[Dixielandjazz] Bob Brookmeyer

[ROBERT R. CALDER]

I always liked Brookmeyer's line about the musicians of an older generation with whom there was really no place where the player stopped and the instrument started, every one a continuity with his horn, or whatever he (presumably also she) was playing. I also liked the account of him extending his range to incorporate playing Legit.  Rather than the case of the trained player who supposes there is some sort of "jazzing-up" to be done, and who at moments of non-inspiration, rather than playing just less well, just falls into unidiomatic routine. 

I also liked the capacity to deliver smears and other lovely effects normally associated with slide rather than valves, and the inspiration of Roy Williams, who does a very nice Brookmeyer-Mulligan sort of duet with John Barnes on an LP which Bill Haesler might know.  

The great Roy has been quoted as citing his major influences as valve trombonists, with the implication that it was in emulating the precision possible with their horn that he developed his own bel canto. 

Even more thanks to Steve Voce for his recent contribution of Brookmeyeriana (which I passed on to various very interesting non-members of this group). Brookmeyer is still a man to be learned from, and for some of us to be listened to 


Robert