[Dixielandjazz] 15 year old Nikki Yanofsky

[Craig Johnson]

If anyone thinks that every well-known virtuoso jazz musician comes off
with a highly technical and possibly complicated bravura solo
with NO preparation at any time, you must be nuts. Occasionaly
this can be done, but not all the time. And doing it live is
certainly more difficult than the process of getting it just
right in a recording studio where it comes off perfectly in the end
-- thanks to multiple takes and dubbing.

View her rendition of "Airmail Special" to see & hear multiple (solo)
variations. And sure, I'll bet they were the result of multiple
private and public performances but so what? The only reason
I don't repeat a good solo once in a while is that I can't remember 
what the heck I did last time.

Also, IF(!) Nikki was trying to at least interpret in Ella's style
it wasn't totally her own  original style and probably required a 
little bit of study similarly to what would happen if I was trying 
uto "be" Bix, Satch, HJ, Bunny or any other of a number of trpt/cnt players 
I truly admire..

And to take it a bit further. At one time when Warren Vache was
playing with Benny Goodman, he took a really fine solo on Ziggy Elman's
froelich "And The Angels Sing" and afterward, Benny told him he'd like it if he
sounded a little more "jewish". That would have taken at least a little
woodshedding for Warren to sound like it was natural,. I'm sure.
 - Tain't his main schtick.

And Ella "over-rated"? She might not be YOUR preferred singer
or style, but "over-rated"  is a pretentious assessment.

By the way, I'd be happy if I could find a local singer that could'
DO jazz -- and who even had the rhythmic and chord discipline to 
ad lib Io even "get  it right" for that many choruses. 
at ANY age, much less 13-15. 

I thought it was our general intent to encourage youth to
sing real music like this, rather than the crapola they listent to.
--- not to say awe -- that ain't so good. 
"Someone with the strength of mind" ---  to put down a  15 year old  is
equivalent to grandfather who brags about beating his
6 year old grandson at chess.


Craig Johnson