Post 531: HOW TO PLAY TRADITIONAL JAZZ - AN EXAMPLE TO FOLLOW

I received an interesting request. A reader said he likes traditional jazz but doesn't understand how it works. He asked me to pick a video of a band playing a tune and to 'talk him through it', explaining what is going on.

I am happy to do this and will try not to be too technical, though I think you may appreciate it if I at least make a small number of technical points that everyone should be able to grasp.

I have selected The Loose Marbles playing Take Me Out To The Ball Game in the video you may watch by clicking on this link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBHn3dtqjos

We have to thank the video-maker 'Wild Bill' for filming it.

As it happens, this is also a very good performance, demonstrating well what great musicians can do with simple material.

So what do we find?

Take Me Out To The Ball Game - like hundreds of our tunes, comprises 32 bars. This means that, to get through it once, you beat one-two-three-four 32 times. The Loose Marbles choose to play through it seven times, so they play 7 x 32 = 224 bars in all. To put it another way, this means the performance contains 224 x 4 beats, making 896 beats in all - if you should wish to count! They play the tune entirely in the key of Bb, which is the most commonly used key in traditional jazz.

Throughout the performance, note how the rhythm players beat out a pulsating  but fairly gentle four-to-the bar, driving the music along in a most exciting way. (So many bands fail to achieve this.)

I have said the band runs through the tune seven times. So what happens in each of those seven choruses?

CHORUS ONE: 01 seconds - 32 seconds. Unusually, it is the clarinet who firmly states the tune, but note how tastefully he is supported by the trombone and trumpet.

CHORUS TWO: 32 seconds - 1 minute 03 seconds. This time, Barnabus on trombone presents the melody, but the clarinet and trumpet now provide decoration.

CHORUS THREE: 1 minute 03 seconds - 1 minute 36 seconds. Now the trumpet takes the lead; but the clarinet and trombone do not drop out. They give subtle, decorative support. By the end of this Chorus, the rhythm players have obviously had to go through the tune's chord progression three times, pumping out 3  x 32 x 4 beats = 384 beats! Get it? All of the rhythm players are working to the same chord chart. If they didn't, something would sound wrong. Here's how the chords for the 32 bars of this tune seem (to me) to run. You will notice that the musicians do not need to have this chart in front of them. They have memorised it.

Bb	Bb	F7	F7	Bb	Bb	F7	F7
G7	G7	Cm	Cm	C7	C7	F7	F7
Bb	Bb	F7	F7	Bb	Bb7	Eb	Eb
Eb	Bbo	Bb	G7	C7	F7	Bb	Bb

CHORUS FOUR: 1 minute 36 seconds - 2 minutes 06 seconds. For variety (and to give the 'front row' a little rest), this chorus is taken by the banjo. The great John Dixon gives us a very fine 32 bars.

CHORUS FIVE: 2 minutes 07 seconds - 2 minutes 39 seconds. Robin plays this as a percussion solo, improvising 32 bars for us. Note that, while he does so, Todd, Julie and John provide punctuation, striking some chords (for example, the first beat of every other bar) to remind us where we are in the tune.

CHORUS SIX: 2 minutes 39 - 3 minutes 08 seconds. Marla takes this as a vocal. Note how the pulsating 4-to-the-bar rhythm is maintained behind her. And, at 3 minutes 05 seconds, watch the leader Michael hold up one finger to signal to the band that he wants just one more chorus. So everybody clearly knows when the tune must be brought to an end and they can work to make this final chorus something of a climax.

CHORUS SEVEN: 3 minutes 09 seconds - 3 minutes 42 seconds. This is indeed a fine ensemble chorus. You may also note that Robin plays a double beat on the drum at 3 minutes 34 seconds and again at 3 minutes 35 seconds. This respects a very old tradition: for many decades it has been the custom in marching brass bands for the drummer to give this signal just eight bars before the end of a tune, to make absolutely sure everybody knows it is coming to an end.

The last thing to observe is that the tune ends abruptly on the third beat of the final bar - the 32nd bar. The fourth beat (the 896th beat of the performance) is left completely silent. This a clever and effective way of ending tunes - especially quick ones. Its use is widespread. (Sometimes a band adds a 'tag' or 'coda' - an extra little phrase to round the piece off; but I like the chopped 'sudden death' ending, as demonstrated so well here by The Loose Marbles.)

Post 522: LOOSE MARBLES JAZZ MASTER CLASS!

I must thank blog reader Phil Lynch for recently advising me to watch a particular YouTube video. It has given me huge pleasure.

I am referring to a video of The Loose Marbles playing at Abita Springs in 2016. It runs for over 50 minutes and I will give you the link to it later.

Craig and the Bass Sax

The band on this occasion comprised no fewer than ten musicians. Normally, such a number could be a recipé for disaster. I dread to think what a horrible din would result if three guitarists, a banjo player, a drummer and a double bass all got together in the rhythm section of some of the English pub bands I have seen.

And yet, such a combination in The Loose Marbles is so disciplined and restrained that it underpins the music with a gentle foot-tapping pulse. Here, because the musicians are all virtuosos, all conforming to the house-style set by the leader Michael Magro, the music throughout is beautifully melodic and played with a loving delicacy. There is no mere exhibitionism, no attempt by any of the players to show off their own technical prowess. Instead, there is huge respect for melody, balance and for each other.

The reeds set the tone. Such tunes as Song of the Islands, A Flower Lei, Postage Stomp, Last Night on the Back Porch, The Isle of Capri (played briskly) and Home on the Range are all led by the clarinet. And in Take Me Out to the Ball Game, the first chorus is played on the bass saxophone by the versatile Craig Flory.

Yes, the tunes feature the bass saxophone; and Craig has an important rôle in this line-up, especially as - despite having ten musicians - there is no trombone.

Multi-instrumentalist Tyler Thomson is seen here among the guitarists; and he even gets to take a neat little solo in Isle of Capri. And that fine and sartorially-elegant musician Matt Bell plays slide guitar - with the instrument on his lap, producing some lovely Hawaiian effects. (Friend James Sterling has told me Matt is playing a resonator all-steel guitar and that the correct terminology for what he is playing is 'lap steel'.)

You have only to catch the happy look on Matt's face at certain points in this video to see that he knows the music this band is making is something really special.

The great Marla Dixon provides some very sweet vocals, for example in 'A Flower Lei' and 'Last Night, on the Back Porch'. And in her trumpet-playing, she adapts brilliantly to the requirements of the Magro style. We find her often playing deft, muted phrases in support of the melodies of the three reed players in this unusual 'front line'.

I must mention that the programme includes the song The Sweetheart of Sigma Chi. It is a lovely waltz tune. It is very rarely played and I guess many of my readers will never have heard of it. I can tell you Sigma Chi was a college fraternity founded in the mid-19th Century at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. The song was composed in 1911 by Byron D. Stokes (words) and F. Dudleigh Vernor (music).

The final tune in the programme is Tight Like This - a catchy minor-key number composed by trumpeter Langston Curl in 1928 and made famous by Louis Armstrong.

The musicians I have not yet mentioned are Julie, Tomas, Max, Robin, and John - all of them superb and on absolutely cracking form.

I have written before about The Loose Marbles and the importance of this band in 21st-Century traditional jazz. To read my article, CLICK HERE.

To enjoy the video for yourself:

CLICK HERE.

Post 404: OCTAVE LEAPS AT THE START OF TUNES

Having greatly enjoyed the video of The Loose Marbles playing Take Me Out To The Ball Game, I decided I wanted to play the tune with my friends. So we learned it. What struck me was the octave leap in the first two notes. The melody starts on the tonic and then immediately the second note is exactly an octave higher.

I thought that was a very unusual way to begin a tune. I scratched my head and tried to think of more of our tunes that begin with such an upward leap of an octave from the tonic in the first two notes. All I could come up with was Somewhere Over The Rainbow. and Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire. There's also So Do I and It's Only a Paper Moon, Stranger on the Shore, and Let it Snow, and (as Bob Andersen from San Diego has just reminded me) The Love Nest; but those leap up an octave from the Dominant, not from the Tonic. You can see what I mean:

Surely there must be some more.

(Barrie Marshall has immediately offered me When You Wish Upon A Star. Robert Duis adds I'm Singing in the Rain. Thanks, gentlemen.)

The only other tune of this kind that I can think of is Bali Ha'i from South Pacific but I doubt whether any traditional jazz bands play that.

I must also mention Jelly Roll Morton's Kansas City Stomp. This famously begins with a series of syncopated rapid octave leaps, though in this case downwards - from the higher note to the octave below. It has proved to be a clever way of producing a dramatic and memorable start to a composition: whenever we hear the first dozen notes, even if the tune has not been announced, our brain responds with 'Ah! They're playing Kansas City Stomp!' (Willow, Weep for Me and You Are My Lucky Star also use the downward leap from tonic to tonic.)

By the way, you must watch the exciting video of The Loose Marbles (filmed by the gentleman codenamed WildBill) playing Take Me Out To The Ball Game, if you have not already done so: CLICK HERE.

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Post 252: GREAT TUNE, GREAT PERFORMANCE - 'TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALL GAME'

The first time I heard Take Me Out To The Ball Game, it was being played by Dave Donohoe's Band in Peterborough, England - probably in about 1988. It must have struck me forcibly at the time; otherwise, how would I still remember the occasion?

Now I have come across the song on YouTube being played in New Orleans by Loose Marbles. These musicians (some of whom you will recognise as being also members of Tuba Skinny and The Shotgun Jazz Band) play in New Orleans, to the highest standards, virtually every day; and to them this was probably just another routine performance. But to the rest of us it is a most exhilarating example of how to play traditional jazz really well. The tune romps along, supported by a driving rhythm section of Robin, John, Julie and Todd (the latter on guitar on this occasion). The melody is led in turn by Michael (clarinet), Barnabus (trombone) and Marla (trumpet). Note how brilliantly during the opening choruses these three support each other with the subtlest of quiet background colouring: for me, this is our kind of music at its very best.  And there is a terrific ensemble chorus at the end: you could say it's restrained or understated (nobody is over-blowing) and yet WOW! What excitement! Yes, the playing succeeds in being tasteful and yet thrilling throughout. Marla's vocal is delivered naturally - as ever - from the heart, without electronic amplification.

You can watch the video by clicking on here. Many thanks to the video-maker codenamed Wild Bill for filming it.

Amazing to think Take Me Out To The Ball Game was written as long ago as 1908. The composer was Albert Von Tilzer. Lyrics were provided by Jack Norworth (Take me out to the ball game. Take me out with the crowd. Buy me some peanuts and crackerjack. I don't care if I never get back...etc. As Marla sings it - no doubt thinking of her Toronto background! - If the Blue Jays don't win it's a shame!)

It was originally a waltz, complete with a 32-bar Verse; but for traditional jazz purposes it works brilliantly in 4/4 time if you play just the 32-bar Chorus [16 + 16 structure] in stomping fashion. Improvising is easy. It doesn't use the Bill Bailey chords but the sequence is simple, involving some familiar four-bar blocks, such as the Four-Leaf and Magnolia Progressions.

For those of us outside the USA, this is all very exciting; but correspondent James Sterling tells me Americans still sing the tune all the time, especially at the ball games, and in the original waltz tempo. For example, have a look at this video - click on here.

Here's how I have written it out for my own purposes in my mini-filofax aide-mémoire system.