[Dixielandjazz] Noses in charts

[LARRY'S Signs and Large Format Printing]

I completely agree with Dave in that the head, solos in some set pattern, head and out is after a while boring.  I call that St. Louis  (substitute your town) style Dixie.  When we have a pick up band, which is usual, that's the way it works.  The high demand guys are busy making a living and they feel that they don't need to rehearse.  I have to admit that time is difficult to manage myself.  Couple that with the need to keep the family happy.

There is a fundamental misunderstanding often about bands.  There are several types but there are only two really worth mentioning.  The professional band and the basement band both of which are often really good musically.  I play in 5 bands plus my own.  I can't keep my own band working all the time.  My musicians have to be free to take other jobs and do.  They all play for several bands too.  Really the way it works is we are all band leaders and who ever scores a gig hires the guys.  The advantage is that we can get off if we want to and make more money.  To do this we have to read and improvise well and know a lot of tunes in a lot of keys.  Young musicians just can't do this.  They may read very well and sound good but they don't "know" tunes and improvise by the book.

I played with a trio for 15 years.  The typical basement/garage band.  We were very successful and in demand but when we finally broke it up no one was talking to each other and I had a hard time getting back into the mainstream. I was approached recently by a group that rehearsed one time a week, did about 50 head arrangements and were quite good. They played 60-70 gigs a year and paid well.  They almost never changed tunes and no one ever could get sick or take vacations etc.  They were joined at the hip.  This group would have effectively taken me out of circulation and the other band leaders would have quickly forgotten who I was

If anyone is under the illusion that Zep charts aren't improvisational needs to take a look at one.  He is very clever about it though.  Usually everyone gets a solo somewhere with key changes etc. But on the other side they are difficult enough that you have to do a lot of healthy reading and watching the spots.

It's tough to get a group together that can play real Dixie today.  Most of the players are dead.  I am 65 and when I first started playing professionally Elvis was hitting and the rest is history.  Many of my contemporaries are swingers.  The difficulty with Dixie and swing are often in the drummers. I continually hear swing coming out of them.  Swing is a 40's idiom and Dixie came before swing was invented.  Actually that's not real bad but the point is that younger (less than 70 years old ) really don't ever hear Dixie and can't improvise on it.  One of the best sax men in town plays Dixie solos like bebop. I only know one clarinet player who can play real Dixie licks and he is in his late 70's and almost deaf.

Dixie is the outgrowth of Rag which was a classical written idiom.  Dixie is ragtime for guys that couldn't read.  Guys like Zep Meisner wrote it down not only for his own but for generations of musicians yet unborn.  If it weren't for guys like him the only way we could learn this style would be off of old 78's.

There are only two choices when you play this style.  Try to play it like it was or do it "your town" style Dixie with the be-bop, swing beat,  rock solos.  I think there is something to be said for reading it and to try including young musicians who want to learn the style.

My arrangements are very loose consisting of a melody line, Harmony line and trombone part with rhythm parts.  The rhythm parts have tags and solos indicated.  They are very loose allowing the tunes to breathe but still sound good.  Everyone knows that the charts are just guides.  I use a trombone player that never looks at one and he's great.  I use another one that really needs to read the lines and takes few solos.  Another one plays pretty good solos but likes to read the written harmony lines.  This way I can use several guys with different abilities and have the result pretty much the same.