Klarinet Archive - Posting 001225.txt from 2003/03

From: Dan Leeson <leeson0@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Young Man With a Horn
Date: Sun, 30 Mar 2003 10:42:55 -0500

Ed Lacy mentioned this movie and I want to comment on a very brief scene
in the film, the issue being the matter of improvisational ability, at
least from Hollywood's point of view.

The young Bix Beiderbecke is seen wandering around New Orleans.
Suddenly he hears some dixieland jazz and peers through a window at a
band made up entirely of African-Americans playing the standard stuff.

He wanders in trying to understand how they can play without written
music, with such improvisational elegance. He has no idea how to do this
himself and is fascinated by what he sees and hears.

Finally, at a break, he speaks to the lead trumpet player (who, as I
remember, was played by the same actor who did Uncle Remus in Walt
Disney's "Songs of the South"), and asks him, "How do you do that?,"
meaning of course the secrets of improvising.

The trumpet player says, "Son. You just gotta feel it, that's all."

And instantaneously, Kirk Douglas gets the magic feeling and plays 23
straight choruses of Royal Garden Blues.

For years, that is what I thought was true about jazz and classical
improvisation. I didn't do it well not because I was untrained, but
because I didn't understand how "to feel it."

Now that was a scene full of horsehockey!
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**Dan Leeson **
**leeson0@-----.net **
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