[Dixielandjazz] Joe "Fingers" Carr

[Dan Spink]

 I have to jump in for old time's sake. I grew up on Joe Fingers Carr. I
learned to play a bar room style piano because of him. Don Ingle is right,
his working name is Lou Busch and he is often categorized as a California
piano man (whatever that means). But he is also often not given credit for
being the musician he really was. For example, he wrote the piano
arrangement of Bumble Boogie which became a 1940's hit. He also put out a
lot of other records--but I doubt that many people care. My favorite was his
12th Street Rag. I still play it that way.

Dan (backup pianoman) Spink




On Mon, Jun 6, 2011 at 10:39 AM, <dixielandjazz-request at ml.islandnet.com>wrote:

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> Today's Topics:
>
>   1. Re: Joe "Fingers" Carr (Don Ingle)
>   2. "Fingers" Carr/Lou Busch (Dick Baker)
>   3. Mission Gold Jazz Band in Napa Sunday, June 12, 2011 (Bob Shoring)
>   4. Support live jazz (Marek Boym)
>   5. Re: Joe "Fingers" Carr (Marek Boym)
>   6. Re: Joe "Fingers" Carr (Marek Boym)
>   7. Re Lead / chord Sheet (Ross Anderson)
>   8. Support live Music (Stephen G Barbone)
>   9. Re: Re Lead / chord Sheet (alevy at alevy.com)
>  10. Re: Re Lead / chord Sheet (Ross Anderson)
>  11. Improvisation & Your Brain (Stephen G Barbone)
>  12. Re: Improvisation & Your Brain (GIORGI, RIC)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sun, 05 Jun 2011 17:10:05 -0400
> From: Don Ingle <cornet at 1010internet.com>
> To: alevy at alevy.com
> Cc: DJML Mailing List <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
> Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] Joe "Fingers" Carr
> Message-ID: <4DEBF0AD.3080403 at 1010internet.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> On 6/4/2011 7:23 PM, alevy at alevy.com wrote:
> > RE:
> > They were apparently all done by Lou Busch under the pseudonym Joe
> "Fingers" Carr.
> > --------------
> > Now try looking up Ben Light.
> > Ioved those 78 rpm records also.
> > Cheers,
> > Al
> > Pianist, Composer, Arranger, Conductor, Teacher and Music Prep.
> > Please visit me at
> > http://alevy.com
> > _______________________________________________
> > To unsubscribe or change your e-mail preferences for the Dixieland Jazz
> Mailing list, or to find the online archives, please visit:
> >
> > http://ml.islandnet.com/mailman/listinfo/dixielandjazz
> >
> >
> >
> > Dixielandjazz mailing list
> > Dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
> >
> >
> Lou Busch actually arranged several of the latter Red Ingle Capital
> recordings, including Pearly Maude. He was also an A&R man at Capital.
> Don Ingle
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Sun, 05 Jun 2011 17:36:26 -0400
> From: Dick Baker <djml at dickbaker.org>
> To: dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
> Cc: Dixieland Jazz Mailing List <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
> Subject: [Dixielandjazz] "Fingers" Carr/Lou Busch
> Message-ID:
>        <mailman.577.1307371164.4773.dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
>
> At 03:00 PM 6/5/2011, you wrote:
>
> Marek, you may be conflating two stories.  As others have mentioned,
> it seems pretty clear that Fingers Carr = Lou Busch.  However, the
> time the Fingers Carr records were coming out, there were also many
> similar records by "Knuckles" O'Toole, which were, indeed, recorded
> by different pianists, chief among whom was the redoubtable (and
> still going!) Dick Hyman.  Bill Edwards has comprehensive info about
> honky-tonk piano at http://www.perfessorbill.com/ragtime11.shtml.
>
> >From: Marek Boym <marekboym at gmail.com>
> >Hello,
> >Having heard a Joe "Fingers" Carr recording many years ago, I did not
> >think I could ever enjoy recordings issued under that name.  Later I
> >read in The Mississippi RAg that more than one person recorded under
> >that name.
>
>
>
> --
> ---------------------
>      Dick Baker
>  djml at dickbaker.org
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Sun, 05 Jun 2011 15:24:01 -0700
> From: Bob Shoring <shoring.b at gmail.com>
> To: DJML <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
> Cc: Dixieland Jazz Mailing List <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
> Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Mission Gold Jazz Band in Napa Sunday, June
>        12, 2011
> Message-ID: <4DEC0201.2040009 at gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
>
> On Sunday, June 12th, 2011, from 1:00 to 5:00 PM, the Napa Valley
> Dixieland Jazz Society invites you to enjoy an afternoon of traditional
> jazz featuring:
>
> Mission Gold Jazz Band
>
> At:  The Chardonnay Ballroom at THE EMBASSY SUITES at 1075 California
> Blvd. in Napa, California.  This is at the First Street off ramp from
> Highway 29.
>
> Admission is $ 10.00.  If you belong to another trad jazz club, you can
> get in for $ 9.00.  For members of Napa Valley Dixieland Jazz Society,
> admission is $ 8.00.  For ages 12-17, admission is $ 3.00 and children
> under 12 get in FREE.  The Napa Valley Dixieland Jazz Society meets on
> the SECOND Sunday of each month.  The program, which starts at 1:00 PM
> and lasts until 5:00 PM, has 3 sets by the featured band alternating
> with jam sets.  Jam Set musicians are welcome!
>
> AND DON'T MISS THIS ADDITIONAL VENUE:
> For your listening pleasure there will be jammers playing in the bar
> concurrent with the first two sets of the scheduled band.  These jam
> sets are in addition to the jam sets in the Chardonnay Ballroom.
>
> One month later, NVDJS will feature Cell Block Seven Jazz Band on
> Sunday, July 10th, 2010 from 1-5 PM at the same location (The Chardonnay
> Ballroom at The Embassy Suites).
>
> The Embassy Suites has full bar and restaurant and, of course a dance
> floor in the Chardonnay Ballroom.
>
> For more information you may write to: Napa Valley Dixieland Jazz
> Society, P. O. Box 5494, Napa, CA 94581 or you may email me.
>
> Bob Shoring
> bobshoring at yahoo.com
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2011 01:34:16 +0300
> From: Marek Boym <marekboym at gmail.com>
> To: Dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
> Cc: Dixieland Jazz Mailing List <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
> Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Support live jazz
> Message-ID: <BANLkTikVdLm-NKM8fh7uXPd62o1q0W1fug at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> Just back from another gig by the New Orleans Function, with guest
> pianist Jack Glottman.  Jack and Eli Preminger) the leader have known
> each other since age 12.  Jack has been living in NYC for the last
> eight years, but I do not know what he's doing there.  Anyway, he is a
> very good jazz pianist.
> The repertoire was mainly standards, warhorses even, but they also
> plyed Jelly Roll Morton's "Hyena Stomp," hardly an overplayed tune.
> Another well spent evening, and well spent money.
> Support live jazz!
> Cheers
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2011 01:35:27 +0300
> From: Marek Boym <marekboym at gmail.com>
> To: cornet at 1010internet.com
> Cc: DJML Mailing List <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
> Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] Joe "Fingers" Carr
> Message-ID: <BANLkTim5w33oDQ0mn_TNhkFqWiS81m_jqw at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> Thanks to all who have replied.  I'll mark my records accordingly.
> Cheers
>
> On 6 June 2011 00:10, Don Ingle <cornet at 1010internet.com> wrote:
> > On 6/4/2011 7:23 PM, alevy at alevy.com wrote:
> >>
> >> RE:
> >> They were apparently all done by Lou Busch under the pseudonym Joe
> >> "Fingers" Carr.
> >> --------------
> >> Now try looking up Ben Light.
> >> Ioved those 78 rpm records also.
> >> Cheers,
> >> Al
> >> Pianist, Composer, Arranger, Conductor, Teacher and Music Prep.
> >> Please visit me at
> >> http://alevy.com
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> To unsubscribe or change your e-mail preferences for the Dixieland Jazz
> >> Mailing list, or to find the online archives, please visit:
> >>
> >> http://ml.islandnet.com/mailman/listinfo/dixielandjazz
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Dixielandjazz mailing list
> >> Dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
> >>
> >>
> > Lou Busch actually arranged several of the latter Red Ingle Capital
> > recordings, including Pearly Maude. He was also an A&R man at Capital.
> > Don Ingle
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > To unsubscribe or change your e-mail preferences for the Dixieland Jazz
> > Mailing list, or to find the online archives, please visit:
> >
> > http://ml.islandnet.com/mailman/listinfo/dixielandjazz
> >
> >
> >
> > Dixielandjazz mailing list
> > Dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
> >
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 6
> Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2011 01:38:05 +0300
> From: Marek Boym <marekboym at gmail.com>
> To: alevy at alevy.com
> Cc: DJML Mailing List <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
> Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] Joe "Fingers" Carr
> Message-ID: <BANLkTim4Ci2yJYnFkA06AWNzfkC3mm8MDw at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> > Now try looking up Ben Light.
>
> I just have.
> Cheers
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 7
> Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2011 08:39:49 +1000
> From: "Ross Anderson" <rossanmjband at iprimus.com.au>
> To: "'DJML'" <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
> Cc: Dixieland Jazz Mailing List <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
> Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Re Lead / chord Sheet
> Message-ID: <24A33582BD444172B086E29F5B2073DC at RossPC>
> Content-Type: text/plain;       charset="us-ascii"
>
> Dear List mates,
> I need a lead/chord sheet for "My Favorite Things" , from Sound Of Music.
>
> Thank you,
> Cheers, Ross Anderson,
> New Melbourne Jazz Band.
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 8
> Date: Sun, 5 Jun 2011 19:14:41 -0400
> From: Stephen G Barbone <barbonestreet at earthlink.net>
> To: DJML <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
> Cc: Dixieland Jazz Mailing List <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
> Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Support live Music
> Message-ID: <6D9FDE30-0DFB-4A66-A6DF-5080C7F9A63D at earthlink.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain;       charset=WINDOWS-1252;   format=flowed;
>        delsp=yes
>
> Below from Jazz Inside Magazine, June 2011 edition. Steven Bensusan is
> talking about the more modern forms of jazz, but I thing the general
> gist of his thoughts also apply to Dixieland and individual band
> performances at public gigs. However I think Dixieland Festivals are
> shrinking. I think it depends upon the bands and the festivals. It
> will be interesting to see how his Blue Note festival does this year
> in New York City.
>
> In any even, I agree with his last 2 sentences.
>
>
>
> "While the jazz world has over the last few years experienced a
> shrinking number of pre-recorded music sales, fewer record labels,
> radio stations, clubs and venues, and so forth, live music - notably a
> number of festivals - is doing very well. The Inaugural Blue Note Jazz
> Festival in New York features 30 days of multiple performances in
> multiple locations and is produced by Steven Bensusan, the Blue Note
> Jazz Club owner. In the interview in the June issue of Jazz Inside, he
> says: ?People can?t replicate the live music experience And ,so that
> is something that is doing well. It?s not to say that there is
> definitely shrinking ? and that is a concern. Times are changing and
> we are adapting. When people go out and experience the music, that may
> not even result in record sales. But they?ll come back and they?ll
> have a good time.? "
>
> Cheers,
> Steve Barbone
> www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 9
> Date: Sun, 5 Jun 2011 19:13:38 -0500
> From: <alevy at alevy.com>
> To: "Ross Anderson" <rossanmjband at iprimus.com.au>
> Cc: Dixieland Jazz Mailing List <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
> Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] Re Lead / chord Sheet
> Message-ID: <000e01cc23de$96c66cc0$2a01a8c0 at westell.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain;       charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> sent off list from my fake book vol.3
> Cheers,
> Al
> Pianist, Composer, Arranger, Conductor, Teacher and Music Prep.
> Please visit me at
> http://alevy.com
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 10
> Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2011 10:49:48 +1000
> From: "Ross Anderson" <rossanmjband at iprimus.com.au>
> To: <alevy at alevy.com>
> Cc: 'Dixieland Jazz Mailing List' <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
> Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] Re Lead / chord Sheet
> Message-ID: <7D23D96FCA2949F4A5BDAB3FBA5FD0EE at RossPC>
> Content-Type: text/plain;       charset="us-ascii"
>
> How good is this Guy,
> Thank you Al,
> Cheers, Ross
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: dixielandjazz-bounces at ml.islandnet.com
> [mailto:dixielandjazz-bounces at ml.islandnet.com] On Behalf Of
> alevy at alevy.com
> Sent: Monday, 6 June 2011 10:14 AM
> To: rossanmjband at iprimus.com.au
> Cc: Dixieland Jazz Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] Re Lead / chord Sheet
>
> sent off list from my fake book vol.3
> Cheers,
> Al
> Pianist, Composer, Arranger, Conductor, Teacher and Music Prep.
> Please visit me at
> http://alevy.com
> _______________________________________________
> To unsubscribe or change your e-mail preferences for the Dixieland Jazz
> Mailing list, or to find the online archives, please visit:
>
> http://ml.islandnet.com/mailman/listinfo/dixielandjazz
>
>
>
> Dixielandjazz mailing list
> Dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 11
> Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2011 10:03:29 -0400
> From: Stephen G Barbone <barbonestreet at earthlink.net>
> To: DJML <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
> Cc: Dixieland Jazz Mailing List <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
> Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Improvisation & Your Brain
> Message-ID: <19AD0A19-D70D-4C49-9A85-BEBD14CB0870 at earthlink.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain;       charset=WINDOWS-1252;   format=flowed;
>        delsp=yes
>
> Excerpted from a NY TIMES article.
>
> When the Melody Takes a Detour, the Science Begins
> NY TIMES - By PAM BELLUCK - June 6, 2011
>
>
> In the middle of a World Science Festival panel on Saturday night, the
> guitarist Pat Metheny took a sudden U-turn from the program he had
> planned. Instead of performing one of his innovative compositions,
> plucked from any of the phases of his career as a style-shifting jazz
> omnivore, Mr. Metheny, performing with the bassist Larry Grenadier,
> decided on the spot to play a jazz standard.
>
> And not just any jazz standard, but an especially ubiquitous one:
> "Autumn Leaves."
>
> His point, during this panel called "Music and the Spark of
> Spontaneity," was to illustrate what some of the scientists sharing
> the stage had been talking about, that our brains have a kind of two-
> track approach to deciding what we like in the world.
>
> On the one hand, we are wired to respond to things that are familiar,
> to predictability and patterns that help us make sense of what is
> around us. But at the same time, too much familiarity breeds, if not
> contempt, at least ennui or complacency. Our brains like newness too,
> things that surprise and deviate from an expected pattern.
>
> "I love the idea of this question of novelty versus familiarity," Mr.
> Metheny said. "'Autumn Leaves,' everybody knows that." And, he added,
> "for the first few choruses, I'm going to use one finger on one
> string. I'm not going to do anything that's more complicated than
> anyone who could play simply would do."
>
> Easy for him to say. Even the stripped-down version he started out
> with was exceptionally musical, bending the familiar melody around Mr.
> Grenadier's exuberantly rhythmic bass. But as their performance became
> more intricate and adventurous, it underscored the science: They
> could travel miles from the melody, they could do calisthenics with
> the chords, but the audience still understood it as "Autumn Leaves,"
> something they knew spiced with something entirely different.
>
> Our preference for combining what we expect with what surprises us was
> demonstrated in recent studies on what makes music expressive by
> Daniel J. Levitin at McGill University, and also in brain imaging
> research by Edward Large at Florida Atlantic University. Both
> scientists used classical music: Chopin piano nocturnes or etudes in
> which the length and volume of notes were adjusted to varying degrees.
> They found that musicians and nonmusicians alike responded most to
> versions of the Chopin that included a lot of variety but not too
> much, and not variety that was just thrown into the mix in a random,
> out-of-context way.
>
> The World Science Festival panel in the Great Hall at Cooper Union
> focused mostly on improvised music, especially the intuitive art of
> jazz, trying to address the question of what is actually happening
> when a musician spontaneously creates melodies, harmonies and rhythms
> that have never been played before.
>
> After "Autumn Leaves," the moderator, John Schaefer, the host of the
> "Soundcheck" show on WNYC, gestured to the four scientists on the
> panel, and said to Mr. Metheny, "Before I ask these guys what was
> going on in your brain, let me ask you."
>
> Mr. Metheny gave a thoughtful recitation of the elements in a jazz
> musician's toolkit. "The harmony, the basic flow of the rhythms, the
> way the chords are divided from key to key," he said, adding that
> "there's a whole set of options" from which an improviser can choose,
> including playing different musical scales or modes over a chord ? ?It
> could be Dorian, it could be Mixolydian."
>
> But then he Cheshire Catted it, saying, "but the real answer is I
> wasn't thinking about any of them." Consider that "you just asked me a
> question in perfect English," he said to Mr. Schaefer. "Did you think,
> 'O.K., I need a verb?'" or "about how to hold your tongue?"
>
> Mr. Metheny's answer pointed up another duality in the way our brains
> work, that we have both conscious and unconscious brain processes,
> said one panelist, Jamshed Bharucha, a neuroscientist and the incoming
> president of Cooper Union, who is also a violinist. "The vast majority
> of stuff that goes on in our brain we do not have conscious access
> to," he said. "It's automatic."
>
> But music requires "years and years of practice in order to make what
> is conscious unconscious," he said. Plus, improvisation is not just
> free-form playing ? there has to be a mastery of structure and
> discipline. "If you want to fly off the edge of a cliff, you have to
> know where the cliff is," he said.
>
> Improvising, in fact, may be one of the most complex abilities humans
> can develop because "it requires you to perfect all these different
> skills," said Gary Marcus, a psychology professor at New York
> University. Among other things, he said, improvising requires
> "terrific alignment between your ears and hands"; some learned or
> instinctive understanding of music theory; empathy, because
> improvising usually involves interacting with and responding to other
> musicians; and "fantastic motor control ? you need to be both fast and
> accurate, and the brain's natural tendency is to be either fast or
> accurate."
>
> Unraveling improvisation is, not surprisingly, a little like trying to
> capture a unicorn. And some people might wonder if there's a risk that
> scientific investigation could result in something resembling a scene
> in the Tom Stoppard play "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead," in
> which, as more and more people are able to see a unicorn, they
> perceive it as something pedestrian and uninspiring: "a horse with an
> arrow in its forehead."
>
> At one point, Mr. Schaefer asked, "Is it worth the effort to try and
> demystify something that we enjoy and that we like to think of as kind
> of mysterious and magical?"
>
> Charles Limb, a surgeon and specialist in the neurology of the ear at
> Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, who also plays saxophone, said, "I
> don't think in any way that music needs science," but "music is a tool
> by which we can understand the brain" and the science of music "really
> teaches us something fundamental about who we are, why we're here."
>
> Dr. Limb has been putting jazz musicians into a functional magnetic
> resonance imaging machine, a process which requires them to lie on
> their backs, slide into the brain scanner, and keep their heads
> perfectly still, while their hands, stretched out in front of them
> outside the scanner, play on a jury-rigged piano keyboard. The
> musicians' brain activity is monitored as they played a written-down
> jazz melody they were asked to memorize and then as they improvised to
> the chord changes of that melody.
>
> When the musicians improvised, Dr. Limb found, areas of the brain's
> prefrontal cortex linked to self-expression were activated, but an
> area linked to inhibition and self-monitoring "kind of shuts down when
> you go creative," he said. That did not happen when musicians played a
> memorized piece.
>
> Dr. Limb is also putting hip-hop artists into the brain scanner.
> "They're totally into it," he said. "They say, 'You know I've wanted
> to know what's going on in my head for the past 20 years.'" He asks
> them to recite a memorized rap and then to improvise lyrics using
> certain cued words. Preliminary results suggest that rap improvisation
> activates different areas from music improvisation.
>
> Aaron Berkowitz, who has researched the neural basis of improvisation
> and is also a pianist and fortepianist, used a different approach to
> compare the brains of musicians and nonmusicians when they created
> five-note melodies. He found that the amount of novelty in the
> melodies was the same for musicians and nonmusicians, and that
> musicians were not activating more music-related areas of the brain.
> But he found that "musicians were turning off a part of the brain,"
> involved in "a special type of attention," he said. It was a different
> area from what Dr. Limb was studying, but the implication is similar.
> The fact that this area gets inhibited when musicians play enables the
> performers to tune out a cellphone ring in the audience or noise from
> a malfunctioning amplifier, Dr. Berkowitz said.
>
> Asked how, when performing music, he balances the ideas and feelings
> in his head with the external stimuli of the audience, the place he is
> performing, and extraneous sounds, Mr. Metheny explained his approach.
> He respects and appreciates the audience, but "I'm playing for myself
> ? anything other than that would be a guess," he said. "If you start
> worrying about what critics say, or a record company, or the audience,
> then you get paralyzed. The only thing I know for sure is what I love."
>
> Mr. Metheny said that when he plays, "to a certain degree I remain
> somewhat detached emotionally; I'm kind of listening" and thinking at
> various points, "if I was listening to this, which I am, what would I
> like the guitar player to play next? And I would do it, or sometimes I
> would do the opposite. The best musicians are not the best players,
> they're the best listeners."
>
> But even Mr. Metheny's decades of experience doesn't give him the
> ability to always play the notes he wants to. "You've told me that
> actually the music coming out of the guitar is not nearly as good as
> what you're hearing in your head," Dr. Limb said.
>
> "It's actually quite far away from that," Mr. Metheny said.
>
> Dr. Marcus, who is not a musician but took up the guitar two years
> ago, said he realized how liberating it was to make up music and that
> improvising "tells us a lot about how we learn things and what we can
> get good at." He displayed an app he created that allows people to mix
> and match musical elements as a kind of half-machine, half-man method
> of improvising and composing.
>
> "One of the things you start to realize is that anything starts to
> sound more musical when you hear it again," he said. The mixture of
> consistency and variability, like having a steady beat but changing
> the melody, he said, is why "music is as powerful as it is." . . .
>
> Maybe improvisation is not just the culmination of many learned
> abilities, but a sophisticated coordination of skills that reflects
> something critical about the way human brains work, the scientists and
> musician seemed to be saying.
>
> "Lately," Mr. Metheny said, "I've been thinking about jazz not so much
> as a destination but as a process, but even more than that as a
> symptom."
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 12
> Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2011 10:39:18 -0400
> From: "GIORGI, RIC" <ricgiorgi at sympatico.ca>
> To: "'Stephen G Barbone'" <barbonestreet at earthlink.net>
> Cc: 'Dixieland Jazz Mailing List' <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
> Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] Improvisation & Your Brain
> Message-ID: <BLU0-SMTP46B849B8F04DBA3788DAA9D4600 at phx.gbl>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> WOW, thank you Steve! A must read Great article.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: dixielandjazz-bounces at ml.islandnet.com
> [mailto:dixielandjazz-bounces at ml.islandnet.com] On Behalf Of Stephen G
> Barbone
> Sent: June-06-11 10:03 AM
> To: Ric Giorgi
> Cc: Dixieland Jazz Mailing List
> Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Improvisation & Your Brain
>
> Excerpted from a NY TIMES article.
>
> When the Melody Takes a Detour, the Science Begins NY TIMES - By PAM
> BELLUCK
> - June 6, 2011
>
>
> In the middle of a World Science Festival panel on Saturday night, the
> guitarist Pat Metheny took a sudden U-turn from the program he had planned.
> Instead of performing one of his innovative compositions, plucked from any
> of the phases of his career as a style-shifting jazz omnivore, Mr. Metheny,
> performing with the bassist Larry Grenadier, decided on the spot to play a
> jazz standard.
>
> And not just any jazz standard, but an especially ubiquitous one:
> "Autumn Leaves."
>
> His point, during this panel called "Music and the Spark of Spontaneity,"
> was to illustrate what some of the scientists sharing the stage had been
> talking about, that our brains have a kind of two- track approach to
> deciding what we like in the world.
>
> On the one hand, we are wired to respond to things that are familiar, to
> predictability and patterns that help us make sense of what is around us.
> But at the same time, too much familiarity breeds, if not contempt, at
> least
> ennui or complacency. Our brains like newness too, things that surprise and
> deviate from an expected pattern.
>
> "I love the idea of this question of novelty versus familiarity," Mr.
> Metheny said. "'Autumn Leaves,' everybody knows that." And, he added, "for
> the first few choruses, I'm going to use one finger on one string. I'm not
> going to do anything that's more complicated than anyone who could play
> simply would do."
>
> Easy for him to say. Even the stripped-down version he started out with was
> exceptionally musical, bending the familiar melody around Mr.
> Grenadier's exuberantly rhythmic bass. But as their performance became
> more intricate and adventurous, it underscored the science: They
> could travel miles from the melody, they could do calisthenics with the
> chords, but the audience still understood it as "Autumn Leaves,"
> something they knew spiced with something entirely different.
>
> Our preference for combining what we expect with what surprises us was
> demonstrated in recent studies on what makes music expressive by Daniel J.
> Levitin at McGill University, and also in brain imaging research by Edward
> Large at Florida Atlantic University. Both scientists used classical music:
> Chopin piano nocturnes or etudes in which the length and volume of notes
> were adjusted to varying degrees.
> They found that musicians and nonmusicians alike responded most to versions
> of the Chopin that included a lot of variety but not too much, and not
> variety that was just thrown into the mix in a random, out-of-context way.
>
> The World Science Festival panel in the Great Hall at Cooper Union focused
> mostly on improvised music, especially the intuitive art of jazz, trying to
> address the question of what is actually happening when a musician
> spontaneously creates melodies, harmonies and rhythms that have never been
> played before.
>
> After "Autumn Leaves," the moderator, John Schaefer, the host of the
> "Soundcheck" show on WNYC, gestured to the four scientists on the panel,
> and
> said to Mr. Metheny, "Before I ask these guys what was going on in your
> brain, let me ask you."
>
> Mr. Metheny gave a thoughtful recitation of the elements in a jazz
> musician's toolkit. "The harmony, the basic flow of the rhythms, the way
> the
> chords are divided from key to key," he said, adding that "there's a whole
> set of options" from which an improviser can choose, including playing
> different musical scales or modes over a chord - "It could be Dorian, it
> could be Mixolydian."
>
> But then he Cheshire Catted it, saying, "but the real answer is I wasn't
> thinking about any of them." Consider that "you just asked me a question in
> perfect English," he said to Mr. Schaefer. "Did you think, 'O.K., I need a
> verb?'" or "about how to hold your tongue?"
>
> Mr. Metheny's answer pointed up another duality in the way our brains work,
> that we have both conscious and unconscious brain processes, said one
> panelist, Jamshed Bharucha, a neuroscientist and the incoming president of
> Cooper Union, who is also a violinist. "The vast majority of stuff that
> goes
> on in our brain we do not have conscious access to," he said. "It's
> automatic."
>
> But music requires "years and years of practice in order to make what is
> conscious unconscious," he said. Plus, improvisation is not just free-form
> playing - there has to be a mastery of structure and discipline. "If you
> want to fly off the edge of a cliff, you have to know where the cliff is,"
> he said.
>
> Improvising, in fact, may be one of the most complex abilities humans can
> develop because "it requires you to perfect all these different skills,"
> said Gary Marcus, a psychology professor at New York University. Among
> other
> things, he said, improvising requires "terrific alignment between your ears
> and hands"; some learned or instinctive understanding of music theory;
> empathy, because improvising usually involves interacting with and
> responding to other musicians; and "fantastic motor control - you need to
> be
> both fast and accurate, and the brain's natural tendency is to be either
> fast or accurate."
>
> Unraveling improvisation is, not surprisingly, a little like trying to
> capture a unicorn. And some people might wonder if there's a risk that
> scientific investigation could result in something resembling a scene in
> the
> Tom Stoppard play "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead," in which, as
> more
> and more people are able to see a unicorn, they perceive it as something
> pedestrian and uninspiring: "a horse with an arrow in its forehead."
>
> At one point, Mr. Schaefer asked, "Is it worth the effort to try and
> demystify something that we enjoy and that we like to think of as kind of
> mysterious and magical?"
>
> Charles Limb, a surgeon and specialist in the neurology of the ear at Johns
> Hopkins School of Medicine, who also plays saxophone, said, "I don't think
> in any way that music needs science," but "music is a tool by which we can
> understand the brain" and the science of music "really teaches us something
> fundamental about who we are, why we're here."
>
> Dr. Limb has been putting jazz musicians into a functional magnetic
> resonance imaging machine, a process which requires them to lie on their
> backs, slide into the brain scanner, and keep their heads perfectly still,
> while their hands, stretched out in front of them outside the scanner, play
> on a jury-rigged piano keyboard. The musicians' brain activity is monitored
> as they played a written-down jazz melody they were asked to memorize and
> then as they improvised to the chord changes of that melody.
>
> When the musicians improvised, Dr. Limb found, areas of the brain's
> prefrontal cortex linked to self-expression were activated, but an area
> linked to inhibition and self-monitoring "kind of shuts down when you go
> creative," he said. That did not happen when musicians played a memorized
> piece.
>
> Dr. Limb is also putting hip-hop artists into the brain scanner.
> "They're totally into it," he said. "They say, 'You know I've wanted to
> know
> what's going on in my head for the past 20 years.'" He asks them to recite
> a
> memorized rap and then to improvise lyrics using certain cued words.
> Preliminary results suggest that rap improvisation activates different
> areas
> from music improvisation.
>
> Aaron Berkowitz, who has researched the neural basis of improvisation and
> is
> also a pianist and fortepianist, used a different approach to compare the
> brains of musicians and nonmusicians when they created five-note melodies.
> He found that the amount of novelty in the melodies was the same for
> musicians and nonmusicians, and that musicians were not activating more
> music-related areas of the brain.
> But he found that "musicians were turning off a part of the brain,"
> involved in "a special type of attention," he said. It was a different area
> from what Dr. Limb was studying, but the implication is similar.
> The fact that this area gets inhibited when musicians play enables the
> performers to tune out a cellphone ring in the audience or noise from a
> malfunctioning amplifier, Dr. Berkowitz said.
>
> Asked how, when performing music, he balances the ideas and feelings in his
> head with the external stimuli of the audience, the place he is performing,
> and extraneous sounds, Mr. Metheny explained his approach.
> He respects and appreciates the audience, but "I'm playing for myself -
> anything other than that would be a guess," he said. "If you start worrying
> about what critics say, or a record company, or the audience, then you get
> paralyzed. The only thing I know for sure is what I love."
>
> Mr. Metheny said that when he plays, "to a certain degree I remain somewhat
> detached emotionally; I'm kind of listening" and thinking at various
> points,
> "if I was listening to this, which I am, what would I like the guitar
> player
> to play next? And I would do it, or sometimes I would do the opposite. The
> best musicians are not the best players, they're the best listeners."
>
> But even Mr. Metheny's decades of experience doesn't give him the ability
> to
> always play the notes he wants to. "You've told me that actually the music
> coming out of the guitar is not nearly as good as what you're hearing in
> your head," Dr. Limb said.
>
> "It's actually quite far away from that," Mr. Metheny said.
>
> Dr. Marcus, who is not a musician but took up the guitar two years ago,
> said
> he realized how liberating it was to make up music and that improvising
> "tells us a lot about how we learn things and what we can get good at." He
> displayed an app he created that allows people to mix and match musical
> elements as a kind of half-machine, half-man method of improvising and
> composing.
>
> "One of the things you start to realize is that anything starts to sound
> more musical when you hear it again," he said. The mixture of consistency
> and variability, like having a steady beat but changing the melody, he
> said,
> is why "music is as powerful as it is." . . .
>
> Maybe improvisation is not just the culmination of many learned abilities,
> but a sophisticated coordination of skills that reflects something critical
> about the way human brains work, the scientists and musician seemed to be
> saying.
>
> "Lately," Mr. Metheny said, "I've been thinking about jazz not so much as a
> destination but as a process, but even more than that as a symptom."
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> End of Dixielandjazz Digest, Vol 102, Issue 9
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