[Dixielandjazz] Ghost Bands - EARS.

[Stephen G Barbone]

Our trumpet player, Paul Grant had to reprise Louis's West End Blues  
Cadenza for an Off Broadway play, 8 time a week for 16 weeks. The  
play, "West End Blues" was about Armstrong in the 1920s and 30s, and  
featured Paul, with a band led by Terry Waldo on about 22 songs.  He  
wrote out the cadenza and practiced like a mad man. Got pretty good at  
it.

Then also, later on Louis was often accused, by critics of playing the  
same solos on various tunes for years. I figure so what? They were  
still HIS solos whether original or repeated. <grin>

I have a favorite solo on"Someday You'll Be Sorry" (It's on one of our  
CDs) I do not play it when we do the tune in performance these days,  
but I can easily duplicate it. It is a solo  I developed over time  
years ago after reading how Bechet and Armstrong developed some solos  
over a period of time with little tweaks here and there.

I think you are right on some solos. John Coltrane would often be  
presented with transcriptions of his solos. He'd look at them and say:  
"I can't play that, it's too difficult."

Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband

On May 25, 2011, at 7:01 PM, Stan Brager wrote:

> I think that most jazz musicians would have a difficult time exactly
> duplicating an improvised solo of their own creation. Armstrong  
> tried to
> duplicate his "West End Blues" solo several times but none comes  
> close to
> the first.
>
> Stan
> Stan Brager
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Stephen G Barbone [mailto:barbonestreet at earthlink.net]
>> Sent: Wednesday, May 25, 2011 11:52 AM
>> To: DJML
>> Cc: Dixieland Jazz Mailing List
>> Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Ghost Bands - EARS.
>>
>> Speaking about how ghost bands seldom duplicate the original you can
>> test how good your ears are in determining an improvised solo, and a
>> duplicate of that improvised solo by someone else reading the music.
>> Improvised piano solos were recorded. Then various other pianists  
>> were
>> given the transcribed solo music, and a record of the improvised  
>> solo.
>> They practiced to get the "feel" and then recorded their reading
>> renditions of the solo.
>>
>> A computer can tell the difference between improvisation and reading.
>> But can you? Go to the below site for an interesting article about
>> "Brains on Jazz Feel The Music". Fun read, but then at the end, you
>> can take the test. There are two tracks of different improvised piano
>> solos, and likewise two tracks of a pianist reading the solo music.
>> See if you can tell the difference, and then click on the answer.
>>
>> Hint: Most folks cannot tell the difference. If so, I would think  
>> that
>> if a ghost band cannot pretty much duplicate the original, it is
>> because they haven't practiced/listened enough, or are inferior
>> musicians.
>>
>> Then again, (IMO) players like Louis Armstrong and Thelonious are  
>> more
>> difficult than most to duplicate
>>
>> Thank Norm Vickers for finding this link and passing it on to folks  
>> on
>> his jazz musicians/fans chat list.
>>
>>
>> http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/05/brains-on-jazz-feel- 
>> the-
>> music.html
>>
>>
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Steve
>