[Dixielandjazz] Fwd: where does Dixieland end?

[Bert]

Marek, you are right.
The ODJB did not really improvise, they allready played more or less memorised parts.
The King Oliver band had sketches allready. When Louis Armstrong came to New York, he handed  a little book with notated music to Don Redman.That is how the Dippermouth Blues / Sugar Foot Stomp connection was made.It definitly was not a transcription from a record, as people might think. Redman never did that, he actually usually made variations on and in stock arrangements, as has been proved in a very interesting book : The Uncrowned King of Swing: Fletcher Henderson and Big Band Jazz

Of course in solos musicians who were good at it improvised, but there really is a surprisingly high percentage of solos that are prepepared before they were recorded. Even Armstrong, Charlie Parker and Coleman Hawkins did this.They simply wanted to make good records I guess, and lowered the risk.
As Gunther Schuller put it : there is nothing wrong with a good solo!
I guess usually clarinet players had the most freedom in collective playing.
We are highly misled by a business practise. Black bands in the 1920's were supposed to sell a kind of illiterate, privitive image. They usually were not allowed to use notated music in live situations. That applies for the Ellington, Henderson and Oliver.But they used written arrangements, that were memorised. There is no doubt about that.
Kind regards,
Bert 
> I very much doubt the "nothing but dixieland ensemble-improv" contention.
> Jelly Roll Morton who, even if he did not invent jazz was definitely there
> to rock the cradle required his musicians to "play those dots" he put on
> paer, and his ensembles, even on the earliest accousic recordings, were
> rather tightly arranged.  Actually, the Oliver records sound quite arranged
> to me, even if those were "head" arrangements.  After all, that was long
> before splicing, and a single mistake would ruin the record and recording
> had to start anew.  Therefore, bands had to come to the studios prepared to
> make a record in a single take, even if often more were made.  So perhaps
> live there was a lot of improvising, but we cannot be sure.  Even the Hot
> Fives and Seventh don't really sound like sponaneous improvisation.  I have
> the feeling that this, too, was the invention of the critics.  People
> couldn't make too many mistakes when they were paid!
> Cheers
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------