[Dixielandjazz] Powerful verse

[ROBERT R. CALDER]

Various listmates will have the Willie the Lion Smith recording where he is 
telling it like it is in powerful tones. 


The thing about a song is it should have a powerful voice, he bellows. 
I puzzled over this in my youth, till I realised it was his Joysey accent ...

There is presumably some connection between the ditching of verses and the Paul 
Whiteman warning that if bands set the crowd listening rather than moving the 
dance-halls would empty,  

Also, some verses are almost all word and in instrumental performance don't 
introduce but postpone the arrival of the chorus. But even if you don't play the 
intro by knowing it you have encountered some ideas of how to begin the 
performance. And there is a species of tune, as Constant Lambert observed, which 
are exhausted by being played once.  All anybody can ever do with one of these 
is to play it again.