Post 602: MAKING TRADITIONAL JAZZ VIDEOS

I feel hugely privileged to have lived to an age when - sitting at my computer here in Nottingham, U.K. -  I am able to click a button and watch wonderful traditional jazz performances from all around the world. We have to be deeply grateful to all the generous and hard-working video-makers who provide us with these treats.

Some of them have high-quality equipment. They use two or more cameras and have a separate sound-recording apparatus.

If it had not been for video-makers such as those codenamed digitalalexa and RaoulDuke504, I might never have discovered the wonderful traditional jazz being played by relatively young musicians in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina. Their videos convinced me that I had to get to New Orleans to see and hear for myself.

Good news is that digitalalexa (Al and his wife Judy) produced the first video of Tuba Skinny to be viewed more than a million times: THIS ONE - CLICK ON TO WATCH IT.

When I decided to try to make some videos, I bought a simple small camera from the cheaper end of the Panasonic Lumix range. It is intended mainly for taking still photographs but, like most cameras these days, it has a built-in microphone and the facility to record videos. It also has a useful 'zoom' feature.

Once you have made a video, it is easy to load it on to such a site as YouTube, thereby making it available to viewers all over the world. You have merely to follow the simple instructions on the screen.

I have had only four or five opportunities to video truly outstanding jazz bands. But I have made a number of videos and put them on YouTube. My favourite - the one with which I am most pleased - shows The Shotgun Jazz Band at The Spotted Cat Club (New Orleans) playing Royal Garden Blues when I was there for the French Quarter Festival in April 2015. The band was on absolutely cracking form and I was able to film from the side, very near the band, so I obtained some pleasing close-up shots of Haruka, Marla, James, John and Twerk.

If you have not yet seen that video, you can watch it BY CLICKING HERE.

I hope you will enjoy it as much as I still do.

I must also mention James Sterling, who discovered the music a few months after I did. Living in Florida, he has been able to travel to New Orleans far more often than I have, and he has uploaded some fine videos.

If you haven't yet explored what's up there on YouTube, you should start by looking at the offerings of the three video-makers I have mentioned.

Post 440: THE EXTRA CRISPY BRASS BAND

I discovered The Extra Crispy Brass Band during explorations on YouTube recently. I had not previously come across this group.

I enjoyed what I heard. And a good thing about this band is that its members are relatively young.

I have since found out - easily enough from the internet - that the band was formed in 2011 and is based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. That's more than 1000 miles north of New Orleans; or, to put it another way, it's on the west shore of Lake Michigan, about 90 miles north of Chicago.

The Extra Crispy Brass Band aims to play in the tradition of such New Orleans brass bands as The Dirty Dozen and The Olympia. Indeed, the band was founded and is led by trombonist Gregory Cramer, who used to live in New Orleans.

As is common practice with brass bands, there are no chord players (banjo or guitar) but they double up with two trumpets, two trombones and have at least one saxophone. The percussion (two players) is the essential department. Such bands of course usually have as their basis great rhythms laid down by the drummers and sousaphone, generating pulsating riffy excitement. This band certainly works that way.

For a well-made video to give you some idea of their appearance and sound, CLICK HERE - where they are playing Royal Garden Blues.

Or CLICK HERE for sounds even more typical of the street parade bands.

Post 398: MARLA DIXON AND 'OVER IN THE GLORYLAND'

One of the most exciting bands playing traditional jazz anywhere in the world at the moment is The Shotgun Jazz Band, led in New Orleans by Marla Dixon, who moved to New Orleans from Toronto in Canada. Examples of their work on YouTube have been truly thrilling. The band has been in existence and evolving for about six years but I think with the house style and personnel it arrived at by 2015, it achieved new heights. As their own website says:
With an emphasis on ensemble playing, a stomping rhythm section, and a genuine love of the hot, bluesy, no-frills melodies that once poured forth from New Orleans’ dance halls, Shotgun Jazz Band makes music that is both immediate in its influences and timeless in its appeal.

One of the videos on YouTube shows them playing Over In The Gloryland, the 1920 song by Acuff and Dean.

You can watch it by clicking on here. Some musicians are not keen on this tune because they say it has a 'dreary' chord structure, with an over-dependence on the home chord of Ab. But Marla and her team show how thrilling it can be. In Marla's playing we experience 'raw' New Orleans jazz at its best.

One of the devices that helps create this 'rawness' is the use of flattened thirds above the chords. (By the way, a banjo-playing friend tells me it might be better to think of these flattened thirds as 'flattened 10ths', as this conveys the fact that they are played above the chord.)

Notice the wonderful effect these notes have at precisely 4 mins 49 seconds and at 6 minutes 56 seconds. In both cases, during an Eb7 chord, Marla plays (and bends) a high Gb. I guess she does this instinctively and does not have think 'I'll put in a flattened third here and see how it sounds.'

There's a 2016 video (of The Girls Go Crazy) in which Marla may be seen using the flattened third to thrilling effect. She plays Db dozens of times on top of a Bb chord. Note the moment at 1 minute 14 seconds where she lingers on it, and see how many times you can count it thereafter. Click on here to watch it.

And Marla uses many flattened thirds in this video - click on to view of Canal Street Blues (a special thrill, this one, because when she introduces the tune she dedicates it to ME!).

And, by the way, if you would like to see another exhilarating video of The Shotgun Jazz Band - one I personally filmed when I was in New Orleans in April, 2015, CLICK ON HERE.

Post 328: EIGHT-BAR BLUES?

Blind Blake (1896 - 1934)

The 12-bar blues is, of course, one of the staple components of traditional jazz. No concert is complete without one. Audiences seem to love them, especially if some (e.g. Squishin' Bees or Shake That Thing) are played at rock-n'roll tempos.

Yet many musicians I have spoken to are not so keen. They find the 12-bar blues too formulaic, too repetitive. They notice they are playing virtually the same solo in several different blues. They want different challenges and more variety. So they prefer to include no more than two 12-bar blues in a concert.

Many tunes called 'blues', of course, do NOT fall into the 12-bar structure, so musicians object less to playing them. Tishimingo Blues is a good example, with a pleasant harmonic progression: its Chorus comprises 32 bars. (It also happens to have a 12-bar Verse - but that is hardly ever played.)

Wild Man Blues is another very appealing number - but it also comprises 32 bars.

Basin Street Blues is very popular but it is not a 12-bar: it uses a 16-bar theme, based on The Georgia Progression.

Atlanta Blues, Michigander Blues, Big House Blues, Jazz Me Blues, Wolverine Blues, Winin' Boy Blues, Wabash Blues and Faraway Blues are all very appealing to play because they have good melodies and (in some cases) challenging structures. But not one of them is a 12-bar blues.

And then there are some famous blues that DO incorporate 12-bar themes but are so interestingly composed, with multi-part structures (possibly including a change of key or a section in a minor key) that everybody enjoys playing them. Examples are Royal Garden Blues, St. Louis Blues, Riverside Blues, Savoy Blues, Yellow Dog Blues and Beale Street Blues.

But here's an idea for adding a bit of interest to a routine performance of a 12-bar blues. Play Too Tight Blues, as performed by 'Blind' Arthur Blake (the great guitarist) in 1929. Too Tight Blues is actually an EIGHT-Bar Blues, the melody and chord progression of which are very easy to pick up. When you play it (with or without vocals), you can do what Blind Blake does: throw in some choruses of improvised 12-bars, using the standard 12-bar chord progression. Then you have some variety. You can pick it up from Blind Blake with the help of YouTube:  CLICK HERE.