The Rose City Trombones
I've been performing and recording with the Rose City Trombones, here are my key takeaways.
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Boomtown Brass Band performing at Ovations Night Club in April 2016
Some thoughts on playing trad jazz
About a year ago, my friend Thomas Helton had the idea to put together a group that specialized in early/New Orleans/hot/trad jazz* and featured trumpet, clarinet, trombone, guitar, banjo, and tuba. The concept was a fresh one for Houston (in that it was 100 years behind the times) and instantly appealed to me. Why? Because it would rely on the chemistry of playing together in various roles instead of playing over one another.
Visit the Boomtown Brass Band website
Academically, this is referred to as "collective improvisation", an approach that was pioneered and popularized in New Orleans at the turn of the 20th century. Today, the landscape of collectively improvising groups has dwindled down to practically none at all but you can still find traditional and interesting new examples if you look deep enough. Popular music has moved on from this practice, for better or worse, and so it's considered archaic in certain contemporary jazz circles.
Today, when many musicians attempt to play early jazz, they don't seem to know the first thing about the style. I've heard many try to apply modern practices and it doesn't work. Top offenses include:
Playing notes, rhythms and ideas that are too advanced or complicated
Playing "busily" for the sake of playing fast
Playing too many choruses on a solo
Trading solos exhaustively and to the boredom of the audience
Musicians take note: DON'T DO THESE THINGS! They make the music suffer as a result of being too clunky and complicated. Early jazz and swing music are styles made for dancing, not endless solos. So, keep it simple and (most of all) fun. I would always remind myself of the Joe "King" Oliver style before performing:
Don’t get in each others’ way
Try to invent melodies that complement each others’ melodies
Strive to create an exciting feeling
Use interesting rhythms that will make people want to dance
There's more to it, of course, but my time playing with Boomtown Brass Band was a fantastic musical experience. The challenge of spontaneously creating group chemistry is much harder than it first seems, and it was always a great feeling to pull it off!
Visit the Boomtown Brass Band website
* I refuse to call it "Dixieland jazz" because 1) We're not from Chicago and 2) I hate that stupid name.
My new jam is called "Idol Gossip"
For the past year or so, I've been making "cool" jazz sounds with a group called Idol Gossip. And I'm so happy to tell you about it now, because it only took that long to settle on a name!
We based the group on the Gerry Mulligan piano-less quartets of the 1950s and 60s, performing our own arrangements as well as classic material. Visit our Facebook page or check my calendar for upcoming performance dates, like our standing monthly appearances at MKT Bar and The Flat in Montrose.
Sonny Rollins "The Freedom Suite"
UPDATE (June 2020): This post generates a fair amount of traffic, so in light of the recent events following George Floyd’s murder, I’ve decided to update this blog post with Rollins’ message included on the back of the original LP. Sadly, this statement rings just as true today as it did in 1958. Black Lives Matter, everyone. Please pay attention to this moment, read up, and (most of all) LISTEN to black voices.
I transcribed this in a weekend earlier this year as a favor to a friend for a performance. Honestly, I was very unfamiliar with it prior to his approaching me for the transcription job.
One thing that struck me was how conventional it sounds for 1958. Between Sonny, Oscar Pettiford and Max Roach, they play it all pretty straight. It's a melodic series of improvisations and Pettiford's presence (I feel) helps to keep it tightly confined and on track. There's very little stretching out, harmonically speaking, on this chord-less trio date which may strike many listeners by surprise, as it did me. This is what a lifetime of studying John Coltrane will do to your perspective if you aren't careful. We are chronologically removed from the outgrowth of Coltrane's massive harmonic risks so that something like "Freedom Suite" sounds tame by comparison. It's impossible to compare Coltrane's 1960s works (which often featured piano-less trio) to this.
I was refreshed to find a great recording full of the many melodic links and themes that Rollins so well-known for, so I highly recommend it. Throughout the entire 19-minute suite, however, I find myself listening to the drums more closely each time. Roach's melodic playing make this recording special with his weaving of time and interesting rhythms guided by a concentration on the melody above all. I've put my transcription here for all to enjoy, study and (hopefully) perform in the interest of keeping these experiments alive and well.
I did enjoy a (very slight) hint of the famous "Giant Steps" chord progression in the opening improvisation section. While this pre-dates Coltrane's eponymous album by a year, it's interesting to hear the device as a neat little bebop trick before Coltrane expanded it so dramatically.
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Favorite intros and codas
Composer Darcy James Argue sent out a tweet that piqued my interest over the past weekend:
He then proceeded to retweet several great responses. I've listed as many as I can here for a quick reference; partly because I think that everyone should see the true value of Twitter, and partly because I am a lazy blogger who struggles to update with more original material.
There are several more great mentions that you can find in @darcyjamesargue's feed. I suppose the only major missing example would be Louis Armstrong's dramatic 1928 reinvention of "West End Blues".
I've made a (partial) playlist here for easy reference. Enjoy!