Category Archives: Jazz

“Bone Masters” with Paul the Trombonist

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Trombonist Paul Nowell seems to exist in the weird intersection of trombone playing, education, clowning, employing a large stuffed banana as a sidekick, and constantly repeating a joke about tuna fish, tuning, or something like that.

Possibly the most edifying of Nowell’s various forays on the internet is his recurring YouTube show called Bone Masters, in which he plays host to the trombone-famous. Through the magic of green screen, Bone Masters is often set against a pleasant tropical or nature scene, the pleasantness of which is possibly destroyed by all the tromboning (of course, that’s a matter of opinion). While the guests relate important playing techniques and insights, Paul asks the pertinent questions. Below is a sampling of some of the episodes. You can see them all at Paul’s YouTube channel.

With Bill Watrous:

With Bob McChesney:

With Alan Kaplan:

Lawrence Brown with Duke Ellington in Montreal 1964

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Sure — there are lots of things on the internet that you probably wouldn’t want to see, and many things that you’d probably want to un-see. Yes, as time goes on, they’ll be more and more demand for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind [iTunes] technology. What’s posted here, however, likely won’t fall into that category: It’s a 1964 performance by the Duke Ellington Orchestra in Montreal for a Canadian TV program called Le Jazz Hot.

Many of the Ellington stalwarts are here, including Cat Anderson, Harry Carney, Johnny Hodges, and trombonist Lawrence Brown. (The full personnel listing can be found here.) Not surprisingly, this YouTube clip is an excerpt of a DVD which is commercially available. Imagine that!

slidetrombonelb Interestingly, Lawrence Brown was not a huge fan of Duke Ellington, despite working with the leader for nearly thirty years. The gist of the resentment? It seems Brown felt The Duke’s charisma was used to manipulate, and that Ellington took credit for the musical creations of his band members. As a specific example, Brown said that he was the actual composer of the “A” sections of Sophisticated Lady, and that saxophonist Otto Hardwick had come up with the bridge. Certainly, some of Brown’s criticisms are a matter of perspective. Where, for example, does cajoling end and manipulation begin? The interdependent relationship between Duke and his orchestra members is widely acknowledged, yet, it’s likely that Lawrence Brown’s name should be included on any Sophisticated Lady byline.

Lawrence Brown did branch out on his own from time to time. The album Slide Trombone [iTunes], from 1955 and for Verve records, is one example.

Dizzy and the Group on Jazz 625, 1966

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Dizzy Gillespie’s 1966 group, featuring James Moody (saxes, flute), Kenny Barron (piano), Christopher Wesley White (bass), and Rudy Collins (drums), on the BBC’s Jazz 625 program. The show was hosted by Humphrey Lyttelton. The previous year, the same group played the 3/27/65 Charlie Parker Memorial concert at Carnegie Hall. Here as there, Diz and the band are in great form.

A few years earlier, Dizzy ran for president of the United States — you’ll see an audience member with one of the Dizzy Gillespie for President balloons.

April & Jazz Appreciation Month

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Well, it’s been a while since there have been any posts here. To make matters worse, your’s truly has allowed most of Jazz Appreciation Month to pass without any jazz appreciation represented here. Thankfully, though, there’s still time. There’s always time. I think Albert Einstein said that.

For some (really) belated jazz appreciation, let’s go back to nearly the beginning of the previous century to a little thing called Livery Stable Blues, recorded by The Original Dixieland Jass Band for Victor in 1917. In these early days of “jass,” this sort of music was supposed to be somewhat comedic. The nascent recording industry used this idea of fun, novelty, and “jass” to “get over” with a popular market. In the case of Livery Stable Blues, this also meant — in part — a barnyard tie-in featuring musicians imitating animal sounds. Arguably, this constituted a disservice to both the animals and the humans. Other ODJB titles: Barnyard Blues, Ostrich Walk, Bow Wow Blues, and Skeleton Jangle.

Similarly constructed bands of this time played a music that musicians mostly identified as “ragtime,” and which didn’t need to be “funny.” The non-comic musical influence was coming from musicians like Joe “King” Oliver, whose band wouldn’t record for another six years.

Slide Hampton Plays Tadd Dameron

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A book of solo transcriptions by Mike Medrick

mmslidebk

Mike Medrick’s book of Slide Hampton solos features Slide’s improvisations over the compositions of Tadd Dameron, including The Scene is Clean, Sid’s Delight (aka Tadd’s Delight), If You Could See Me Now, Lady Bird, The Squirrel, and Hot House.

Mad About Tadd, an album featuring Slide Hampton and the Heath Brothers, is the recording most of these solos come from. You can get Mad About Tadd on iTunes or at Amazon.

You can obtain a copy of Slide Hampton plays Tadd Dameron by emailing Mike directly. The book is $30; the price includes shipping costs.

As has been mentioned here before, in the 80s I was fortunate enough to attend The University of Tennessee for music school. It has to be admitted that my first university ensemble was the Pride of the Southland Marching Band. While that was a life-transforming experience, I was soon on to greener pastures in UT ensembles that were 1) more edifying, and 2) actually more fun.

picture of slide hampton

Slide Hampton plays the Indy Jazz Fest Photo: Chris Wiley

One of these ensembles was the UT Trombone Choir, which played in both the jazz and western-art-music traditions. It was directed by the trombone professor, Don Hough. Importantly, in the recent past previous to my joining the trombone choir, that ensemble had achieved a remarkable claim to fame by playing and performing with legendary jazz trombonist Slide Hampton. There was a cassette tape of the resulting UT Music Hall performance that was passed from trombonist hand to trombonist hand (no mp3s then, you ungrateful kids). On the basis of everyone’s experience with Slide’s visit, it was apparent that he 1) was pretty cool, 2) was also one of the most avid practicers in jazz, on the order of John Coltrane or Booker Little, 3) was a pretty amazing practitioner of the style of jazz referred to as “be-bop” on the slide trombone, 4) and had considerable skill as an arranger and orchestrator.

Mike Medrick, a soon-to-be trombonist chum who joined the Trombone Choir a short time later, also thought Slide was great. We’d often discuss jazz recordings. J.J.? As much as you could get your hands on. Slide on A Day in Copenhagen? A must-have. Mike was (and is) an avid arranger, and he soon was writing for both the trombone choir and UT jazz ensemble.

In the jazz program at UT run by Jerry Coker (did I mention this? The jazz department was run by Jerry Coker!), we did solo transcriptions for Coker’s Jazz Styles and Analysis class. Through Jerry, it became clear to us (if it wasn’t already) that one of the best ways to learn the nuts and bolts of jazz music is to listen to, take note of, and study what has been performed by the great practitioners of the music.

Now, just like in Back to the Future, a fair amount of time has gone by, and quickly. But the great lessons and ideas are more like constants. Accordingly, my friend Mike Medrick is back from the future with a wonderful book filled with Slide Hampton solo transcriptions. If you are any sort of musically literate student of jazz — not necessarily a trombonist — this book is well worth investigating. (See the sidebar for how to get a copy.)