[Dixielandjazz] Teddy & Ory

[Marek Boym]

Jim is so right!
Not long ago a listmate (was it Bob Ringwald?) was not sure about the tempo
at which Turk Murphy and the Climax Jazz Band played, I believe, "Ory's
Creole Trombone."  A few days ago I listened to the 1939 Roy Eldridge
Orchestra playing the "St. Louis Blues" at a break-neck tempo, all note
falling just right!  Tony Fougerat, on the otherhand, played almost
everything slower than other bands, and it still sounded right.
And there was Wilbur de Paris' comment to criticism of the slow tempo at
which his band played "The Pearls:" he said that he had played with Jelly
Roll Morton and they always played "The Pearls" at a tempo much slower than
on the record; the faster tempo on the record, he explained, was due to the
three minute time restriction of the 78 rpm record, which would not allow
squeezing all the strains of the song.
Cheers


On 5 January 2018 at 11:26, <jim at kashprod.com> wrote:

> Did anyone notice the tempo on the Muscrat Ramble video I posted yesterday
> on djml?   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPdCL6wq0eg
>
> It’s tearing along at a great speed.  So many folks seem to think that all
> the early stuff was at a medium tempo.  I struggled with our previous
> drummer for years on the tempo when we played songs like Muscrat.  He
> insisted they be medium tempo, and I wasn’t necessarily in agreement.
>
>
>
> I firmly believe that, although we have recorded examples by the Masters,
> that they may have actually played many of those tunes at varying tempos,
> depending on the mood of the audience or the makeup of the particular band
> at that moment.  Just  because we hear an original recording of a song
> doesn’t mean that it MUST be performed in exactly that manner when
> reproduced.
>
>
>
> Putting your own stamp on a song, with your own rendition, is what will
> keep the music alive and evolving.  Jada works as a medium/fast & also as
> an extremely slow tune, for example.  I actually prefer it very slow &
> mournful, although I doubt it’s origin was such.  And, even a change of the
> original key can add a new flavor for a song, particularly to put it into a
> more favorable key for a particular instrument taking the lead.
>
>
>
> I’m in favor of listening to the Masters, but not necessarily copying them
> note for note.  And, as I stated earlier in this posting, it’s most likely
> the Masters did many of these songs in a different way from their
> recordings when performed live.
>
>
>
> I was told once that during the live performances of Pink Floyd’s “The
> Wall”, the saxophonist had to stand exactly where the X on the stage was
> otherwise he would be hit by falling (cardboard) bricks when the wall came
> down.  We shouldn’t want our music to be marked by an X!
>
>
>
> Jim
>
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