[Dixielandjazz] Re: Ukulele

[Bob Loomis]

   Nice to see some favorable comment on the
ukulele in DJ ... I am now thinking of taking
along my tenor resonator uke when I go to the
East Bay Banjo Club session ... seems to me it
would fit right in. And it would spare stress on
my left hand, which I noticed flaring up after an
evening's practice on banjo Monday night. 
   I also have a bari uke with a real deep, sweet
tone ... and I'm probably gonna shock my
bandmates by playing nothing but uke at our
Saturday gig, my hand's in need of a rest and
I've been wanting to do that for some time
anyway. I can actually solo better on uke than
guitar and our harp player is going to be absent
this week  ... it might end up a solo show when I
bring nada but ukes! <GGG> 
   I'd love to play one in a Dixieland quartet or
quintet. And actually, the washboard works better
for me than drums if augmented at times by other
hand percussion instruments (shakers, guiro,
etc.), especially given the small size of most
venues we'd be playing.  I used to play
harmonica, washboard or resonator uke (depending
on the song) in a country band. 
   My ideal group for that, offhand, would be
washboard, bass or tuba, clarinet or
cornet/trumpet, and uke/vocals. I'm open to other
instrumentations though. If our harp player was
better at melodies (say as good as Howard Levy,
heh-heh!) that could work, too. Actually he's
played well on the few DJ tunes we've done in the
past. Just using our current lineup, it would be
uke, bass, bari or tenor uke, 5-string banjo,
harmonica and lady vocalist. We'll find out
whether that works at our next practice when I
reinstitute a few of the DJ standards I mentioned
before, like Bill Bailey. I need to get at least
a taste of DJ into this history show.
   Thanks for the comments.

Happy Webtrails, Bob Loomis

  
   
   

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