Why is the flute a Cinderella in jazz...

[A Lark Ascending]

Just curious.

I often read/hear jazz fans saying they don't care for the flute.

And there are not that many players who have it as their first instrument. It's often a colouristic instrument in a larger group; or might be used on one track for contrast. But not that many flute-first players.

Yet in Latin music - especially Cuban - it seems to have a long heritage.

As I say, just curious. I've been hypnotised by flutes since hearing Jimmy Hastings skittering across those Caravan records of the 70s.

[BillF]

Herbie Mann, Jeremy Steig - can't think of any other first instrument jazz flautists. Next I think of Roland Kirk, who revolutionised its sound.

[Brad]

I think because it's a wood instrument more common to a symphonic sound, that sounds a little sweet and doesn't stand out too well as a jazz instrument. I'm not sure that makes a lot of sense. It does take some getting used to and I have enjoyed it on occasion. Bud Shank played and what I heard (on the Mosaic) was pleasurable to the ear.

[A Lark Ascending]

Yes...there are some first-instrument flautists. Not many.

James Newton from the more left-of-centre area.

Given the great affection there is for Kirk and Dolphy you might have expected it to be more prevalent (not to mention some of the more spectral performances in 70s Miles).

Does it struggle to be heard in a normal ensemble? Is it considered a bit light-weight?

I can understand why the oboe has little presence in jazz; but the flute has that ability to skim across the music and contribute to the airborne feel that I like in jazz.

Edited May 29, 2010 by Bev Stapleton

[Teasing the Korean]

Geez, I have tons of stuff with flute, especially Latin jazz stuff. Lots of jazz soundtracks, lots of space age bachelor stuff.. To me, it can get a little cloying when they're up there in the higher register for too long. But the sound of an alto flute or bass flute has a very moody and sensuous quality. Alto flute paired with the vibes is probably one of my favorite instrumental pairings.

[Matthew]

Bud Shank played a lot of flute, and interestingly enough, later on in life, he regretted it. To my taste, I just don't like how it sounds.

[thedwork]

click below for some fine, fine, ron burgundy:

That's Baby Makin' Music, That's What That Is

[JSngry]

Hubert Laws...who interestingly enough played a lot of tenor w/Mongo Santamaria, then all but stopped playing anything but flute & became a virtuoso of the highest order (and a fine improviser when he wanted to be, which was not nearly often enough for my tastes, but oh well about that...)

Just a hunch here...flutes, fifes, etc. of the wooden varieties are/were common in certain African cultures/musics, and as such survived into the Cuban/Caribbean/South American portion of the Diaspora. Not so in America...in New Orleans, where brass bands were the order of the day, who needed a flute? And in the bordellos...you can't really make a flute whine and moan like you can a clarinet now, can you...

For that matter, the inclusion of the saxophone as a "standard" instrument in jazz was anything but a foregone conclusion...

[GA Russell]

No one has mentioned Bobby Jaspar, whom I've always liked. When I was in college, I had a couple of Prestige albums he did, including a date with Herbie Mann that took up three LP sides.

No one has mentioned James Spaulding either. I've never been much of a fan of his, but there was a time in the late 60s when it seemed like every Blue Note album had him on flute.

[Cyril]

And...no one mentioned:

Yusef Lateef

Lew Tabackin

Frank Wess

[A Lark Ascending]

Hubert Laws...who interestingly enough played a lot of tenor w/Mongo Santamaria, then all but stopped playing anything but flute & became a virtuoso of the highest order (and a fine improviser when he wanted to be, which was not nearly often enough for my tastes, but oh well about that...)

Hubert Laws is not someone I'ver ever investigated. What would you recommend from his jazzy side, Jim?

[JSngry]

Laws, eh? hmmm...that's tricky...I like his work on CTI for his playing, really some exquisite work there, but in classic CTI "surroundings", which is not to everybody's liking, to put it mildly...

Ok, try these - on CTI: Afro Classic & In the Beginning, & a two-fer on Collectibles, The Laws of Jazz/Flute By-Laws. The latter is pre-CTI Atlantic work & features a quartet session w/Chick Corea & Richard Davis.

The thing about Laws is that he's not a particularly "emotional" player. He's one of those guys that approaches music as a very stringent discipline (he's a Texas African-American Jehovah's Witness Jazz Musician, a layering of societal "sub-sets" that boggles the mind if you can imagine all it entails...maybe you gotta be "here" to fully grasp it, I dunno, but I'm sure there's "equivalents" elsewhere in the world, I'm just saying that his is not a frivolous approach to anything in life...), which you have to do to achieve his level of facility. But in contrast to his tenor playing (which is wonderfully funky when you can hear it, usually on Mongo's old Columbia sides, hardly the best place to hear anybody...although he's on one Blue Note, the bonus cuts on that Solomon Ilori thing...flute & tenor there, and he plays marvelously, so add that to the list too!), his flute playing is very, very precise and, to many, "buttoned down" emotionally. But to me...I can hear the love of music - and everything "pure and true", it's kind of Bach-like in that regard - in how well he plays, and he certainly does not play rote exercises that reflect any sort of robotic type learn-it-play-it-don't-vary-it-lest-you-mess-it-up mentality. so I'm good with him, at least sometimes. A lot of his records are just too slick and too perfect for me, but...I guess that's how it goes. I'd not rank him a "primal force" or anything like that, just one bodacious musician who I respect the hell out of and who can improvise at a far higher level than many who are more blatantly "emotional" in their approach - when that's what he wants to do. The rest of it...not to my inking, but still, I gotta respect it and him.

Edited May 29, 2010 by JSngry

[JSngry]

It's spread beyond that already (a typical O-boardism ), but I believe the thrust of the original thread was players for whom flute was their primary instrument?

[A Lark Ascending]

Thanks, Jim.

Looking around earlier 'In the Beginning' and the double set you mention came out as places to look.

Yes, the thread did start out more about why the flute is so rare as a primary instrument. But it's always good to get recommendations, especially where the poster can communicate why they think the recordings are worth your time.

[Ted O'Reilly]

The late Moe Koffman might have led to a lot of jazz fluting with the hit "Swinging Shepherd Blues" in 1958 (with Ed Bickert on guitar): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiOkgKm0Tcg

And there's a terrific full-time jazz flutist here in Toronto, Bill McBirnie, who as a flutist alone has won the applause of Sir James Galway: http://www.myspace.com/billmcbirnieextremeflute (audition his Hackensack).

[GA Russell]

The first jazz concert I attended was Mongo Santamaria, 1967. Hubert Laws on flute was the standout!

[JSngry]

Here's a Laws album I forgot about...this is the type of thing that tends to make for a lack of ambivalence, if you know what I mean

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBlUURBYRng

Me, I enjoy it very much, maybe just for the "principle" of it, but hey... the degree of separation from this and Sketches of Spain is not all that much... or Bitches Brew, for that matter.

[Cyril]

James Carter plays flute too

[Cyril]

And Charles Lloyd

[A Lark Ascending]

Here's a Laws album I forgot about...this is the type of thing that tends to make for a lack of ambivalence, if you know what I mean

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBlUURBYRng

Me, I enjoy it very much, maybe just for the "principle" of it, but hey... the degree of separation from this and Sketches of Spain is not all that much... or Bitches Brew, for that matter.

Having been steered to classical music via, what the cognoscenti would view as, prog-rock cannibalising of core repertoire, this suits me fine. Yes, it is but a shadow of the original, but it's been turned into an interesting separate piece. And as a lover of 70s electric piano, this hits another button.

I actually prefer it to Sketches - a record I've never great warmed to (apart from the fabulous last two tracks) because it seems to take its source material and just play it straight.

[seeline]

Fife and drum *is* an African American thing, though... though it's only survived in certain places.

Turner's 1st name is sometimes spelled "Otha," and he recorded under that spelling.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00v9cBGpMMo

Who knows what might have happened if a record label or two had pulled some fife and drum players into a studio?

Napolean Strickland was another cane fifer; Alan Lomax recorded him and wrote about him. I believe that's him in the 1st clip I posted above - Lomax did some filming, but AFAIK, he never made the entire reel public.

Just curious.

I often read/hear jazz fans saying they don't care for the flute.

And there are not that many players who have it as their first instrument. It's often a colouristic instrument in a larger group; or might be used on one track for contrast. But not that many flute-first players.

Yet in Latin music - especially Cuban - it seems to have a long heritage.

As I say, just curious. I've been hypnotised by flutes since hearing Jimmy Hastings skittering across those Caravan records of the 70s.

I wish I knew the answer to this, but I don't!

Edited May 29, 2010 by seeline

[JSngry]

Fife and drum *is* an African American thing, though... though it's only survived in certain places.

Yeah, the key word there is "survived"...and I suppose I should have said "not so much in America"...

But...

Those type instruments are not suited for the "type" of music that jazz became once it even began to become "jazz"... they're built more for "folk" scales, not chromatic, which means no passing tones or key changes without extremely deft finger manipulation...octave changes are limited to what you can overblow off a fundamental, which on those type things is not a, uh...delicate thing to do...I mean, you can do it, it's just not a "natural" thing to do...the old Baroue flutes have open hole systems not unlike a fife, but between them and recorders, who would even think to begin playing jazz on something like that?

But that's fifes and other "homemade"-type flutes. As far as "regular" (i.e. - Boehm-fingering system) flutes go...I think an interesting thing to do would be to look at the availability of flutes and flute instructors in the larger African-American communities in late-19th early-20th Century America. New Orleans in particular had ready availability of "military band" instruments and instructors, so there should have been flutes available as well as instruction, But...

If I was to make a halfway educated guess, I'd say it comes down to volume, projection, timbre, and overall "character" of the instrument. Between the parade/social bands & the parlor ensembles of the bordellos, not a lot of room for what the flute was then thought to be able to do in the "jazz sounds" of the time. I'm sure somebody could have (and maybe did...) lock themselves up in a room for a few years and come out as fluent on a flute of some sort as Bechet was on clarinet and soprano, but...that was not a "typical characteristic" of the "typical musician" of the time. The emphasis was usually on getting good enough to get some work first, and then you have the Catch 22 about flute in those days..you could learn it and then there's no gigs, and there's no gigs because nobody's learned it good enough to convince anybody that there should be.

I suppose there would have been more interest in the instrument "back east and up north", where the work was more "formal" in nature, but even there...you would need instruments that can be heard in a loud-ish, non-amplified environment. One clarinet in thoise type situations can make more "noise" than can one flute. So once again, no work, no impetus to learn the axe.

"Latin" musics, otoh, were different in harmonic & timbral impetuses than were "jazz" musics. The object there was to ride on top of the beat and the sound as a lead voice, not to be part of an ensemble. so what made the instrument "difficult" for jazz works in Latin musics...and also, how often did you see flutes in brass-centric Latin bands until amplification became more sophisticated? For that matter, when did you see flutes in jazz until amplification became more sophisticated?

It's just not one of those instruments that can be all things to all people in all situations...

[seeline]

The African American fife and drum tradition survived mainly in northern Mississippi. And yes, they call the hand-carved cane fifes "fifes." the same is true for "quills" (panpipes) that can be heard on some very early "blues" recordings - some of henry Thomas' sides, for example, though I'm sure Allen L. could provide far more detail than I can.

Either way, I'm not sure that anyone was much interested in recording music from northern Mississippi - other than Alan Lomax, that is.

Strickland's and Turner's music has been influential for a number of younger artists, and there are good articles about both of them, available in print journals and on the web, too.

There are some CDs available as well. I've got an anthology on the Testament label.

fwiw, the Brazilian pife groups (which mainly come from the NE part of the country) sound very similar. Again, the fifes are made of cane or bamboo, and the bands also play bass drums - handmade wooden ones with natural skin heads. (I've got some examples of this music on my blog.)

Here's a somewhat modernized, jazzified adaptation, with reed player Carlos Malta and his group Pife Muderno -

AFAIK, flute in a number of genres of Brazilian music - most notably choro - goes way back, to the mid-19th c., or even earlier. (Choro started approx. 1870, as a defined style, as far as I'm aware, though i really should doublecheck that.)

I think it's likely a similar timeline with charangas - originally called charanga francesca, because the instrumentation and style came from plantation owners who fled from Saint Domingue to Cuba, during the Haitian Revolution - and most especially from the slaves they brought with them.

You can go way back, as far as popular music in Cuba, for flute leads - Cachao and his brother and sister composed danzones and mambos that used it. There's a gorgeous piece called "Africa Viva!" - with flute lead - that Cachao's brother created (partly by lifting the melody of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow"). You can see/ hear this on Andy Garcia's doc about Cachao - Like his Rhythm there is No Other" - which seems not to be available on DVD. (Cachao talked about how his brother came up with the piece, etc.)

There are some beautiful W. African flute traditions, too... so I don't think it's a stretch to say that there's a confluence of African, Native American (in Brazil and elsewhere), Western European and "creole" (New World) musics, styles and ideas - plus the presence of military ensembles and the instruments they played. (Even the early keyed brass stuff!)

Edited May 29, 2010 by seeline

[JSngry]

Given a choice between panpies and harmonica, the choice for an itinerant musician would be obvious, I'd think.

For one thing, campfire gigs would be a helluva lot easier to come by.

[A Lark Ascending]

My supposition would be that the flute has been fairly low in the jazz hierarchy because:

a) Jazz has usually been a fairly muscular, masculine-dominated music - very hard to compete with a flute against an earthy tenor or trumpet pyrotechnics.

b) The whole amplification problem - must have been very hard to hear in the live venues most jazz was played.

Today, however, modern amplification solves b) (and it is a non-issue in the studio) and hope we're past a).

Interesting British flautist - Finn Peters - who has made some nice recordings and appeared ion a variety of contexts.

The World Music influence on jazz should also change things. The flute is far more prevalent in folk musics - the recordings that Hariprasad Chaurasia has made with the likes of McLaughin are pretty breathtaking!

Edited May 29, 2010 by Bev Stapleton