[Dixielandjazz] Instruments and vibrato

Sun Sep 23 15:08:21 PDT 2007

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 is the first time anyone has confirmed my theory that very early Jazz 
was actually musicians making mistakes and that in trying to play tunes 
things happened.  Of course early jazz is such a mix of so many threads 
saying that any one was the start is in error.

I believe that the Dixieland form can be directly traced to Sousa and Mozart 
but even that is an oversimplification and not entirely true.  As time went 
by the "mistakes" became traditional licks.  I think the only safe thing to 
say is that jazz is a true mix of American, European and African culture. 
Everything influenced everything else.

My only disagreement with all of this is the number of instruments from 
military bands that were supposed to have flooded the market after several 
wars.  I have no idea of the history of pawn shops but just how many could 
New Orleans have had and how did all those musicians just happen to show up 
in New Orleans just to hock their horn.  Now some have pointed out that New 
Orleans was a main port during the Spanish American war but so were several 
others.  Why didn't we see a growth of Jazz or something else from those 
cities?  I also don't accept that the U.S. government just let them take 
their instruments when mustered out.  Could have happened but the government 
didn't let them take their horse, gun, cannon or ship so expensive musical 
instruments in any number, I don't think so.  Also during the Spanish 
American war there just weren't lots military of bands.

Now about the Southern Bands after the Civil war.  Again they were pretty 
beaten down and extremely fragmented.  Organized military bands by the end 
of the war, I'm pretty sure, were very few and far between.

There just seems to be more logic in favor of some other source than 
military bands for the inexpensive instruments that did exist at that time. 
It's probably true that some did come from there but I have never seen any 
documented evidence to that as being a source of any consequence.

I would really like to know where those instruments came from but I just 
think it's too far back and it just wasn't something anyone would document.

The other thing that might make this premise more understandable is that 
maybe there weren't that many musicians or people in the market for 
instruments and that maybe the numbers were really quite small.  After all 
Jesus only needed 12 disciples.
Larry
St. Louis
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "J. D. Bryce" <brycejo at comcast.net>
To: "Larry Walton" <larrys.bands at charter.net>
Cc: "Dixieland Jazz Mailing List" <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Sunday, September 23, 2007 3:51 PM
Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Instruments and vibrato

> 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
>
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