[Dixielandjazz] Sweet Georgia Brown

[Ken Mathieson]

Pat Ladd wrote:

> I have no doubt that the guy COULD play a dixie beat in the same way that 
> Louis COULD have played the stuff that Marsalis was playing. It was just 
> that their backgrounds and therefore theirsense of  HOW to play were 
> different.

Hi Pat,
That's why I'm suggesting Catlett as a way into the earlier styles of jazz 
which would be more readily understood by someone coming from the more 
modern end of jazz. If he then wants to explore further back, he's got an 
ideal start-point to go back to Zutty (Catlett's major early influence) and 
others. To my ear, Catlett's playing summarised everything that had gone 
before (to the end, he remained a master of the press roll behind soloists 
and ensembles, even if he used it more sparingly), and he pointed the way 
forward to a different conception of the drummer's role in rhythm sections 
and solos. It was by studying Catlett that I found a way of playing in 
Dixieland bands that was compatible with my conception of time. I had been 
listening more to players like Max Roach, Philly Joe etc and had been trying 
to get that urgent *front-of-the-beat* attack which they had. It was only 
after hearing Sid that I realised where they (and most of their generation 
of drummers) had got it from. It was an older musician in one of the bands I 
played in as a teenager who recognised my dilemma and lent me his Symphony 
Hall LPs

> For instance this drummers skins were tight as murder and the sound was 
> very `bright`,

That's probably because he was playing in a *modern* setting when you heard 
him. Drum tuning is a very personal thing and I happen to prefer a crisp, 
bright sound off the kit, but sometimes tune the toms and bass drum down 
slightly when playing in an older style, especially if the room's accoustics 
make that sound more appropriate.

> If you think that the whole of  the Marsalis clip of SGB was `driving` 
> then we are obviously a long way apart in our view of OKOM as I consider 
> that it stopped driving when Marsalis picked up his horn and stopped 
> everything dead in its tracks.

MKOM is anything played in time, in tune, with skill, imagination, energy 
and passion, and that goes for classical, latin, pipe bands, Scottish 
Country Dancing (!), flamenco, jazz of all varieties etc which use a 
swinging time feel (I'm not interested in most rock-based jazz performances 
as I believe it's the swinging time feel more than anything else that 
distinguishes jazz from other musical forms employing improvisation). In the 
Marsalis clip, I disagree that it stopped swinging when the drummer came 
in - it was just a different type of swing. I also didn't hear anything 
particularly alarming about Marsalis's playing. He was simply playing the 
way he plays and some of that odd *across-the-beat* phrasing in his solo had 
its genesis in Louis and Earl Hines' version of Weatherbird Rag.

I'm off now before I'm branded a heretic!

Cheers,

Ken Mathieson