POST 588 : MUSIC POCKET NOTEBOOKS UPDATE

I mentioned a couple of months ago that I had discovered for the first time pocket music notebooks (made by Moleskine). I have since had a lot of pleasure filling them with useful straightforward lead-sheets of tunes played by traditional jazz bands - particularly those that are the more difficult to remember, or that have verses worth hearing but rarely played.

I have made such progress that I have filled three books, with a total of over 400 tunes so far. Of course, I also keep and regularly update an Index, so that I can find any tune in a moment.

Although they truly are pocketable, I like their robustness, the amount of space they give on and between staves (just right for me) and the way the books stay open at the desired pages when playing an instrument.

Moleskine Pocket Music Books

I intend to start a fourth soon. However, I have noticed (as at late-February 2018) that Moleskine seem no longer to be producing the notebooks for music in pocket size. So I may have to buy a plain pocket notebook and draw the staves myself. That should work just as well.

Post 327: 'MEMPHIS SHAKE' - A GREAT JAZZ TUNE

There is a terrific video of Tuba Skinny performing Memphis Shake. It is expertly filmed; and the tune - from 1926 - is brilliantly played. Unfortunately the start of the tune was not caught; but I think it's a video you will enjoy.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW.

Todd on Tuba

There were eight musicians on this occasion

Post 80: DIMINISHED CHORDS

You can sail through most traditional jazz tunes without ever coming across a diminished chord. Some tunes are even playable using only the three-chord trick.

However, I am fond of hearing diminished chords because they almost always inject a spot of drama, contrast and excitement. At the very least they add colour.

For example, in Have You Met Miss Jones?, I love the diminished that accompanies the word Jones, and therefore appears in the first, second and final eights. Another dramatic one occurs five bars from the end of The Very Thought Of You, where the melody leaps to its final high note, accompanied of course by the diminished.

And that good old jazz band favourite The World is Waiting for the Sunrise has a striking diminished throughout bars 3 and 4, and again through bars 19 and 20.

But the most dramatic and noticeable uses of the diminished occur in cascading arpeggio form. Sometimes this can be left to an improviser in a 'break' (such as bars 13 and 14 of the first theme of Fidgety Feet) but more obviously it is part of the written tune, such as the beginning of the second theme of Blame It On The Blues (climbing up the arpeggio ladder):

The first theme of Memphis Shake depends for its effect on its two opening bars being based on the diminished chord of the tonic.

There is another thrilling example in the third and fourth bars from the end of the second theme in Ostrich Walk. After three bars of breaks, the melody glisses down through the diminished version of the tonic chord, leading into a bar of Dominant 7th and then the Tonic.

And most famous of all is the terrific Louis Armstrong Introduction to Dippermouth Blues, which cascades down through the diminished:

Post 53: SCREAMING TRUMPETS OR GOOD TASTE?

Which of these two types of trumpet (or cornet) player do you prefer?

PLAYER A: He produces screaming 32-bar solos or even 64-bar solos [32 x 2], sometimes raucous, using lots of notes, especially high ones, often pulsating, but with not much feeling apart from sheer energy, and with little attention to the subtleties of the music.

Norman Thatcher

PLAYER B : He concentrates on the effects of the ensemble, contributing subtly, imaginatively and with soul to the harmonic progressions and - if taking a solo at all - he keeps it short and achieves effects through harmony, tone, surprising phrasing - without any exhibitionism. Have a listen to the late Norman Thatcher playing in this manner. And of course Ken Colyer was famous for setting the standard in this type of playing. That's what I would call soulful and musical trumpet playing:

Click here.

When I was beginning to study traditional jazz trumpet playing 27 years ago, I attended a tasteful concert given in Norwich by the band run by the late great clarinetist Chris Blount (who incidentally may also be heard playing beautifully with Norman in the video above). Throughout the first half, I closely watched the trumpeter (Bill Dickens) who played the perfect lead in this band where good melodies and neat teamwork were always principal features.

I noticed that, although he produced some very pleasing solo choruses, he never played a note above the F at the top of the stave. I mentioned this to Bill during the interval. 'No need to,' he said.

And since 2010 we have been able to enjoy on YouTube the playing of young Shaye Cohn, who sets an example to the whole trad jazz world of how to play a brass instrument tastefully. I have watched her in more than 150 videos and never caught her attempting the screaming, raucous pointless high-note flashy type of solo.

What Shaye offers is soul. Her tone, her bluesy phrasing, her bending of notes, her emphasis on teamwork and ensemble are second to none. Some of her best and cleverest playing occurs where you hardly notice it - in the background while accompanying the singer or decorating the lead or solo being taken by another member of the band. She's particularly clever at incorporating the sixth, the flattened third and seventh and the ninths of chords into her subtle runs.

Take for example, a video of Memphis Shake - a routine performance by Tuba Skinny standards. Just concentrate on every note Shaye plays. Notice how she works hard throughout, with amazing variations on the melody, but always as part of a team - bringing out the best in colleagues and in the band as a whole.
Click here to view it.
Or look at a more recent performance of Dallas Rag. Energetic, and including a few high A flats and As, but never mere exhibitionism. Isn't that so much more musical than those screaming solos?
Click here to view it.

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Reader Sam Wood has sent me this comment:

Hello Ivan,
 
There is a way to deal with screaming trumpeters.  Near the end of their second screaming 32-bar chorus, just shout "Great, do another!"  Usually their lip can't manage another 32 screaming bars and the third chorus falls somewhere between anti-climax and disaster.  Sometimes they take a hint from this experience.
 
Works best with over-enthusiastic sitters-in.  Doesn't work so well when the trumpet player is the band leader.
 
If this problem occurs with a modern-style tenor sax player (it is always a tenor player) the only solution is to retire to the bar.  You will have time for a pint. 
 
Regards,
 
Sam

Post 39: 'MEMPHIS SHAKE'

This tune was recorded in 1926 by a group known as The Dixieland Jug Blowers in Chicago. Though called a 'jug' band, they had such instruments as trombone, piano and saxophone in their line-up. What made their recording of 'Memphis Shake' special was that the great clarinettist Johnny Dodds was sitting in with them, and his contribution is very effective on the old recording. (You can hear it on You Tube.)

Not much is known about The Dixieland Jug Blowers. It seems to have been a short-term amalgamation of two early 'jug' bands - run respectively by old-timer Earle McDonald (banjo and jug) and Clifford Hayes (violin). It is believed that Clifford Hayes was the composer of 'Memphis Shake'.

Actually, it's not so much a tune as a simple sequence of chords that are an effective basis for improvisation. As I have tried to show above, the tune has a four-bar introduction and then is in two parts.

The most distinctive feature of the chords is the repeated use of two bars on the diminished tonic. These give 'Memphis Shake' its particular flavour.

Part B of the tune - with the 4-beat notes over the first four bars (during which the banjo can indulge in some luscious tremolos), provides a good contrast with the bulk of the tune and improvisations, which are based on Part A.

There is a YouTube video of Tuba Skinny making a great job of this tune. Enjoy it by clicking here. Or watch a later video that I filmed of them playing the tune when I visited New Orleans in April 2016 by clicking here.

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