[Dixielandjazz] Instruments and vibrato

[J. D. Bryce]

I've been following the thread on traditional jazz instrumentation and the one on vibrato.

My readings for the last 45 years have convinced me that black musicians picked up cornets, trombones, tubas and clarinets from hock shops in the South after the Civil War.  These instruments had been owned by members of Confederate army bands and had been hocked after the war because their owners had bigger issues to deal with than playing horns.  These instruments could be had cheaply and that was a major factor.

The black instrumentalists were, for the most part, untrained, and played by ear; often missing a note in a melody and then coming back to it.  They would literally "stagger" around the melody. This could be said to be one of the origins of improvisation in black music.  One source I read stated that one of the earliest definitions of "jass" was "to stagger." As verification, the author cited a quote from a black diary of around 1880; which said: "Abner was drunk and jassing home."

The black musicians would play marches, popular songs, dance tunes and even lullabies.  When they played, they superimposed the black emphasis on the second and fourth beats; rather than the white emphasis on one and three.  This gave the music, to the white ear, a herky-jerky feel.  It seemed, to the white listeners, ragged....which term was applied to the black piano pre-jazz artform to become "ragtime."

The so-called "blues" sound was actually an attempt to replicate an musical African scale to western instrumentation.  Thus, the Eb, Gb and Bb were played on a C chord, creating the dissonance and tension that is at the root of the blues.

Black music was originally vocal music and, when the black musicians played their cornets, trombones, etc., they replicated the natural vibrato of the voice on their horns.  My father used to speak of a "singing tone," and it is interesting to note that by 1935, even classical trumpeters were playing with noticably more vibrato than had been the standard in 1920.  This was unquestionably the influence of Louis Armstrong.

As for the saxophone:  The American military consciously emulated the French army in terms of uniforms, drill instruction and even military bands.  This was why the American army wore blue and why their caps were variations on French military kepis.

French military bands were alone in Europe in using saxophones, and the American military bands did the same.  Thus, a certain number of clarinetists in military ensembles were converted to play saxes.  Prior to 1914, saxophones had two octave keys: one for playing above G and the other for playing G and below. This was cumbersome to say the least.

Saxophones(with their idiosyncratic octave keys) began apearing in hock shops in New Orleans, Savannah and Charleston after 1900.  This was because these ports were the primary debarcation ports for the troops demobilizing from Cuba after the Spanish-American War.  If a military musician had a clarinet, cornet or trombone, he might keep it to play it as a civilian.  But, there was virtually no music written outside of the military for saxophones.  It was reasonable that a saxophonist might hock his horn at the port. At any rate, these horns began showing up in black bands between 1900 and 1910.  

In 1914 a new-patented octave key arrangement, that eliminated the double octave key mechanism, became standard on saxophones. This simplified the playing of the horn and enhanced its marketability.

As black music began to be exposed to the general public, so the sax was introduced to that same public.  Initially, white bands played black-styled arrangements as novelties in their repertoire.  Since the C melody sax was pitched in C, the general procedure was to get the violinist to play C Melody because he could continue reading the violin part without transposing.  More and more, the sax began to supplant the violin in pop bands as the demand for black-influenced music increased.

By the mid-1920's the C Melody had given way to alto, tenor and baritone saxes in three-man sections.  The standard section configuration was: A A T with one of the altos doubling on bari and the tenor player doubling on bass sax.  They all played clarinet as well.  

The only notable variation on the A A T sax section in the mid-1920s was the Fletcher Henderson band which routinely used an A A T T configuration.  This configuration became the standard "swing" sax section of the late 1930's.  The other exception was the Ellington band which poineered the A A T T B configuration which, after 1940 became the standard sax section configuration, as it is still today.

Sorry about this long post, but I could lurk no longer.

Jack Bryce
one of Sheik Littlefield's Minions