[Dixielandjazz] Marsalis & the talking trumpet

[Stephen G Barbone]

> Bill Haesler <bhaesler at bigpond.net.au> wrote (polite snip) about  
> Marsalis solos on Blues tunes.
>
> I believe Mr Marsalis was attempting to demonstrate the New Orleans'  
> "talking trumpet" effect popularised by young King Oliver.
> It is said that Oliver could converse with his musicians using his  
> cornet and mute.
> Unfortunately, there are no examples of this on his records, except  
> perhaps for the breaks on "Wa Wa Wa".
>   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-ZfpO9RE6g
> One of Oliver's features was, allegedly, a 'talking' version of "Oh  
> How I Miss You Tonight" which "used to drive audiences wild."
> It has been claimed in interviews that other early New Orleans  
> trumpet/cornet players used this novelty technique.
> Clyde McCoy's popular "Sugar Blues" from 1931 also comes to mind.
>    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pf-F6G6EnVw
> As does the 18 February 1931 King Oliver version, which I suspect  
> was really a Brunswick 'cover' of the 22 January 1931 McCoy hit  
> released that month by Columbia.

Dear Bill:

Perhaps so. Wynton Marsalis is just as much a student of early jazz  
playing devices as any of us on the DJML. I'm hoping we will hear more  
of this if they record the LCJB plays the music of Jelly Roll Morton  
and King Oliver that is being performed from Dec 27 through Dec 31.

There are still a few seats available for the late set on Saturday for  
any of the big spenders who want to attend. Starts at 10:30 PM and is  
$500 a pop, which includes dinner and New Years Eve Champaign. All the  
other sets on all days, 7:30 and 9:30 are SOLD OUT.

Meanwhile, I'll attend the next Trad Festival, spend $100 for a 3 day  
pass, see 24 sets and then bitch that it was too expensive. VBG.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband

PS: Regarding Marsalis & Clapton, one might consider this excerpt from  
the liner notes by Marsalis. when trying to figure out why this album  
happened.

When Eric Clapton and I first met, we began a friendship based in a  
love of music, nurtured in the mutual heritage we share, and  
ultimately expressed in the way we play with each other. From our  
first interactions, I recognized his intensity and seriousness about  
music. It is the result of countless hours of solitary practice  
throughout teenhood, of working and reworking the results of that  
practice on stage, night after night, all over the world. It is  
lightened by the joy of inventing new things to play, and humanized  
through the willful creation of community, regardless of personal  
situation. The lifelong pursuit of music evidences a deep love, but  
requires even deeper commitment from the extremely successful, because  
nothing extinguishes creativity with more fanfare than fame. Eric’s no- 
nonsense approach to playing and encyclopedic knowledge of blues  
styles testify to a passionate and evolving relationship with music,  
something we both pursue with single-minded focus.

In that spirit, we wanted these concerts to sound like people playing  
music they know and love, not like a project. We agreed to let the  
music show how the blues continues to speak with clarity and immediacy  
across all lines of segregation. We combined the sound of an early  
blues jump-band with the sound of New Orleans jazz to accommodate the  
integration of guitar/trumpet lead and to give us the latitude to play  
different grooves from the Delta to the Caribbean and beyond. New  
Orleans is a mythic birthplace of jazz, the blues, gospel, rhythm and  
blues, and rock and roll. It is the perfect place to find our common  
heritage. We decided to use the instrumentation of King Oliver’s  
Creole Jazz Band plus two (electric guitar and piano), because they  
transformed the world of music with a set of 1923 recordings and, with  
performances like ‘Dipper Mouth Blues’, forever established the blues  
as a centerpiece of jazz.