Post 557: HOW TO PLAY AND HOW NOT TO PLAY JAZZ - CHALK AND CHEESE

I watched and listened to two well-filmed YouTube performances by traditional jazz bands. While doing so, I jotted down my thoughts. They were:

Band A
Opaque sound, bottom-heavy; bland interpretation; succession of tedious 32-bar solo choruses; lethargic; tempo dragging; textures blurred; musicians looking bored; two players chatting to each other during another's solo chorus; not much sense of teamwork; lack of variety in the dynamics; clichés; signs of strain in the playing.

Band B
Plenty of drive; bustling energy, even in supporting teamwork; clear textures; well-judged tempo; meticulous attention to detail; delicacy of shading; superb ensembles and attack; varied dynamics.

There is such a wide range in the quality of traditional jazz to be seen on YouTube!

Which two bands were these? It would be invidious to name them. But I can tell you the first was a well-known elderly English band filmed at an English jazz club. The other was a band directed by a young lady on cornet, filmed in a New Orleans street.

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 392: FEWER NOTES CAN BE BETTER

One of the greatest pleasures a traditional jazz trumpet (or cornet) player can have is being in a band in which the other players are all excellent musicians who listen and respond creatively to each other. The rhythm section intelligently provides a steady pulsing beat with clear chords and nobody playing too loud; and in the ensembles the clarinet and trombone players put in such wonderful supporting and decorative notes that the trumpeter has little else to do than state the melody for them to hang their phrases on.

In a six-piece (or seven-piece) ensemble, the best effects are achieved if the trumpet lead plays far fewer notes than he or she would in a smaller group, such as a quartet, where the trumpet player has to work harder and feels obliged to play more notes to try to keep the music interesting.

Post 268: THE SAME 'IMPROVISATION' TIME AND AGAIN!

A reader from Essex, England, sent me this interesting comment:

I learnt from your blog that many tunes share the same chord progression e.g. the Sweet Sue Progression, which makes life easier for the rhythm section. But then I thought that perhaps this applies to the clarinet and the trombone parts as well. Could it be that a clarinet player has learnt after many hours of practice a standard part for a chord progression that fits many songs or put another way, if you played through all the tunes listed under the Sweet Sue Progression would the clarinet player play the same thing each time (obviously with variations to fit the particular tune)?

..............I know that some very talented musicians could make up something different every time but there must be lesser mortals who learn a set piece and always play that way.

The reader is right.

I'm sure there are great players who do not depend on learning and repeating pet phrases. But it is possible (and tempting) to use the same sequence of notes in several different tunes, if they fit.

I know a clarinettist who plays exactly the same notes in ensembles and exactly the same 'solo' choruses at every performance. Audiences don't notice, but I have heard his fellow musicians complain that what he offers is not really jazz and that playing-by-rote prevents him from contributing to the special excitement generated when instruments feed off each other and respond to what the other is saying.

However, even the very best traditional jazz players have developed a number of pet phrases (known as 'licks') that occur frequently in their playing over familiar chord sequences.

Post 84: THE ICHNOGRAPHY OF OUR PERFORMANCES

If you are not a musician but have wondered what on earth is going on in the music when you listen to traditional jazz bands, you may be interested to know the musicians have to follow a ground plan in every performance.

At its simplest this may be nothing more than playing an eight-bar melody, with its accompanying chord sequence over and over, with various improvisations, sometimes by soloists and sometimes involving full ensemble. There may also be a few bars of Introduction and there may be a Tag or a Coda (a little tail added to the end of the final chorus); but these are not essential.

For an example, listen to Tuba Skinny playing ‘Jet Black Blues’. They do nothing more than work through the same eight bars FIFTEEN times, but with so much creativity that the performance is always interesting: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2bZoCTPblc 

The same applies to standard 12-bar blues, in which there is a single theme.

When we play the popular tunes of the 1920s and 1930s, the familiar song, usually called the Chorus, often consists of 32 bars, so the ground plan may be: just play that Chorus without any additional material straight through, several times – to allow for solos and ensemble work.

Sometimes the song has a good Verse (often 16 bars), so the plan may be to work through the Verse once before embarking of several treatments of the Chorus – perhaps returning once more to the Verse before finishing.

But with more complex structures, notably the classically-composed tunes of the 1920s, you often find two or more themes – each a little melody in itself and each with its own chord structure.

Often there is a key change, too. So a composition by King Oliver or Clarence Williams or Jelly Roll Morton may be structured like this: 

INTRODUCTION : Usually two or four bars. 

THEME A : Usually 16 or 32 bars. 

THEME B : Usually 16 or 32 bars. 

BRIDGE (A short linking, transitional passage, often leading to a key change). 

THEME C : Usually 32 bars. 

It often happens that the band agrees to play Theme A twice and then Theme B twice and then Theme A once more before tackling the Bridge. (This is also a very common procedure with classic rags written before 1920.) After that, they may remain on Theme C, playing it several times, with various improvisations. They will probably end with an Ensemble Chorus and perhaps a Coda.

Of course, this pattern can be varied in many ways. For example, a band may choose to play a number of solo choruses on Theme B, before playing the Bridge.

These structural patterns can be traced back to such classical composers as Haydn and Mozart. Well into the Nineteenth Century such an ichnography found its way into brass band music and eventually into ragtime structures. Theme C (usually involving the key change) was often called ‘The Trio’ in classical music and was still labelled as such in the sheet music of popular tunes in the early Twentieth Century. Even today it is sometimes still called the Trio by practising musicians.

If all this makes little sense to you, let me give you a practical example. Have a look at Tuba Skinny playing ‘Cushion Foot Stomp’ and let me talk you through their performance. I am referring to this video: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaaY2yDcnW0

This is a Clarence Williams composition with three themes. Here's how this performance is structured. 

(1) EIGHT-BAR INTRODUCTION : 03 seconds - 13 seconds. 

(2) THEME A (standard 12-bar) : 14 secs. - 29 secs. Craig leading with the main melody. 

(3) THEME B (24 bars) : Todd leading, with Shaye 'decorating' : 30 secs. - 1 min. 01 secs. 

(4) THEME B (24 bars) : Craig leading, with Shaye 'decorating’ : 1 min. 02 secs - 1 min. 33 secs. 

(5) THEME A (the 12-bar again) : 1 min. 34 secs. - 1 min. 49 secs. 

(6) BRIDGE (4 bars, leading into Key Change - Key has been E flat until now but is about to become A flat) : 1 min. 50 secs - 1 min. 54 secs. 

(7) THEME C - Classically known as the TRIO. This is the Main Theme on which the piece settles, and is to be used as the basis for improvised solos. (16 bars in Ab, always with a ‘break’ on Bars 7 and 8) : Taken by Craig: 1 min. 55 secs – 2 mins. 16 secs. (You can hear his ‘break’ at 2 mins. 04 secs. - 2 mins. 05 secs.) 

(8) THEME C : Taken by Barnabus and including the ‘break’ - 2 mins. 17 secs – 2 mins. 37 secs. 

(9) THEME C : Taken by Shaye and including the ‘break’ - 2 mins. 38 secs – 2 mins. 59 secs. 

(10) THEME C : Taken by Max and including the ‘break’ - 3 mins. 00 secs – 3 mins. 19 secs. 

(11) THEME C : Taken by Todd and including the ‘break’ - 3 mins. 20 secs – 3 mins. 41 secs. 

(12) THEME C : Taken by Robin and including the ‘break’ - 3 mins. 42 secs – 4 mins. 02 secs. 

(13) THEME C : Taken by the full ensemble but with the ‘break’ allocated to Todd - 4 mins. 03 secs – 4 mins. 23 secs. 

(14) CODA (4 bars) : Initiated by Robin – 4 mins. 24 secs – 4 mins. 30 secs. 

For a performance to come out as slickly as this, all band members have to remember the agreed ichnography as well as the three principal melodies and the chord progressions.

Post 63: 'BLUE CHIME STOMP'

Tuba Skinny (and more specifically - I guess - Shaye Cohn) did it again: in early-2015 they came up with a new tune and gave it a brilliant performance from which we can all learn something.

I am referring to Blue Chime Stomp which - thanks to the generous video-maker codenamed RaoulDuke504 - became the newest tune in their YouTube repertoire on 24 March 2015. Have a listen by clicking here.

Great stuff, isn't it?

Underlying all the excitement and brilliance, the tune comprises just two 16-bar themes, both played in the key of Bb. Let's call them A and B.

The A Theme includes the 'Chimes' - descending in semitones over bars 1 - 4  and 9 - 12.

The B Theme is sprightly and melodious. Using a comfortable chord progression (you find something very similar in Do What Ory Say and Dallas Rag and Sister Kate and South), it lends itself easily to improvisations.

The band plays the themes in this order:
A-A-B-B-A-B-B-B-A-B-B

As usual, Tuba Skinny add sparkle, brilliance and excitement to the basic material. This includes playing the 'chimes' in different ways - such as hitting the second beat of the bar rather than the first, and breaking each chime into four single notes played by the tuba, trombone, cornet and clarinet successively over the four beats of a bar.

And when they play Theme B, they build up the excitement like this:

5th time: Clarinet alone leads;

6th time: Clarinet gets support from the trombone;

7th time : Cornet joins in, for a thrilling energetic polyphonic chorus.

There are no tedious 'solo' choruses. Except as mentioned above, the full ensemble keeps busy throughout.