[Dixielandjazz] Pro Musicians and Lipsynching

Robert Newman bobngaye at surewest.net
Mon Apr 18 15:41:22 PDT 2005


Some of the greatest musicians were not great at faking for the movies.     There are examples galore.    Watch Benny on Hollywood Hotel and others he's done.     He not only doesn't try to fake the fingering, he takes breaths in the middle of continuous phrases.    Artie Shaw the same thing.    On Symphony in Swing, Dancing Coed, and Second Chorus Shaw looks like he didn't care what was coming next.    I'm sure he didn't.

The funniest example of pro musicians doing horrible faking is the Soundies video series that came out a few years ago.   Each of the Soundies was made in one day.   In the morning the band recorded the audio of the number and in the afternoon they lipsynched the performance, all saxes  and trumpets and trombones lined up perfectly, each horn in each section exactly parallel along the line.    There was probably a carpenter's level thread held tightly along the line of the horns.   And fingering and breathing?    Forget it!

A good example of live performances without faking is the Meet The Bandleaders series.   Those were special performances for the videos but they were live and very well done.

Bob Newman


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