[Dixielandjazz] Swinging

[hsalotti at aol.com]

  Over the years I have played bass/tuba in the pit for many musicals. 
 The worst example I have ever run across of badly notated swing rhythms was the musical West Side Story. All of the swing music was written in 12/8 time. This was because the string players didn't know how to interpret the written eighth notes. It drove the horns players and myself crazy.
    
 -----Original Message-----
 From: bbiffle at brgcc.com
 To: jim at kashprod.com; dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
 Sent: Fri, 22 Sep 2006 5:03 PM
 Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] Swinging
 
  Symphony scores of swing tunes are often written this way - the swung rhythms 
written precisely (or so they intend). Very hard to read and even tougher to 
swing!
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device  

-----Original Message-----
From: "Jim Kashishian" <jim at kashprod.com>
Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2006 21:00:01 
To:<dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Swinging

One of the hardest recorded sessions I ever played on (& I did sessions, in
all styles, for 25 yrs!) was surprisingly enough on a jazz record!  There
were only a handful of jazz musicians on the sessions, so the arranger wrote
the swing into the arrangements.
 
No! No! No!  Never!!!  They were the blackest scores I have ever seen.  He
must have used a ton of ink writing all those 64th, 32nd, 16th, & 8th notes
in there.  It was one of the least "swinging" experiences of my life, and I
found it impossible to read.
 
The stock session musician were doing all this "tucketa tucketa tucketa"
sub-division noises with their mouths trying work out what comes natural to
many of us.  It was just terrible.  Surprisingly enough, the recording is
actually quite nice, but it was hell for me.
 
In contrast, I played Henry Mancinin scores with Henry Mancini directing for
a live tv show once.  None of that black stuff written before the notes.
Just play it with "anticipation", and the swing is there!  They were the
easiest scores I've ever read.
Mancini had swing just standing there!
 
Nope, it's not written, swing.  It's felt.  And, it's there, or it's not
there.
 
Jim
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