[Dixielandjazz] FW: Jazz dying

[Larry Walton Entertainment - St. Louis]

 Jim -- What about playing along with records, Larry?  Not all young kids 
(when I
> was young) had gigs.  I paid my first dues in my bedroom with my LP's...
____________________________________________

Good for you but that takes a lot of drive to do that.

There is nothing that will focus you faster than playing with and for other 
musicians in front of a crowd for money that will stop if you can't do it. 
With a record you have the leisure to go over and over something but live 
and in front of maybe better musicians you have one crack at it.

I see nothing wrong with that kind of practice.  I would imagine that all of 
us have done that at one time or another.  There are many practice aids 
available now starting with computers that were not available then.

I didn't own a phonograph when I started playing gigs so it was all OJT.  I 
don't advocate that at all and I wish I had a mentor or at least a 
phonograph with records to model after.

The biggest problem with records is copying.  This is a yin and yang type of 
problem.  How do you learn licks but if you do are you just cloning another 
musician? and is that jazz?

When I hit college I did have a phonograph and the bands I played with 
wanted the rock sax solos played exactly like the records and so I got out 
the phono and drilled but then again that wasn't jazz or improv and didn't 
help me one whit with jobs where I had to play jazz and improv and know lots 
of tunes.

I still stand pretty much by what I said in that musicians that know lots of 
tunes and can improv and arrange on the fly are just not being made today in 
any meaningful numbers.  I think that's because the gigging industry is 
drying up.  Young kids have the opportunity to play but not in a 
particularly meaningful way.  An example of this is playing in a school big 
band.  Maybe the lead players get to improvise on a 16 bar solo with printed 
chord symbols.  They memorize something and think they are really swinging. 
Maybe they are and maybe they aren't.

If you have to stand up there with nothing but a horn and three or four 
other musicians and you have to do that for four hours.  Leaves you kind of 
naked doesn't it.   Not only that but with many bands and bookers you get 
one crack at it.  No pressure here but then do it all over again with 
different musicians next week.

The hardest thing for me was knowing songs.  I was a teen in the 50's and 
that's the music I liked and wanted to play but all the bands who paid money 
weren't playing those tunes so I had to fall back on my memory of tunes that 
I had heard when I was younger.  It was good training and I had some help 
from the few bands that used fake books.
Larry
StL