tune to the bass player's first wife. "You're Nobody's Sweetheart
Now." And then follow it with "After You've Gone" and a funny comment about the Bass players new
girl friend.

You can string funny sounding tunes one after the other like:

Four or Five Times
All Night Blues
Mama's Gone Goodby
After You've Gone
Wild Man Blues.

And make ribald comments in between.

I personally believe this does more for the appreciation of the music than a lecture like  "This
next tune was a favorite of King Oliver who as you know was Louis Armstrong's mentor and they
played it often at the Lincoln Gardens in Chicago, a dance hall where Bix and McPartland et al
went to watch Louis and the King with Johnny Dodds and Lil Hardin etc., etc., etc.

Me, I prefer this:  "The next tune is Dippermouth Blues. Louis Armstrong was sometimes called
Dippermouth. Very sexy nickname, ask Paul about it on the break."  Paul being our black trumpet
player, who often gets asked if he is related to Louis cause "he looks just like him". Funny
thing is folks will go up to him on break and ask about "Dippermouth." Far better to educate
those who ask, rather then force feed (read bore) the entire audience.

Little stuff like that goes a LONG way, takes little time, and connects the band to the audience.
Especially our audience which wouldn't know King Oliver from Oliver Hardy and wouldn't remember
what we said about either on the band stand.

They do however, remember "those stories you tell, we love them" as many a young fan has said to
me when seeing us perform again. "Play that song about the blue people."

And I have lots of short, funny, sexy stories about jazz, jazz musicians, New Orleans and beads
and . . . . That plus the music equals fun, or for the mathematicians, BS + OKOM = F. And F
squared = Bookings.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone