J.J. Johnson’s Exercises and Etudes for the Jazz Instrumentalist is probably not as celebrated an etude book as it should be. On the cover, the publisher Hal Leonard promotes it as “Easy to advanced,” and “Great for sight reading.” Certainly true, but J.J., after dedicating the book to Fred Beckett inside, makes this better explanation:

This method book is based primarily on my own personal experiences and career as a jazz trombonist, and therefore has very little to do with dogma or tenets…In my opinion, if jazz improvisation is the heart and soul of jazz music, then a clear and basic understanding of jazz syntax (or the language of jazz) is the necessary heart and soul of jazz improvisation. With this book I am committed to helping you get a basic and clear understanding of jazz syntax .

Naturally, it won’t be a surprise to see Johnson drawing on the blues as a musical form. He also sometimes uses the be-bopper’s idea of “contrafact,” or writing a new melody over an existing chord progression. You’ll have to guess — or hear — which tunes are used as underpinning, though. No chord progressions are given.

J.J. also sneaks in good advice, too. Over one etude, a reminder:

“How do you feel? Don’t overdue it. When your body is trying to tell you something, LISTEN !!! AND OBEY !!!

To sum up quickly, this is a fun, worthwhile, and thoroughly modern take on the traditional etude book. It’s available for all instruments, and is highly recommended.

• Originally named Weldon Leo, Jack Teagarden was born in Vernon, Texas, on August 20, 1905.
• Teagarden began studying music early in life. First came piano, then peckhorn. (The peckhorn looks like a small baritone horn, pitched in Eb rather than Bb.) Jack took up the trombone at the age of eight, and was reportedly proficient by the time he was eleven.
• The Teagarden family household was a musical one, mostly because of the influence of Jack’s mother, although Jack’s father did play (apparently weak) cornet in the town band. As the family grew, each of Jack’s new siblings took up a different instrument: Younger brother Charlie played trumpet, sister Norma became a pianist, and the youngest brother, “Cubby,” played the drums.

• Jack had perfect pitch and could, as sister Norma remembered, “Call off the overtones in a thunderclap.”
• Jack discovered his own way of playing trombone, making use of a flexible embouchure and alternate positions to get around the inherent clumsiness of the trombone slide. This general way of “getting around the horn” influenced many contemporaries of Jack, as well as future jazz trombonists such as Carl Fontana. The trombone sound Jack began to develop has often been described as a “jug tone,” slightly nasal and hoarse.
• While still a teenager, Jack began gigging around the Southwest with “barnstorming” bands, including Doc Ross’s “Jazz Bandits” and a band run by the famous but reclusive pianist Peck Kelley. Still unrecorded, Jack arrived in New York in 1927 with Doc Ross.
• While with Kelley, Jack created a way of playing the slide alone with a water glass in place of the bell. The technique, which changed all the usual slide positions, created a muted and earthy sound that Teagarden used expressively on a variety of tunes, especially the blues. One of the best examples of this amazing slide-with-glass playing is St. James Infirmary, from a 1947 concert recorded at New York City’s Town Hall.

• Jack became known as a masterful blues trombonist, and by his own account he became familiar with the sound of “blue notes” by listening to the African American holy-roller-tent-revival meetings that took place near his childhood home in Vernon.
• Louis Armstrong became a musical hero early on when Jack discovered the trumpeter’s records. Supposedly, Jack and trumpeter Wingy Manone buried a copy of Armstrong’s Oriental Strut in the Southwestern desert, hoping the record would become petrified for the benefit of future generations. Later, Teagarden would go on to perform with Armstrong many times.
• Jack first recorded with Louis Armstrong in 1929 — one of the earliest racially mixed sessions. The tune was a blues, Knockin’ a Jug.
• In 1944, Jack, with the help of his band, provided the soundtrack for two Walter Lantz Universal Cartoons: The Pied Piper of Basin Street and the Sliphorn King of Polaroo.
• Jack eventually recorded and performed with most of the major jazz musicians of his time, which kept him on the road throughout his life.
• Jack played with the following groups, among numerous others:

1. Ben Pollack, 1928-1932.
2. Paul Whiteman, 1933-1938.
3. Various editions of his own — sadly, mostly mis-managed and perpetually in-debt — big band, 1939-1946.
4. The Louis Armstrong All-Stars, 1947-1951.
5. His own small quasi-dixieland groups, one of which did a tour for the state department in 1958.

• Jack’s singing was just as beguiling as his trombone playing to many. Like his trombone sound, his voice had a distinctive timbre, “Between croon and moan,” as critic Nat Hentoff described it.
• Teagarden enjoyed tinkering with mechanical things. He designed mutes and mouthpieces, occasionally taking a lathe on the road with him. He owned and worked on two Stanley Steamers during his life, although one was stolen when he let a prospective buyer take it for a test drive.
• Teagarden supposedly originated the use of Ponds cold cream as a lubricant on trombone slides.

Teagarden Recordings

During his career, Teagarden recorded prolifically, and today you’ll find many compilations featuring “Big Tea.” If you’re looking for a good cross-section of Jack’s entire discography, this boxed set is a good one. The Complete Fifties Studio Recordings, with Bobby Hackett, are also not to be missed. For downloadable music, Jack Teagarden Greatest Hits is a great value.

Afro-Cuban

Leader: Kenny Dorham, Recording date: March 28, 1955

1. Afrodisia
2. Basheer’s Dream
3. Lotus Flower
4. Minor’s Holiday

• J.J. Johnson, trombone
• Kenny Dorham, trumpet
• Hank Mobley, tenor saxophone
• Cecil Payne, bass sax
• Horace Silver, piano
• Oscar Pettiford, bass
• Art Blakey, drums
• Carlos Valdez, percussion

Volume 2

Leader: Sonny Rollins, Recording date: April 14, 1957

Page for this recording at Wikipedia

1. Why Don’t I?
2. Wail March
3. You Stepped Out of a Dream
4. Poor Butterfly
5. Misterioso

• J.J. Johnson, trombone
• Sonny Rollins, Tenor saxophone
• Horace Silver, piano
• Paul Chambers, bass
• Art Blakey, drums

Cape Verdean Blues

Leader: Horace Silver, Recording date: October 22, 1965

Page for this recording at Wikipedia

1. Nutville
2. Bonita
3. Mo’ Joe

• J.J. Johnson, trombone
• Horace Silver, piano
• Woody Shaw, trumpet
• Joe Henderson, tenor saxophone
• Bob Cranshaw, bass
• Roger Humphries, drums

The Cast?

Commander Trombone has a simple inquiry to put out there into the internets today, and it goes like this: are Republicans in the U.S. Congress actually representatives, or do they now only represent what representatives are supposed to look like?

Sorry to get all Glenn Beck on you, but I’m just asking the tough questions that no one else will ask. Lets peal back the layers of the onion. I’m crying because of all this, not because of the onion, but because I love my country so much. OK, it’s a figurative onion. I’m still sobbing.

In the preceding months that lead-up to the final passage of health care reform—really, it’s health insurance reform—here in the United States, Republicans have been saying all kinds of crazy, untrue, things. Here’s something that may scare the pants right off you: in many cases, these Republicans were told to say these things. Below are some examples of things they were told to say. Please excuse the excessive use of exclamation points; they are needed to convey hysteria.

• This reform will set up “Death Panels”*

  *No, not that fake wood paneling from the 70s. A government “panel” will decide if your grandma lives or dies. It’ll be like the DMV. She’ll be asked to take a number and sit down. When her number comes up, she’ll be herded into a room with other senior citizens. The Death Panel will take their seats and activate television monitors. You know what’s next: Golden Girls and Matlock re-runs! Eventually, the inevitable will happen.

• This reform is a government takeover*

  *You know how your government screws up everything right? We mean, well, we Republicans work in government, but forget about all that. Government will screw it up. Only the magic of the private sector can provide health care. Imagine if the The Government ran a fast-food restaurant. You’d pay $40 for a milkshake that would plant a computer chip in your brain! It’s a computer chip that causes you to buy more milkshakes and eventually causes you to develop type 2 diabetes, thus making you totally dependent on U.S. Government for the rest of your life! (Does this seem over-the-top crazy? This particular crazy thing was specially written for Michele Bachmann.)

• This reform will explode the federal deficit!*

  *Please forget what the Congressional Budget Office says about this bill, and please try to forget that our party already exploded the deficit. We really are the party of fiscal responsibility, except when we don’t hold 2 branches of the Federal Government (Really, 3 branches).

You may wonder who’s behind these lies, and who compelled these Republicans to say these things. Is it a shadow government controlled by a foreign power? Is it the Shriners, with their crazy fez symbology?

Friends, I have something awesome to reveal to you today. These are not real Republicans, these are actors. These people come from Central Casting. Yes, Hollywood is behind this, the silver screen on to which all this utter ridiculousness is projected.

“But,” I hear you saying, “The Republicans always rail against Hollywood. How could they be working for Hollywood?” Well, Follow the money. What drives ticket sales? Controversy. There’s only so many Crazy Lohans Hollywood can put out there. Hollywood needs crazy like it needs the air, and Hollywood needs the “Republicans” to criticize them. Ever since 1938, when Orson Welles convinced all those uncomplicated rubes that martians were invading, the media and Hollywood has known people could be made to do their bidding. What better bidding than to buy movie tickets?

How do we know all this? It’s simple: we know because of smart movie critics like Roger Ebert. He told us that the “Conservative Republican” writing is bad, the narrative is flawed, and the performances are not even passable. Further, we know Hollywood puts its weakest performers on Fox News. Behind the media curtain, the Bad Fox Actors frantically work the levers of their machine, trying to deceive the already spelling challenged. But that deception ends here, today. Now you know the rest of the story. Commander Trombone—Good Day.

Not surprisingly, many of the articles/entries are about music, including this particularly good one how to make a living playing music. Barnes, however, will often venture onto any topic interests him. For example, here’s an entry about getting started with shortwave radio.

I discovered this website, like so many other things on the internet, through a succession of links: ElementsOfJazz: oneworkingmusician dot com: Danny Barnes.

• Louis Armstrong
• John Coltrane
• Miles Davis

Of course, there’s also a Times Topic devoted to Sarah Palin, consuming valuable space that could be devoted to something else.

As you might or might not expect, Commander Trombone has by this time played numerous gigs on the trombone. Trust me, if you were to read my résumé, you’d quickly see that the word numerous is used numerous times in regard to gigs.

The Show’s On:
Big Joe alerts the neighbors

Some time ago, one of the aforementioned gigs was playing trombone on a cruise ship. I played in the show band. As its name suggests, the show band played for the cruise ship shows. It was a kind of all-purpose musical organization whose functions included “playing on” comedians, jugglers, and magicians, playing with the occasional competent singer, and playing light dance music for the older cruising demographic. The show band did not play top forty cover tunes or Texas Two-beat—there were other bands on board for that sort of thing. For dancing, we played simple adaptations of big-band tunes, waltzes, tangos, etc.

After a long night of shows for the cruisers, the show band was often obliged to play a late-night dance set. When we needed to clear the room—perhaps because we had had enough and wanted to retire to our cabins or the bar for the evening—one kind of tune was guaranteed to get the job done: a polka. Almost always, a simple rendition of Pennsylvania Polka would be enough to make our listeners lose interest and wonder what was being served at the Midnight Buffet.

Make no mistake, however: Polkas are a constant fountain of joy for some. Specifically, happy people. To clarify a bit, not all happy people are polka lovers, but polka lovers are generally happy people. In fact, that’s how Big Joe calls describes his polka-dance show: Happy Music for Happy People.

If you’ve never heard of Big Joe or the Big Joe Show, it’s probably time you did. Currently, the program airs Wednesday and Saturday night on RFD-TV, a network that is carried by Dish Network and DirectTV.

The Big Joe Show is a polka dance show. It’s not your father’s dance show like American Bandstand or Soul Train, it’s your grandfather’s dance show—if your grandfather really liked polka.

Even if you aren’t particularly a polka fan, you may find the Big Joe Show endlessly fascinating. There are three basic reasons for this phenomenon:

1. Big Joe himself, who is always clad in a colorful, shiny, piano vest and cummerbund. Who lives, sleeps, and eats polka? Big Joe does.
2. All the bands on the show are live bands, featured in the same space as the actual dancers. The quality of the bands varies greatly—some are quite good, but there is the occasional tubist whose batting average in relation to hitting the correct notes is quite low. You get the picture—tuba farts to a polka beat.
3. The dancers. There won’t be any of the self-conscious dancing you see on the MTV. These are not self-consciously “cool” people. These are simply happy people. Remember—happy music for happy people?

The production values on The Big Joe Show vary greatly. For example, a typical episode features video that turns from hazy and washed-out to completely clear depending on the camera and camera angle being used at a given moment. This camera effect, combined with the styles of eyeglasses and hair, make it harder to guess what decade all this dancing and merriment is taking place in.

Below are some Quicktime samples of the show. If you can, though, tune in and turn on to the Big Joe Show at the next available opportunity.

• Big Joe’s Commercial for CDs
• The Joe Beno Band, with an introduction by Big Joe

…But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying.

Yes, motivated kids are a threat to democracy and the cleanliness of the school’s restrooms. There is a solution to this problem, one that should assuage the concerns of “crazy parents” and school bureaucrats alike.

The real guy. Pay no attention.

Meet animatronic Eisenhower, or A-IKE. He’s a president from a simpler time, when you knew what to count on. The communists were pure evil. Cars had fins. Eisenhower fought in the Great War, and no one questioned his military record. Even better, he looks reassuringly like someone’s granddad, if your granddad happens to be balding and caucasian.

The best thing is this: the Animatronic Eisenhower can be programmed to say whatever you want him to say. So, if you want A-IKE to tell everybody when the audio-visual club meeting is, he’s at your service. Over the closed-circuit TV at your school, A-IKE looks surprisingly lifelike.**

** A-IKE, owing to his original design, may start talking about the National Interstate Highway System. This is clearly socialism. Shut A-IKE down if this occurs. Worse, A-IKE may, without prompting from you, begin to go on at length about something called the “Military Industrial Complex.” Again, shut down A-IKE down if this occurs. A-IKE is proudly made in the Peoples Republic of China.