[Dixielandjazz] The Definition of "Head" Music

[Larry Walton Entertainment - St. Louis]

Your definition is pretty close.

This means playing tunes by ear or from memory.  "Head Charts" or "Head 
Arrangements"  are I think is a little more accurate.

I suppose that it could be expanded to be called jazz but it isn't 
necessarily.  I have played "Head Charts" for many years with various bands. 
It can include jazz or playing off of the melody.  It could also mean 
improvising on melodies but those things are spin offs.

As time goes by the ability to play "head charts" is going away with many 
musicians in favor of written arrangements.  You will find 50 musicians that 
can read for every one who is capable of doing head charts.

The other skill is to be able to arrange on the fly.  That is to do harmony, 
and fills behind a singer or another instrument.  I might point out that 
this ability is crucial to playing Dixie.   That ability is becoming a lost 
art as is playing Dixie.  For a band to be able to sound like they are 
playing from an arrangement is getting rare and then the next step up is to 
be able to walk into a band that you have never played with ever and sound 
like you had been playing with them 10 years.

I have played just zillions of jobs with nothing on the stand resembling 
music or even lists of music.  Someone calls a tune and the piano does an 
intro and we hit it.  When I first came to St. Louis in the early 60's a 
band leader handed me a list of about 150 tunes with the first note of the 
tune after the title and said these are the tunes I require my guys to know. 
There was no key, just the first note.  Fortunately I knew most of the tunes 
on the list.   To this day all I really need to know about a lot of tunes is 
the first note.  In a way it screwed me up because I never worried about 
keys and still don't much when I'm playing head charts.  If I wasn't able to 
do this I would not have worked because it was an absolute requirement of a 
working musician at that time.  I found out later that other guys used about 
the same list.

Russ David was a very successful band leader forever it seemed like.  I 
didn't play regularly with him but every so often over the years.  Many of 
his "arrangements" were more or less glorified fake charts.  His band always 
sounded good but right before he died I played a park concert with him and 
half the guys on the band didn't have any idea how to handle the charts some 
of which just stopped or didn't have all the pages.  As a result there were 
10 guys all playing the melody.  That also happened on his memorial concert. 
It was a quartet (very good) with the other 6 trying to figure out what was 
going on.  Over the years the ability to arrange on the fly had definitely 
slipped.  One thing that Russ would do when the band got in trouble was wave 
them off and take a solo.

I have been slipping some though in the past 10 years because I like to have 
a fake chart on the stand now.  That's because I'm not using the skill two 
or three nights a week and it can go away somewhat.  The reason for this is 
that so many people read and the bands just don't depend on what they know 
any more.

I don't know if you noticed but doing the Saints the other day in D and E 
for the Cornet and Soprano just caused a momentary hiccup with Herb and I.
Larry
St. Louis

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