Post 559: TAKING TRADITIONAL JAZZ PLAYING SERIOUSLY - 'GRANDPA'S SPELLS'

When many bands decide to add a new tune to their repertoire, somebody beats it in, and off they go.

The results are often slapdash, with spur-of-the-moment arrangements, and everyone hoping for the best.

Of course it sometimes happens, where the musicians are very talented and listen well to each other, that the result is quite good.

But that great young band in New Orleans - Tuba Skinny - has shown us in the last few years how you need to approach the music more seriously if you are to achieve results that are truly outstanding.

There is nothing slapdash in their approach. When they tackle a new tune, they begin with a clear vision of what they want to achieve. They have a unity of purpose. Every individual is focused on the agreed arrangements. There is no room for compromise. Only the best will do.

A good illustration of this is their 2014 performance in Italy of Jelly Roll Morton's Grandpa's Spells. You can find it at https://vimeo.com/101422951. On the face of it, this is just a merry busking session in a public square.

Yet note the meticulous care that has been taken to present the tune. It is never muddled, despite its complexity. Everybody knows who is to do what, and when. There is no need for printed music on stands in front of the musicians, as we find with many bands playing such a tricky piece. Everybody has taken the trouble to learn what he must do.

Obviously, the band must have studied the original recording by Jelly Roll Morton's Red Hot Peppers in detail, because they follow it closely.

The structure goes like this:

Both bands start in the key of C.

BOTH BANDS
INTRODUCTION
Four bars 'running up the ladder'

BOTH BANDS
THEME A
Featuring guitar breaks and then the cornet

BOTH BANDS
THEME B
Ensemble;
but with the break in bars 7 and 8 taken by the piano (Red Hot Peppers) and by the banjo (Tuba Skinny - not having a piano at the time)

THEME B second time
Clarinet leads throughout, including the break (Red Hot Peppers)
Clarinet leads but washboard takes the break (Tuba Skinny)

THEME B third time 
Trombone and string bass alternate the lead (Red Hot Peppers)
Trombone and Tuba alternate the lead (Tuba Skinny)

Without any need for a signal, there is then a seamless transition into the key of F (occurring at 1 minute 41 seconds into the Tuba Skinny video).

THEME C
BOTH BANDS
Melody (a firm statement stabbing out the notes of the chords) played by the cornet

THEME C second time
BOTH BANDS
Ensemble, featuring the clarinet on the flowing runs

THEME C third time
Taken as a piano solo (Red Hot Peppers) but as a Trombone solo (Tuba Skinny)

THEME C fourth time
Ensemble out-chorus (Red Hot Peppers)
Chorus led by Tuba (Tuba Skinny)

(The Red Hot Peppers version - under 3 minutes in total - ends at this point, but with a neat two-bar coda)

THEME C fifth time
Ensemble (Tuba Skinny - everyone swinging joyously)

THEME C sixth time
Ensemble (Tuba Skinny - again everyone swinging joyously). Simple end. No coda.

Note how nobody puts a foot wrong with the various two-bar breaks. Notice too how even Erika (whose main rôle is as vocalist) gets the bass drum beats exactly right - stopping at those moments when 'silent beats' are required. Notice how there is no need for signals from Shaye, though she gives the slightest indication (hardly required) at 2 minutes 35 seconds that Todd is leading the next chorus.

By the time when I videoed them playing the tune in Royal Street, New Orleans, three years later, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUICxSTjzPc), they had very slightly tweaked the arrangement, with minor alterations to the structures and playing of the breaks, for example. Have fun spotting the differences. They had added a Coda too.

Obviously, to get all that right, from memory, the members of the band have to put in plenty of hard work in the woodshed. Their dedication is an example to us all.

Post 238: THE BIZARRE AUDIENCE

Why is it that many people like to talk - often at the tops of their voices - while some of the world's greatest and most creative musicians are playing sublimely only a few yards away? Audiences would not do this at a concert of classical chamber music. (And traditional jazz, in my view, is a branch of chamber music.)

Yes, members of traditional jazz audiences can be strange. I am reminded of audience behaviour I have noticed in the past.

You often come across someone who gives a band-leader a 'request' and then walks away, gets into a conversation and doesn't bother to listen when the band plays the tune.

I'm also surprised that some people who claim to be 'jazzers' or 'jazz buffs' are unable to recognise even the most common tunes from the traditional jazz repertoire.

A revealing incident occurred when I was playing in an English pub with just three other musicians: we were clarinet, cornet, banjo, string bass.

A gentleman called out, 'How about giving us South Rampart Street Parade?' Our leader replied, 'It's really a big band number. It's a tune that needs a trombone - and we haven't got one. If we try it, it won't sound good. And in any case we've never played it together before.'

So we ignored the request and played the next tune in our programme - The Darktown Strutters Ball. When we finished it, the same gentleman stood up, applauded loudly and said, 'There you are! You can play South Rampart Street Parade! Don't ever tell me again that you can't play it!'

I'm also often surprised when there is some really poor playing and yet the audience applauds heartily. For example, some member of the band takes a 32-bar solo chorus in which he obviously makes a few mistakes, hits some horrible notes, loses the harmony for a bar or two and knows very well that the sounds he is making are far from what he is attempting to make. And yet the audience still applauds at the end of the solo. It seems to be ritualistic rather than truly appreciative.

Similarly, when at the end of a mediocre performance I hear people giving it high praise, I sometimes wonder whether we have been listening to the same music. What exactly have they been hearing?

Conversely, isn't it strange how unresponsive some audiences can be, even when terrific traditional jazz is being played?

Friend and fellow trumpet player Richard Boswell from the south of England asked me to have a look at a YouTube video of Rod Mason's Band playing Grandpa's Spells in Germany. The year was 1986. It is a lively well-drilled and well-arranged performance, technically brilliant. And yet, as Richard pointed out, the audience (of whom we see quite a lot) looks uninterested, uninvolved and unresponsive. They almost look as if they are attending a funeral. (To be fair, there is just a hint at the end of the video they they were at least going to applaud.)

Click here to see the video.

All this reminds me of an incident that occurred in April 1993. I was in New Orleans for the French Quarter Festival with a party of 40 jazz fans (members of The Ken Colyer Trust) from the U.K. Quite a few treats were included in our programme. One of these was a Sunday Jazz Brunch in a top hotel - the Westin. Right beside us, as we dined, a superb band led by Clive Wilson was providing rich entertainment. His band included some of the very best musicians playing traditional jazz anywhere in the world at that time.

But I noticed that very few people in the restaurant - even among our own party - were paying attention to the music. There came a point when Clive launched into West End Blues and gave us the full Armstrong version - effortlessly (it seemed) playing that amazing opening cadenza and then even playing beautifully all the high-note stuff in the later choruses. It is no exaggeration to say it was sensationally good. Yet, at the end, nobody took any notice. I was the only person in the entire restaurant who applauded. 

Clive Wilson

When the band took a break, I had a word with Clive, mainly to say how sorry I was and to offer a kind of apology on behalf of all the customers. Clive graciously told me not to worry. He said the musicians were accustomed to that sort of thing.

It is a measure of how much the incident disappointed me that I still remember it so well.
==============
Footnote:

Henry - a banjo and keyboard player in Princeton, New Jersey, has emailed me to say his band (The Hot Taters) does its best to hold the audience's attention by marching in at the start (and out at the end) and by wearing flamboyant capes, masks and hats. He says the audience responds to this and the musicians consequently play better; and everybody enjoys themselves more:

Post 70: 'GRANDPA'S SPELLS'

I discovered at the end of 2014 that the band Tuba Skinny had Jelly Roll Morton's Grandpa's Spells (1923) in its repertoire.

They played it when visiting Italy. Their interpretation (in the key of C, going into F for the Trio) is vigorous and enterprising, working as much round the chords as on the melody and making a great use of breaks: Morton himself would have been very impressed! I guess Shaye must have played a big part in the arrangement. One of the delights of this video is the absorbed expressions on the faces of the children watching the band (see above).

You can enjoy the performance superbly filmed by Salar Golestanian by clicking on here.

By the way, one of my American readers has emailed to say 'This video shows why they are the best band in the world!'

You can watch Tuba Skinny in New Orleans playing Grandpa's Spells over a year later by clicking here. In this video, filmed by James Sterling, only four of the musicians from the original eight in the Italian video appear again. We have different players on clarinet and trombone, and the addition of Max Bien-Kahn on guitar; and Robin switches to full percussion. And there's a banjo Coda!