[Dixielandjazz] Bix's Solo

[Charles Suhor]

I miswrote & typo'd (2 big errors 2):  I'm fond of...Schuller on Louis' 
s "Hit Like That"
Oops. I meant "Hotter Than That" by Louis with the Hot Five (plus 
1--Lonnie Johnson on guitar), 12/13/27 on Okeh, analyzed keenly in 
Schuller's "Early Jazz." Thanks to Bill Haesler for catching this.

Charlie 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"