[Dixielandjazz] Tips for the piano (and trombone)

[Dave Dustin]

Criss, it's not how many notes, it's the right notes.  But if you want
to try selling trombone by the pound, Bob McChesney has published a
great resource (book plus CD) on doodle-tonguing.  ("Doodle Etudes for
Trombone"?)  You can find it through Google.  If you can master that you
too can have perfect intonation and articulation of 8-bar 32nd note
riffs like pure "modern jazz" trombonists McChesney, Bill Watrous, and
Conrad Herwig, et al.  I've been making tremendous progress: I figure in
about 20 more years I'll just about have it down.  Course it would help
if I could figure out how to doodle AND get up and down scales at the
same time.  (Why does it all have to be so hard?)
 
I listen awestruck to these spectacular modern trombonists doodle
crisply through their lines -- not that I can recognize any songs. And
then I come back to Jack Teagarden, who may or may not have
doodle-tongued (I don't honestly know, but he sure had perfect lip
control).  I KNOW I'd give my left leg to sound even halfway like him
and not the best doodler emerging from Julliard, Berklee or North Texas
today.  (May Jack rest in peace.)
 
David Dustin