[Dixielandjazz] Buddy Bolden, was Armstrong-Eldridge

[Ken Mathieson]

Hi again,

Another fascinating topic which came up during the varied traffic 
recently on this thread was the question of how much was improvised and 
how much was arranged in jazz recordings of the "classic" era.

It's well documented that the New Orleans musicians liked to work up a 
routine for their solos on particular tunes: Armstrong, Oliver, Ory, 
Bechet, Morton etc all did this and once the routine had been perfected 
they'd play it on that tune ever more with the only variations being 
minor ones of ornamentation or phrase shape.

Morton was particularly strict about his recordings of his own 
compositions: you can hear clearly how his piano lines on his piano solo 
recordings were allocated to other instruments in the band recordings. 
Even more illuminating is a comparison of the alternative takes of the 
Red Hot Peppers recordings: clearly solos had been written out or 
learned by rote as they vary very little from take to take. So, far from 
being the final flowering of the New Orleans collective improvised 
style, they're better described as wonderful examples of the skill of a 
highly talented musican who could write tightly-arranged music that 
sounded spontaneous when played by quality players.

I've written here before about the recordings made by Louis Armstrong 
with Don Redman in the late 1920s. These are generally tightly arranged 
by Redman, but sound convincingly like improvisations. Just listen to 
Louis in ensembles: he sounds as though he's improvising, but the other 
horns are often playing the same line in parallel harmony. It's anyone's 
guess whether this was entirely down to Redman's imagination, or whether 
Louis had come up with the lines first and Redman had written them down 
before voicing the other horn parts. Ultimately it doesn't matter in my 
book - timeless music has been created - but it would be preferable if 
the role of arrangers were better recognised.

Cheers,

Ken