Post 436: YOUR LOCAL BAND NEEDS YOU!

The world of traditional jazz desperately needs more musicians - especially young ones. I have written on this subject before (about three years ago) and hundreds of people read the article, so it seems to be a topic worth considering again.

Would you consider playing in a traditional jazz band? How should you go about it?

You must start by reaching a reasonable level of technical proficiency on your chosen instrument. If you are a complete beginner, you will need lessons to get you started, mainly to set you up with good habits. I would recommend finding a qualified professional music teacher rather than someone who happens to play traditional jazz. (Players do not necessarily make good teachers.) Make sure you learn about scales, keys, chords and arpeggios and it will help if you learn to read music, at least at a basic level. After that, practice will be your main pursuit.

If you are already a competent musician, it does not follow that you will move easily into traditional jazz. Good piano soloists sometimes find it hard to adapt to their rôle in a band. Teamwork is the key to success in traditional jazz and players of the piano, guitar and banjo have to accept that for most of the time their job is simply to lay down the correct chords, firmly and clearly, rather than display virtuoso skills.

The one exception may be highly-skilled double bass players. If they are willing to adjust to the style and hardly use the bow at all, they can contribute extremely well with nothing more to guide them than the band's chord book. I remember how, during the 1950s, there were some double bass players, members of the symphony orchestras based in London, who would finish a concert with their orchestra and then head to a jazz club where they would join a traditional jazz jam session. It was easy enough for them to jump from Handel to Handy and from Mozart to Morton.

Becoming good enough to perform traditional jazz in public doesn't mean passing lots of exams. But be warned: it can take hundreds of hours of hard work in the woodshed.

You should start early on learning some tunes from the traditional jazz repertoire - easy ones to begin with. Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler is a particularly good and easy one as it is fun but uses very few notes and virtually only two alternating chords.

Soon you could try Algiers Strut, Tin Roof Blues, When The Saints Go Marching In, Careless Love, Down By The Riverside, and Lily of the Valley.

There are plenty of sources of printed music, such as busker's books. But an excellent site you should consult is Lasse Collin's, where there's enough to keep you going for years: CLICK HERE TO VIEW.

And here's an important tip: when you first learn a tune, make sure you learn it accurately. If you get into a habit of playing a phrase or a sequence of chords wrongly, it is very hard to unlearn them later, after the tune has become embedded in your brain and fingers.

Develop an understanding of and fluency in different keys. Those most commonly (but by no means exclusively) needed in traditional jazz are Bb, Eb and F. Next most common are Ab and C.

Listen to lots of traditional jazz - especially noting the part played by your chosen instrument - to get a feel for what is required. Use the wonderful resource of YouTube. When you are ready, try playing some tunes along with bands on YouTube. That's almost as good as 'sitting in'.

A similar idea is to play along with backing tracks. Some of these are also freely available on YouTube. This will give you a great chance to assess your progress because, if you are confident and not discordant with a backing track, the chances are you will fit in with a jazz band.

Link up with other musicians. Maybe you can form a band in your town, starting with a nucleus as a trio or quartet. Meet regularly in one of your houses to rehearse and expand your repertoire.

How do you find these musicians? Put the word around among all your friends and acquaintances. Chat in the local music shop. Advertise in the local newspaper. See whether anybody in a social group is interested (e.g. in England, the U3A). There may be a regional website on which you can seek (free of charge) other musicians.

Listen to live traditional jazz bands and talk to the musicians: they are very good sources of information about both learners and established players in the area and may be able to put you in touch with people who could join your group.

For information on which bands are playing where, there is probably a regular publication you can consult. For example, here in England we have the monthly Jazz Guide - available in clubs and from bands and also by post if you pay the very reasonable subscription (payments by PayPal are accepted). You should be able to see a sample page and full information by clicking HERE.

And specifically for the North-West of England, a gentleman called Fred Burnett altruistically runs a website giving full bulletins concerning jazz in his region: click here.

When you feel ready, begin to practise more challenging and more complex tunes: there are hundreds in the repertoire.

Unless you are a born genius, you will need to learn the standard chords and also practise improvising your way though common chord progressions. In particular, work on the Circle of Fifths and The Sunshine Sequence and the basic 12-bar Blues Sequence as these will be useful in hundreds of jazz tunes. If you don't know what I mean, look at the blog posts in which I have written about them.

Are you worried about improvising? Watch Charlie Porter's excellent videos. For an example CLICK HERE.

When your group is good enough at fifteen or so tunes, start playing gigs! You can give your band a name and offer yourselves for free to a local pub or residential home and get your band officially launched.

Also, when you have built up confidence by playing along with YouTube, ask whether you may sit in for a couple of tunes with an existing band. Most bands are so keen to keep the music alive that they readily give opportunities to anyone who shares that mission.

Make sure you give your telephone number and email address to everyone who may be able to help you in the future - especially band-leaders. It may be worth having some business cards printed.

Band-leaders and agents keep lists of musicians within a radius of seventy miles. You never know when you may receive a call to deputise for a musician who is ill or on holiday.

Eventually you may succeed in obtaining a place in a reputable well-established band. There is a rapid turn-over of personnel and a need for new blood, especially these days when many elderly musicians are hanging up their trumpets and clarinets.

Most of today's traditional jazz musicians have gone through the stages I have described above, except that in their day they did not have the enormous benefit of YouTube and such sites as Lasse Collin's to help with learning and training. In years gone by, players had to listen to records and later to cassettes in order to pick up tunes by ear and learn from the masters.

Post 351: COMPLEX CHORDS - BY GUEST WRITER CHRIS REILLEY

Today : another article from guest writer Chris Reilley (pianist)

Chris Reilley

Back in April this year Ivan published my contribution article on “Improvising in Traditional Jazz” in which I mentioned “The understanding of Chords is a whole different subject which is not being enlarged on here. Suffice it to say that not even the Chord symbols used are common throughout musical notation and some of the more complicated chords require the use of 7 notes."

In an effort to explain that statement and to make this easier to understand, I have listed most of the chords that I have seen used whilst playing Jazz, also showing the representative note intervals. These can be applied to any key, but I have shown the chord name only in the Key of C for this example:-

Note where an interval is shown as “b3” or “bb3” or “#5” that interval should be flattened (or double flattened in the case of ”bb”) or sharpened as shown. (Click on the chart to see it enlarged.)

Note the figures shown in red are the notes in a chord that are recommended to be dropped for musicians playing a 4 stringed instrument eg 4 string Guitar or 4 string.

Banjo, Ukulele etc.

As the reader can see the extended notes (11th and 13th) can also be flattened or sharpened as shown with the Flattened and Sharpened 9th Chord. As can be seen, there are numerous Chord Shapes which need to be learnt to grasp a full knowledge of those available – and they are not all of them, I'm afraid!

To simplify the chords some notes can be dropped. The 5th is usually the first to go, as it is generally considered not to add any special character or essential function to the chord. This, believe it or not, can include the root especially when playing with a full band where the bass player would have that covered.

Really, the most important notes of any chord are the 3rd and 7th. These are known as "guide tones". Some layouts of extended chords may include nothing more than the root, 3rd, 7th, plus the extension. But this is down to personal choice.

As I do not profess to be a 4 Stringed Instrumentalist, I have not included Chord Charts for those instruments, but for the benefit of Banjo Players this is dealt with very successfully by Andy Allinger on his Web Site:-
http://www.13olive.net/chords/plectrum_inversions.html.

There are also similar sites for the Guitar and Ukulele players.

For the Piano or Keyboard Players the problem of 7 note chords is not difficult to deal with if the musician is playing the full chord with both hands. This is not so easy if the musician is a soloist, where they may need to play the Melody Line or improvise with the Right Hand, whilst the Left Hand is playing the chord. There are several different methods of achieving this end which have been used by the Ragtime Pianists and the “Vamping Pianists” (e.g. Fats Waller, James P. Johnston, etc.) who in most cases could easily span a 10th with their left hand (so were able to play the 9th extension of most chords anyway). When it came to the 11th and 13th Chords and all their varieties, they employed several different techniques, one of which was to “roll the chord” as a Glissando from Root to the extended note or to split chord over 2 beats playing the first 4 notes of the chord on the first beat and remaining 3 (or how many were left to play or however they decided to split it) on the second beat. Both of these methods obviously cannot be used if the Chord is to be played as single beat only (see “That's All” below). In those cases the musician would have to play a “cut down” version (similar to the 4 stringed Instruments mentioned above) of the chord in their left hand, whilst playing the melody (or improvisation) in their Right Hand. 

For those playing in a Band, the problem is slightly different because very often the original music will contain the 9th., 11th., or 13th. notes in the melody line, which is the salient bit of the Lead Instruments part. In this case if both Piano (Keyboard) and (say) Trumpet were to play the same note at the same time this would be unnecessary or “messy”. So, (for my choice only) I choose to play the Chord in its 7th form and let the lead Instrument play the extended note(s) which can also be part of their improvisation, with possibly the other front line instrumentalist playing the 9th. and 11th as part of their harmony in the case of a 13th being played by the Lead. Anyway the extended notes in the Music are usually a very important and individual part of the Melody, so it may be wisest to leave it to the Lead instrument to accentuate that note.

Following on from the above I choose to show (below) a couple of examples (amongst many available) of where extended chords have been included in tunes together with example of the use of chords in rapid succession. For the beginner this can be a difficult task, but with practice is achievable. However again in a Band Line up, the rhythm instrumentalists have got to be really on the ball if they decide that they are all going to play the same multi chord parts in a bar together, without losing time and being exactly in sync. For simplicity it might be decided for 2 or more chording Instruments (say Banjo and Piano) to play the chords only on both the first and last beats of a single Bar where 4 chords are shown in the music. In these examples the Band/Musicians may also choose to play these in different key.

The Last 4 Bars of the Song “Sugar” in G Major (click on to see enlarged):

Below the last 8 Bars the song “That's All” in C Major

I understand that the character “Bp” indicates a Double B flat (or the chord of “A Major”) and the chord shown as “F#Ø” is F Sharp, Half Diminished (otherwise known as F# Minor Seventh, Flattened Fifth). Some practice will be required to play the bars with 3 or 4 chords in each.

Chris Reilley

Post 281: KEEPING THE MUSIC ALIVE - A YOUNG MAN'S VIEW

When you come across an Englishman who is still in his early 20s and who enjoys playing traditional jazz and has strong opinions about it, you have to sit up and take notice.

Laurence  Marshall (sousaphone, trumpet, washboard, whistles, trombone, vocals) while still at school in Scarborough (on the north-east coast of England) organised the young group that calls itself The Jelly Roll Jazz Band. They are still playing together a few years later.

I found the opinions of this young man well worth noting.

I sort of got into trad jazz around the time I was getting into the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. I was into magic and art and stuff, and I think trad jazz is just good fun.

We initially set up the band for a church fayre. As I wanted to play sousaphone, I borrowed a tuba and wrote out some march cards with tunes on that I'd picked out from listening to bands and from what sheet music I could get hold of. We soon started busking - I eventually bought a sousaphone. We did a lot of busking, and trad was perfect as the repertoire we played was happy and upbeat and lots of people know the tunes in the backs of their heads. It always made us some pocket money and it's very fun music to play as you can do whatever you want really. 

I don't think it's particularly intellectual or academic music, which draws me even more to it. It is about making a good vibe, and as buskers we're good at that - we have a laugh and muck around and enjoy the more abstract instruments such as the spoons and washboard. So really it wasn't that I got into trad: it got into me.

It is just a music which I think suits certain people, as I feel it definitely has an ethos to it. We all get a lot of enjoyment out of playing it, and listening to other people who like doing the same sort of stuff as us. 

I now play full-time - mainly old jazz, r'n'b, and novelty music as well as everything else. I like to stay open to a lot of music, unlike a lot of trad fans. I've had people walk out of trad jazz clubs because there was a violin in the band. I think this is the reason a lot of young people don't get into trad - because of some of the narrow-minded older people who work hard to put people off. These people have no ownership of it. Although they came up through a trad revival in the fifties, this was all just copied. Neither the fans nor the musicians had anything to do with the origins of the music, and in fact did little to develop the genre. This is why fans should be open to creativity and development within the genre. Otherwise they are pinning it down, saying it has been made so now let's box it up and look at it in a reminiscent way, back to when we had "our" revival. 

But if trad is to attract a younger audience, young musicians playing this style must be celebrated and the ways they change and embrace the music must be encouraged, or we are just trying to remake a remake. I think a big thing for clubs would be to lose the word 'jazz', as a lot of people misinterpret that as meaning atonal, eyes-down, non-entertaining and non-inclusive. But trad is the opposite to that, and it seems popular as a jazz sub-genre because there are many young people who enjoy the associated fashions and swing dancing. 

As a musician I enjoy the accessibility and the room for self-expression. I enjoy the effects and trickster ways in which you can play your instrument, and the ways in which gags and a bit of goofing around only add to the music. 

This is a bit of a rant, but I think that the trad community needs ranting at, as although what I have said is not true of everyone (I have had wonderful times and seen nothing but encouragement from many clubs), it does apply to those who are stuck in their ways and do not offer a welcoming, open audience for bands, new fans and dancers and who therefore may put off young people. I suspect many of these kinds of people don't want young people in 'their' clubs, but without breaking down age barriers and integrating, the music will be buried with its audience. 

We should all love trad together and embrace how the music is living and breathing now in our modern society, so that we can all share a lot of stories of past gigs, future ideas and silly lyrics, and have a good knees-up.

What a lot of wisdom from young Laurence!