[Dixielandjazz] Ken Mathieson/Swing 2012)

[ROBERT R. CALDER]

There was a wise fellow called Kenneth
who commended  Ernesto Nazareth 

for melody and rhythm 

and who is not with him 

must surely be diagnosed short-of-breath!  

(alas unlike my earlier limericks this one will not be met by Harry Callaghan responses) 


I do like to introduce a new rhythm into discussion now and then, but unless committed to a dixieland in aspic imitativeness (Jeremiad Blues) there's every reason to look for inspiration in themes from south of Popocatepetl (the geographical feature, not the first half of an articulation exercise for singers).
I once had a dispute with a supposed blues scholar about the phrase "Shave 'em Dry", which for him meant one thing and one thing only.  According to an anthropologist quoted once in JAZZ MONTHLY the phrase was also used to refer to an African dance which transferred, causing dancers mush suffering and death, across the Atlantic, and one time I saw a film of this dance being performed by locals on a Caribbean island, with a local musician home visiting his folks with the soprano sax he used to earn his living in the USA.  He sounded like Bechet with all the blues extracted, and indeed if you listen to a specific school of New Orleans pianists such as most notably Professor Longhair on his live London session, the blues feeling is much less than Little Brother Montgomery, far less Albert Ammons. 

The rhythms are at war with prospects of blues intensity. They are at least half-way south across the Caribbean. Professor Longhair even plays ICE CREAM as an encore on that recording with only a conga player in support. 

Regarding James P. Johnson, I get the impression (as I recall Dick Wellstood observing on one of his lovely sleevenotes) that in some compositions the tune came second and was largely determined by (apart from having to make sense as a tune) Johnson's desire to register various rhythmic shapes he had encountered in dances brought from Carolina and Georgia, and whether he had any recollection of music from further south is still a question. 

Standard histories of jazz tend to refer to a refinement of the rhythm section from supposed Dixieland beginnings, but the rhythmic basis of dixieland surely began as a compromise with something considerably more complex.  I was interested by the appearance on some recent recordings made in New Orleans on Bill Bissonette's label in which rather than any mainstream jazz style the pianists had taken up the sort of Professor Longhair approach which Dr. John and various TV commercials now broadcast. It's quite distinct from ragtime, its blues component seems to have been an innovation, as in the earliest recorded examples by Jack Dupree in 1940. It did find a home in 1940s "R&B" with its salvaging of rhythmic resources rather neglected by jazzmen playing jazz 

No wonder the Latin bands were of so much interest in New York. Although it seems the most distinguished Spanish visitor, Federico Garcia Lorca, tended to spend his nights in Nueva York listening to Charlie Johnson at Small's Paradise, and if Benny Waters did write the arrangement of "Boy in the Boat" is there not a considerable Iberian tinge in that? 


hasta la etc. 

Roberto













>________________________________
> From: Ken Mathieson <ken at kenmath.free-online.co.uk>
>To: Dixieland Jazz Mailing List <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>; Robert R. Calder <serapion at btinternet.com> 
>Sent: Saturday, 4 August 2012, 0:41
>Subject: Blushworthy Message! (was Kenneth Mathieson/Swing 2012)
> 
>
> 
>Hi Robert et al,
> 
>Thanks for the kind words, Robert, you really have 
got me blushing! It's not often I get called by my full Sunday 
Name! Anyway I'm not here to write about me, but about Ernesto Nazareth 
(who wrote his Odeon a good decade before James P Johnson wrote his Carolina 
Shout) and the whole Brazilian choro tradition. 
> 
>The choro is a close cousin to ragtime and early 
jazz and had its big-band phase and ultimately was one of the sources from which 
bossa nova sprang. The construction of most choro pieces is very similar to the 
structure of rags and jazz march pieces: 2 complementary opening themes followed 
by a modulation into a trio theme. Melodically it's got a lot in common with 
rags and early jazz, although its melodies are more syncopated. Harmonically 
Choro has more in common with samba and Portuguese music, but that difference 
makes improvising on choro themes interesting for jazzers. I've always wondered 
why Dixieland and New Orleans musicians haven't made greater use of choro pieces 
as they're lively, full of optimism, easy to swing and fun to 
play. Another Nazareth piece which would work in OKOM is Brejeiro, bits of 
which were borrowed by Darius Milhaud.
> 
>Another of the great choro composers was 
Pixinguinha, a flautist, saxophonist, bandleader and, above all, composer. He 
wrote stacks of great pieces which would translate easily to Dixieland 
treatment. One of them, Lamentos, has an opening theme which is very like the 
first 8 bars of the old song Heartaches. I've no idea which came first as 
it's often not easy to detemine when a song was first copyrighted in 
Brasil, but of the two, Heartaches is much the simpler tune and Lamentos is 
much more of a challenge.
> 
>Robert also mentioned the possibility of Caribbean 
music being played in NYC in James P's younger days. That was certainly the 
case. After Puerto Ricans were granted US citizenship in 1917, East Harlem 
rapidly filled up with emigres and before long their dance halls were 
attracting jazz musicians to listen to the new rhythms and sounds. Robert 
will remember a much-missed Scottish musician, the late Francis Cowan, who was a 
fine guitarist, and outstanding bassist and cellist. After a gig with veteran 
saxophonist Benny Waters, who had played with one of King Oliver's later 
bands, Francis asked him what was hot in NYC after Benny had arrived in town 
from Boston. Francis had been expecting to hear about Fletcher Henderson at the 
Savoy or King Oliver, or Fats Waller and the piano professors in 
Harlem, but instead Benny said that all the young musicians used to go over 
to dance halls in East Harlem to hear the Puerto Rican bands. When Francis 
asked him what they sounded like, Benny replied "exactly like Dizzy 
Gillespie!" So, from at least the mid-1920s, "Latin" music was being 
played in NYC and laid the foundations for the Rumba bands of the late 
1930s while at the same time exciting the younger generation of jazz 
players in the city.
> 
>Enough already,
> 
>Regards,
> 
>Ken Mathieson
>
>