[Dixielandjazz] St Louis trumpeters

[Steve Voce]

An interview that I did with Clark Terry was serialised in two Jazz 
Journals in 1986. Clark was kind enough to say that it was the best 
interview he had ever given, but of course that was due to what he'd 
told me rather than

to any effort on my part.  It's in a collection of his things at one of 
the universities.

I'd like also to put the piece on Jack Purvis here, and will do later.

Steve V

`In my home town of St. Louis there were so many trumpet players, all 
the way back to Charlie Creath, the King Of The Cornet, Bruz Woods, Baby 
James, Levi Madison, Dewey Jackson, Mouse Ran­dolph, Sleepy Tomlin. All 
were fantastic players, and us younger kids always had a bunch of these 
guys to look up to. Some we could ask questions of, but some we couldn't 
because in those days the older players thought that the younger players 
were^- trying to get in on their scene. You remember even Louis 
Armstrong back in those days used to keep the handkerchief over his 
fingers so that the cats couldn't steal his tricks. But fortunately that 
atti­tude is really the opposite of the situation today. Those of us who 
are involved in jazz education feel that it's a very important thing to 
impart knowledge to young peo­ple. Many of the things that are involved 
can't possibly be documented and if we go down with them so go down most 
of the secrets.

`Amongst the first recordings that I learned to solo from were Erskine 
Haw­kins' /Tuxedo Junction /and /No Soap. /I was very much surprised to 
find out that the soloist was not Erskine Hawkins, but a trumpeter by 
the name of Dud Bascomb.**He had a unique approach to chords and 
resolutions and the harmonic structure he used was very original. He 
would pick beautiful notes out of the chord that the average person 
wouldn't even think of set­tling on. He would play flatted fifths, 
flat­ted ninths even back then in the early for­ties. So I was listening 
to him, and I was trying to use Lester Young's type of arti­culation.

`I had a different concept of the way the trumpet should sound, and I 
played with a piece of felt over the horn. Perhaps my fluent technique 
came partly from the fact that I used to practice on the clarinet book 
when I was in the navy. The passages in the clarinet books seemed to be 
more legato and fluid - the trumpet ones tended to be staccato. I just 
loved to get involved in the velocity part of phrases.

`As a result of this I became pretty versa­tile, so that people hired me 
to play certain roles. These may not have been roles that I would have 
chosen for myself, but I tried hard to do everything that was required 
of me. I suppose that if I had had the security and freedom I would have 
gotten into a different vein a little quicker. Once I got out of the big 
bands I was more relaxed and able to get into what I eventually 
cons­idered to be my thing. Most of the time in the old days the big 
band leaders would ask me to play something similar to the same solos 
each night so that alone would stymie you. That would put a stumbling 
block in the path of your ability to create.

`With regard to the so-called half valve thing, it's not true that I 
derived my style from Rex Stewart.**One of my contempor­aries mentioned 
that I derived the style from Rex Stewart and the half valve, which was 
untrue. I'd never even heard or seen Rex Stewart at this particular time 
and I never knew what he was doing. After I got into the Ellington band 
some of the guys in the band played this record where he was talking 
through the horn with Ivy Ander­son singing, and I learned to do that 
little bit from the record, but it is completely wrong to suggest that I 
developed a style built around Rex's. Leonard Feather said that I played 
the half valve style. The only time my valves are half-valved when 
play­ing is when they don't come up, when they stick or something. I'm 
too busy trying to make as clear a note, as full a note or as beautiful 
a note, as meaningful a note or as colourful a note as I possibly can.’


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