dixieland/"traditional jazz" bands needing to play dance numbers to get hired more often...
Posted: Sun Aug 22, 2021 10:15 am
This band's recordings have been posted often enough, but I thought I might open up a topic - for those of you who play this type of music (since we are rarely hired to play tuba in "straight ahead/modern" jazz combos).
If all you play are "rip-roarin' " dixie tunes and novelty tunes (no matter how well), you'll probably be hired less often than were it that you included several dance tunes.
Our band leader (in the band - nearly 40 years ago) was clever enough to that.
Typically, I would move over to bass, and the banjo player would move over to tenor guitar for those numbers.
Here's one of them (linked below)...
It DOES feature the tuba on the opening "verse" (actually, I quoted one of Bix's recorded versions of the verse, verbatim), but I jumped over to bass to play the rest of it.
Also notice that it lasts longer than an (old 45 rpm) 2:45-long record - to actually give people a chance to dance, for some others to DECIDE to get up and dance, and (most importantly - for the establishment) for folks to exert themselves and to get THIRSTY.
and here's something I've never admitted in public before:
I left the band in 1984. There were several reasons, but ONE of them was that this trombone player was leaving, and his replacement (well...I just knew...) would not measure up (and they didn't). Truth be told, I really didn't care for the guy, personally, as (though he never meant to) he tended to "grate" on folks, just a wee bit...but - on the bandstand - he was my "bestist buddy". Check out his solo which begins around 3:50... How many trombone players do you know (not on TV, but playing in local bands around you) who are this "smooth"...??
oh yeah...and one last thing...
sense of time:
I actually posted the "clapping hands" (which I really never use, here), because I noticed that the tempo of the clapping is same as that if this dance tune (the name of which, btw, is "Sugar"). Notice how long it takes (quite long) for the clapping hands and the music to get "out of sync"... More than ANYTHING (in ANY type of music), TIME (far more important that "tuning", or EVEN "phrasing") is the very most important aspect...and no, we had no "click tracks", and recorded all of these tunes together in one room in one "take" - with no patches (because that's all the recording time we could afford to buy). ...and no one in the band was willing to write "arrangements", so we just - well - played.
If all you play are "rip-roarin' " dixie tunes and novelty tunes (no matter how well), you'll probably be hired less often than were it that you included several dance tunes.
Our band leader (in the band - nearly 40 years ago) was clever enough to that.
Typically, I would move over to bass, and the banjo player would move over to tenor guitar for those numbers.
Here's one of them (linked below)...
It DOES feature the tuba on the opening "verse" (actually, I quoted one of Bix's recorded versions of the verse, verbatim), but I jumped over to bass to play the rest of it.
Also notice that it lasts longer than an (old 45 rpm) 2:45-long record - to actually give people a chance to dance, for some others to DECIDE to get up and dance, and (most importantly - for the establishment) for folks to exert themselves and to get THIRSTY.
and here's something I've never admitted in public before:
I left the band in 1984. There were several reasons, but ONE of them was that this trombone player was leaving, and his replacement (well...I just knew...) would not measure up (and they didn't). Truth be told, I really didn't care for the guy, personally, as (though he never meant to) he tended to "grate" on folks, just a wee bit...but - on the bandstand - he was my "bestist buddy". Check out his solo which begins around 3:50... How many trombone players do you know (not on TV, but playing in local bands around you) who are this "smooth"...??
oh yeah...and one last thing...
sense of time:
I actually posted the "clapping hands" (which I really never use, here), because I noticed that the tempo of the clapping is same as that if this dance tune (the name of which, btw, is "Sugar"). Notice how long it takes (quite long) for the clapping hands and the music to get "out of sync"... More than ANYTHING (in ANY type of music), TIME (far more important that "tuning", or EVEN "phrasing") is the very most important aspect...and no, we had no "click tracks", and recorded all of these tunes together in one room in one "take" - with no patches (because that's all the recording time we could afford to buy). ...and no one in the band was willing to write "arrangements", so we just - well - played.
