[Dixielandjazz] Recorded Tempos

[Ken Mathieson]

Hi Bill,

I apologise if your purist sensibilities have been upset! I listened to 
Jimmie Noone's "Blues My Sweaty Nightie Gives To Me" and thought it was an 
ambitiously slow tempo. Everyone else seemed to find it easy enough, but the 
guitarist certainly found the tempo too ambitious as he was struggling to 
hold it down throughout the entire first chorus. So, it might have been the 
perfect tempo for Jimmie Noone, but it sure wasn't for his guitarist!

This little thread has reminded me of another musicians' truism: "Every tune 
has its perfect tempo, but the snag is it's a different perfect tempo each 
time you play it!" It also applies to the way musicians interpret the 
rhythmic feel of certain tunes. On all of Louis Armstrong's recordings of 
"Muskrat Ramble" from the Hot 5 onwards, he plays the opening theme with a 
driving 4/4 feel, yet just about every revivalist band plays the theme in a 
pseudo-latin feel or in a tame-sounding 2/4, which to my ears, robs the tune 
of much of its impact.

Bill, please don't tell me you prefer Muskrat with a pseudo-latin opening 
theme!

Cheers,

Ken


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bill Haesler" <bhaesler at bigpond.net.au>
To: "Ken Mathieson" <ken at kenmath.free-online.co.uk>; "dixieland jazz mailing 
list" <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Friday, December 06, 2013 11:53 PM
Subject: Recorded Tempos


Ken Mathieson commented [in part]:
> It just goes to show that the purists don't know what they're talking 
> about most of the time and, in any event, a recording is just a snapshot 
> on a particular day; if they all went in the studio a month later it would 
> all come out sounding different.

Now now Ken y' wee laddie,
Leave us purists alone.
8>)
However dear friend, I do agree with the comment that for some tunes: "it's 
as though they're telling us how fast they want to be played."
A random thought.
Why do all revivalist bands insist on playing "Blues My Naughty Sweetie 
Gives to Me" at breakneck speed when Jimmie Noone laid down the near perfect 
tempo in 1928?
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PdILJqshL4
Very kind regards,
Bill. The mouldy old fig.

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