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 104: GOOD AND BAD VIDEOS

Al (whose channel is digitalalexa):
the greatest traditional jazz video-maker in the world.

I spent an evening watching YouTube videos of bands playing in English pubs and clubs. They were almost all TERRIBLE! Tunes were the same old well-worn standards. The musicians were mostly men of my own very old age. Their playing was uninspired, mechanical, dragging, weary, lacking creativity. In some cases the effect was just a din in which you could hardly pick out individual instruments. It was depressing.

Yet YouTube is a wonderful resource. It also offers us thousands of videos of music well played by good traditional jazz bands.

Like many of you, I guess, I spend a lot of time watching those videos. They give me a huge amount of pleasure and I am so grateful to the many persons, mostly anonymous, who have taken the trouble to make high-quality videos of outstanding live performances.

However, it is disappointing that so many jazz videos of live performances are of low quality. Here are the the most common faults:

(1) The sound is poor; or there is far too much external (non-music) noise. (This may be excusable only when the music itself is outstanding or historically important.)

(2) The band has been filmed when it happens to be giving a mediocre performance, such as those I mentioned above. It would be better for such films to be scrapped. There is a good deal of tedious, laboured playing (sorry to say - usually old men playing in English pubs! No wonder young people do not show interest in their music).

(3) Too much happens on the video before the band plays the first note of the tune. What is the point of showing a band standing around, talking amongst themselves for almost a minute? It would be better for these sections to be cut out, so that the music begins no more than five seconds after the video starts rolling.

(4) Similar to (3) above: sometimes a too-long spoken introduction is provided by the band-leader or an announcer. If there is nothing specially interesting in this, it should be edited out: the title of the tune can be given in the title of the video.

(5) The cameraman swivels around too much to film the surroundings and the audience, often with the result that the microphone is turned away from the band and sound is lost.

(6) The video-maker has filmed only part of the tune. Just when it's getting interesting, the video ends.................!

There can be other problems, such as camera shake or poor camera angles when the video is taken among a crowd of people. We must excuse these little defects if the musicians and the sound quality are good.

Among my favourite suppliers of traditional jazz videos are those whose channels are named:

digitalalexa
stolpe31
RaoulDuke504
ragtimecave
TheWsm0
Wild Bill
James Sterling

You can find their 'channels' on You Tube.

When I was in New Orleans during April 2016, I met one of the best full-time professional traditional jazz musicians - a guitarist who also occasionally puts a video on YouTube. He told me that he rejects about nine out of every ten of the videos that he films. Why is he so scrupulous? He explained that he wants the videos he puts up to be as near perfect as possible. Some are obviously spoiled by such things as traffic noise. But at the other extreme, he sometimes rejects a video simply because he notices that at some point a chord man has accidentally played a wrong chord, or a clarinettist has messed up slightly on a single bar. Maybe this gentleman is over-rigorous in censoring his videos so ruthlessly, but I wish there were a few more people who would have the courage to reject sub-standard material.

Finally, (despite the difficulty of trying to point the camera through a crowd of people) for an example of good, sensitive and intelligent amateur outdoor filming of traditional jazz: CLICK ON HERE.

And for a really exciting half hour of traditional jazz well filmed on YouTube (I have watched it several times): CLICK ON HERE.

And for a sustained piece of great musical entertainment filmed by digitalalexa, CLICK HERE.
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Post 69: YOU TUBE VIDEOS - SHORT AND JOYFUL

Today, let's have some fun.

Pick your three most joyful short YouTube videos.

Here are the rules.
(1) All three videos, added together, must run for no more than 10½ minutes (i.e. an average of 3½ minutes each). 

(2) The three videos have to be of three different musical groups.

Here are my choices:

NUMBER ONE
The best traditional jazz band in the world (from New Orleans but performing in Switzerland) plays a particularly thrilling tune. The excitement builds and builds!

CLICK HERE.

NUMBER TWO
Street buskers in Asheville, North Carolina. The composer himself sings the song and plays the fiddle. And the three charming ladies among the five musicians exude happiness.

CLICK HERE.

NUMBER THREE
Pure enjoyment! About fifteen New Orleans street musicians get together in a bar one evening to play and sing Round and Round, a fun song created by Charlie Nickerson and the Memphis Jug Band in 1930. I can't resist singing along.

CLICK HERE.

I'd be interested to hear of other people's choices.