[Dixielandjazz] Dixieland, Fletcher

[Marek Boym]

Most enlightening, Bert.
I've never thought about this, but ther records, many (if not most) of
which I have, seem to corroborate your point.
One thing, though: on the RedAllen-Coleman Hawkins recordings, as well as
the Lester young-Colema Hawkins sessions, the seem to be listening to each
other and having that "conversational" spirit.
Cheers


On 27 January 2014 11:31, Bert <mister_bertje at hotmail.com> wrote:

>
> Hello,
> Nice conversation devellopping here.
> A few thing that I would like to add :
> - Fletcher Henderson's band before Armstrong was not a live playing band,
> it was for recording purposes only.(Fletcher had heard Armstrong in N.O.
> while he was on tour backing a blues singer, might have been Ethel Waters,
> but not with his regular band, in fact a load of rather well paid New York
> session musicians were not very keen about going on tour, and certainly not
> to the south)
> - Henderson had strong connections in the world of music publicers. He
> worked for Black Swan, the first big publishing company in the hands of
> Afro-Americans.First only to demonstrate in the shop how the sheet music
> sounded. Fletcher was a prety good sight reader. (as were most of the later
> Henderson band members)
> - Black Swan started a record company with the sole purpose to sell more
> copies of the sheet music. At first they had big successes during the blues
> craze, when Fletcher with smaller bands backed singers. Actually that had
> not even been the goal, but it brought money.
> - Pretty soon the blues craze was over. The reason why the bands went to 3
> reeds, 3 brass and later even more was simply because the stock
> arrangements of the day were written for that number of musicians. Carefull
> analys of Ellington's recorded output shows that even in his band lots of
> stocks were used. It was definitly not all Ellingtonia.But both the
> Henderson and Ellington bands had a practise to "doctor" the stocks, they
> would insert solos, or release a clarinet player, like Bigard or Buster
> Bailey in the out chorus, to give it an exiting ending.That is simply
> because some ODJB records had sold very well. They never had the intention
> to make that the only goal, but some influences from that were incorporated
> that might give it some extra variation and exitement.
> After Black Swan collapsed, Fletcher's office was still where the
> publicers were located. That is no coincidence.
> - Another influence that should never be overlooked is Paul Whiteman and
> Adrian Rollini's outfits. Rollini's influence on Hawkins is way too much
> overlooked.
> - What my current band leader, Chris Barber thinks about the highest
> achievement in both the Dixieland or/and New Orleans styles is to arrive at
> a point of CONVERSATION. This is when the horns more or less improvise
> simultaniously while listening to each other AND reacting to each other. A
> few set of "rules" to make it sound better are :
> - avoid doubling of lines. A unison note in itself is no problem, but
> should release in seperate ways.- leave gaps, to give room to the
> collegues- usually best results come when trumpet stays in the middle
> register, trombone not too high, clarinet not too low.- react to what the
> others are playing in a complimentary way. No competition, but achieving
> something nice together.
> If that would be the ideal than Henderson etcetera hardly ever played
> dixieland, but they hinted at it, like in the out chorus with the released
> clarinet.What is lacking though is the conversation aspect. They improvised
> solo, but the listening part to the collegues is lacking. Imagine the big
> ego of Coleman Hawkins listening to someone else while improvising, he
> simply never did that. My guess is that in New York the life is so much
> about competition that it hardly was possible to think in another way. You
> still feel the difference between life in N.O. and N.Y. today. Maybe the
> difference in music just is a reflection?
> Those elements mentioned above can be heard though in some parts of the
> Morton Red Hot Peppers, some of the Oliver Creole Jazz Band, the hot
> Fives/Sevens, definitly in the 6 great small band recording with Rollini
> and Bix (How well they listen and react!) Some very good examples of the
> collective thinking are of course the Sam Morgan's, and the Johnny Dodds
> New Orleans Wanderer's efforts.The wanderes's had a less dominating
> trumpeter than Armstrong was. Maybe the Armstrong exitement is not there,
> but the conversation element definitly is.
> Someone like Kid Ory might not have been the greatest trombone player seen
> from a technical point of few, but it is no coincidence that he is on so
> many of the succesfull records like the Hot Fives, the Morton's the
> Wanderer's. His way of playing in the conversation ideal is without equal.
> Kind regards,
> Bert Brandsma
> _______________________________________________
> To unsubscribe or change your e-mail preferences for the Dixieland Jazz
> Mailing list, or to find the online archives, please visit:
>
> http://ml.islandnet.com/mailman/listinfo/dixielandjazz
>
>
>
> Dixielandjazz mailing list
> Dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
>