Semi OT: Big Brass Band

[skipclone 1]

Friday and Saturday the city had a inter-school competition for all the clubs. It happens once a year. Friday I didn`t have any regular classes. In the morning I watched baseball and badminton games. After lunch I thought it would be kool to spend an afternoon listening to music, so I told the assistant principal I wanted to go to the Culture Center and watch the brass bands.

I guess our school must have gone on earlier-anyway I arrived after a band of about 20 members had performed. A music teacher who was qualified to conduct an orchestra was going over their score and giving pointers.

Everyone got applause, and then the announcers said that the next band would be a full complement-50 members.

Awesome.

I listened to their performance-I freakin LOVE the oboe! always have been partial to it, kind of reminds me of the call of the loon, Minnesota`s state bird.

Anyway after their performance, the teacher got up and, the main point of his talk was about rhythm. The piece they had done was mostly in 6/8 time. He used a pendulum to illustrate the idea of tempo as velocity-peaks and valleys. Like a roller coaster.

It occurred to me that, it must be hard to be in the middle of other instruments playing and, there is no rhythm section to lock with-or if there is it can`t be heard. Three or four piece bands have it easy.

Anyway it was good fun.

 

[whitefang]

How MARCHING bands manage it is impressive too.

 

But I know what you mean. I once had to explain it to a co worker that claimed he thought that since symphony orchestra musicians were supposed to be so highly trained, then why do they need some schlub standing in front of them waving a stick?

 

I explained the conductor not only has HIS idea of how to interpret suh ambiguous terms like "allegretto, tropo con motto, or allegro", but he's also like a centrally placed human metronome, keeping the tempo.

 

I never thought the oboe sounded like a loon(of wich I've only heard recordings), but an intriguing instrument none the less. Looks like it would be harder on the lips than a flute or clarinet. But nonetheless....

 

Glad you had a good time.

whitefang

[Larryz]

If I ever decide to go listen to a live performance by a band or orchestra, it will be one of the big bands playing music from the old swing era of the 30's and 40's. That kind of band music still moves me...

[skipclone 1]

WF-

My take on the oboe is, that it does not blend with other instruments. It does not harmonize-there is an oboe space and that`s it. The loon also stands out. Listen to the background bird chatter and then hear a loon`s call-it cuts through like a screaming solo.

 

Mr. conductor guy also used a metronome.

[desertbluesman]

Three or four piece bands have it easy.

 

"It's Only Rock and Roll But I Like It"

 

By the way cool story......

[skipclone 1]

WF-

Basically the terms you mention are about tempo. But the other answer to your friend's question is about volume. I was so tired when I got to the Culture Center-but try dozing off when 50 people are shouting 'hai' in an acoustically designed space.

That is the other reason Mr. stick waver is up there doing the Harry Potter thing-back in the day there were no mixers, no sound guys. You don't know if you're totally inaudible or you're stepping all over the floutist. If Mr. stick waver is looking at you with a STFU gesture...

 

[whitefang]

Yeah, Skip. And consider the fact that someone seated in the back of the string section also has a hard time hearing what someone else across the stage is doing with 40 or so playing musicians between them and the conductor's role gets clearer.

 

@Larry:

 

I grew up listening to my Mom's old 78s of that type of music, and loved it ever since.

 

Back in the '70's, my Mom's favorite, Woody Herman would go around touring with his latest incarnation of his band (took her to see him at a Livonia high school auditorium one Mother's day---HUGE "brownie points" for that one!).

Whitefang

[Larryz]

^@ Fang, +1,000 I'll bet you made major points on that Mother's Day! The Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy always comes to mind when I think of those days people where people were rocking out...The old big band jitterbug music would get my juices flowing if I had the energy left in me to dance to it!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbaNYWkQYYA <---here's cool clip of the Jitterbug from the 40's. It reminds me of guitar playing. You have to learn the basics and then forget about them and practice practice practice...

[whitefang]

While watching a PBS "My Music" pledge week show about the '40's "big band" era last night, I also recalled something that knocked me out back in "the day"---

 

You might recall that I often mentoned( too much some might think) about my spending a lot of time at Detroit's GRANDE BALLROOM( our answer to the Fillmore) back then.

 

Well, I never mentioned to my folks that I was headed there when I went, as I merely went out to hang with friends and our trips down there were mostly spontaneous. But one night I came home with a small handbill from the place that I left on the kitchen table. It just had the name of the place, who was there, but no info as to it's location.

 

Next morning, as I entered the kitchen, my Mom asked, "This isn't that old place down there on Grand River is it?( Grand River being a main thoroughfare in Detroit) When I mentioned it was, she was surprised.

 

See, the Grande was built in the late '20's, and through the '30's and '40's was a major ballroom where kids of the day would go on dates and listen to big bands and dance. By the '50's, it became one of those places you might have seen the guys go in the movie "MARTY" to try and pick up girls. By the end of the '50's, when that type of music faded and the usual crowd "aged out", a local furniture store used it for mattress storage until the late '60's when Russ Gibb and John Sinclair bought it to convert it to a rock music venue.

 

But back in the early to mid '40's, my mom informed me she and her girlfriends used to go there often to dance and hear the bands. IT was the place she first saw and heard her beloved Woody. AND her friend Angie was sweet on a clarinet player who blew in a local big band that played there a lot, and Angie goaded my mom into going there and meeting HIS brother!

 

Well, that clarinet player's brother was the guy who would turn out to be my biological father, the clarinet player was my uncle Leonard, and Angie became my AUNT Angie!

 

You could've heard my JAW hit the floor a few miles away when she told me all that!

 

Well, that marriage didn't last, she divorced him six months before I ws born, and I never met the man face to face. But my brother went to live with him for a few years( in Hanford, Ca.) and he told me I didn't miss out on anything. But I knew all his siblings(my Aunts Stella and Barb) and HIS dad, my grandfather, was an OK guy.

 

All THAT crap sometimes creeps into my mind when I hear "big band" music.

Whitefang

[Larryz]

Pretty interesting how the old places and the old music bring back so many cool memories...I'm not into ballroom dancing, but if I was, it would be a boogie night like the ones the old Big Bands provided...kind of a zuit suit thing.

[whitefang]

Actually, it's ZOOT suit. And back in Mom's day, when they were the style, she told me she thought they were pretty much stupid looking.

 

Ballroom dancing? I'd say the dancing people were doing at the Grande Ballroom back in the '40's was an entirely different animal!

Whitefang

[Scott Fraser]

Actually, it's ZOOT suit. And back in Mom's day, when they were the style, she told me she thought they were pretty much stupid looking.

Whitefang

 

At least here in LA zoot suits were part of the colorful exuberance of Hispanic culture. During the war roving gangs of drunk racist sailors on leave would chase down & savagely beat senseless anybody they saw wearing a zoot suit. It was a polarizing fashion for some.

[Larryz]

<---this is the music and the vibe I'm talking about by Cherry Poppin Daddies...I'm sure there were drunken sailors Scott in every port of call beating up Zuit Suiters, This clip even has them in it LOL! And yes Fang, it can "actually" be spelled both ways (i.e. Zoot or Zuit)...The Brian Setzer Orchestra is another example of going back to the big band vibe and the music I was referring to. The "Ball" rooms were mentioned in many of the old rock and roll lyrics and were not just used for waltz contests, Polkas, Tangos, Dancing with the Stars, etc. The big bands playing the old jitterbug stuff still rent them out today. I just don't have the energy for the dancing, but I would like to listen in...

[whitefang]

Hmph! I thought the discussion was a bit about "swing era" music, NOT whatever it was the Cherry Poppin' Daddies thought THEY were doing.

 

But you rescued yourself by mentioning Brian Setzer and HIS orchestra.

 

I'll bring up Ma again. One day, I placed selected tunes from Setzer's "Dirty Boogie" CD on cassette tape for her(she never got into CDs) and she really loved it! "That kid can PLAY that git-fiddle." she said, and was also surprised to learn a guitar CAN front a band that plays that music. "That would have been unHEARD of in my day." she added. I also added some Leon Redbone on the tape, and she thought HE was some old black man!

 

As for having the energy for the dancing; It wouldn't matter to me if I DID have the energy. Since most people have told me I dance like St. Vitus anyway, I wouldn't even bother getting out on the floor!

Whitefang

[Larryz]

<---how about this one Fang? Lots a bands bringing back the swing vibe with jitterbug dancing that I was talking about while you and Skip were debating the oboe sounding like a loon LOL! Here's some cool clarinet for you! All these Swing bands in the 80's 90's 00's are keeping the boogie/swing vibe alive daddy-o...

 

ps. I knew you would like the Brian Setzer Orchestra inclusion comment too!

[whitefang]

That's pretty good Larry. I recall that "swing" fad in the mid '90's, when more than one band(Setzer)was more into trying to get the costumes right than the music.(meaning Setzer's was the only one that did, from what I've heard back then.).

 

There's still some debate as to when the "swing" era of music actually began. Some say the music style had been around since the early '20's. But the most acceptable time frame is '35-'45 or so.

 

THAT would make your video band's name a misnomer. Since the prohibition era ended in '33 and "speakeasies" were no longer neccesary. But so what?

 

But what made me giggle was the too modern reel to reel player and that when the kid turns it on, it looked like the end of the tape got rolled in!

 

It's kind of too bad the music, after that brief '90's revival, has been reduced to "cult" level interest. I know the local NPR station here, if it hadn't switched to all news back around '98, would have someone(Julie Adams or Martin Bandyke) playing some of it.

Whitefang

[Larryz]

The song I mentioned above Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy by the Andrews Sisters came out in 1941...it was probably the 1st song that really got me moving. Anything with a boogie bass and vibe works for me. Rhythm and blues from as far back as 1942 and up through 1959 accounted for much of the 50's rock and roll that I sill love. So I think the greatest generation for me was not just about WWII. It was about the music...the kids in the Speak Easy video getting back to the 40's look and going back to that era are keeping the music alive, even though it's not factual in every respect. The Jitterbug lesson video I posted is very real! It's all swing to me, even the 20's and 30's stuff. I love pulling old music back out and playing it...

 

Summertime goes back to 1932

Scotch and Soda goes back to 1935

 

But these are more sit-down tunes for another thread LOL!

 

 

[whitefang]

I'm sure you know "Summertime" is a song from George Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess", an all black cast "modern" opera.

 

Also in the '40's there was the birth of "Be-Bop", and a splinter-off sort of amalgam of blues and "swing" jazz called "Jump Blues", of which LOUIS JORDAN was considered the "king"( saw HIM at the Grande in '69 and first fell in love with "Saturday Night Fish Fry" then) We didn't know who he was at first, and didn't know who was on the bill that night and got pleasantly surprised. Over the years, I've read some debate that they considered "Saturday Night Fish Fry" to be the first sort of Rock'n'Roll type song. Indeed, Carl Hogan's scant guitar riffs in the tune are familiar riffs heard in many subsequent rock'n'roll tunes. (there ARE many YouTube clips of Jordan doing this tune, but regrettably, I don't know how to post them. Go take a look and listen.)

 

Anyway, Chuck Berry caims HIS rock'n'roll influence came from a lot of Jordan's tunes, and he too, feels Jordan was the earliest rocker, and THAT'S good enough for me! You'll probably bring up IKE TURNER, and I think he helped a lot in moving it along, but one thing is certain---

 

Many people were calling the music "rock'n'roll' LONG before Alan Freed supposedly "coined" the phrase.

Whitefang

[Larryz]

<---here you go Fang...+1 yeah, it's got some rock and roll to it in 1949!

 

A lot of people credit Rocket 88 by Ike Turner and Jackie Brenston as the 1st R&R song recorded in 1951.

 

<---but here's one from 1948 by Wynonie Harris a year earlier than Saturday Night Fish Fry and 3 years before Rocket 88. Elvis had a hit with Good Rockin Tonight again in 1954...many of the Rhythm and Blues tunes from 1942-1959, was not on the rock and roll charts as it was considered black music, even though it was rock and roll. Another example is Big Joe Turner's Shake Rattle and Roll in February 1954 which made the R&R charts from the R&B charts when Bill Haley did it in June 1954 and then again by Elvis in January 1955...

 

Many of the old R&R hits like Chuck Berry's Johnny B. Goode were considered "Jump Blues" as were many of Big Joe Turner's R&B 3 bangers...

 

George and Ira Gershwin both get the credit for Summertime. Probably one of the most covered tunes of all time...

 

<---here's the 1st use of the words that I could find in a song going back to 1934 LOL!

[whitefang]

I do seem to also recall that by the '60's, the referrence was "race" music, not "black", But that's the same kind of semantics used today when a radio station's format is designated as "urban".

 

Like the stupidity of "demographic denziens" using the term "Uptown" in referrence to the part of town where all "De colored folk" hang out.

 

And all that music you posted represents but one mere ingredient in the recipe that wound up being rock'n'roll. So.....

 

See what beautiful things can happen when differences are set aside and people all get together as one? In referrence to the WHEN of rock'n'roll's birth, take what a friend of mine said in defense of forgetting his wife's birthday once-----

 

"It don't matter to me WHEN you were born. That you WERE born is important to me!"

 

But in his case, it didn't help. But, you get my drift....

Whitefang

[Larryz]

Actually R&B wasn't "race" or "black" music. It was music that appealed more to black audiences according to some articles I have read. I think the old rock and roll black artists of the 50's that I still love are Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Fats Domino. Elvis did a lot of bridging the gap between the races through his musical material of drawing from the R&B side. Songs like That's Alright Mama, Shake Rattle and Roll, Hound Dog, Good Rockin Tonight, etc. came from black artists. The farmers daughters were not kept home from the county fair because of his dancing gyrations, it had more to do with the "black" music he was getting his material from. His combo was a little afraid of playing for white audiences in those early days...I still love the music he was doing and play a lot of it myself even if I don't sing it as good LOL!

[whitefang]

Barring any misfortune, Berry will be 90 this Oct. Fats and Little Richard are 88 and 84 respectively.

 

I had the good fortune to have had a listen to some of Fats' pre "Ain't That A Shame" music, and he too, was more R&B, and rock'n'roll in the late '40's. Played what's known as a "stride" style, and also played a good "Boogie Woogie" and "barrelhouse" style too. The Fats most people are acquainted with is pretty lame by comparison.

 

Yeah, glad that "keep our kids from hearing that "colored" jungle jive" mentality didn't last. Otherwise, rock'n'roll likely would have been carried on the shoulders of Pat Boone's version of "Tutti Frutti"! (shudder!)

 

Or worse----JOHNNY RAY might have been crowned "The King of Rock'n'Roll"!( EEP)

 

But that term "race music"? I've seen it (in interviews) used by the likes of Ray Manzarek and other mid to late '60's musicians when discussing their influences. So don't blame me.

Whitefang

[Larryz]

Of the three the only one I have been able to see live was Fats Domino. It was back in the mid 60's. My guitar buddy and I went to the concert at the San Jose Civic Auditorium. I think we were the only two white guys in the audience LOL! Fats did a fabulous job. On the last tune he sang Walken to New Orleans while walking a baby grand piano across the stage. That one still sticks in my memory. At the end of the 60's in '69 the same buddy and I were walking down Bourbon street in New Orleans and the door man at the club door trying to talk us inside would open the door and give a peep show. Instead of strippers this one had a live band and guess who was sitting right in front of us? Yep, it was Fats...I said say no more, and into the club we went!

 

I wish you would have said Elvis instead of Pat Boone on Tutti Frutti...Now I can't get that out of my mind LOL! Elvis did a great job on that tune, but Little Richard did it better. I still love Lucille please come back where you belong...

 

Berry is the King in my book as he wrote his own music and he did it beyond compare. Elvis still gets the title though...but in the world of big brass bands, the Saxophone (even though it's not a horn and considered a woodwind) takes the title as the King, when it comes to rock and roll...

 

[whitefang]

I only mentioned the Pat Boone version due to at that point in the music's history, parents would rather their kids listen to Pat Boone instead of all that, "depraved jigaboo music".

 

I once had "tutti Frutti" on an old 78 that my kid sister, only four at the time, wound up accidentally breaking(sob!). I long thought it was released on 54, but then discovered that back then the market was commercially switching to 45s and many artists released both 78 and 45 versions of their tunes during the conversion. Like when I bought Steve Winwoods "Back In The High Life" on vinyl, and a buddy got HIS on CD. At that time THAT market was converting.

 

I know about being the only white faces in the crowd. when we were about 11 or 12, me and some buds would head down to the then dilapitated Fox Theater(since renovated) to see the MOTOWN Revues.

Whitefang

[skipclone 1]

For the history buffs, enjoy folks-from my college buddy Morgan`s long-runing site hoyhoy.com.

http://hoyhoy.com/dawn_of_rock.htm

 

You should hear the double CD-unfortunately they are sold out but I have one sitting around-here is song list:

http://hoyhoy.com/theCDs.htm

[whitefang]

Yeah, someone sent me that in my e-mail back about 12 years or so. I passed it on to some other friends, and we all have been getting a kick out of it. Your friend did something great there.

 

I didn't know there was any CD available, so I'm gonna have to keep an eye out.

 

My one daughter, the computer tech, has this "shareware" type software, much like the old Limewire, but with no fees, like Limewire now has, and only based on my fuzzy memory and any info I found on the iNet, was able to hunt downalot of stuff for me and burn them all onto what's become several CD compilations over the past eight or so years. She often would give them a listen to check the recording/sound quality and got a charge out of some of the songs. But given most of them make up what others might call "the soundtrack of my life", she held down the urge to make too much if any fun of them or me. One of her favorites she got a huge giggle out of was "Pink Shoe Laces" by Dodie Stevens.

Whitefang

[Larryz]

For the history buffs, enjoy folks-from my college buddy Morgan`s long-runing site hoyhoy.com.

http://hoyhoy.com/dawn_of_rock.htm

 

 

I mentioned many of the things contained in the article before reading it LOL! The exact words "rock and roll" are in the 1934 song that I posted. And, as the article says it was originally used to describe the rocking and rolling of a ship in those early music days. I also mentioned and posted Good Rocking tonight as one of the 1st rock and roll songs which was out before Rocket 88 and the Saturday Night Fish Fry. And Big Joe Turner and Elvis and Bill Haley, etc. I must have had a crystal ball LOL! Cue the Twilight Zone music...

[Scott Fraser]

The exact words "rock and roll" are in the 1934 song that I posted. And, as the article says it was originally used to describe the rocking and rolling of a ship in those early music days.

 

I believe it more accurately came from the reference to the rocking & rolling of a bed inhabited by an amorous couple.

[Larryz]

"The term "rock and roll" was originally a nautical term which has been used by sailors for centuries. It refers to the rock (fore and aft motion) and roll (sideways motion) of a ship. The expression can be found in English literature going back to the 1600's, always referring to boats and ships.* The term entered black spiritual music in the 1800's, but with a religious meaning, and was first recorded as such on a phonograph in 1916, in a minstrel recording of black gospel on the Little Wonder record label called "The Camp Meeting Jubilee." Scroll to record # 339 on that link and you will hear:

 

We've been rockin' an' rolling in your arms,

Rockin' and rolling in your arms,

Rockin' and rolling in your arms,

In the arms of Moses."

 

This is what I was talking about Scott with regard to ships (which was found in the hoy hoy article as well) rocking and rolling in the songs of old like the one I posted from 1934. The Rocking and Rolling terms can be traced back to the 1600's as always referring to boats and ships...not saying there were no lovers on board LOL!

 

[whitefang]

Although no "sea chanty's" can technically be called "rock'n'roll" tunes, the prase musically can be traced back before it was tagged onto the musical form. The first "blues" tune most white kids learned back in the '60's is likely "Rock Me Baby", which was B.B. King's first top 40 "hit", and the phrase "rock me baby" can be heard in many tunes long before that(B.B.'s song coming out near the mid '50's). In looking some stuff up, I found there was a song released in 1951 by a guy named Lil' Son Jackson called "Rockin' And Rollin' " ! Quite a few years before ALAN FREED was credited for "coining" the phrase.

 

Sure...I believe the term WAS a referrence to the sexual act, as many claim the word "Jazz" was also in the early 20th century a term for sex used by African Americans. Possibly THAT term was actually "Jass", and you'll notice many early bands of the genre called hemselves "jass bands". Possibly the "S"s replaced by the "z" to distance the music from the scourge of being connotated with the act. I'm just guessing on that.

 

Larry's mention of the term showing up in spirituals gives another facet. Surely, many recall the old Negro spiriual "Bosom Of Abraham" in which the singer laments, "Rock My Soul In The Bosom Of Abraham..." That blues, jazz AND rock'n'roll can all trace their origins to Negro spirituals should come as no surprise. Indeed, even classical music derived from music created in celebration of the Deity. The earliest Gregorian chants were religious in nature. The irony is that after a few centuries of twists, turns and reshapings, the music of praise should one day be condemned for representing and possibly being a major cause for society's "moral corruption".

 

I'm also surprised that Larry didn't bring up "Bosom Of Abraham", a song also recorded by his beloved Elvis, and a mighty fine version of it as well.

Whitefang