My Jazz Can Beat Up Your Jazz

THIS BLOG HAS MOVED TO http://www.syncopators.net/?page_id=165

2011-03-08T15:46:00.000-08:00

Great Jazz vs. Great Jazz for Dancing

2011-01-12T12:26:00.001-08:00

Hi Jazz Fans,

I once overheard a bandleader say about playing for dancers “I just do whatever I do and if people don’t like it, fuck’em.” This was in the same breath that he was complaining that the better dancers didn’t come out to hear his band play. D’oh.

Musicians and dancers aren’t always on the same page about what makes a good set. Sometimes my fellow musicians or my fellow dancers will walk away from a set thinking it was killer, and I will walk away pretty disappointed with the way it turned out. People usually attribute this to “never being satisfied” or “being too hard on yourself” but I think it really has to do with having two sets of benchmarks for success.

Having experience as both a musician and a dancer I notice that I hear different things from dancers than what I hear from musicians in describing a “good” set. Here are things some I often hear:

Musicians’ List
• I did creative things with my solos, I had a chance to “open up” as a soloist
• The other musicians inspired me to do different things
• The group dynamic had a lot of play back and forth – musicians were feeding off of each other
• The band was really swingin’ – ie everyone was playing well and we were locked in together to a particular groove
• People were cheering, clapping.
• People told me they liked it.
• Dancers were “jamming”
• People bought CDs/merch

Dancers’ List
• The music had a good variety of tempos
• The average tempo was not too fast
• The songs weren’t too long (longer than 4 min is usually too long)
• The songs didn’t all sound the same
• There was good “energy” to the songs
• The band hit cool breaks, endings, and licks together.
• I recognized some of the songs
• The band’s style was swing (or trad depending on your taste)
• I felt like I was interacting with the live music
• The band didn’t take forever between songs and didn’t talk unintelligibly on the mic.

Pretty different! So why do dancers and musicians see it so differently? I think there are several things that we use as markers for a successful set on both sides that are misleading:

Glenn’s list of myths debunked

• “Doing creative things with your solos” is meaningless to dancers unless the things that you do are creative in a way that inspires dancing. Playing a bunch of really fast harmonically interesting passages is often lost on dancers, but a big wail on one note from a trumpet never misses.

• “The band was really swingin’” is not the same as “the band was really playing swing.” A band can swing without playing swing music; a band can play swing music without swinging. A combination of the two is important for successful dance music, but the fact that the words are homonyms makes it confusing.

• “People were cheering/clapping and people told me we did a good job” isn’t necessarily a barometer of how well people liked it. People clap at the end of a show because they’re supposed to clap at the end of a show. Dancers sometimes stomp for an encore simply because they want to dance to another song, not because they were crazy about the music. It doesn’t mean it’s not flattering, or that they don’t appreciate you, but take it with a grain of salt. If they say good things about you publicly or to other people without being prompted, then you know they actually liked it. To me, having half the audience hooping and cheering and losing the other half is not a successful set.

• “Dancers were Jamming” – One jam means dancers were digging your music AND there were enough good dancers for there to be a jam. More than one jam (planned jams excluded) usually means the songs were too long and tempos were too fast, so people started jamming because the songs weren’t good for social dancing. Sometimes that’s not the case, but usually it’s pretty reliable.

• “There were a good variety of tempos and the average tempo wasn’t too fast.” The other day someone told me they were happy we’d started playing more “mid tempo” songs. First of all, backhanded compliments are pretty douchy. Second of all someone else came up to me and told me they thought the same set was too slow. This happens at pretty much every dance – not everyone’s going to be happy with the tempos on any given night of dancing whether it’s a band or a DJ. The idea is to make the majority of people at each skill level happy. If you’re not digging the tempos one night, it might be you and not the band. That said, some bands only do play fast and slow songs. If you want to present your opinion, unless you know the band leader personally, share it with the organizer. However, if you’re going to go that route, you need to share your opinion every time, good, bad, or mediocre. People most often are willing to speak up when they don’t like something, but just take it for granted when they do. When organizers only hear the negative feedback then we end up with a DJed scene because they figure people just don’t like live bands.

• “I didn’t like it 'cause the songs all sounded the same”- It’s good for a band to vary their style subtly within the repertoire however every band has their own individual voice and that’s going to add cohesion to their sound. If a band comes out and just plays head tunes all night, well I find that pretty boring too, but don’t expect a band to come out and sound like 10 of your other favorite bands that a DJ plays in a row. I’ve never heard a great dancer complain that a band played all the same style of music all night. It’s always novice dancers who make this complaint because they don’t have enough skill to hear the more subtle variations in style that the band IS making.

• “The band took forever between songs.” Some bands, many bands, take too long. They also mumble into the mic between tunes. If you’re gonna talk to people, talk TO them for a reason and make sure they can understand you, but don’t just do it to cover your lack of preparedness for the show. However, with a DJ the time is too short between songs. It’s a social dance, so be social, chat with someone. Your lack of social skills does not constitute a band leader’s crisis. That’s one of the reasons I feel like a DJed dance is really just a practice session. Practice sessions are where you’re just there to practice dancing. Social dances are for listening to the music, interacting with others, and dancing.

————
For what it’s worth, here’s the list of what makes me walk away happy from a set:

Glenn’s List
• Musicians walked away feeling good about the set
• Dancers walked away feeling good about the set
• I played well personally
• I didn’t feel limited in which charts I could call by anyone on stage’s abilities
• Everyone in the band played well together and listened to one another
• Everyone read the charts well and paid attention to dynamics, endings, and other details
• Tempos were well mixed
• Styles were well mixed
• There was energy between the crowd and the band.
• People talked about the show to their friends afterward, posted on facebook/twitter/blogs, etc
• People told the promoter/organizer that they liked the show
• People bought CDs
• People told me specific things they liked about the show
• I was able to keep dancers at all skill levels engaged.

————
I think the more that musicians understand what makes good dance music, and the more that dancers understand the logistics and culture of dancing to live music (which IS the culture of the lindy hop), the better the scene will get.

cheers,
Glenn

http://www.bluerhythmband.net http://www.syncopators.net/facebook

Piano Talk

2010-09-13T15:46:00.000-07:00

Hi Jazz Fans,

Over the summer I've been fortunate enough to have only had to play one gig with a digital piano (keyboard). A number of my pianist colleagues refuse to play digital pianos and I have to say that I can't blame them one bit. In fact, of my 5 top call pianists in Seattle, only 2 of them will play on a keyboard.

Digital pianos have their advantages: they're portable, they don't have to be tuned (neither do banjos right?), they're durable, you can plug them directly into a sound system (if you're into that sort of thing), etc. The disadvantage is, of course, that a digital piano, no matter how nice, expensive, modern or advanced, does not sound like a piano.

A digital piano works (in layman's terms) by taking a whole bunch of digital recordings of a real piano and then linking them up to the keys. Different samples are played when you play a key loud or soft, short or long, etc. It's a pretty impressive technology to be honest, but it's no piano.

Now some people will say "oh well you haven't heard the latest blah blah blah model from blah blah blah company." Well probably not, but, coincidentally, people were saying the same thing 10 years ago when I used to sell digital pianos at a retail music store.

So why doesn't the digital piano measure up?

First: digital. We're talking about digital samples so they don't have the warmth, depth, or accuracy that an analogue sample has.

Second: A real piano has an infinite range of dynamics and articulations; a digital piano only has as many sounds as it has samples in its bank. That means if I hit a key with x pounds of pressure and hit the key again with x+.0001 pounds of pressure, the keyboard is either going to round that 2nd one off to the sound it uses for x pounds, or it's going to maybe use sample x and alter it by +.0001 volume. It's just a simulation. Also, the keys themselves don't have the same response under the finger tips that keys on a real piano have. The pianist you've hired is an artist. You're going to miss out on the subtlety of your pianist's real style with a digital piano.

Third: As dancers, we're more concerned with rhythm than any other element of music: the pounding of drums, the chunking guitar, the slapping bass, the electronic cone vibrating as a result of samples from a keyboard - wait what? Pianos are percussion instruments; keyboards are not. Keyboards are electronic recordings of a percussion instrument - like electric drums. Now if someone showed up on a gig with an electronic drum kit, EVERYONE would raise an eyebrow.

This matters to us as dancers because what we feel when we have live music, as opposed to recordings, is the percussiveness of the instruments. The actual physical sensation of a hammer hitting a string is like the sensation of a drumstick hitting a drum head. It's kinesthetic. The feeling (AND sound) of a half-a-ton piece of wood and metal is different than its electronic representation.

A keyboard fills the same sonic space that a piano does - it plays the same part in the ensemble, but it doesn't provide the same sound, force, or drive that a real instrument does. This affects not only what the audience hears from the piano, but the way that the rest of the band plays. The keyboard doesn't help drive the rhythm the way that a piano does, and the band feels this. Additionally, keyboards must have monitors on stage to be heard which plays havoc with stage volumes (I've gone into stage volume in other places so I don't feel the need to reiterate it all here).

It's always a dilemma for me as a band leader when it comes to gigs where there's no piano. Do I bite the bullet and use the keyboard, sacrificing the quality of sound and swing of the band? Do I leave the piano out and just play with a 5 piece band (that means just playing head charts instead of our 6 piece arrangements)? Do I use an accordion instead (at least it's a real sound, but it doesn't add rhythm either)? As musicians we always want to put on the best show possible, but it's some serious work for a band leader to keep side-men from phoning it in when they have to play with a keyboard in the ensemble - it's just a drag.

WHERE TO GET ONE

Alright, so we've established that real pianos = better show = better dancing = more fun. So what can we do about it? Here are a few ideas that an event, venue, dance studio, or local swing organization might consider in procuring a piano for their live performances.

Regular Venues
If you have a space where you can store the piano, these options are a great way to go. A venue that you patronize regularly is very unlikely to object if you ask permission to store a piano there (after all it makes their space more desirable for other renters and you might even make some of your costs back if others want to use your piano). If the piano is being used only one or two times a month and isn't being moved around a lot, you can get away with doing a tuning every 6 months or so, which will run you about $100, so maintenance is not too bad. (Make sure you have it tuned when you first get it).

1. Piano rental: It only runs $35-$70/month (depending on cost of living in your area) to rent a basic, in tune, working piano. (It's $49 a month in Seattle.) Many places will let you rent to own a piano as well, so after 3 or 4 years the cost is gone all together.

2. Piano Purchase: Call your local colleges and ask for the music departments. Ask them what time of year they do their piano sales. Most music departments sell off all or many of the pianos in their practice rooms at the same time every year at an unbelievable discount. You can score big discounts on more expensive pianos this way. Don't expect to get something for less than about $1000-$1500, but what you'll get for your $1500 will be much nicer than if you bought it at retail.

3. Piano donation: You'd be shocked how many people out there have pianos that they don't use that they're looking to donate. Some of these pianos are actually really good - we have several pianos we use at Seattle Opera that have been donations. Put yourself out there as an organization! Tell people you're looking for a piano. Ask some folks in your scene with grown kids if they have a piano sitting in their house that never gets played and they'd be willing to donate it to the organization. (People often buy pianos for their kids to learn on and once the kids are out of the house the instrument is unused.)

Events
If you're putting on an event a piano is a MUST! Borrow one from someone in the scene, rent one, do whatever you have to! You will spend $200-$400 R/T having it moved in and out of your space, and another $50-$200 to rent it. All in all it will run somewhere between $250 and $600. Organizers should plan for the cost of a piano move when they're budgeting in the early stages of an event.

Another option to consider for folks who throw events regularly is to purchase/have a donated piano stored at someone's house in the scene that can be moved into venues for events. If you're doing events on a regular basis and you can get your hands on a piano, it will be a little more cost effective over time since you'll be paying moving/tuning fees but not rental fees.

IT IS WORTH THE MONEY AND THE EFFORT to get a piano for your event or regular venue!!! Cutting corners on a piano is like flying in fancy dance teachers and then not giving them mics to use in their classes with 100 people in them, or telling them they can't wear shoes to teach their class and that it has to be taught on a cement floor - it makes it so the people that you've hired to make your dance/event great can't do their very best work.

Pianos are out there just waiting for you to love them. They will make your musicians happier; they will make your dancers happier; they will make YOU happier! They will make your whole scene swing harder. Take a look around your town and you might be surprised what you'll find: one never knows, do one?

cheers,
Glenn

http://www.bluerhythmband.net
http://www.syncopators.net/facebook

How to Support Live Music (and be successful at it)

2010-03-16T14:37:00.000-07:00

Hi Jazz Fans,

So often I hear people say "we've got to support live music." Dance instructors often tell their students to support live music by coming out to venues when there's a band playing, organizers worry about people coming out to "support the band".

Every effort is appreciated of course, but I think where this phrase misses the mark is that people want to go dancing to enjoy themselves, not to support a something. Telling people to support live music by showing up sends the message "go out dancing to a DJ to have fun, come hear a band to support the scene." Of course no one MEANS it that way, but it somehow comes across to people as such.

So what CAN you actively do to support live music and share their passion for dancing to a live band with other people? Here are some talking points that you might find helpful:

1. Tell people why you like to dance to live music better than recorded music. The majority of experienced dancers prefer dancing to a live band over dancing to recordings. These are also folks who have a tremendous passion for dancing. Share your passion for this with others. Your students, friends, new dancers, etc. Tell them honestly why it matters to you and why you like it better. People's authentic passion is a better motivator than anything else.

2. Talk to people about the correlation between improvisation in dancing and improvisation in jazz.

3. Talk about how the band feeds off the dancers energy and the dancers feed off the band. There's not any interplay like this with a recording.

4. Talk about dancing as the whole experience of dancing, music, fashion and vintage culture rolled together. There's a reason you own vintage clothes!!

5. Some people are history buffs. Talk about the historical accuracy of dancing to live music.

6. Some people are kinesthetic. Talk about how it FEELS different to dance to real instruments vibrating than it does to a speaker.

7. Tell your audiophile friends that no matter how good a recording is, it's not the real thing.

8. Tell people that live music nights are THE nights to be out. They're not just dance practice, they're social events where you can expect everyone to be out!

9. Tell people it's what all the cool kids are doing.

In addition to sharing your ideas about why you love to dance to live music, there's some other great ways to be a supporter.

1. Start a thread or a message about dressing up when there's a band. People looking sharp means it's more special when a band plays.

2. Introduce people to the musicians. People are more involved if they know the folks making the music.

3.Be there. Stay home one DJ'd night that week and spend that extra $5 to see a band!

4. Suggest bands' facebook groups to friends or post a link to a bands' page as your status every now and then. Facebook lets you send a page suggestion to anyone you want. If you know some dancers not on a fan page of a band you like, suggest it to them. A couple kids at the Century this week were SHOCKED to learn that my band was on facebook. The more folks on our pages the more people who will know about our shows.

5. Side by side with number 4 is inviting more people to a band's show. Facebook lets you invite people on your friend list to events you're attending. Spread the word.

6. Read this blog (and others like it!) and learn about music. Re-post stuff you find interesting for others to see too!

Remember, supporting live music is about telling people how much it kicks ass, not about telling them to support it.

The movement is growing!! Viva live jazz!

cheers,
Glenn

www.bluerhythmband.net
band.to/syncopators

Drum Solos

2010-03-11T22:55:00.000-08:00

Hi Jazz Fans,

I'm reading this little book on Gene Krupa. It's a biography, but it also contains lots of quotes from Krupa himself from different interviews. There's a little spot where he mentions something about his solos from the swing years that I thought was interesting. When you think about it, drum solos were almost always this way in swing music.

About the solos on the song Drummin' Man Recorded 11/2/1939
"Notice how I stop every phrase on the last beat of the bar. In those days it was considered a cardinal sin to carry over and end on the first beat of the next bar. But now all drummers do it to bring in the rest of the band."

About the song Drum Boogie Recorded 1/17/1941
"Hey listen to the way I stop that break right on the 4th beat of the bar again. I stop completely, and then I make the final chorus."

This isn't the exact recording he's talking about, but check out Krupa's solos on the same tune from the same year in the film "Ball of Fire." There's always a break before the band re-enters. Classic.

Neat drummer that Krupa fella.

cheers,
Glenn

www.bluerhythmband.net
band.to/syncopators

What's the Difference Between Hot Jazz, Trad jazz, New Orleans Jazz, and 1920's Jazz?

2010-03-03T01:51:00.000-08:00

Hi Jazz Fans,

A lot of people ask me what the difference between trad jazz, dixieland jazz, hot jazz, and 20's jazz etc. The answer is that now a-days they are used pretty much interchangeably, however within this genre, there are some notably different styles.

Side Note Before We Start: POLYPHONY in the horns does NOT equal trad jazz. Combos played polyphony well into the swing era - swing does not necessarily mean arranged horns.

To illustrate, we're going to look at some different recordings of the song "Royal Garden Blues" but first let's set out some definitions so we'll both be on the same page: (keep in mind, we're drawing some general lines, there are still people making all these kinds of music and there's music that is fuzzy between different styles).

20's Jazz - Jazz from the 1920's. Examples: Louis Armstrong's Hot 5, King Oliver, Bix and Tram, Fletcher Henderson's first band, Jelly Roll Morton, etc.

Swing Music - Music which has the feel of the music from the Swing Era (late 20's-early 40's: see "the rhythm of the train" post for more details) Examples: 30's Basie, 30's/early 40's Goodman Orchestra/Combos, 2nd Fletcher Henderson Band, Chick Webb, Fats Waller and his Rhythm etc.

Bebop - Music that was simultaneously a reaction against swing music and the next step past it. Music that in many ways rejected dancing (though not entirely). More focused on harmony and on the horns than swing music which focuses on a steady rhythm. (Dizzy, Charlie Parker, Kenny Clark, Max Roach, Miles Davis, etc)

Post-Swing Music: The graveyard of the big bands. 50's + 60's Basie and Ellington, Woody Herman. Music from musicians who didn't really want to play bop but felt like they had to incorporate certain elements of it. Does not have the train feel that swing music has (seriously read the post on the train), but is instead focused on elaborate arrangements. The music big bands made after both the public and the hip musicians and listeners stopped caring that they were making it.

Straight ahead jazz: What you hear when you go to most jazz clubs. Examples: Diana Krall, Oscar Peterson, Joshua Redman, everything you heard played at swing dances between 2001 and 2004. Not Dance Music. Let me repeat that: NOT DANCE MUSIC.

Trad. Jazz Revival - the turn back towards tune popular in the 1920's and other tunes written in the same style. More simplistic harmonies, both a turn back away from swing and bop, but at the same time with heavy influences of swing music, bebop, post-swing music, and straight ahead jazz. Examples: the majority (though not all) of the trad jazz you hear today).

OK so now for the examples.

Let's start in the late 20's with Bix Beiderbecke doing Royal Garden Blues. This is some authentic 1920's stuff, It's just so damned good. It never feels rushed ahead, it's always cool and tasteful.

Note the 2 beat feel, it's easy, not strained. There is breath in the music and it's done with taste. Why no one wants to play in this style anymore is beyond me. This has a great feel for a black bottom or a slow Charleston, though I'd say it's pre-lindy hop for sure.

OK Here's Ted Lewis from 1931. This recording has Fats Waller, Benny Goodman, Muggsie Spanier and a wealth of other great players.

Again, easy, relaxed, laid back, but still on top of the beat, and HOT.

Next a more modern recording, but of a band staying fairly true to the authentic 20's style. (Leave it to a band with Marty Grosz to do it right.) Laid back and easy. The big drawback on this recording is that the bass sax is awfully loud.

OK. So those are groups playing in the 20's/early 30's style. Now, in the early 40's "dixieland jazz" or the jazz of the 20's made a comeback, it had changed. It didn't sound like the laid back Chicago bands, or the stomping but squarer New Orleans bands (if jazz was born in New Orleans, it went through puberty in Chicago, the differences between these two styles are probably best left for another post). So what caused this change? Swing and Bop. Before we go on to the Trad Jazz Revival, let's look at a few swing and bop recordings of this tune so we can hear what the mainstream music was that influenced the trad jazz revival.

Here's Tommy Dorsey, from 1936. Here they still keep a little of that relaxed Chicago-i-ness, it definitely sounds earlier than '36 in some ways especially right at the top, but listen for the influence of Boogie Woogie as it goes on, and of course the arranged big band sound. In the rhythm section, the beats are now more even instead of the boom-chick boom-chick that you had in the 20's, you've got boom-boom-boom-boom on all 4 beats - swing.

Goodman, Charlie Christian, Basie, Cootie- SWINGIN' the hell out of it.
http://popup.lala.com/popup/1873778995213684735

Ok here comes the Count. 4 to the bar. There is nothing trad about this recording. Especially when the sax solo starts and Jo Jones comes in with that big fat cymbal (may be just the hi-hat open extra wide). If anything it's pushing its way into bop in some places.

Here's a great version that's on the line between Swing and Bop from John Kirby. I'll call it mannerist swing, it's not quite bop yet and still feels great to dance to.

OK Here's Ellington from 1946. It's still swing, but with a decisively modern edge to it, it's not really pushing toward bop, but it's starting to push toward post-swing-era music.

http://popup.lala.com/popup/505247669387822230

Bop. I can't find a be-bop recording of Royal Garden Blues online. So let's just quickly listen to one of the fathers of bop drumming, Kenny Clarke:

Note that when he plays behind the other guys that the ride cymbal is keeping the time and he's using the rest of the set to create accents. Bop is when the ride cymbal took over (see previous post on the ride cymbal), but remember that this is NEW in the early 40's with bop, the same time that the trad revival started.

Here's Eddie Condon's band from the 1960's. Followed by a link to Louis Armstrong also from the 1960's.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJS-nKHquaQ (sorry no embedding on this one)

The horn solos are pretty hot, but the rhythm is all wrong. It doesn't breathe, I've heard heavy metal music with more subtlety. This kind of music bores me to dance to and bores me to listen to. The interesting things about bop music are the hits, the breaks in the rhythm while the ride keeps time, and the complex harmonies, the broken phrases.

So we've taken out the interesting parts of bop, and just left the constant ride cymbal and melodic walking bass, and we've taken the interesting parts out about swing which are the train rhythm, the laid back feel and the arrangements, and we've taken out the interesting parts about 20's jazz which are the relaxed but hot feel and the subtleties (and also the 2 beat feel from the 20's, boom-chick boom-chick is GONE).

This is clearly not the same music that people played in the 20's or in the 30's. This is, unfortunately the tradition that's been kept alive and it's the style that most trad. or dixieland bands play in today. Why? Because it's how we teach bass players and drummers, and pianists to play cause everyone cuts their teeth on bop and straight ahead jazz.

Most importantly, if you're reading this and you're a dancer, this is not dance music. It was never intended to be danced to, in fact be-bop was influenced greatly by musicians railing against playing for dancers because they weren't being appreciated as artists by the dancers. Even guys like Condon who were around in the 20's were trying to "legitimize jazz" and take it from the saloons into the concert halls where people would sit and listen to them and not dance.

< rant > Playing dance music is an art in itself and I think many musicians are foolish not to recognize that. I think many dancers, however, propagate this problem by remaining ignorant about the music they dance to. Trying to dance the lindy hop to music it doesn't fit with is like putting a square peg in a round hole.

Also: "I just like to move to the music, I don't really care what it is" doesn't equate to "I'm a free spirit and just love the feeling of movement, all music is wonderful cause it's amazing", it actually equates to "Shucks Ma, why's I got to learn to read, I just likes lookin at the picters." If you're not dancing to the music (or not deliberately dancing NOT to the music for our modern dance friends), you're not dancing, you're just moving around - take an aerobics class.< /rant >

OK so now for a few more modern bands. I'm not going to post anything here about the styles, since some of these folks are alive. Some of these recordings I like the style, some I don't, some I have mixed feelings on. I'll let you make your own judgments.

Cheers,
Glenn

www.bluerhythmband.net
band.to/syncopators

Jazz Era Voices

2010-03-02T11:32:00.000-08:00

Hi Jazz Fans,

Just a short note about my friend Kelly's new website, Jazz Era Voices. The site, which just went up, asks users to contribute interviews, video, stories, and photos from their grand parents or other elderly friends or relatives about their experiences dancing during the jazz age.

If everyone decides to contribute, this site will become a wealth of information about jazz dance around the country and will preserve a lot of stories, ideas, and parts of our culture that would otherwise be lost. Check out the content that's already up and volunteer a little of your time to put together a submission. Don't let your family's stories of the jazz age be lost!

www.jazzeravoices.org

cheers,
Glenn

www.bluerhythmband.net
band.to/syncopators

The Cheerful Little Earful

2010-01-27T20:41:00.000-08:00

If you're interested in Fats Waller (and if you read this blog then you probably are) I recommend my latest read, Alyn Shipton's book: Fats Waller: The Cheerful Little Earful

There's a wealth of information on Fats out there, as there rightly should be as Fats made a lot of records and lived quite a colorful life in his all too short 39 years. What's great about Shipton's book is the way he's categorized the information. Instead of providing a beginning to end narrative (as most biographies tend to do), Shipton breaks Fats' life into the different facets of his career: his recordings, his work in musical theatre, his Rhythm and his Big Band, his films etc. This allows the book to still have a good deal of chronology, but it makes it easier to see how Fats developed in different mediums, and makes it easier to process all the info into something you can remember!

Though some more fact based pages of the book can be a little bland, it's peppered with plenty of great stories about the larger than life pianist and composer as well as photos of both Fats and some of his side men on film sets, in the recording studio, and live on stage. Readers who are dancers will also find some noteable quotes and recounts from Jeni le Gon on her work with the "Harmful Little Armful."

Overall a very factual read for the seasoned jazz history expert, but well organized and easy to follow enough for the novice.

www.bluerhythmband.net
band.to/syncopators

Audio 101 for Musicians, Dancers, DJ's, and Venue Promoters

2010-01-25T04:49:00.000-08:00

Hi Jazz Fans,

When you go to a dance, whether the music is live or DJed, I think we can all agree that you enjoy the music a lot more when it sounds:

1. Clear
2. Like the artist intends/intended

If the first is lacking, you can't really tell what you're listening to, and if the second is lacking then you're not really getting the full experience of what the artist wants to convey with his or her music.

Let's take a look at some of the problems that make jazz music, both live and DJed, less authentic and less enjoyable for us to dance to!

Back in the 1930's, when the music that we love to dance to was first created, musicians didn't have access to the kinds of audio equipment we have today and most bands had 1 mic out in front of the group and that was it. After WW2, more advanced audio equipment was available to performers that allowed them to mic all of the individual instruments in a band.

Would musicians in the 1930's have used this technology to them had it been available? ABSOLUTELY!!! (Bet you never thought you'd hear me say that.) Many musicians would have been trying out these new technologies, but this would have had a profound impact on the music. Giving Duke Ellington enough mics to put on every member of his band in 1924 would have drastically altered the course of music history, because there are numerous things that can be done electronically with volume and balances between instruments that cannot be achieved acoustically. Mr. Ellington, great composer that he was, would have explored every dynamic and timbral possibility at his fingertips and it's very likely that the music we love would never have been created.

But Mr. Ellington and his contemporaries were NOT handed state of the art 2010 sound equipment in 1924 and, thus, they created music meant to be performed acoustically.

Now let's for a moment say that you go to hear a classical cello recital, and the cellist plays one of the Bach Suites, but instead of playing it in the appropriate Baroque style, he plays it like it's Brahms. Well, certainly interesting, but not tasteful. (For those of you who aren't classical music fans, this is sort of the equivalent of a Death Metal cover of Yellow Submarine, interesting, probably not tasteful and certainly not what the composers intended.) This is something that just isn't done in the realm of classical music, because musicians and audiences generally have a better understanding of what is and isn't tasteful and artistic.

In jazz there's a much more free feeling among many musicians and most listeners about what to expect from a band. I mean it's improvisational right? So do whatever you want to! Of course, for audiences looking to dance swing era dances to swing era music, there's something to be said for tasteful performance of music from this era because it enhances your listening experience and also provides you the opportunity to have an authentic dancing experience, a chance to dance the lindy hop the the music that it was inspired by, that it goes with.

There is a physicality to acoustic music that no sound system on earth can recreate, try as it might, an electronic cone vibrating back and forth is never going to sound the same as the complex vibration of a guitar or clarinet reed vibrating. This is something you can feel, but it's also something that you hear, even if you don't recognize it.

Even the most untrained musical ears can hear the difference between the sound of a trumpet and a guitar, or a clarinet and a violin. The sound quality of a particular type of instrument is called its timbre (pronounced like tambur). So if a trumpet and a violin both play the same note, what makes them sound different? Overtones.

Whenever I play a note on the guitar, the string vibrates and a pitch is created, but the in addition to that pitch, a variety of other pitches also sound simultaneously; they sound much more softly than the fundamental pitch, but they are there. The vibrating of the string then (practically instantly) starts the whole body of the instrument vibrating. Based on the shape of the instrument, the kind of wood its made from, and a myriad of other factors, some of those overtones sounded by the string vibrate more loudly, or more resonantly, than others. The instrument's vibrating then begins vibrating the air around the instrument until that air reaches your ear, begins vibrating your ear drum, which vibrates little bones in your ear which passes the sound to a membrane with little hair-like sensors that translate these sounds into neural signals and send them to your brain. (Shit! And this all happens in a split second!) When someone plays the same note on a different instrument, different overtones are created, and sent to your ear and your brain registers that different collection of sounds as whatever instrument is being played!

Now, when we add amplification to the mix, we make the process infinitely MORE complicated. A sound travels out of the instrument into the air just like before, but instead of reaching your ear, it goes into a microphone which through use of a magnet, turns the sound waves into electric current. This current then passes through wires and through numerous circuits which reproduce the same fluctuations of current over and over, until the current reaches the speaker which it vibrates causing the air to vibrate around the speaker which then travels to your ear, etc etc. Whew!

The difference here is that when you make a copy of a copy of a copy as this sound passes through all that circuitry, you lose quality. Your ear doesn't respond to a cone vibrating the same way that it does an instrument vibrating, and on top of that, the cone which is one piece of equipment trying to reproduce the complex harmonic patterns of a human voice or a guitar, just doesn't have a prayer!

So why don't we all always just play acoustically? Well there's several reasons. First, most musicians today have grown up in the era of rock and roll. They've grown up with music being loud and patched together by sound engineers - their school jazz bands and jazz camps being performed with microphones - we've established a culture of miking instruments. The focus of musicians, I think, is often the internal process of playing, and not the external process of what they're communicating to their audience. Even, when musicians are trying to communicate something through their playing, a feeling, or a sound, they often don't realize that the sound system is weakening their impression on the audience because it's just the way they've always performed.

The other problem, and the reason that you still see my band using more than one mic is because the music that we play was originally created with the assumption that the stage it was performed on was going to have a band shell. An acoustical shell makes all the difference in the world in the volume and balance of a band.

Imagine being in a house of mirrors and turning on a light. It's going to be infinitely brighter to your eyes than it would be in a normal room because it's reflecting intensely off of so many surfaces. Sound reflects off of any hard surface as well, and a band shell is a big curved wall that goes behind a band that's designed to reflect the sound out to you in the audience, greatly amplifying it. There's no loss of quality with this reverberated sound like there is when you change the sound energy into electrical energy and back to sound energy with a microphone and speaker.

Unfortunately, most performing spaces today were not built with acoustic music in mind and many older venues have had their shells removed. In small spaces, it doesn't really matter, but in a big ballroom or a dance studio, it's an issue to be tackled.

So as a band leader, what kind of compromise can be made to provide the most authentic sound. Of course some mics need to be used, but when bands mic every instrument individually, it creates a vastly different sound. Instead of sound waves from the guitar and bass and piano all bouncing off of eachother and going into a mic together, they each go separately into a mic and are "mixed" by a sound engineer. When the sounds are reproduced by a speaker, you hear the sound of a speaker vibrating, trying to produce copies of each of these three individual sounds. This is opposed to the more natural sound of the speaker getting one message of all three sounds already blended together and trying to accurately copy that. The other thing that you lose with close miking is the resonance of the space you're in. Just like the body of the guitar resonates, the stage, the walls of the room, the other instruments, even your body resonate sympathetically with the instruments amplifying the sound. When you close mic instruments, this resonance is not captured, just the pure sound of the instrument, which is a much less interesting sound.

Of course the copy isn't going to be perfect either way, but the electronic equipment is meant to keep those sounds pristine and separate from one another as opposed to the more natural sound of the sound waves from those instruments knocking into each other.

So the compromise, for the time being anyway, is to try to use as few mics as possible to adequately pick up everyone in the band. That way the sounds are more blended and natural before entering the PA system which will slightly degrade the sound of the whole band as opposed to slightly degrading the sound of each instrument and also preventing them from blending with one another.

The other advantage to this, is that it gives the band far more control over the balance of their instruments and blend of their group than does the individual miking method which puts control of the band's sounds into the hands of an audio engineer who in all probability does not spend a great deal of his or her time listening to and studying 1930's jazz and also probably doesn't care if your band sounds authentic, so long as A. they get paid, and B. no one in the audience complains specifically about his or her work. (There are of course a very few exceptions to this rule, some wonderful sound engineers who really care about what you're trying to create).

This brings me to DJed music. DJed music is in swing dancing is a means to have music when it is not possible to have a live band. Our community has, however developed a culture of dancing to DJed music due largely to the small number of quality and available bands. DJs have a responsibility to faithfully represent the music that they love. Newcomers expect the music to sound like the club music because DJs try to make their sets more "accessible" by EQing music in a totally unrealistic way, louder than a band would naturally play it and with the bass thumping. People will listen to your set even if it doesn't sound like P-Ditty and if they don't they either need more time to appreciate the style of music or just don't like the same kind of music that you do. I know we want to keep people coming back to hear us spin, but if numbers is the goal then just play the P-Ditty record (or Kanye West or whatever the devil it is the children listen to these days). This is especially bad when a DJ spins breaks for a band and the break music is louder than the band. Nothing sucks the energy out of a night faster!

Swing music is, whether live or DJed, not supposed to be so loud that you can't enjoy it. When I go to hear a band or a DJ and the sound is unnatural and distorted and so loud that I can't even catch my dance's partner's name, it's just not a good time. If people can't hear in the back, don't make the sound in the front louder, put a speaker in the back and spread the rhythm around.

Cheers,
Glenn

www.bluerhythmband.net
band.to/syncopators

Ride Cymbal Be Damned!

2009-11-29T00:22:00.000-08:00

Dear Jazz Fans,

The sound that put an end to swing music:
Kenny Clarke

Kenny Clark was considered to be the first "bop" drummer. His claim to fame was taking the beat from the hi-hat and snare drum to the ride cymbal thus taking away from the drums' role as a time keeping instrument.

Modern Harmonies, Modern Rhythms, sure Diz and Bird we can deal with that, but you take away the pulse of the music and you don't have swing anymore.

Encourage your local drummer to pawn his ride cymbal! Or better still to melt it down into 2 splashes.

cheers,
Glenn

www.bluerhythmband.net
band.to/syncopators

Red Hot Syncopators....?

2009-11-27T16:17:00.000-08:00

Hi Jazz Fans,

To my surprise I'm apparently not the first to have a band called the Red Hot Syncopators in Seattle (we've shortened the name to just Syncopators now, but interesting none the less).

Earl Whaley was an alto-saxophone player and bandleader from the San Francisco Bay Area. He moved to Seattle and led one of the first swing bands on the West Coast, The Red Hot Syncopators, who started performing successfully around Seattle at the Broadway and Finnish Halls in 1932. The band never grew beyond playing in small combination performances, or “combo additions,” unlike most swing bands on the West Coast, largely because the black population in Seattle in the 1930s was extremely small as was the local talent pool. There simply weren’t enough black musicians to form the giant swing bands seen in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and other major cities during the 1930s. It should also be noted that because of segregation by the white union Local No. 76, black musicians were forbidden from forming bands with white musicians.

Read the rest of the story here:
http://www.blackpast.org/?q=aaw/earl-whaley-band

Cheers,
Glenn

www.bluerhythmband.net
band.to/syncopators

April Kisses

2009-11-20T05:37:00.000-08:00

Hi Jazz Fans,

Something's put me in a good mood, and since April Kisses is a favorite number of mine and a generally "good mood" kinda song, I thought I'd share it with everyone else.

It's available on this record: The Quintessential Eddie Lang 1925-1932
Unfortunately the original recording, heard on this album, is pitched up nearly a 1/2 step, and is thus also probably sped up as well. (I don't know if it was the transfer or the actual recording that was sped up.) If anyone has an LP that's actually at pitch (should be in D major), I'd love to hear his actual tempi (I don't believe anyone can actually play as fast as he does in the opening bars.) I'll do my best to keep up.

For more Eddie Lang goodness, come check out the Syncopators on Dec. 7th at Sonny Newman's in Greenlake (http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=178465167883). We're doing a combo of violin, guitar, bass sax, and piano, modeled after Eddie Lang and Joe Venuti's quartet. Casey MacGill will be on piano, Paul Woltz on bass sax, myself on guitar and Paul Anastasio, a former pupil of Venuti's will be on violin. Plus Meschiya Lake will be singing with us all evening.

cheers,
Glenn

www.bluerhythmband.net
band.to/syncopators

30's Novelty Tunes

2009-11-11T17:09:00.000-08:00

There's something about a good novelty tune that always makes me smile. This one may be my favorite.

Wish I could tell you where to get this one on amazon, but it's not available. There's some more Harry Roy if you dig it though:

Swinging With The Tigers

Glenn

www.bluerhythmband.net
band.to/syncopators

In Search of Buddy Bolden

2009-11-11T15:01:00.000-08:00

There are a lot of legends, myths, and stories around the origins of jazz music and the first king of jazz, Buddy Bolden. Bolden was born in New Orleans in 1877. Bolden took up the cornet as a young man and began performing with marching bands and dance bands around town, his own band forming around 1895. Though the New Orleans music community was very segregated at that time (colored bands and Creole bands didn't mix much), Bolden gained a following beyond his caste. He was known particularly for the power of his playing and he brought the cornet into its position as the lead instrument in dance music.

The dance music at that time included blues, waltzes, quadrilles, and other folk dances. Bolden’s band played a wealth of venues around town including the Union Sons Hall dubbed "Funky Butt Hall" after the song "Buddy Bolden Blues," by Bolden's first trombonist Willie Cornish.

The rumors around Bolden's life are plentiful to the point that it's often unclear what is myth and what is fact. Bolden always had a harem of women following him around and sitting at the foot of the band stand. Stories of fights between the girls, Bolden's pimping, and more have become part of his legacy.

Bolden had become severely addicted to alcohol in 1906. He continued to play, but his playing and personal life both declined until Frankie Dusen, the 2nd trombonist in the band, took the group over and replaced Bolden with another cornetist. 1907 he was committed to a State Mental Institution where he lived until his death in 1931.

Bolden influenced the entire generation of New Orleans musicians to follow including a young Sidney Bechet, Louis Armstrong, King Oliver, Freddie Keppard, Kid Ory, etc. and laid the foundations for the jazz to come in the 1910's and 1920's.

For a great read on Buddy Bolden's life and music check out Donald Marquis's book - In Search Of Buddy Bolden: First Man Of Jazz

www.bluerhythmband.net
band.to/syncopators

The Guitar

2009-10-28T13:18:00.000-07:00

Dear Jazz Fans,

Being a guitar player, I could write a book on this subject, but here are the basics.

It doesn't take a brilliant guitar soloist to make a band swing. In fact guys who are good solo players often don't really swing very well because they haven't absorbed that part of the music. Freddie Green took very few solos in his entire career but he was the swingingest guitarist ever. It goes back to what I was saying in the first post about finding "it." "It's" an essential for guitarists.

Guitarists are the time keepers in swing music, they drive the band forward by playing an even 1-2-3-4. If a band is balanced correctly (preferably with no mics or one mic on the whole rhythm section) then you probably won't hear the guitar unless you are really listening for it. Good guitar playing knits the fabric of the rhythm section together and doesn't stand out. But, if you see a big band or a combo without a guitar you notice. There's suddenly something missing in the middle. There's nothing pushing the band forward, no time keeper.

I think a lot of guitarists don't really realize the importance of rhythm playing. They look at it as something to do when they're not playing a solo. There's no glory in rhythm playing because no one hears you individually and says "look at that guy, he's great." When they say "that band was really swinging" that's when you know you played well as a guitarist, even if nobody knows it was you.

Glenn

www.bluerhythmband.net
band.to/syncopators

#3 Slap that Bass!

2009-10-24T03:10:00.000-07:00

#3 Slap that Bass

The double bass has a huge history (fitting for it's size). Here are some key highlights.

-Probably invented sometime in the 1500's.

-The double bass probably originated as a member of the viol family, not the violin family. Viols have a different shape and are fretted. The double bass eventually lost its frets.

-The double bass is called the "double" bass, because for many years its role was exclusively to double the cello part down an octave.

-The bass started to become a more important instrument during the 1900's and its lines slowly became emancipated from the cello lines in the orchestra.

-The first sting bass virtuoso was Domenico Dragonetti, a contemporary of Beethoven's.

-The double bass varied greatly in size, shape, tuning, and number of strings until the 19th century when the 3 string double bass became the standard. The fourth string started to come in toward the end of the 1800's.

In swing music the bass is in the rhythm section for a reason, because it's played percussively. Bassists pluck the strings on every beat - 4-notes to the bar - and those notes are short and accented in swing music.

When bop music became prevalent, there was more a focus on independent lines and counterpoint in jazz. Thus bass lines became more melodic and more legato (legato means the line is more connected instead of short thumpy notes). This is when the "walking bass" really came to the forefront of jazz music. In the swing era, the notes are often repeated and there is less movement around the instrument. The focus is on creating rhythm and not melody.

Let's hear the difference. Here's an example of swing era bass playing courtesy of Dave Brown playing with my band, Glenn Crytzer and his Syncopators.

Next a different Brown, Ray Brown. Ray is one of the best bass players of all time. He is the epitome of the more modern style of bass playing, connected melodic lines.

For some more great examples of swing era bass playing (and to just hear a generally killer band), check out Mills Blue Rhythm Band bassists Elmer James and Hayes Alvis.

cheers,
Glenn

www.bluerhythmband.net
band.to/syncopators

Next time: The Guitar!!

#2 The Drum Set

2009-10-22T15:59:00.000-07:00

#2 The Drum Set

Here's a history of the jazz drum set.

History Before the Civil War

The Snare Drum - derived from the Medieval European "tabor" drum which was a drum with a string tightened across the head.

Note the small string across the head, not the large rope which is a shoulder strap.

The tabor gradually developed into the field drum which is a large snare drum (think big revolutionary war snare drums). And these were still the prevalent drum around the time of the Civil War.

Bass Drum - The large 2 headed bass drum dates back to ancient Sumaria! It was introduced to European society through Turkish mehterân, which are the oldest form of Marching Band, used to accompany Ottoman forces into battle. The bass drum was gradually introduced into European classical music through composers like Haydn and Mozart who found the sound of the Turkish military music fascinating. Through out the 19th century the bass drum gradually became a more standard part of Western Music.

Cymbals - There are two basic types of cymbals used in a swing drum kit: Turkish and Chinese. These cymbals vary in shape from one another and thus have a different sound.

Here's a great description of the origin of the Turkish Cymbal from the Vienna Symphonic Library.

Here's a somewhat dry but informative history of Chinese cymbals.

Chinese cymbals sound different from what most people think of when they think of a cymbal. Here's an example.

Other instruments that originated in China were used in the 20's drum kit as well. These included Chinese temple blocks and Chinese tom-toms. Check out this example of a vintage set. You can hear the Chinese tom-tom at around 58 seconds.

Unfortunately, he doesn't play the temple blocks that you see in the front of the set.

Around the time of the American Civil War, brass bands became extremely popular in the United States. These bands usually had a percussion section which included a player on cymbals, a player on bass drum, and a player on the snare. They may also have included auxiliary percussion such as a triangle. As the century wore on these types of bands became the central source of music in small towns and they performed not only as marching bands but indoors for dances, social functions, etc. For both financial reasons and space concerns, attempts were made to cut down the number of percussionists used on indoor gigs. A cymbal would be attached to the top of a bass drum so that a percussionist could play the cymbal with one hand and the bass drum with the other hand (this technique was prevalent in Italian Opera orchestras at the time as well and is often referred to as 'the bagel.')

In 1909, the first bass drum pedal was invented. This allowed one person to play the bass drum using his foot while allowing his hands to be free to play cymbals, snare, blocks, or any other instrument. This was the real beginning of the drum set.

The hi-hat was next to be invented. The first attempt was made by attaching a cymbal to the rim of the bass drum. An additional arm on the bass drum pedal would then strike the cymbal with the bass drum. The next step was the lowboy. The low-boy was the real precursor to the modern hi-hat. It looked very similar to a hi-hat but sat only inches off the ground and could only be played with the foot pedal. Around 1926, the hi-hat was invented. This was a low-boy that was raised up so that the cymbals could be played with the foot or struck with a stick.

The invention of the hi-hat completed the swing era trap kit (named for all the con-TRAP-tions).

Here's a few important facts.

The skins on the drums were made of calf-skin as opposed to modern drums which use plastic heads. Calf heads have a totally different sound from plastic heads.

Drum sticks had wooden tips, not nylon tips. Again the wood tip provides a different sound.

Bass drums were BIG. 24 inches in diameter was the minimum. Snare drums were deep and produced a deep pitch. Today most bass drums are tiny and snares are very thin.

Tom-toms typically had the heads laced on. The modern tunable tom-tom didn't come in til 1938.

Finally we come to my number one drumming pet peeve: No Ride Cymbals. No Ride Cymbals. No Ride Cymbals.

A ride cymbal is a large, heavier cymbal that drummers use to keep time on. It usually sounds like "ting ting-ta ting ting-ta ting." Though Krupa is rumored to have had a ride-like cymbal as early as 1928, he used it extremely sparingly and it was used as more of a special effect. It wasn't something to keep time on for a chorus. This is a post swing era sound and there are very few times where this is acceptable in swing music. A lot of drummers scoff at this idea because this was how they learned to play and a ride cymbal is like a safety net for them. You should scoff at their ride cymbal!

Here's why.

The pitches in a rhythm section stack up in a fairly low register: the bass drum is the lowest, then the string bass, the guitar comping, the left hand of the piano, and the snare drum. The ride cymbal cuts through and over this sound pitch-wise and it takes away from that train rhythm. Think of it like a building: the rhythm section is the foundation, steady, and solid, what makes the building work. The horns are the ornate visible part of the building. They make it look sleek and cool, they give it a function and a personality. The ride cymbal is kind of like taking a foundation layer of cement and putting it on the 30th floor of the building - it makes the building look not as cool and removes a layer of foundation that it needs to stand up on.

cheers,
Glenn

Next: #3 Slap that bass

www.bluerhythmband.net
band.to/syncopators

It Don't Mean a Thing IF....

2009-10-21T21:04:00.000-07:00

Hi Jazz Fans,

When I wanted to progress past being an intermediate level dancer, I realized that the next step in dancing was to understand the music, and through this process I started to discover why it was that the really good dancers didn't dance to certain songs or go out to hear certain bands. There's a certain feeling in swing music that doesn't exist in bop or jump blues or 50's Basie or groovy jazz. It's really hard to describe in a sentence, but when you discover it, you've got it forever and it's one of the most exciting revelations that life has to offer (IMHO anyway).

Whenever I dance to or listen to a live band, I judge it with a critical ear - I pick apart what I'm hearing and judge what each player's style is doing to add to or take away from the swing of the band. Over the next several days, I'm going to write about some of the things that I listen for in dance music. If you're just learning to dance or are looking to step up to the next level, I hope this will help you in your quest as you search for the holy grail of "swing;" if you're reading this and you've already discovered swing, I hope this will help you understand more about what you're hearing so that when you do or don't like a band, you'll have a better idea of why.

#1 Rhythm of the Train

It's really hard to find good rhythm players and I've been blessed to play with guys who really get the style. The goal of the rhythm section should be to form a really tight unit that, in a way, emulates the rhythm of a train. Here are a couple great examples. The first is Duke Ellington's Orchestra from 1930 playing Old Man Blues:

Now THAT sounds like a train! Here's a another example, this time from Count Basie's Orchestra in 1938. Listen to how the Rhythm Section creates the drive and energy of a locomotive, even though they are less expressly trying to copy the exact sound of a train in this one.

Now let's listen to Count Basie from 1959 to hear how the music changed away from being dance music.

The drums in this tune focus on the back beats like one TWO three FOUR, instead of that nice even chug-chug-chug-chug from the 1930's, and the extended drum solo at the end just doesn't swing at all, and there are many other places where the whole band syncopates together, breaking the steady 4 rhythm. The focuses of this tune are the crazy ensemble riffs and Lockjaw Davis's solo. The ensemble riffs now float overtop of the rhythm instead of being a PART of the rhythm like in the last Basie tune.

Now let's try some more Ellington and we'll hear that even the infamous "Take the A-Train" didn't sound much like a train anymore by the 1960's.

You can hear that the 1930's music has that chugga chugga sound like a train, while the later music is more about the horns. This is, in my opinion, due to the fact that American culture changed from a railroad driven culture in the 1930's to an automobile driven culture after WW2.

Let's listen to a couple modern examples.

First, something that doesn't swing!

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not calling it bad music - I think Diana Krall and her musicians are fantastic players. I am however calling it indisputably NOT swing music.

Let's close out with something that DOES swing. Here's my buddy Jonathan Stout's big band from LA. Note how Jon on guitar and Josh on drums create that locomotive rhythm. (check out Jonathan's blog here: HERE)

I hope this gets you started thinking about what makes music swing!!

Next time: The Drum Set

Cheers,
Glenn

www.bluerhythmband.net
band.to/syncopators

Fats and Al

2009-10-18T12:20:00.000-07:00

Dear Jazz Fans,

I bought a copy of Fats Waller's The Centennial Collectionthis past week and it came with a bonus DVD with soundies that Fats performed in. Great CD, great DVD. In this particular clip, Al Casey, Fats' guitar player is featured on Honeysuckle Rose. Though this clip shows Al in a soloist role, what interests me most about his playing is his accompanying. Behind Fats' vocals on most songs, Casey is playing tasteful chord solos. Since Casey was playing the fills, Fats didn't have to, which allowed him to do more complex things vocally since he could just go boom-chick-boom-chick behind the vocals on the piano.

Enjoy the video!
Glenn

First Post!

2009-10-18T12:11:00.000-07:00

Who the heck am I? - My name is Glenn Crytzer. I'm the leader of and guitarist/banjo player in the Syncopators and the Blue Rhythm Band, both based out of Seattle, WA (http://www.syncopators.net). My groups play jazz from the 1920's, 1930's, and 1940's and aim to achieve as authentic a sound as possible through authentic playing techniques, minimal amplification etc.

What's this blog going to be about? Old Jazz. It's not a player's forum, it's a place for me to post my rantings and ravings about different bands, recordings, and players that I like, and to talk about listening to and playing jazz.

cheers,
Glenn