[Dixielandjazz] Sharps and Flats (continued)

[Ken Mathieson]

Hi All,

Re the "fingers up or fingers down" convention, I can confirm that the UK convention is, to a man/woman, fingers down for flats and fingers up for sharps. In 55 years of playing I've never met any exceptions to that except for some, but far from all, US musicians. One of the exceptions was Sonny Stitt, who signalled flats "fingers up", but of course he hadn't clarified this beforehand, so on the gig in a ballad medley, which involved a new tune and key for every chorus, we had some interesting moments, which coincidentally resembled a dogfight harmonically speaking. Sonny could be pretty tough on rhythm sections and he had some withering looks for the pianist and bassist, so there are times when being the drummer and just going swish-swish-swish has its rewards. The pianist tackled him about it at the break and Sonny seemed just as surprised to learn that our sign language was the opposite of his as we had been that he might want to play Body and Soul in 5 sharps. Mind you, I'm sure Sonny could have played it in any key if he had really wanted to, as indeed could our pianist, who visualised chord changes as intervals rather than as specifically named chords, so once he knew a tune, keys didn't matter much to him. After that gig, he always checked the hand signals with Americans before we got on the bandstand.

Scottish musicians use the UK convention but Bb is also often referred to as "hauf a coo" (half a cow i.e. only 2 legs hanging down), while Ab is naturally " a hale coo" except when indicated by Bobby Wishart, a fine veteran pianist/flautist/saxophonist who is missing the top joint of one finger, so Ab becomes "seeven eighths o' a coo" Another couple of local expressions you're likely to hear are "It's in C for Seagull" or "it's in G for Jesus."

It's dawned on me that, when I lived in Brasil in the 1970s, the musicians I worked with named the chords using a strange hybrid of solfa and fixed naming of roots, so that Db minor became Rebemoll (pronounced raybaymoll). Things could get quite complicated when altered harmony (such as a minor ninth with a flat 5) occurred. I don't know whether this is still widely used there (maybe Tito can advise), but suspect that it's been superseded by the standard chord naming that jazzers are familiar with world-wide. I don't remember seeing any sign language for key indication there, but again maybe Tito can advise if they use "hauf a coo." Sonny Stitt toured there in the late 1970s, so goodness knows how the ballad medley key changes worked out.

Cheers,

Ken Mathieson




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