[Dixielandjazz] Play The Melody!

[Eric Holroyd]

I read on the list jus recently that Louis' Armstrong's mentor - King 
Oliver - had urged him in the 1920s to always play a good straight melody.

Many years later, in the 1970s in fact, when I was working with the late and 
great Tom Baker to put together his Yerba Buena styled San Francisco Jazz 
Band he urged me to do the same thing, for I was wont to stray from a 
straight melody when playing lead horn at that time.

Tom told me that, in turn, he had been mentored by Dan Barrett on that very 
subject and Dan had urged HIM to always play a good straight melody.

I largely stuck to that advice over the many years that I played jazz 
trumpet, and was reminded very strongly of the advice when I attended a 
recent jazz gig here in Sydney.

The band's front line was the regular reeds, trumpet and trombone, and I was 
somewhat surprised that it often took me almost a full chorus to recognise 
what was the new tune they had just started to play, for the trumpeter 
played more of an improvised solo than a straight melody lead.

This happened on almost every tune they played, and I found it somewhat 
irksome.

What do other listmates and bandleaders think about this subject?

Should the lead horn lay down a solid melody lead for the other front liners 
to embroider, or should he/she do the improvised solo thing and let the 
audience guess what tune they're playing?

Eric Holroyd
Sydney, Australia