[Dixielandjazz] Plunger

[Stan Brager]

Most plunger users modify the plumber's plunger by cutting a hole in the
plunger where the handle screws into the plunger. But it's not for
trumpeters only - trombonists also use the plunger to great effect.
Furthermore, many trombonists place a small pixie mute inside the bell of
their horns with the plunger over it. One of the first, foremost and
expressive trombonists using a plunger was Duke Ellington's Joe "Tricky Sam"
Nanton.

Stan
Stan Brager

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ROBERT R. CALDER [mailto:serapion at btinternet.com]
> Sent: Saturday, March 31, 2012 12:05 PM
> To: dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
> Cc: Dixieland Jazz Mailing List
> Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Plunger
> 
> A plunger is a plunger is a plunger, named for its function of clearing
> drains (which can be discharged even by stone deaf plumbers) and not as
> a matter of musicians' terminology It is noted somewhere on or around a
> Delmark DVD of a German band visiting USA for an annual Bixfest,
> visiting the Chicago premises which used to be -- in chronological
> order -- the Sunset Cafe and then the Grand Terrace, that, even in its
> latest identity as a plumbing warehouse, the fact that horn players
> still come to buy rubber plungers  maintains the building's connection
> with jazz.
> The item fits the hand for putting the thing over the bell of the horn,
> and also distorting the shape to make a narrow space as another tonal
> modification. No plunging movement involved.
> A nice bit of improvisation with gear not initially devised for musical
> purposes but something which might have been made to measure -- but
> didn't need to be!
> And of course it couldn't have been made to musical measure because
> without it being there from the start, there could hardly have been a
> purpose for it to match.
> Which came first, the trumpet or the plunger?
> The same goes for some of the hardware used by the percussion virtuoso
> James Blades assisting Benjamin Britten with compositions with an
> oriental influence --  it is quite possible he also used a plumber's
> plunger, but rather than applying it to a trumpet or trombone bell he
> hit it.
> And I suspect most of our native English speaker friends will know most
> of this anyway.
> 
> Robert R. Calder