[Dixielandjazz] Play The Melody!

[dwlit at cpcug.org]

I'd put the rule this way: the first chorus (and verse, if played)) should
be the melody played straight.

That way, someone besides the lead horn could do it.

--Sheik

> 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
>
>
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