Jazz (Dixie?) guys....

[MaryAnn]

Is this kind of thing written down, or do they just learn it on the fly? I would have called this Dixie but really don't know what to call it. I could do those clarinet parts on violin and would have a lot of fun with it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jft3BVoxqjo" target="_blank

[LibraryMark]

I would imagine that the sheet at the trumpeter's feet is probably the melody with chord changes. The same page is probably at the guitar player's feet. The tuba player probably has the changes memorized and is just riffin' it. Looks like the trumpet player is calling out sections and solos.

[MaryAnn]

by melody do you mean exact parts, or something to go on? I'm really familiar with bluegrass and "the melody" is just something to start from.

[iiipopes]

Just remember: everytime you play jazz, of whatever style, format, time period or genre, from 1890's ragtime to whatever the newest catch phrase is, that it all started as the counter-culture music of its day, and the word itself is derogatory slang for...well...you know.

That is why I could hardly keep from laughing when it was a Dixieland ensemble which performed at a springtime church social I was invited to attend a few years ago, the church being of a denomination that was at the forefront of the temperance movement back in the day!

[Donn]

You can put about as much analysis into it as you can stand, because there's a recording of them doing it again 3 days later: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZdMxFiUf9Q. You can see the parts that are worked out, and how much variation there might be in that from one day to the next, and then the completely improvised solo breaks. They've sweated over this arrangement some, though, and it would be interesting to know what they have to do to get a tune to the point where they can perform it to their minimum standard, and what that would sound like. They have an immense repertoire, and they're fun to listen to. Maybe my favorite, uh, what-cha-call-it band.

As for what you call it ... the stuff bloke posted above is Dixieland, trad jazz etc. If Tuba Skinny has a genre, I guess that's it, but they aren't typical of that genre. You'll notice among other things that the rhythmic feel is very different.

[groth]

And here's a friend from France playing the "Portland Tuba" piece which is I presume written down (or learned). Also, might ad the sound he gets out of this King 1240 w/recording bell horn in this recording is the quintessential Dixieland tuba sound. (Ignore the Conn 20J in the photo).

https://youtu.be/WDFEO-aOiaA" target="_blank

[roweenie]

Call me a "moldy fig", but the term "dixieland" conjures up visions of Styrofoam boaters and smelly worn-out ill-fitting candy-striped vests...in my experience, the only people who called it that were amateurs that stumbled over the changes to "Bill Bailey", or club date musicians - the purists generally avoid(ed) that term like the plague.

The term itself holds no offense to me other than this.

Yet, I love this song:

https://youtu.be/48tuhgWMLCE" target="_blank


roweenie "an old dog who has a hard time learning new tricks"

[groth]

"Dixieland Jazz" pre-dates the cheezy costumes by a few decades at least. It was the original most pure version of "American Jazz" out there, and depending on what city you came from was how different you played it and how much it swung (or didn't). When I think of 'Dixieland' I think of the South, and the later revival of 2-beat style on the West coast. If you were from Kansas City or Chicago, it was 'swing' or simply 'traditional jazz'. In a nutshell but not limited to various other styles of traditional jazz, genres and eras of the music.

[MaryAnn]

As someone who has never learned Southern culture, please tell me, even if via PM, what is wrong with the term Dixie. It appears to be a hot button and I'd like to know when to avoid saying it. To me, Dixieland has only had a reference to a certain type of music, which usually does have a clarinet doing the more soprano part. We have a fantastic clarinetist here who has just retired, and he could just play the stuffing out of that kind of music, as well as classical.

Thanks for all the info....I'll take the time to look at all those videos.

[roweenie]

Mary Ann, bloke has the goods on the violin stuff, and you can't go wrong with Joe Venuti and the Blue Four recordings - I think of them as being among the pinnacle of intimate 1920s Chicago-style jazz. I've always wanted to form a group like this, but stumble when trying to find a violinist that stacks up.

Also, FWIW & IMHO, violinists who have this style down-pat are as rare as hens teeth.....

[MaryAnn]

I could do those clarinet parts on violin and would have a lot of fun with it.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Joe+Venuti

I think I've posted here before that in about 1981 or 82, the Albany NY AFM banquet hired Joe Venuti to come up from NYC and play "wandering violinist" at the banquet. It was major cool.

[MaryAnn]

Mary Ann, bloke has the goods on the violin stuff, and you can't go wrong with Joe Venuti and the Blue Four recordings - I think of them as being among the pinnacle of intimate 1920s Chicago-style jazz. I've always wanted to form a group like this, but stumble when trying to find a violinist that stacks up.

Also, FWIW & IMHO, violinists who have this style down-pat are as rare as hens teeth.....

Talk to me 35 years ago, when I could have done it reasonably well. Now pipe dreaming of the past sitting in my armchair.

[roweenie]

The folks that I have worked with over the last 35 years (and continue to work with today), folks who have well-known reputations that make their living playing only this kind of music - in my experience, do not like to use the term "dixieland" when describing what they play, especially amongst other musicians, for the reasons I have already stated.

Maybe it's a regional thing, I just don't know. As far as I'm concerned, people can call it whatever they want - I'm old enough now to say I really just don't care, nor am I looking for an argument. I am merely recounting my 35+ years of experience on the subject.

When I was paying my rent by playing traditional jazz, (yes kiddies, believe it or not, there was a time when such a thing was possible), in the days before we had the Internet to manufacture a reputation for us, I wore whatever I was told to wear, including Styrofoam boaters and striped vests, and clown suits in Times Square - my kids needed food in their bellies and shoes on their feet, nor did my landlord give a rat's a$$ about my precious dignity.

[groth]

Traditional in the sense that nothing came before it of it's kind, and original to the South (Dixie-land).

[Donn]

As someone who has never learned Southern culture, please tell me, even if via PM, what is wrong with the term Dixie. It appears to be a hot button and I'd like to know when to avoid saying it. To me, Dixieland has only had a reference to a certain type of music, which usually does have a clarinet doing the more soprano part.

If you're talking about

"Dixie" (a word contained within the word "dixieland"), as being un-p.c., offensive, or even banned''

... don't worry about that. You might be able to figure out some way to offend someone with that word, if you were sort of a semi-professional offensive person, but that has not been my impression.

If you're talking about someone not really liking to hear his or her act called "dixieland", it could sure happen, but as you can see the terminology isn't rigorous. For me, usage from the first half of the 20th century is not very relevant - how people understand "Dixieland" today is about the examples they're familiar with today or in recent history. The modern examples you're getting on this thread, for example. Everyone knows the score, and I think all they can expect is that you be receptive to different nomenclature, if that's their preference.

[Charlie C Chowder]

I do not care what you call it, where do you find it in written form to play it?

Charlie C. Chowder

[Donn]

I do not care what you call it, where do you find it in written form to play it?

That's like getting a summer breeze off the sea, by mail order from Amazon.

[groth]

Alot of the old Turk Murphy & Firehouse 5+2 stuff was written into charts that various west coast bands have the collection of. Really tough stuff if you want to play it note for note, but fun.

[Art Hovey]

In response to Mr. Chowder: I have had the pleasure of playing classic jazz for more than 50 years with guys who never use written arrangements; most of us prefer not to read at all. (See, for example, http://galvanizedjazz.com/.)

For almost as many years I have been teaching myself to write arrangements for youth bands and "geezer" bands, attempting to make them sound as much as possible as if they were improvised. Groups using those arrangements sound surprisingly good so long as they stick to the ink, but being a good reader does not make you a good improviser.

I continue to do this for two reasons:
-It makes more people aware of our kind of music. They love it when they hear it, but they never encounter it on the radio or in schools.
-It occasionally plants a seed in a youngster who has talent, and years later that person is someone I can call when we need a replacement for an ailing colleague.

I can easily share charts as PDFs. I would also like to pass on some of them as Sibelius files, to be edited and improved by anyone who knows how. Anybody know a good drummer who understands our kind of music and also knows how to write a drum chart that is reasonably easy to read but appropriate for the style?

[Charlie C Chowder]

As a hack who has played all alone since 1970, this exposer to playing with other since this last summer has made me need to learn a lot of new songs very fast. The Blues class had a web site where you can print of copies of songs, and links to Youtube videos to practice with. The banjo group that I just started with also has a site where they have archived their music with links to audios where you can play along. The Banjos have transpose most the there music to just three keys, C, Bb, & Eb. Easy enough for a hack tuba player like myself. But the songs are not ones that I know. Their site even has the play list for passed years. As well as their Christmas play list. I now can print a copy of the latest play list and then make a book of my owe to practice from and be better prepared to give them a bass line.
When I play the cello with the Native American flutes, I am no more then a tuned drum. As they are usually adlibbing on the spot, and they only have a pentatonic scale. I usually play just four notes. They change keys, I change the four notes. Their music is not set in stone. There is no real frame other then tempo and key. But the Blues and the Banjo music require me to know where I am going, when the cord changes are, what and where to play to blend in and help make the song "Music". Therefore my questions about music sights that are very specific to the music it caters to.

Music library at home is over 12' long and 7' high, covering too many instruments and styles to list.

Charlie C. Chowder