[Dixielandjazz] Song Requests was Young People

[Larry Walton Entertainment]

When I started playing a band leader handed me a list of tunes and the keys. 
There were about 200 tunes on the list.  He said know them by next week. 
Fortunately I was a quick study.  They were for the most part tunes I 
already knew or had heard before.

Today I can't find musicians below sixty years old that know tunes and I 
know only one piano player that's available to me that can play anything in 
any key.  Unfortunately he's in so much demand he's difficult to hire.

You are talking about musicians that can do an arrangement on the fly and 
make it sound like they have been playing together for years.  Again 
musician's below about 60 just can't do it.  They for the most part need 
charts and most don't have a clue what to do with a fake book.  The reasons 
are fewer actual tunes, lack of experience, extreme differences in styles 
and few jobs to learn them on.

The only place that knowledge of tunes today is important is in the C&W 
bands.  I would say that they for the most part can  do what I'm talking 
about but they have actual tunes with melodies, chord progressions and words 
that are memorable.   Younger musician's who play C&W learn lots of tunes 
and develop the ability to be smooth in a band.  If you watch the C&W local 
shows there are lots of young people dancing and participating.  The best 
thing about C&W is there seems to be no age barrier - If you like it you 
like it.  That's where Jazz, OKOM, Rap, Hip Hop and some others fall down. 
They are stratified into separate ethnic, age or cultural groups that may or 
not sustain them for very long.

Personally I'm not much of a C&W fan but more people like it than Jazz. 
Maybe we should take some lessons from them.  As they say KISS, Keep it 
simple stupid.  I have known some jazz musicians that seem to take great 
pride in playing past their audiences. How dumb. That's just plain arrogance 
and does none of us any good.
Larry
StL
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Stephen G Barbone" <barbonestreet at earthlink.net>
To: "Larry Walton" <larrys.bands at charter.net>
Cc: "Dixieland Jazz Mailing List" <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 20, 2011 11:05 AM
Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Song Requests was Young People


>
> Barbone Wrote:
>
>> She is a great singer and I'll ask her during performances what she
>> wants to sing. She just names an American  Songbook tune, the key, and
>> our guitarist, bass, drums and I back her up. All without rehearsal.
>> Last Saturday she named "Isn't It A Lovely Day" in F,  a song none of
>> us had played together before and we did it as if we had been playing
>> it for years. Not many bands can do that kind of thing and one of the
>> reasons we get so much outside work (wedding/private party etc) is
>> that we can usually fulfill just about any Great American Songbook or
>> Dixieland request from the guests. (except those from artsy jazz fans
>> who request songs like "Here Comes The Hot Tamale Man" which nobody in
>> the band knows other than me. <grin>)
>
> Exception was taken to that statement, commenting that it was "a 
> generalization with little founding". And that because there are so  many 
> good. musicians out there, they can "in effect" play just about  any 
> American Songbook requests.
>
> Well, I certainly disagree with that. Sure, there are lots of great 
> musicians out there, but damn few can play more than a few American 
> Songbook requests off the cuff. Yes, if a pianist is using a fake book 
> that includes them, he can do it, but a Dixieland Band? Who out there, 
> except for the few very top tier players and you know who you are,  would 
> venture to say they could play MOST of the Great American  Songbook 
> without written arrangements?
>
> I work as a sideman in 6 other "Dixieland" Bands. One will never play  any 
> requests, and the other 5 will only play a request if they've  payed the 
> tune before. They shudder at the thought of playing "The Way  You Look 
> Tonight" or "I Get a Kick Out of You" etc.
>
> Fortunately, my band includes a guitarist and bass player who worked  with 
> the bands of Lester & Howard Lanin. To get hired, you had to  memorize all 
> of the show tunes, and most of the Great American  Songbook tunes. Howard 
> Lanin could hear wrong notes and he would point  at you if you played one.
>
> And as pop music of Sinatra & Bennett et al, progressed, you had to 
> memorize those songs. There are damn few musicians among us who have 
> those tunes in their memory banks as any of us who actually work the 
> "outside" will readily attest.
>
> Cheers,
> Steve Barbone
> www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband
>
>
>
>
>
>
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