[Dixielandjazz] Fw: Take Your Pick or Little Rock Getaway

[Ken Mathieson]

I sent this to DJML on 31 July, but so far it hasn't appeared, so here goes again:


Hi all,

Bill Haesler offered examples of these 2 tunes. I knew about Take Your Pick preceding Little Rock Getaway thanks to a mis-spent youth in a band led by a banjo player who played Take Your Pick as his feature. However, there is an even earlier composition called Odeon written in 1910 by the Brasilian pianist-composer Ernesto Nazareth. I haven't compared all three themes of Pick, Getaway and Odeon, but there is certainly a striking similarity in the opening themes of Pick and Getaway to Nazareth's earlier Odeon. See what you think:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7DPA2-8Okc&feature=related

There's always the possibilty that Nazareth had based his tune on something even older, which would be a bit ironic as Darius Milhaud later borrowed from various Nazareth compositions for some of his classical portrayals of Brasilian music.

Cheers,

Ken Mathieson