[Dixielandjazz] Quoting

Steve barbone barbonestreet at earthlink.net
Thu Feb 23 17:53:36 PST 2006


Some quotes/quoters are great and some suck. It is not fair to lump them all
together. For Example:

A while back we almost all agreed that "Ambassador Satch" was one of the
GREATEST albums ever produced by Louis Armstrong. Some even lauded the way
Pop's and the band swung "Muskrat Ramble". As he introduced the song he
said; "Now, for all the musicians in the house, 'Muskrat Ramble'."

Well, damn it, open your ears and listen to Louis's solo on the tune.
Goodness me, a whole bunch of Operatic Quotes strung together. Sounds
perfectly normal, sounds fresh, sounds wonderful, etc., etc., etc. Yet he
probably played that quote sequence hundreds of times.

Soooooooo. The musicality of quotes depend upon who is doing the quoting.
Some can swing them, or make them sound humorous, or make them sound fresh,
and some (like the trombonist John McClernan referred to) can't.

In fact, once a musician repeats his own solos, he is quoting. Or once a
musician reads an arrangement of a piece of music he is quoting. All those
bands that reprise Goodman, Shaw, Herman, Basie, Oliver, Bix, Lewis, ODJB,
etc., ad infinitum are quoting. Some do it well, some suck.

Cheers,
Steve




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