• Home
  • About
    • Doug Ramsey
    • Rifftides
    • Contact
  • Purchase Doug’s Books
    • Poodie James
    • Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond
    • Jazz Matters
    • Other Works
  • AJBlogs
  • ArtsJournal
  • rss

Rifftides

Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...

A Jazz ‘n Swing Workshop

June 5, 2006 by Doug Ramsey

When Paul Desmond made his observation that jazz can be learned but not taught, he had in mind the core jazz skill of improvisation, rather than the ability of musicians to be effective in large aggregations. Marvin Stamm, the musical director of this year’s Swing ‘n Jazz, recalled that he taught himself improvisation by playing along with his brother’s collection of jazz records, memorizing solos and eventually absorbing the basics of chord changes and rhythmic competence. That happened after he had learned the rudiments of music, become an accomplished teenaged trumpet player and was mastering the classical repertoire. Some variation of that experience is how all jazz players began learning to improvise. But, Stamm insisted, the fine points of ensemble playing can be taught. In a workshop–a sort of master class–at the Commission Project’s Swing ‘n Jazz event, he and the New York City drummer Anthony Pinciotti demonstrated.
The beneficiaries of Stamm’s and Pinciotti’s education were the Rochester Music Educators’ Jazz Ensemble. The ensemble is a big band directed by Howard Potter of the Eastman School of Music. Its members are music teachers at public schools in the Rochester, New York, area. They rehearse on Monday nights, but for Swing ‘n Jazz, they assembled at the Eastman School early on Saturday morning.
Stamm and Pinciotti listened to the band run through a Sammy Nestico piece called “Hay Burner.” Passersby on the sidewalk paused to hear the music drifting through the big street-level windows of the rehearsal room. Stamm complimented the musicians, then he and Pinciotti began to work with them. Stamm asked the trumpets, in the back row, to stand so that their sound would project over the band and have greater clarity. He suggested that the two rhythm guitarists play more lightly, evoking Count Basie’s Freddie Green. Green, he said, often propelled the Basie band as much by being felt as by being heard. Pinciotti asked the drummer not to get locked into the shuffle rhythm of the piece, but to vary his approach. Later, playing air drums as he spoke, he demonstrated how the drummer could swing harder by relaxing. Stamm urged the lead alto saxophonist and the rest of the reeds to phrase Nestico’s folksy melody more loosely and lower their volume, but not to lose the intensity crucial to the piece.
Turning to the rhythm section, Stamm said, “Not once did I see you five guys look at each other. Check each other out. Get off the paper. You’ve played this enough times that you don’t have to read the changes.” To the horns he said, “Leave space in there–air–don’t overphrase.”
I had thought that the initial performance of “Hay Burner” was impressive, but the next time through, there was palpable improvement in the band’s dynamics, expression and time. Stamm’s and Pinciotti’s tutorial had not transformed the piece; Nestico’s work was still as he created it. By applying the workshop tips, however, the band advanced their interpretation of the piece, polishing it and learning principles that would help them in approaching other music. Next came “Ray Gun,” an impressive large composition by Tom Davis, a member of the trumpet section, then Charles Mingus’s “Haitian War Dance.” Both received Pinciotti’s and Stamm’s lapidary attention. During the same two-hour period, other Swing ‘n Jazz faculty members were conducting workshops at the Eastman School, elementary schools, the School of the Arts and Nazareth College. Student musicians were getting the benefit of the experience and wisdom of twenty-seven professionals who volunteered their services.
“The important thing,” Stamm told the band members at the end, “is that you take the things we have discussed back to your students. That’s what this is all about. Transmit your enthusiasm and love of this music.” Ned Corman, the founder and guiding spirit of The Commission Project, sat at the back of the room, smiling. Stamm and Pinciotti had just put his philosophy into practice.
The next gig for the Music Educators Jazz Ensemble will be on June 13 as part of the Rochester International Jazz Festival. The festival starts June 9 and headlines McCoy Tyner, Wayne Shorter, Phil Woods and Toots Thielemans.

Related

Filed Under: Main

Comments

  1. michael moore says

    June 5, 2006 at 8:29 am

    Ben Webster – No Fool, No Fun, Spotlite SPJ142 features Webster leading a long, hilarious rehearsal of the danish radio big band in 1970 with a teenage NHØP on bass. Perhaps a little less clinical than Stamm but effective nonetheless.

Doug Ramsey

Doug is a recipient of the lifetime achievement award of the Jazz Journalists Association. He lives in the Pacific Northwest, where he settled following a career in print and broadcast journalism in cities including New York, New Orleans, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, San Antonio, Cleveland and Washington, DC. His writing about jazz has paralleled his life in journalism... [Read More]

Rifftides

A winner of the Blog Of The Year award of the international Jazz Journalists Association. Rifftides is founded on Doug's conviction that musicians and listeners who embrace and understand jazz have interests that run deep, wide and beyond jazz. Music is its principal concern, but the blog reaches past... Read More...

Subscribe to RiffTides by Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Doug’s Books

Doug's most recent book is a novel, Poodie James. Previously, he published Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond. He is also the author of Jazz Matters: Reflections on the Music and Some of its Makers. He contributed to The Oxford Companion To Jazz and co-edited Journalism Ethics: Why Change? He is at work on another novel in which, as in Poodie James, music is incidental.

Archives

Recent Comments

  • Rob D on We’re Back: Pianist Denny Zeitlin’s New Trio Album for Sunnyside
  • W. Royal Stokes on We’re Back: Pianist Denny Zeitlin’s New Trio Album for Sunnyside
  • Larry on We’re Back: Pianist Denny Zeitlin’s New Trio Album for Sunnyside
  • Lucille Dolab on We’re Back: Pianist Denny Zeitlin’s New Trio Album for Sunnyside
  • Donna Birchard on We’re Back: Pianist Denny Zeitlin’s New Trio Album for Sunnyside

Doug’s Picks

We’re Back: Pianist Denny Zeitlin’s New Trio Album for Sunnyside

As Rifftides readers have undoubtedly noticed, it has been a long time since we posted. We are creating a new post in hopes  that it will open the way to resumption of frequent reports as part of the artsjournal.com mission to keep you up to date on jazz and other matters. Pianist Denny Zeitlin’s stunning new trio album […]

Recent Listening: The New David Friesen Trio CD

David Friesen Circle 3 Trio: Interaction (Origin) Among the dozens of recent releases that deserve serious attention, a few will get it. Among those those receiving it here is bassist David Friesen’s new album.  From the Portland, Oregon, sinecure in which he thrives when he’s not touring the world, bassist Friesen has been performing at […]

Monday Recommendation: Dominic Miller

Dominic Miller Absinthe (ECM) Guitarist and composer Miller delivers power and subtlety in equal measure. Abetted by producer Manfred Eicher’s canny guidance and ECM’s flawless sound and studio presence, Miller draws on inspiration from painters of France’s impressionist period. His liner essay emphasizes the importance to his musical conception of works by Cezanne, Renoir, Lautrec, […]

Recent Listening: Dave Young And Friends

Dave Young, Lotus Blossom (Modica Music) Young, the bassist praised by Oscar Peterson for his “harmonic simpatico and unerring sense of time” when he was a member of Peterson’s trio, leads seven gifted fellow Canadians. His beautifully recorded bass is the underpinning of a relaxed session in which his swing is a force even during […]

Recent Listening: Jazz Is Of The World

Paolo Fresu, Richard Galliano, Jan Lundgren, Mare Nostrum III (ACT) This third outing by Mare Nostrum continues the international trio’s close collaboration in a series of albums that has enjoyed considerable success. With three exceptions, the compositions in this installment are by the members of Mare Nostrum. It opens with one the French accordionist Galliano […]

Monday Recommendation: Thelonious Monk’s Works In Full

Kimbrough, Robinson, Reid, Drummond: Monk’s Dreams(Sunnyside) The subtitle of this invaluable 6-CD set is The Complete Compositions Of Thelonious Sphere Monk. By complete, Sunnyside means that the box contains six CDs with 70 tunes that Monk wrote beginning in the early years when his music was generally assumed to be an eccentric offshoot of bebop, […]

More Doug's Picks

Blogroll

All About Jazz
JerryJazzMusician
Carol Sloane: SloaneView
Jazz Beyond Jazz: Howard Mandel
The Gig: Nate Chinen
Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong
Don Heckman: The International Review Of Music
Ted Panken: Today is The Question
George Colligan: jazztruth
Brilliant Corners
Jazz Music Blog: Tom Reney
Brubeck Institute
Darcy James Argue
Jazz Profiles: Steve Cerra
Notes On Jazz: Ralph Miriello
Bob Porter: Jazz Etc.
be.jazz
Marc Myers: Jazz Wax
Night Lights
Jason Crane:The Jazz Session
JazzCorner
I Witness
ArtistShare
Jazzportraits
John Robert Brown
Night After Night
Do The Math/The Bad Plus
Prague Jazz
Russian Jazz
Jazz Quotes
Jazz History Online
Lubricity

Personal Jazz Sites
Chris Albertson: Stomp Off
Armin Buettner: Crownpropeller’s Blog
Cyber Jazz Today, John Birchard
Dick Carr’s Big Bands, Ballads & Blues
Donald Clarke’s Music Box
Noal Cohen’s Jazz History
Bill Crow
Easy Does It: Fernando Ortiz de Urbana
Bill Evans Web Pages
Dave Frishberg
Ronan Guilfoyle: Mostly Music
Bill Kirchner
Mike Longo
Jan Lundgren (Friends of)
Willard Jenkins/The Independent Ear
Ken Joslin: Jazz Paintings
Bruno Leicht
Earl MacDonald
Books and CDs: Bill Reed
Marvin Stamm

Tarik Townsend: It’s A Raggy Waltz
Steve Wallace: Jazz, Baseball, Life and Other Ephemera
Jim Wilke’s Jazz Northwest
Jessica Williams

Other Culture Blogs
Terry Teachout
DevraDoWrite
Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise
On An Overgrown Path

Journalism
PressThink: Jay Rosen
Second Draft, Tim Porter
Poynter Online

Related

Return to top of page

an ArtsJournal blog

This blog published under a Creative Commons license

Copyright © 2023 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in