[Dixielandjazz] Early Jazz Bands - Was Myth Busters

[Marek Boym]

"Coltrane or Rouse...
Avant garde and modal jazz today are also, in many instances, mostly
non-reading performances.
>
 Yeah, I know, folks may not like the styles, but then, that's jazz."
Dentist drill music?


On 12/10/2007, Steve Barbone <barbonestreet at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Here's a fun quote about some of those early bands before jazz became art
> music. <grin>
>
> start snip
>
> "By the time the ODJB got back to New York in July of 1920, they found the
> city filled with noisy imitators: The Louisiana Five, Georgia Five, Alabama
> Five, St Louis Five, Domino Five, Original Indiana Five, the Frisco Jazz
> Band, and the Original New Orleans Jazz Band which featured four authentic
> New Orleans Musicians but was actually the creation of a Brooklyn-born
> ragtime piano player named Jimmy Durante. (YEP THAT ONE). 'In some of those
> bands the cornet player played the melody' Durante remembered. 'In some
> others the clarinet played the melody. In our band nobody played the
> melody'".
>
> "For most of these groups melody - and music - were less important than
> noise and novelty. The message they seemed to want to convey, Ralph Berton,
> younger brother of drummer Vic Berton remembered was, 'Lets get loaded and
> see how nutty we can sound.' The Louisiana Five's biggest hit was 'Yelping
> Dog Blues' which Tom Brown's one time clarinetist Yellow Nunez imitated a
> dog baying at the moon. Earl Fuller's Famous Jazz Band at Rector's
> Restaurant played almost entirely for laughs; as its leader played piano,
> drummer John Lucas banged away at what was advertised as '64 square feet' of
> bells, cymbals woodblocks and . . . 'pieces of apparatus that are
> electrically worked'. The trombonist used his foot to manipulate the slide,
> and Ted Lewis juggled a Top Hat with one hand while playing clarinet with
> the wobbliest comic tone he could muster."
>
> end snip
>
> Some could read, some could barely read and some could not. The most notable
> non readers being guys like Sidney Bechet, early Louis Armstrong, early Bix
> as well as a host of "Uptown" New Orleans jazz musicians and later players
> like Vido Musso or Chet Baker.
>
> The non-reading approach to playing jazz was championed in the 1950s and
> 1960s by Thelonious Monk who was an excellent reader. He always asked the
> men in his band to learn his songs by ear in rehearsals. He would not give
> them the written out parts until he had to when they couldn't get it by ear,
> or when rehearsal time before a performance was limited. You can hear
> players like Coltrane or Rouse learning some of Monk's tunes on the job in
> certain recordings. Monk felt that the best way to play jazz was to listen
> what was going on around you and to get inside the tune via your ears.
>
> Avant garde and modal jazz today are also, in many instances, mostly
> non-reading performances.
>
> Yeah, I know, folks may not like the styles, but then, that's jazz. Also,
> guys like Bechet never had any trouble playing lead without being able to
> read. I'll never forget him teaching me a tune or two by blowing arpeggios
> when I asked him about the chord(s). I don't think he knew what the chords
> were, but he could sure play them, as well as the melody.
>
> Cheers,
> Steve Barbone
>
>
>
>
>
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