<div dir="ltr"><div><div><div>Jim is so right!<br></div>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.<br></div>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.<br></div><div>Cheers<br></div><br><div><div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On 5 January 2018 at 11:26, <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:jim@kashprod.com" target="_blank">jim@kashprod.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div lang="ES"><div class="gmail-m_-8529296941080294709m_-6612232040462564983WordSection1"><p class="gmail-MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Did anyone notice the tempo on the Muscrat Ramble video I posted yesterday on djml? </span><span style="color:black" lang="EN-US"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPdCL6wq0eg" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(5,99,193)">https://www.youtube.com/watch<wbr>?v=IPdCL6wq0eg</span></a><u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="gmail-MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">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. <u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="gmail-MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="gmail-MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">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. <u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="gmail-MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="gmail-MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">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. <u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="gmail-MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="gmail-MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">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. <u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="gmail-MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="gmail-MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">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! <span class="gmail-m_-8529296941080294709HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><u></u><u></u></font></span></span></p><span class="gmail-m_-8529296941080294709HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><p class="gmail-MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="gmail-MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Jim<u></u><u></u></span></p></font></span></div></div><br>______________________________<wbr>_________________<br>
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