Post 447: ENGLISH TRADITIONAL JAZZ AT ITS BEST

You may consider some sweet and sentimental tunes to be rather corny. However, I think it's a good idea to include at least one in any programme. Such tunes may not be characteristic of traditional jazz as a whole, but it is certainly true that they can work well and that audiences enjoy them.

One worth considering is Daddy's Little Girl.

First, you may care to spend a couple of minutes listening to Al Martino singing it at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18FClLOmTsY

But then sample it being played (rather differently) by a jazz band in a YouTube video featuring the late Norman Thatcher on trumpet. This may be a grainy old film, but I think it demonstrates English traditional jazz at its very best: CLICK HERE TO VIEW IT.

Sadly, several of the musicians on that video have since died. But Dave Vickers - the trombonist - is still with us. I had the great privilege of playing alongside him in a telephone band recently. He told me that film of Daddy's Little Girl was made in the course of producing a CD of 13 tracks for the Jazz Crusade label in 1995. The musicians had been very proud of it, he said. There was no rehearsal and no retakes, and yet the music came out really well.

Daddy's Little Girl was a popular song composed in 1949 by Bobby Burke and Horace Gerlash. I think they did a remarkably good job of matching the words to the melody and rhythms.

Any man who has had the most wonderful and joyful experience of becoming the father of a baby girl can identify with the emotions expressed in this song. In fact, it can be a real tear-jerker.

Yes: it is full of clichés. Even the chord progressions are familiar and simple. (If you play Candy Lips, you may well find the chord progression is remarkably similar.) And yet these are the very things that give the tune universal appeal.

You're the end of the rainbow,

You're my pot of gold,

You're Daddy's little girl 

To have and to hold.

A precious gem - 

That's what you are.

You're Mummy's bright and shining star. 

You're the spirit of Christmas, 

My star on the tree, 

The Easter Bunny to Mummy and me. 

You're sugar and spice; 

You're everything nice. 

Your Daddy's little girl.

I think I would be most comfortable in F (though the Norman Thatcher Band in the video played it in Bb, and Al Martino sang it first in G and then modulated to Ab for the second time round). We should take it slowly and if possible include the vocal. As usual with my efforts, this lead sheet I arrived at may not be 100% correct but I think it gives us something to work on:

Post 357: TUBA SKINNY AND 'HILARITY RAG' BY JAMES SCOTT

While I was in New Orleans during April 2016, I had the good fortune to be in Royal Street when Tuba Skinny were busking. Their programme included Hilarity Rag. Apparently this was a tune they had only just learned and they were giving their first public performance of it. I managed to film it. You can see and hear the piece by clicking on here.

But where does Hilarity Rag come from? The answer is that it was composed in 1910 - an early piano rag by James Scott (who also composed such classics Climax Rag, Ophelia Rag and Grace and Beauty).

You can hear the original piano rag (and see the sheet music - with sincere thanks to the video-maker codenamed RagtimeDorianHenry) by clicking on here.

Like so many of those early piano rags, it had to be 'simplified' and adapted quite a bit to make it playable as a full-band piece. Bunk Johnson obviously liked it and played it with his bands. Fortunately, at the end of his revived career, he was recorded in New York, playing his version. You can hear that by clicking on here. Sounds quite a bit different from the piano piece, doesn't it?

Other bands before Tuba Skinny have taken it up from there. For example, there's a lovely clear performance by an English band with the late Norman Thatcher on trumpet. You can watch it by clicking on here. (I remember Norman Thatcher as one of the rare musicians who also had Scott's Grace and Beauty in his repertoire in the 1980s.)

And now we have the young band Tuba Skinny in New Orleans playing Hilarity Rag. Their version also closely follows the Bunk Johnson reinterpretation of Scott's original.

I must mention that they also added to their repertoire in April 2016 tunes called Frog Hop and Frog-i-More Rag. Unfortunately I did not video them playing these tunes. But I noted that RaoulDuke504 did so in the weeks that followed. For his video of them playing Frog Hop, CLICK HERE.  And for Frog-i-More Rag, CLICK HERE.

Clifford Hayes composed Frog Hop in 1929 and recorded it with his Louisville Stompers. You can hear that original performance by clicking on here.

Tuba Skinny's version, that I heard at the dba in New Olreans on 8 April 2016, was modelled very closely on this - including the sustained link notes at the ends of choruses.

Frog-i-More Rag is, of course, a much better known piece - in the repertoire of most bands. It was composed by Jelly Roll Morton in 1918.

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