Tuba as a jazz instrument?

[Ian Stewart]

The Be Bop vocabulary was developed by an alto saxophone player and trumpeter, and is ideally suited to those instruments. However it does not really suit the guitar of piano as well, even though there are great Be Bop players on those instruments.
As someone who used to be interested in jazz, I have noticed that Be Bop seems to be the benchmark for jazz playing, however I prefer non-Be Bop styles over Be Bop; and I must add, so do most listeners.

So to answer your question, the wonderful tuba parts in Ernie Wilkins' big band arrangements, or the two tubas in the arrangements of Gil Evans show that the tuba is an indispensable jazz instrument, even if it can't play John Coltrane transcriptions as well as a saxophone. Styles are often defined by great players: Parker on alto saxophone; Garbarek on tenor saxophone, Errol Garner on piano et al. All it needs is a tuba player to define a style unique to tuba and everyone will be imitating the tuba.

[dougtuba]

Joe Murphy makes it sound light and nimble!

I think that Joe is an outstanding artist who deserves a lot of credit for promoting the tuba as a jazz instrument and not allowing himself to be limited by other people's perceptions of what the role of the tuba should be.

[J Stowe]

Please don't hit me with stones for this comment..

I'm willing to bet that if a tubist could also sing like Chet Baker or Louis Armstrong, he'd make a great appeal to audiences. This could possibly a combo that rotates roles, which would be very interesting.

[dershem]

I'm still surprised that nobody has mentioned Rich Matteson. He did some amazing stuff.
And Bill Reichenbach has done some very nice things, including a very good solo on "You put What in the sousaphone?"
Jazz tuba is rare, but can be done. The trick is getting the rest of the band to put up with it.

[Walter Webb]

There's something about the wavelength of contrabass tones that is so long that the audience can't wait for it to arrive at their ears; with so many molecules of vibrating air slowly wafting in their direction. Soprano, alto and tenor saxes, trumpets, and 'bones deliver the tones instantly into their face. But go an octave or two lower, and the average listener cannot even hear the articulation, much less the melody which is programmed into our brains to be delivered by the top line. On the other hand, novelty is desirable. There is room in this world for a few cream of the crop tubists to assume coolness. Everyone has heard a million saxes and trumpets blasting the lead, and it's old hat by now. When a tuba does it nicely, they will listen, if only to hear the bellowing elephant sing. 'Tis charming to hear a rhinocerous crying out it's song of love, and having an elephantine orgasm at just the right moment. Large beasts quiver with delight, too.
http://www.elinewberger.com/" target="_blank

[Paul Tkachenko]

Hi folks,

Just wanted to chip in that I make a pretty decent living playing jazz tuba (quite a bit of trad often on the sousa, to be fair) as well as various 'World' music styles (such as Balkan stuff on the helicon).

I'll be recording a CD in the not too distant future with my trio, which is tuba, banjo/ukulele/guitar and drum kit. I'll let you all know and you can see if it works or not. There are quite a lot of 'Eastern' influences on the jazz.

As you might expect, I also double on upright, which helps bring in a bit of money and also informs my jazz tuba playing greatly.

[Paul Tkachenko]

For the record ... Joe M is doing a great job!

[dougtuba]

Hi folks,

Just wanted to chip in that I make a pretty decent living playing jazz tuba (quite a bit of trad often on the sousa, to be fair) as well as various 'World' music styles (such as Balkan stuff on the helicon).

I'll be recording a CD in the not too distant future with my trio, which is tuba, banjo/ukulele/guitar and drum kit. I'll let you all know and you can see if it works or not. There are quite a lot of 'Eastern' influences on the jazz.

As you might expect, I also double on upright, which helps bring in a bit of money and also informs my jazz tuba playing greatly.

Hi Paul, Nice to hear that you're getting so much work playing jazz! Like you, most of the work that I do is also playing jazz, anything from dixieland to big band jazz, although I am classically trained so I would tend to agree with bloke's post.

Have fun recording the cd! We'll look forward to hearing the results. My recent jazz tuba project took about 15 months from beginning to write the tunes until the album release but the journey was wonderful.
Doug

[Paul Tkachenko]

I'll certainly be getting myself a copy of your CD, Doug for inspiration!

I was well and truely schooled in the classical way, but was fortunate enough to have people let me in on the lack of employment as a classical tuba player very early on!

Doubling has been very useful. Whilst I'm a very fast reader, it's a skill I find myself using less and less. There seem to be a lot of reading tuba players over here, very few who can do all the other stuff - I think (hope) this is changing.