[Dixielandjazz] Tram

[Ken Mathieson]

Hi Folks,

I've been following the thread about Tram with interest and can agree 
with Steve's point that his jazz creativity was not major league 
material and also with Bert's point about his technical capability and 
tonal quality. These technical qualities, along with being a skilled 
reader, made him an outstanding section leader for his time. Bert cites 
an interview in which Benny Carter talked of the Henderson band's 
nervousness about facing the Goldkette band in a battle of the bands. I 
had the great fortune to know Benny Carter and once spent a fascinating 
afternoon talking jazz and his career in the music studio of his house 
in the hills above Los Angeles. He said that the night of that battle of 
the bands in 1926 was one of the most important occasions in his career 
and radically influenced his musical thinking.

He was greatly impressed by Tram for his impeccable intonation, the 
purity of his tone, the way he led a tightly-drilled saxophone section 
and the fact that he clearly had bags of technique but chose to use it 
only in the service of playing music of quality. Bix impressed him 
enormously too for his tonal quality and especially for creativity as a 
soloist. He felt both Bix and Tram could do anything on their horns, 
even the most complex passages, and yet make them sound easy and above 
all beautiful. He was also knocked out by Bill Challis's arrangements at 
a time when Benny was just starting to teach himself about arranging, 
and cited the sense of structure that underpinned Challis's writing. He 
acknowledged the influence that these three men had on his musical 
thinking for the rest of his life.

Incidentally Buddy Tate also told me on another occasion that, as a 
youngster learning saxophone, he had managed to get himself into a 
whites-only hotel in Texas to hear a rehearsal by a band containing 
Trumbauer. I've no idea which band or which year, but the point was that 
Tram had such a big reputation that a teen-aged Buddy was prepared to 
'chance his arm' to get into the hotel to hear Tram play. He also 
managed to talk to him after the rehearsal and got some helpful advice 
on embouchure and tone production. At that time, Buddy was playing 
C-Melody Sax and, as he said, everyone who played C-Melody back then was 
trying to capture the purity of sound that Tram had. When Buddy switched 
to tenor, his sound was bound to change, but he cited Tram as an early 
influence at least in terms of tone production on the instrument.

Cheers,
Ken