[Dixielandjazz] Bix's Solo

[Charles Suhor]

Well said, Ray. The only question is, how much analysis is too much? 
And each of us has a different answer to that one. The Bix anlysis took 
me farther than I want to go, in part I'm sure because it went farther 
than I understand. I'm fond of Gunther Schuller's and Paul Berliner's 
blend of poetic appreciation and analysis, even when the latter is a 
bit beyond my reach. (Schuller on Louis' s "Hit Like That" and Morton's 
"New Orleans Joys" are great examples.) Speaking of poetic 
apprectiation, your last phrase ("can bring us one baby-step closer to 
that miraculous moment when the the neuron first jumped the synapse in 
the artist's creative moment") is especially beautiful.

Charlie Suhor


On Feb 4, 2007, at 12:08 PM, rorel at aol.com wrote:

> Don's response is a good one but as I read the thread we were talking 
> about notes and not emotions. Of coure, emotions cannot be analyzed 
> nor should they be. But the notes of a solo and how they fit together 
> can indeed tell us a great deal about how a musician thought about 
> music and what he heard in his head. Does a musician plays streams of 
> notes with no regard to a previous phrase or does it come out 
> organized, structurally sound? Does he think horizontally 
> (thematically) or vertically (harmonically)? It doesn't matter if Bix 
> thoguht about his illness, his next gig or a ham sandwich - the notes 
> are the notes and can be analyzed quite apart from the emotions felt 
> at the time of their creation. I am sure that Bix did not make a 
> conscious decision to play a flatted 9 here or there, but it was 
> instinctual and a good analysis of one of his solos can tell us a 
> little bit about how he heard music in his mind's ear and
>
>  Respectfully submitted,
>
>  Ray Osnato
>  Leader of the French jazz band, "Ray Osnato and the Moselle Toughs"