[Dixielandjazz] Of melodies and such

[Charles Suhor]

I had to digest several aspects of this topic before responding. Yes, most lay audiences might get bored when successive soloists stray from the melody. And as a seasoned listener, if a song is unfamiliar I like to hear a pretty straightforward chorus of melody, embellished of course to enhance the feeling, in order to anchor the experience when improvised solos unfold. But beyond that, I’m happy if the soloists don’t cite the melody at all. As I see it, in jazz improvisation the solos are in themselves melodic inventions—great to witness, especially when an imaginative player integrates blue notes, intuitively makes skillful use of rhythmic manipulation of phrases, varies their length, doesn’t run cliches or fall into repetition of ideas, etc. 

Isn’t that a great part of the joy of jazz, and doesn’t it apply even when you walk into (or tune into) the middle of performance of soloists playing a tune, and you don’t even know the song in the first place? If the soloists are swinging and singing, that’s its own reward. God bless jazz!

I’m sure that most of you have sought a middle ground at times between taking lyrical flight and keeping the audience in mind. Steve Barbone has written about this often. That’s yet another kind of creativity. Ain’t we got fun?

An aside—I know that a more schooled musician than me (I’m a drummer, don’t know chords) will get much more out of, say, what a soloist is doing with harmonics as a pianist lays down chords. Too much of that, though, can bog down in analysis that saps the juice out of the experience, a flaw in much of contemporary jazz education, Im told. 

That’s a plenty.

Charlie


> On Apr 5, 2017, at 4:45 PM, Marek Boym <marekboym at gmail.com <mailto:marekboym at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
> With your repertoire,  it hardly matters - you play so many songs hardly anybody else does that the melodies don't sound familiar anyway.
> It is not a complaint - it is a compliment; this way, you always sound interesting!
> Cheers
> 
> On 5 April 2017 at 20:05, tonypringle <tonypringle at comcast.net <mailto:tonypringle at comcast.net>> wrote:
> I have a memory of reading that Joe Oliver told Louis Armstrong to always make sure you state the melody strongly and something about "if you can't make the melody swing you can't play jazz".
> 
> I like to refer to some of the melody later in a performance - it's a way of reminding the audience of what tune they are listening to. On a less serious note I have heard a couple of bands through the years were having the melody restated would help some of the musicians to remember what tune they are playing!  :-)
> 
> Cheers, Tony Pringle
> 
> _______________________________________________
> 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 <http://ml.islandnet.com/mailman/listinfo/dixielandjazz>
> 
> 
> 
> Dixielandjazz mailing list
> Dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com <mailto:Dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
> 
> _______________________________________________
> 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 <http://ml.islandnet.com/mailman/listinfo/dixielandjazz>
> 
> 
> 
> Dixielandjazz mailing list
> Dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://ml.islandnet.com/pipermail/dixielandjazz/attachments/20170405/5d963334/attachment.html>