[Dixielandjazz] Teaching Jazz improv to a new band memeber.

[lrg4003 at aol.com]

Along the lines of improvisation....I have a good friend in Kansas City, a bass player, who toured for a couple of years with the Glenn Miller ghost band
when it was being led by Buddy DeFranco.  My friend had the opportunity to study with the great jass bassist Ray Brown for a period of time.  He, my friend, went to the first session and Ray asked him to play through all of the scales and changes.  My friend, could do most of it but he really wasn't prepared to do them all, or all very well. Ray sent him home saying, as jazz players we're painting a musical picture and if you're a painter you don't step up to the canvas with half a pallette.  You want to have all of the colors of the music available to you.  My friend went home, practiced and came back to play the changes well enough to meet Ray's approval and continue his lessons.  

The basics come from practice.  The emotion that turn it into "art", whatever the hell that is, comes from everything else, as Steve describes--the blues, the lyrics, the swing.  I think improvisation is a delicate balance between the brain and the heart.  One you can train, the other you have to feel.

K.C. Clarinet


-----Original Message-----
From: Gluetje1 at aol.com
To: Larry Garrett <lrg4003 at aol.com>
Cc: dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
Sent: Tue, Jul 6, 2010 9:59 pm
Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] Teaching Jazz improv to a new band memeber.


 
men to your comment on spending "two hours a day learning the  ART" !  
bout a year ago I was listening to a jazz professor at a  workshop.  He said 
e asked his college students in a credit course to take  home a list of 
ursery rhymes, play the melody in one key, then the next,  and the next, etc.  
e said almost none of them did the  assignment.

inny
 

n a message dated 7/6/2010 12:29:58 P.M. Central Daylight Time,  
murdick at jaguar1.usouthal.edu writes:
As  someone who is learning to both play the saxophone and play solos, I 
hink  I may be able to comment on this situation.  If the guy is not  
illing to spend 2 hours a day learning the art, then he won't be able  
o do it.  It is not really worth it to bring  a non- soloing  lead horn 
nto a small band. You can quickly teach a guitarist or a tuba  player to 
lay trad jazz, but that's about it.
With sax, I first  learned how to improvise backup parts.  This instantly 
ade me  valuble because I could also elaborate on the melody to form a 
asic  solo.  Very few (you might as well say none) adults are willing to  
pend this kind of time or have the theoretical knowledge to do what I  did.

______________________________________________
o unsubscribe or change your e-mail preferences for the Dixieland Jazz Mailing 
ist, or to find the online archives, please visit:
http://ml.islandnet.com/mailman/listinfo/dixielandjazz

Dixielandjazz mailing list
ixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com