Lazaro Vega Posted March 10, 2009 Report Share Posted March 10, 2009 (edited) Bix tonight from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m., and the first hour is all Bix or related music (tributes by Bunny Berigan, Bobby Hackett, Jimmy McPartland, Rex Stewart, the Bix Beiderbecke Centennial Band). http://www.bluelake.org/radio Edited March 10, 2009 by Lazaro Vega Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fasstrack Posted March 11, 2009 Report Share Posted March 11, 2009 Yo Laz: WKCR also has a Beiderback tribute today. Phil Schaap played a 5-guitar (Bucky Pizzarelli, Alan Hanlon, Art Ryerson, Barry Galbraith on bass guitar, and I think Tony Mottola---I'm forgetting one guy) arrangement by Bill Challis of Bix's 5 compositions (the ones that publicy surfaced, that is). The guys did an amazing job and I had to call Phil off-mike b/c i though he said it was all Bucky, over-dubbed. When I hear my instrument played with such expertise, in tune (the hardest thing for one guitarist, let alone 5!) in time---not to mention swinging beautifully----, and with such beautful tone it reminds me exactly how high the players of that generation raised the bar. (Almost as high as some of the rockers lowered it-----uh oh, dem's fightin' words....). There's nothing like a guitar played beautifully. Challis' setting of Bix's pieces was also exemplary. Every time I hear his writing I want to hear more. The other thing that keeps resonating when I hear jazz from the '20s to early '40s especially is the use of thorough-composition as a constant in the vocabulary. It reached its zenith with Ellington, Redman, Andy Gibson, Nat Leslie (he wrote a masterpiece for Fletcher, Radio Rhythm, and no one seems to know anything more about him. Phil once faked an answer). It's practically a lost art today, when themes are too often almost afterthoughts, as if to be gotten out of the way quickly so the soloist can begin boring, er, thrilling us The arranger/composer really ruled in those days, and when guys like Bix, Pops, Hawk played a brief solo it had to mean something---less time to lose. Having said that, every time I hear the yearly birthday tributes, especially to Bix, there were also some terrible songs with terrible lyrics then, as now, and it's a tribute to both arranger and player that they lifted those mediocrities up into classic art. Hey, everyone: Lazaro is probably too modest to mention this publicly, but we are friends and he's been practicing trumpet---and getting a very nice sound. I heard it with my own ears. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck Nessa Posted March 11, 2009 Report Share Posted March 11, 2009 Hey, everyone: Lazaro is probably too modest to mention this publicly, but we are friends and he's been practicing trumpet---and getting a very nice sound. I heard it with my own ears. Actually it is a cornet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fasstrack Posted March 11, 2009 Report Share Posted March 11, 2009 Hey, everyone: Lazaro is probably too modest to mention this publicly, but we are friends and he's been practicing trumpet---and getting a very nice sound. I heard it with my own ears. Actually it is a cornet. I thought it was a cornet. It was closer in sound, but he said he was practicing trumpet when I called. Lazaro, SETTLE THIS, MF (Probably it's a coronet) It's good to be the king.......... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lazaro Vega Posted March 11, 2009 Author Report Share Posted March 11, 2009 That guitar record of Bix's music sounds interesting. Never heard of it. Was that from a WKCR live recording of a "local" concert, or a commercial recording? I have a cornet, pocket trumpet and Yamaha student model Bb trumpet (that is on loan from a neighbor who's kid was playing it and mum and dad paid off before the kid switched to tuba; they're letting me play it until their youngest boy decides whether or not he wants to play trumpet). About two weeks ago I couldn't play a thing -- just a terrible sound, nothing above the C (Bb in concert). My trumpet teacher said it was the weather, that when the weather changes your lips are effected just like a reed on a woodwind, and that the students in his trumpet ensemble were having the same problems. "No, it doesn't sound like that, its like this," goes to demonstrate, wheeze, blatt, "Oh." He's recommending I take a theory class at a local community college to get caught up. I've been offered to teach a jazz history course in Grand Rapids next year as their main man, Duane Davis -- Xavier and Quincy Davis's Dad -- is retiring. Wondering if I could trade out on taking a theory class there.... thinking out loud.... Anyway, Faster -- that was the trumpet you heard last week. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fasstrack Posted March 11, 2009 Report Share Posted March 11, 2009 (edited) That guitar record of Bix's music sounds interesting. Never heard of it. Was that from a WKCR live recording of a "local" concert, or a commercial recording? I have a cornet, pocket trumpet and Yamaha student model Bb trumpet (that is on loan from a neighbor who's kid was playing it and mum and dad paid off before the kid switched to tuba; they're letting me play it until their youngest boy decides whether or not he wants to play trumpet). About two weeks ago I couldn't play a thing -- just a terrible sound, nothing above the C (Bb in concert). My trumpet teacher said it was the weather, that when the weather changes your lips are effected just like a reed on a woodwind, and that the students in his trumpet ensemble were having the same problems. "No, it doesn't sound like that, its like this," goes to demonstrate, wheeze, blatt, "Oh." He's recommending I take a theory class at a local community college to get caught up. I've been offered to teach a jazz history course in Grand Rapids next year as their main man, Duane Davis -- Xavier and Quincy Davis's Dad -- is retiring. Wondering if I could trade out on taking a theory class there.... thinking out loud.... Anyway, Faster -- that was the trumpet you heard last week. Told ya...... Commercial recording (though it remains to be seen how available it is) and a gem. Phil Schaap at his best deserves high praise indeed---no one else, to my knowledge, plays and enthuses over such records. He is a hell of a historian and I didn't know of Challis before Phil playing him. Still, if he would only (are you listening, God?) leave out 9/10s of the verbiage he wouldn't be............................Phil Schaap at his worst. Bird Flight gets harder to listen to with each passing day b/c I've heard the stories 20 times at least, and (not Phil's fault, naturally) the ranks of on-the-sceners are thinning, ergo almost no one left to interview. Worse still, his relentless plugging on air of his classes at JALC is both unconscionable (sp?) and unlistenable IMO. He has, to his credit, gotten a lot out on-mike of some great people, all archived. Phil is a great guy, massive ego notwithstanding, and has done a gang of good for this music. We should all thank him for this. But I still say (beg, cajole...) eat first, Phil....then you'll talk. Take theory and get a piano to put it in use. It'll help everything. Learn melodies on the horn, changes on piano then arpeggiate on the horn----so you 'know what you're talking about'. And, in the words of Lester Young: "Don't never give up".................................. Edited March 11, 2009 by fasstrack Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jazztrain Posted March 11, 2009 Report Share Posted March 11, 2009 Lazaro: It's a commercial recording from the early 70s. Appears to be available still from Audiophile: http://www.jazzology.com/item_detail.php?id=ACD-238 That guitar record of Bix's music sounds interesting. Never heard of it. Was that from a WKCR live recording of a "local" concert, or a commercial recording? I have a cornet, pocket trumpet and Yamaha student model Bb trumpet (that is on loan from a neighbor who's kid was playing it and mum and dad paid off before the kid switched to tuba; they're letting me play it until their youngest boy decides whether or not he wants to play trumpet). About two weeks ago I couldn't play a thing -- just a terrible sound, nothing above the C (Bb in concert). My trumpet teacher said it was the weather, that when the weather changes your lips are effected just like a reed on a woodwind, and that the students in his trumpet ensemble were having the same problems. "No, it doesn't sound like that, its like this," goes to demonstrate, wheeze, blatt, "Oh." He's recommending I take a theory class at a local community college to get caught up. I've been offered to teach a jazz history course in Grand Rapids next year as their main man, Duane Davis -- Xavier and Quincy Davis's Dad -- is retiring. Wondering if I could trade out on taking a theory class there.... thinking out loud.... Anyway, Faster -- that was the trumpet you heard last week. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lazaro Vega Posted March 11, 2009 Author Report Share Posted March 11, 2009 Thanks Jazztrain. Fass, we have a piano. I'm spending a lot of time playing a F at the piano (G on the trumpet), singing along with the F, buzzing it on the mouthpiece, then playing it on the horn. Lots of the type of work you probably did when you were in 8th grade.... Sir Charles Thompson tonight on Jazz From Blue Lake. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AllenLowe Posted March 11, 2009 Report Share Posted March 11, 2009 Phil's a fine guy, fasstrack (and I've known him from before your George Kelly days) but as an historian I would advise caution, as he really does make things ups - as for Challis, many before Phil have highlighted him (see my own book; Vince Giordiano's Orchestra; Gene Lees; Gunther Schuller) - a great historian went to hear Phil at an Ellington conference and said to me afterwards - "I don't know where he got all that stuff - it wasn't even true!" and this guy has credibility - Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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