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How Many Instrumental Solos on a Vocal?



 
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jhatpro
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 23, 2021 5:56 pm    Post subject: How Many Instrumental Solos on a Vocal? Reply with quote

Is there a protocol for the number and length of instrumental solos when the tune is a vocal?
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deleted_user_687c31b
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 23, 2021 10:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Don't know of any hard and fast rules, but there was a time (long ago) when I was in college eating dinner at the mensa, a jazz quartet came in the hall to perform. They had a singer, who started out quite alright...for 8 bars or so. Then they continued to what felt like 10 minutes worth of instrumental solos, followed by 8 bars of singing to end the song. In my opinion, the balance was a little off.

In the Sinatra style songs, it's often dominantly vocals with maybe 25-35% of it instrumental (including intros and outros, maybe 1 solo that often repeats a variation on the melody). It kinda depends on what you play and who your audience is though. If the vocals are the highlight of the song (and especially if the band has been doing solos in other songs as well), skipping on the instrumental solos might be a refreshing change of pace for the audience. I've played in a band which had great improv soloists, but at some point they were playing a solo almost every song. At that point, it more or less becomes the same thing over and over, and the audience started to lose interest. Had the number of solos been cut in half, it might've had a bigger impact overall.

So rather than picking a set number/length of solos, you could consider whether the solos add something to a particular tune or not, and go from there.

In some instances, long and plentiful solos can work mind you. This performance by the Phil Collins band has 6 long solos, all but one of them by saxophone players, and yet it never becomes repetitive throughout the whole 20(!) minutes piece.
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jhatpro
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 23, 2021 11:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks for your insights. I asked because our band prefers to use very detailed roadmaps and it occurred to me that maybe we should let the vocals be the singer’s time to shine. We’re doing two hours worth of material so there will be plenty of tunes to showcase the other players.
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Mike Prestage
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 24, 2021 3:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

+1 to hibidogrulez. I'll just add that, if the vocalist is only on stage for half or less of the gig, it's really hard to argue in favour of extended soloing on the vocal numbers. (I wasn't as emphatic in the other thread because for some reason I'd assumed your vocalist would be singing on everything.)

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Richard III
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 24, 2021 7:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

My pet peeve is when the singer dances around and muggs when the band is playing. I get that a good looking singer can be a good thing, but when the band is playing and there's a solo going on, then is not the time to say "look at me."

We are talking about trad jazz here and a whole bunch of bands in the past never had a singer. They played all night and the audience danced their butts off.

I think you have a good handle on balance with your band, mixing it up and varying lengths of solos and such.
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Oncewasaplayer
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 03, 2021 8:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I just spent a week in New Orleans listening to various combos and bands. It was great to see live music starting up again.

Sometimes the band would play through the tune, followed by the vocal. Then one or two solos follow before the band plays the tune out, often not referring to the melody on the final chorus.

Sometimes you hear the band play through the melody twice, followed by one or two solos before the singer steps up. Once the singer finishes the tune, the band comes in on the bridge and plays to the end of the tune.

I heard people split choruses, too. Clarinet plays the first half (A/A), trombone covers the bridge and final A section. Short solos can be fresh and pleasing.

What you don't see often is everyone soloing on every tune. I suspect this is from a culture of playing for dancers and keeping tunes around the three minute length. Great musicians everywhere!
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HERMOKIWI
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 03, 2021 8:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

"Taste" is a very personal thing. If the audience is large enough and they're just listening, they're not there as fans of your band, there are going to be people who criticize what you do no matter what you do. So, you have to set priorities: Are you performing to please you, are you performing to please them or is it some combination? If it's some combination do you favor you or them?

My swing orchestra recently performed at the Lied Center in Lincoln, Nebraska. I put in a new vocal, Bye Bye Blues. It's the Helen O'Connell arrangement available on ejazzlines. We added a second verse to the opening vocal (I found it on a search of Frank Sinatra) and then added a tenor sax solo for one chorus followed by a baritone sax solo for one chorus followed by a trumpet solo for one chorus. Then the tune played out as written.

Personally, I think the balance was great. We play only classic Swing Era tunes and the solos in those are typically short or so iconic that they're played note for note as originally recorded. So, putting in these solos allowed three excellent soloists to improvise and add something to differentiate Bye Bye Blues from the rest of the tunes in the program.

Three choruses of solos was not obtrusive and our vocalist had no issues with these additions. Adding the second vocal chorus at the beginning did tend to make the solo section a very reasonable length in comparison to the vocal.

Here I wanted to favor the band more than the audience but, at the same time, knowing that the solos would be excellent, I thought the audience would appreciate and enjoy them and the way we differentiated Bye Bye Blues.

There's no way for me to know how the audience felt about this. They applauded as usual. For me, however, as the band leader, the way we did this, to reward and recognize three outstanding soloists, was the way to go.

So, I'm back to where I started. Pleasing yourself and rewarding your players is important. It's also important to please your audience. There are ways to do both. You just have to strike a balance. Sometimes it's a learning curve, you make mistakes but you learn from them. I definitely have had situations in which I favored the band too much and lost the audience along the way. You live and learn.
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