Author: seabreeze
Date: 2020-07-13 23:48
New Orleans in the last decade of the 19th century and the first two decades of the 20th century was a major port city of many and diverse cultures. The three Tios, (the two Lorenzos, father and son, and the uncle "Papa Louis") were Creoles with ties to Mexico. Barney Bigard said he got the theme for "Mood Indigo" from a tune one of the Tios played (which seems to have been called "Dreamy Blues" before Mills wrote the lyrics for it). The Tios seem to have played double lip on Albert system clarinets, and could range their styles from Latin American music, "Society" dance music for the New Orleans elite (which was generally all written out rather than improvised), European classical music, and the emerging genres of ragtime and jazz. They were, in a word, quite versatile. The players who studied with them turned out sounding unlike one another and quite individualistic. Dodds was nervously creative and edgy; Bigard broad, covered, and dark with a remarkable propensity for long glissandi, both ascending and descending; Noone smooth, unusually articulate and technical, Bechet bluesy, blunt, assertive, bossy, and vibrant, and so forth. Some of the students (Noone) probably worked assiduously through the Klose and Lazarus methods while others (Bechet) just sort of hung out and absorbed selectively from the Tio jr., Big Eye Louis Nelson, Alphone Picou, George Bacquet and whoever else attracted their fancy. The Tios were warm and inviting--willing to demonstrate, guide, correct, and instruct whoever sought out their guidance. The vibes from their clarinet studio radiated out to players they never directly taught--Leon Roppolo, Benny Goodman, Shaw and many more. The Tios were the very matrix of jazz clarinet, and their example surely encouraged others to share their knowledge.
One of the best scholarly sources on the Tio family is the 1993 dissertation
by Charles E. Kinser for Louisiana State University, "The Tio Family: Four Generations of New Orleans Musicians."
Post Edited (2020-10-03 09:18)
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The Clarinet BBoard
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