Author: Buster
Date: 2011-12-05 06:37
None of this has to do with jazz mouthpieces, but as such,
I don't have the chart in front of me, but in listening to the recording alone I can hear the first A section is in Bb, the B section in Eb and the return of the A remains in Eb. A very common form for the time. (Which I see I stated in a confusing way earlier- I will edit it.)
Perhaps I misled with the pejorative "jammin'" to mean that all was improvisational. (And improvisation is a term that is quite misleading with what it actually entails. But that is worthy of a separate discussion.) Perhaps I would speak in looser words in my everyday settings and say they were swinging the **** out of it.
In speaking with David Baker (I have never personally seen the manuscript), the A section was sketched out with the thematic elements and played more or less as such, with few ornaments. In the B section, the solos were written out for the clarinet and trumpet (taken from what those players were improvising in earlier days.) I do not recall what was written for the banjo and piano.
Yet listen to the first "solo" in the B section. It is not a written solo for trumpet. That is the very common call-and-response "trio" of trumpet/trombone/clarinet that pervades this style of music; a call-and-response tradition carried over from Slave Spirituals.
The actual written solos are then presented without counter-melody.
However, when the A section returns and the original themes are presented, each voice is playing them in a planned improvisational manner (to take all the spirit out of it.) The themes are there, mutated in an improvisational manner, counter-melodies are then played in response to this, all fitting together in a jammin' little package.
*Jelly Roll was extremely fortunate to have gifted musicians for the Red Hot Peppers session. They could not only read music, but play the style- which did include improvisation. The arrangements certainly were quite well planned and executed, but to deny the improvisatory nature of certain elements is short-sighted.
It has been years since I played Dr. Jazz, and it was only once as none of us wanted to sing. Yet, the principle theme is clearly stated in the trumpet with the ever important clarinet counter-melody and trombone underpinning. (The Dixie-trio for lack of a better term.) And as I recall we played it in the original key as we copped it from the record.
-Jason
Post Edited (2011-12-05 06:43)
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The Clarinet BBoard
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