Take 'em on a TRIP..

[Perry dAndrea]

I am overwhelmed at the incredible resource of info in this forum.. and I could probably fit this post under a topic that already exists, but I just haven't had time to even scratch the surface yet around here- so forgive me if any of this is redundant.

This could also go under "Performers", but that's not my point here. The point of this post is what goes into a great jazz performance, and I'm venturing beyond the realm of combo jazz with this idea- the idea of moving the listener in different ways.

When I was a kid, the earliest WOW I can ever remember getting listening to a trumpet solo was hearing Al Hirt's recording of "I Can't Get Started," where the key changes going into the last verse, and Al grabs you by the heart and propels you up to the dizzying heights of his passion in expressing the unrequited love from the subject in this classic melody with a wild, burning shake on a high A that recoils and wails up to a high E that beautifully expresses that this heart has tried everything to get the attention of its object, followed by a restatement, wrapping it up with the instrumental assertion, "No regrets- I'm confident that I've done all I can, to turn you my way," and does it all without going one tiny half step above E above hi C. That run still gives me chills when I hear it- I rate it among the best of the major short zingers of passion in recorded trumpet.

After I began playing, I had procured several Doc Severinsen recordings from the early sixties, those absolute GEMS of wonder. The inspired arrangements and Doc's phenomenal playing are an unbelievable pairing to behold. I would sit with the headphones on for hours sometimes, and Doc would take me on what felt like stratospheric rollercoasters of emotion, power, and celebration. Rollercoasters that went all through the solar system.

There were a couple of Enoch Light records my dad had that also had a solo trumpet player that impressed me with the same dazzling outpouring of expression. It seemed in a way sad to me that there could be such an incredible player who was just a member of this orchestra, who basically would go unknown, until years later when I actually bothered to READ the liner notes and discover that the soloist on those Enoch Light recordings was also Doc himself..

I've seen a lot of the top names in trumpet play at Yoshi's in Oakland, etc, that have made my jaw drop with their technique, yet the 'trip' they offered was something akin to a turbo-speed hamster wheel. Or in more grand cases, an orbit around earth, which is cool the first few times but never reaches that critical vector necessary to escape earth's gravity and actually move your soul elsewhere.

On the other hand, in the "you never know where you'll find it" category, about a year ago, late one night I wandered into a hole in the wall below the Black Cat restaurant here in San Fran and saw this little combo of jazz cats taking things into the ethereal realm (a relatively unheralded, massively rich soil for artistic and, yes, coherent expression), and the trumpet player was this dude from L.A. who would draw you in with a subtle magnetism at first and then take you on a journey that spoke directly to you in ways that would be hard to put into words but were clear to your ear and inner eye- you were propelled successfully past escape velocity and then beyond, to realms that, again, made sense to you and spoke to you, even though they were very abstract. And I think this clarity was the result of emotion and passion, fueling an otherwise fully stocked, expressive vocabulary that allowed this player to describe to you in great detail where this trajectory was taking you.

To the best of my memory, this guy's name was Dave Allen [March 4 edit: Turns out this was David Roy Allen, aka "Quadruple C"!], and that night is when I discovered the Kanstul G2 mouthpiece (which I still play now, despite my rocky road through the hardhat area of SuperChops), which he had and let me try out on his horn. The horn was a first generation Monette that played like a f--ing dream. You players in L.A. should look for this dude's gigs- I'm pretty sure he still plays in that area.

I've also said this elsewhere, but true listening to Chet Baker's ballads reveals an absolute masterful, romantic seduction that has been missed by light years by every Chet Baker tribute I've ever heard. This guy was and still is, totally underrated as a totally gifted artist. These solos of his express a romantic yearning that boasts a generous possession of patience for his object to repond when fully ready. That's heavy duty, folks, the real deal.

To me, the major combo jazz players of the forties and fifties are a whole nuther ball of wax. These guys spun trips of colors of which the most sensitive spectroscope in the world would be envious. But that's for another post. I'm just over in this topic for a pit stop to divert and lift my spirits from an otherwise DISASTROUS leg of my SuperChops trip today..

pd


_________________
"Don't forget- P R A C T I C E ." -Doc Severinsen





[ This Message was edited by: Perry D'Andrea on 2002-03-04 16:19 ]

[RooTheHorn]

Yeah, dig that man

- Have you read a book called 'On the Road' by Jack Kerouac?