Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Yes, I agree: gig, gig, gig.
  

    
Amendment accepted as friendly!
  

    
up in #91, i think timfox is referencing the "recording ban" of 1942 - a
period of something around 2 years where the musicians union wouldn't
allow recording during a renegotiation of the contract.
It was quite a double edged sword - because they improved the pay
and the likelihood of residuals markedly - but they killed the natural
market - so there were far fewer gigs after the "ban" - just what they
were hoping to save, better money for more folks became slightly better
money for way fewer folks.
Tastes were changing too - the ban was during the most dynamic period
in the development of bebop - so there is little documentation of the
toe dipping egg shell chirpings of the late 30's early 40's into
full blown extended harmony bebop of the mid 1940's...

There is something glorious about playing in a big band... I should look
for more opportunities, haven't done it since school (oh - no, Kaila
Flexer put together klezmer orchestras of 30+ pieces in '89, '90 & '91
or there'bouts... grisman played with us one of those years...
I wrote one of the charts one of those years... that's REALLY glorious
to hear a 30+ piece band of mostly competent players playing one's
chart!)
  

    
<103>
An older musician I spoke with recently opined that bebop helped kill
jazz.

I asked him, "Because people couldn't dance to it?"
He said, "That, and because no one could play it except an exalted
few."

Did Kaila's big band record? I hadn't heard about this group. 
  

    
Thanks, David. That sounds right.
  

    
Gotta disagree, Bill, about bebop. I once interviewed Max Roach and
asked him about that exact thing, and he said "I was sitting there at
the drums looking out into the crowd, and if that wasn't dancing, I
don't know what it was." 
  

    

Greetings Bill -- just got the book yesterday and I'm not far into it
yet, but some of your comments above about the transcendent experience
of playing in a big band have really started me thinking.  Do you think
the experience of really feeling the music resonate through your body
is at the heart of why the experience is transcendent?

Here's what I mean: Before I left for work today I grabbed my DGQ cd,
the one you did with E.M.D. etc, so I could listen to it during my
commute.  But during the drive I found the sound quality (in my car
that is) very frustrating.  Oh well, I figured, I can listen to it at
my desk.

But at my desk, listening means using a portable cd player and these
little earbud type headphones, and the music still seemed to lack
something.  Well, try again when I get home, I thought.  Except...
hm, my son has to be in bed by 9:00, so I'll have to listen with
headphones at home, too.  And it occurred to me that I seldom have
much of a chance to listen to music with a real subwoofer any more.

I bet lots of people are in a similar boat.  I can't remember the last
time I heard someone talk excitedly about a home stereo, but I hear
plenty of buzz about the latest hand-held MP3 player.

Sorry for the rambling.  My point, or my question, (if I have one), is:
as a bass player, do you feel saddened of frustrated by the sight of
so many people listening to music in a format where the bass is pretty
much emasculated?  Does it make you feel like people are throwing away
the physical sensation that makes music transcendent?  Or does the
transcendent feeling have more to do with the experience of playing live?
  

    
<106>
Wow, you interviewed Max Roach. Well, I can't disagree with him, if
that's what he saw.

But how about this:
There is a difference between playing what is called "on the beat" and
"to the beat."
On the beat is like:
Tah, zip-tih tah, zip tih tah, zip tih tah ... the basic hi-hat figure
for jazz.

Playing to the beat is like:
tah . . .  ti-tah, zip, ... tah zip, ... tih-tih tah
That is, time is going on, but the drummer is only pointing to it,
indicating where it might be, and not playing it.

So, would it be fair to say that Max's drumming was always more "on
the beat," allowing for dancing, but that other bebop drummers were on
the "to the beat" side of playing?

I don't think, Ed, that we can look at the whole of bebop and say,
well, bebop: that's dance music. What do you think?

And what prompted this exchange with Max about dancers and dancing?
  

    
<107>
Hello Dave, and welcome.
>Do you think the experience of really feeling the music resonate
through your body is at the heart of why the experience is
transcendent?

Partially, yes. The notes are full, loud, wide, bottom-ful,
body-resonating. But very importantly, as the lowest note in the
orchestra they support the entire orchestra and set the feeling for the
entire group sound.

Here's an example:
Pick up the ol' guitar, and play a regular Dm chord, 1st position.
Play it with the open D at the bottom (4th string), the root of the
chord.
Play it with the open A at the bottom, (5th string), the 5th of the
chord.

Now play it with a G on the E-string (6th string) at the bottom. (You
may have to thumb it.)

With that last example, just by changing the note in the bass, you
have changed the entire feeling of the chord. (Indeed, with one note
you have changed the chord.) It is this power that I feel with the
bass: the chosen note, register, volume, attack, and sustain all have a
huge impact on the group sound.

>Does it make you feel like people are throwing away the physical
sensation that makes music transcendent?  Or does the transcendent
feeling have more to do with the experience of playing live?

Well, certainly we lose out by not having the bass loud enough to feel
it in our bodies. But I think, for me, it's playing live that gives me
the transcendent experience.
  

    

I don't like listening to electronic representations of music.
  

    
I interviewed Max for the American Airlines in-flight magazine. I met
him in Ft Worth when his band played the cult nightclub at the Caravan
of Dreams (literally run by a cult). He was creeped out by them, and I
asked him if I could do an interview, but I had to prepare for it. He
was starting a multi-week East Coast run with the Double Quartet, so I
arranged to be in New York for the Blue Note run. His apartment was
being painted, so we met in Central Park and sat in warm spring
sunshine on a big rock. The "bebop killed dancing" meme is one of those
things you have to ask guys like him about (not that there *are* any
other guys like him), and I would have asked Dizzy the same question. I
begged the magazine not to call the piece "A Different Drummer," and
his manager asked me to ask them in any event. That's what they called
it, and I lost contact, probably because of it. 

Max is amazing. What a thinker! (Not to mention, what a drummer...)
  

    
<111>
Yes, Max is one of the greats of jazz. His band was a training ground
for hundreds of players over the decades.
  

    
" I don't like listening to electronic representations of music."

Then give me your CDs.   I hate the thought of you suffering.
  

    

> just by changing the note in the bass, you have changed the entire feeling
> of the chord.

Yes.  Sometimes the bass can be extremely potent just by staying on the same
note as the changes move.  Or playing a non-tonic pedal tone in some set-
tings.

I've played with bassists who were all over the place, and with bassists who
never deviated, but the bassists I treasure are the ones who understand the
music and know how to do those slightly different things that illuminate the
music in that special way.
  

    
Back to the power of big swing bands for just a second, and how a good
bass player is the boss-man of the sound, earlier this summer I
visited the Museum of American Jazz in Kansas City, where the exhibit
included a not-bad short documentary on the territory bands of the
Midwest and Southwest, from whence Count Basie, Lester Young, Jay
McShann, Charlie Parker, and many others come (not to forget Walter
Page, of course; what a great bassist he was). A mighty share of the
gigs for these bands was in smallish meeting/dance halls in small
towns. One can only imagine the experience of these 13-piece bands in
such situations -- the power of a performance of "Every Tub," say, by
the Basie band must've been truly overwhelming. The music would've been
everywhere, beating inside every molecule in the room, including
inside the marrow of one's bones (where Walter would've been felt,
swinging away). 

But I think it was more than the close environment and the big, strong
bottom laid out by the bass in company of a swinging rhythm section
that made such performances so strong and memorable. I think a lot of
the power of a big band comes from undistorted harmony and the use of
dynamics, just as in classical music.    
  

    
>I think a lot of
> the power of a big band comes from undistorted harmony

Could you explain what you mean by "undistorted harmony." 
  

    
Sorry to be vague about it. What I meant was music played in tune
without distortion created by amplification or electronic effects.
Often by the end of a rock show my ears are worn out not just from the
volume but from the distortion, too. Yet I never feel that aural
exhaustion after a jazz or swing concert. 
  

    

ri, c'mon over.  It's a nessessary evil.  My thought is to not confuse the
one for the other.  I'm done fort a while...
  

    
<115>
Amen to everything you've said, Steve, especially your last line:
"I think a lot of the power of a big band comes from undistorted
harmony and the use of dynamics, just as in classical music."
  

    
Everyone plays too damn loud these days.
  

    
It's a mystery to me why so few musicians outside the realms of
classical and jazz use the power of dynamics to advantage. The number
of rock bands that have used the full soft-to-loud span effecively you
can count on one hand, yet loudness crescendoing from softness is so
much more powerful for an audience's ears and minds than all loudness
all the time. 

I suppose musicians play forte' or double-forte' 99% of the time
because it's easiest and simplest. 
  

    
I respectfully disagree.   Hit the clubs.  Bands like 20 Minute Loop are all
about dynamics.   As is any decent R&B, country or blues band.    Saw
Bluegrass Intentions on Saturday night and the Swedish pop folk band, Vasen
on Sunday.  Both made great use of dynamics.   Y'all need to see better
bands, that's all.
  

    
That's a possibility, sure. Indeed, I had hoped to return from a trip
on Sunday in time to see Vasen, but didn't make it. 
  

    
I'd have to say a lot of big bands are not very good about using dynamics.  
A lot of them think mezzo-forte is pianissimo, and they go up from there.  
I've played bass in big bands where they wanted me to play much louder 
than in the rock bands I've played in.

OTOH, the Basie band used unamplified guitar and bass, and just a couple 
of mikes.  My dream is to play a big band gig with a group that can do 
that.

A lot of smaller jazz groups are not very imaginative about dynamics, in 
my experience.  Some jazz academics claim a fairly constant dynamic is one 
of the characteristics of jazz.  

I don't think that's a very musical approach and try to incorporate lots 
of dynamic range in my solo and ensemble playing where appropriate.
  

    

I started into the book, reading stories in no particular order --
what can I say, I just had to read about Tony Rice first!
Bill, hopefully I won't ruin any of the stories by reading them
in a random order?  Or should I go in order?

Great stories, Bill.  I'm struck by how you didn't dumb down the book.
I mean, you talk about Tony's right-hand technique without worrying
about whether the audience will understand the significance, that
sort of thing.  It makes me wonder: Did you write the book for a
specific audience, e.g. did you write it with pickers in mind as the
intended audience?  (I'm a casual picker myself, play mandolin mostly.)

Speaking of that Tony Rice story, there was one angle of that story
that you didn't discuss in the book.  The guitar that you marked,
that was the Clarence White Martin, right?  And what did you do, set
the bass down on it briefly?  I'm not trying to embarrass you, I"m
just wondering:  Why the hell did Tony leave Clarence's Martin lying
flat on the stage where it could get stepped on?!  Shame on him!