[Dixielandjazz] Passing Out/phrasing

[Jim Kashishian]

I didn't see how this thread began, but it degenerated fairly quickly into
suggestions of boozing, etc.

No one has mentioned the fact that phrasing can be so very important to
one's solo, and wind instruments need wind!  Those that honk with their
fingers only can set up their phrasing any way they please.  However, a
person playing a wind instrument is limited to the air he has stored away at
any given moment.  (*)

I have, for the sake of not wanting to break the phrase I am playing by
taking a breath, actually ended up seeing all black & a bunch of little
stars in front of my eyes.  I have never actually fallen over, but it could
have been close!

(*)  Some people have mastered breathing in the nose while shoving the air
out of the mouth area by squeezing the cheeks in.  You can usually notice
when someone is doing that, as the sound is not actually the same, and it
takes so much concentration that the solo structure usually suffers.  A
trick, used mainly by reed players who have too much time on their hands for
practicing, in my opinion!

Phrasing is a subject I don't believe has hit the lines of DJML yet, but yet
it is so important to all of our playing/singing.  I gasp at some of the
phrasing used by some of the pop singers.  If they were speaking, they would
never, ever take a breath at the point that they often do in their vocals.
Frank Sinatra, of course, was the King of Phrasing for vocalists!

Our best known jazz saxophonist in Spain (Pedro Itturalde) was playing one
of his Flamenco/Jazz compositions once (I was in the big band with him).
When he reached the top of what would normally be the musical phrase (like
at the summit of a mountain), he held the note over, bending it, and then
dropped down the other side of the phrase, without taking a breath.  Hard to
explain in words.  It was one of the best expressions (in my mind) of
beautiful phrasing I have ever heard. I told him so afterwards.  It had been
natural for him, and he wasn't even aware of it.  (Some people have it
naturally!)

Jim