First Dixie Gig

[jhatpro]

I lean toward a loosely-goosey approach with as much collective improv as possible using only lead sheets as needed and the only roadmap being who's going to take the melody to begin with head nods to point the rest of the way for lead playing and soloing.

Am I being too casual about it?
_________________
Jim Hatfield

"The notes are there - find them.” Mingus

2021 Martinus Geelan Custom
2005 Bach 180-72R
1965 Getzen Eterna Severinsen
1946 Conn Victor
1998 Scodwell flugel
1986 Bach 181 cornet
1954 Conn 80A cornet
2002 Getzen bugle

[Hugh Anderson]

no

[dershem]

If the players are good, that usually works best. If they're not, why do it in the first place?

[jhatpro]

The players are plenty good enough but they're used to concert band, big band and brass band where things are much more scripted, as you know.
_________________
Jim Hatfield

"The notes are there - find them.” Mingus

2021 Martinus Geelan Custom
2005 Bach 180-72R
1965 Getzen Eterna Severinsen
1946 Conn Victor
1998 Scodwell flugel
1986 Bach 181 cornet
1954 Conn 80A cornet
2002 Getzen bugle

[Oncewasaplayer]

Sharing common lead sheets is the way to start doing this. Your goal is to have a group of players who are comfortable paying attention to your nods and finger pointing, either soloing on the fly or moving to ensemble playing. That's what you want.

As the trumpet player, your first job is to hit that melody (which centers the collective ensemble) and your second task is to direct the proceedings. You indicate solos, when to return to the head melody and also whether we are going to add tags. It's challenging, fun and always interesting.

However it takes some practice to get everyone doing this. With my group, we struggled with all this for a while. Sometimes people are busy looking at their part, looking elsewhere and can miss your directions. We found, at first, it helped to write some notes on the parts as reminders. My notes might read: Head, clarinet (solo), trombone, banjo, sing, head, drums ( 8 ), 8 bar tag.

After following these notes and rehearsing the tune many times, we became more comfortable with those structures and surprising, suddenly comfortable with changing things up. When we all really know the tunes, we can make some surprisingly good music. Enjoy!
_________________
Getzen 800DLX cornet
Selmer Sigma trumpet

[jhatpro]

Great advice! My goal is to become as comfortable as Tuba Skinny. Just learned that the cornet player/leader, Shaye Cohn, is Al Cohn's granddaughter! No wonder she's so good!
_________________
Jim Hatfield

"The notes are there - find them.” Mingus

2021 Martinus Geelan Custom
2005 Bach 180-72R
1965 Getzen Eterna Severinsen
1946 Conn Victor
1998 Scodwell flugel
1986 Bach 181 cornet
1954 Conn 80A cornet
2002 Getzen bugle

[Benge.nut]

Dixie isn't my forte, but playing in other small group jazz settings I learned a few things:

Memorize tunes. I've got around 100+ tunes I have memorized and know inside and out. And loads more I "sorta" know and just need a brief refresher.

Know the form. Not just "A-A-B-A" but know the form related to numbers like "iii-VI-ii-V-I going to the IV on the bridge" etc. this way transposing keys is easier.

Shuffling through fake books, iPads and lead sheets, not only looks unprofessional, but it slows the process and adds confusion.

But if you're not at that level with your musicians you're not at a level where nods and eye contact will work the best, and might have to write out road maps for each tune and have the leader "direct" and cue stuff more.

Ideally to get away from that, memorizing and internalizing tunes and and learning how each other plays is the only way to get to the organic place you want to achieve.

[Richard III]

I lean over and say with a finger point, "You're taking the next one," or "one more time." That way the rest of the band hears it and follows. My collection of misfits doesn't have the quality of yours, so they need more direction. We have road maps for every song, but like in battle, the plan only stays intact until the battle starts. I do all the arranging. I dumbed it down for the first gig. Changed it up for the second and so forth. Each gig brings us closer to the goal. Happy trails or trials.
_________________
Richard

Conn 22B Trumpet
York Eminence Model 4028 Cornet
1903 Conn The Wonder Cornet

[Richard III]

[Oncewasaplayer]

Ragged is ok and sometimes good. Playing without music is a reasonable and important goal for performance.

Learning tunes is a challenge. Like your players, we are all busy with jobs, life and other things. It was helpful for us all to sing the melody and words in order to internalize the melodies. (We sometimes group sing to ourselves behind soloists during rehearsal.) We found that after considerable rehearsal, we were able to begin to memorize tunes. We would pick one tune, rehearse it and then challenge each other to play it next time without music. We needed several rehearsals and time in order to really memorize the tune. It's doable. Just takes time. One tune at a time.

The trad jazz genre is the beginning of the great American songbook so you're working with some important and beautiful music. I found that many tunes use similar chord movements and so the more tunes you learn, you'll discover parallel chord changes. Remember that youtube is your friend. Pick a tune and search online to hear a dozen or more performers.
_________________
Getzen 800DLX cornet
Selmer Sigma trumpet

[Benge.nut]

[derby_mute]

THE most important thing to learn to play dixieland or traditional jazz is to take some time and listen to the original recordings by the masters of the genre - Louis Armstrong, King Oliver, Sidney Bechet, Jelly Roll Morton, Bix Beiderbecke - et. many al. That's how to learn to do it. Their recordings are easily accessible on youtube.

Speaking as someone who worked full time 13 years on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, and have made more the 50 recordings, I find one of the giveaways that someone really doesn't know the music is using the term "dixie." It always speaks "amateur" to me. Originally the music was called jazz, or dixieland, but never "dixie" by the guys who played it originally.
_________________
Cornets:
Selmer model #43
Selmer Concept
Baldwin Custom (Blessing Artist stencil)
1923 Buescher shepherd's crook
1880 F. Besson Paris
Trumpets:
1931 Cleveland Greyhound
1935 Olds French model

[Tobias]

Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EadpcjMB_2s
there is great advice.
Tobias
_________________
Conn Connstellation 38b
Olds Special (1954)
Getzen Eterna
Flgh Bach Strad 183

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCu_ROyOxKhTAa_45c8H93lQ

[gstump]

[Tobias]

Hello Gordon,
i really love your Jazz Insights podcasts.
Thanks for these!
Cheers, Tobias
_________________
Conn Connstellation 38b
Olds Special (1954)
Getzen Eterna
Flgh Bach Strad 183

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCu_ROyOxKhTAa_45c8H93lQ

[etc-etc]

[derby_mute]

[gstump]

[Tobias]

Hi Gordon,
i took you for Gordon Vernick, sorry.
He has produced a wonderful series of educational podcasts on jazz styles and greats.
Cheers,
Tobias
_________________
Conn Connstellation 38b
Olds Special (1954)
Getzen Eterna
Flgh Bach Strad 183

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCu_ROyOxKhTAa_45c8H93lQ