Rifftides reader Marc Myers writes from New York City about the Louis Armstrong video mentioned yesterday:

Fabulous clip of Pops in the 1930s! Pure joy. Two observations: The band appears to be integrated, which is strange if this is indeed the early 1930s. In addition, none of the musicians is reading music. Was this for the sake of filming or simply for added novelty? Clearly, Louis must have rehearsed this group to death to execute
perfectly without charts.

The film was shot during a 1933-34 Armstrong European tour in which he augmented his band with local musicians. I’m fairly certain that “Dinah” and “I Cover the Waterfront” were filmed in Sweden. As for reading music, the arrangements, which were simple background riffs, hardly required it once the musicians had played them a couple of times. Here’s a second installment.
And, since the maestro is on our minds, we may as well take a look at a segment from the 1956 film Satchmo the Great. The narrator is Edward R. Murrow.

Louis Armstrong liked to tell people, and may have believed, that he was born on the Fourth of July, 1900. Given the circumstances of his family and of the rough part of New Orleans he came from, it is not unlikely that civic records were haphazard. Twelve years after Armstrong died in 1971, research turned up a baptismal certicate proving–or at least strongly indicating–that he was actually born on August 4, 1901, 106 years ago today. This film, made when he was riding high on success with his first big band, is a good way to celebrate and remember a great man.
Artsjournal.com colleague Terry Teachout is working on a biography of Armstrong. In an interview for one of the international programs websites of the US State Department, Terry does a fine job of summarizing Armstrong’s importance. You may read it here.

Speaking of colleagues, in case you haven’t heard the news about guitarist Jim Hall’s latest honor, there is no one better to tell you than his proud daughter Devra, aka the blogger DevraDowrite.
Congratulations to both.

August 3, 2006

Deborah Hendrick read the comment about Bix Beiderbecke having been a cornetist, not a trumpeter, and asks:

As part of my continuing education, why would a musician choose a trumpet over a cornet, or the other way around?

Experts on brass instruments have written volumes on that question. Following my non-voluminous answer, I’ll give you links to further information.

The trumpet’s tubing is elongated and relatively straight until it reaches the flare of the bell. That gives the instrument volume and brilliance. The cornet’s tubing is tightly wound compared to that of the trumpet, resulting in more air resistance when the player blows into the horn. Its tubing is conical, growing bigger around as it approaches the bell. Taken together, those two factors give the cornet a mellower, softer sound than the trumpet’s. Trumpets predominate these days in orchestras and bands, but through the last half of the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth, the cornet was king. It was developed by the Frenchman J.B. Arban, who literally wrote the book on how to play it. Arban’s Complete Conservatory Method is still the cornetist’s, and trumpeter’s, bible.

John Philip Sousa and Herbert L. Clarke, disciples of Arban, were virtuoso cornetists who led famous brass bands and further influenced the popularity of the instrument. When jazz came along, cornet was the default lead brass instrument in the early New Orleans bands, as it was in Chicago and New York in the 1920s and into the thirties. Louis Armstrong and Bix Beiderbecke were cornetists. My guess is that Armstrong switched to trumpet because when he organized his big band around 1930, he wanted to project more, but his great early recordings were on cornet. Beiderbecke, to my knowledge, played cornet exclusively. Many great jazz players thought of as trumpeters were, in fact, cornetists, among them Bobby Hackett, Rex Stewart, Ruby Braff, Jimmy McPartland, Wild Bill Davison, Nat Adderley and, often, Thad Jones. They preferred the cornet’s fluency and intimacy. Few modern trumpet players also play the cornet, but many double on flugelhorn, which can achieve similar, but not identical, mellowness. Committed cornetists are passionate in their love for the instrument, witness this quote from a player named Mike Trager.

I equate my cornet with a good-natured golden retriever and my trumpet with a vicious Doberman pinscher.

Left to right, you see flugelhorn, trumpet, cornet and piccolo trumpet and, in front, assorted mutes. The flugelhorn and the piccolo trumpet here are the four-valve variety. You know what I say about that? It’s hard enough to play three valves. I’ll leave well enough alone. But I wish I had my old cornet back. Maybe I’ll prowl the pawn shops.

If you want to go deeper into the arcania of brass instruments in the soprano range, see this essay, and this discussion with Michael Fitzgerald on the Organissimo website.

An alert reader of my Wall Street Journal piece about trumpeter Randy Sandke sent the following message:

I read your article mentioning the Beiderbecke Festival in The Wall Street Journal. I enjoyed the reading, but I felt compelled to clear up a point. Seems like you referred to “Davenport, Iowa, the classic trumpeter’s hometown.” I don’t believe that Bix Beiderbecke ever played a trumpet. He was a cornetist, not a trumpeter. Not a biggee, but what the heck. It’s interesting the impact the Midwest has had on music. Glenn Miller’s hometown was Clarinda, Iowa. And there have been others as well.
Craig Peterson
Santa Monica, CA
Born in McGregor, Iowa, and raised in Mason City, Iowa (AKA River City, Iowa)

Mr. Peterson is correct. I regret the error.

I had just sat down to write a tribute to Hank Jones on his 88th birthday when I was alerted to a column about Hank by Mark Stryker in the Detroit Free Press. I may flatter myself that I know and understand a great deal about the elegant Mr. Jones, but on my best day I could not improve on what Stryker wrote. I wish Hank a happy birthday and enthusiastically recommend that you read Stryker’s article. Here’s a sample:

Jones’ marriage of grace and guts created the template for a school of modern jazz pianists from Detroit — he was later followed by Tommy Flanagan, Barry Harris and Roland Hanna — and his often overlooked influence has seeped into the bloodstream of jazz.
“His style is as profound and defined as any of the major masters,” says (Bill) Charlap. “It’s equal to Teddy Wilson, equal to Bill Evans, equal to Thelonious Monk, equal to Tommy Flanagan. It’s as much a unique musical utterance and just as balanced in terms of intellectualism and feeling.
“With Hank Jones you hear the past, present and the future of jazz piano.”

To read the whole thing, go here.
All I will add to Mark’s list of recommended Jones albums is a suggestion that you also listen to Second Nature if you can find it on, say, eBay. It is a double-LP Savoy package that contains the 1956 quintet session vibraharpist Milt Jackson made with Jones, tenor saxophonist Lucky Thompson, bassist Wendell Marshall and drummer Kenny Clarke. Jackson and Jones created magic together, and this was a glorious example of it. Short of Second Nature, a fair sampling of the session’s tracks are on the Jackson CD called Jackson’s Ville.

The right hand column sports new CD recommendations under Doug’s Picks. DVD and book picks will follow in a few days.

The Rifftides staff received the following e-mail message from Portugal:

I’d visit your blog. I hope you visit my blog: http://www.jazzseen.blogspot.com./. If you don’t understand Portuguese, don’t worry, you can listen jazz.
Luiz

Portuguese and Spanish are similar enough that I was able to make out some of the Jazzseen text in the reviews to which Luiz’s blog is primarily devoted. But they are not why I suggest you pay it a visit. At the top of the page is a video of the classic “Manah Manah” routine from the Muppets Show. Click on the nose of the pink fuzzy bovine on the right to start it. Judging by the subtitles at the end, it was borrowed from German television. It’s good for a smile in any language.
Have a nice weekend.

One of the new Tulane University students reading Tom Sancton’s Song For My Fathers sent this comment about the book and the Rifftides report on it:

As an entering freshman at Tulane, I can only give the highest praise for Sancton’s book. My first visit to New Orleans, in March of 2004, is forever marked in my memory by the night I spent at Preservation Hall. I don’t know if words can adequately desribe the kinship I feel with Sancton after learning that, nearly 40 years ago, he had the same experience, and had the fortune to learn from the musical masters of the Hall. thank you for highlighting this book.
Hannah Trostle

Slow Drag Dead
hallelulia
four black Cadillac
high black hearse
and all
the people come
to hear the trom
bone bawl
look at Slow
Drag picture on
the Wall
He call again
Sweet Emma come
Big Jim come when He call
then honkie play
and honkie plunk
in Preservation
Hall
–Miller Williams, “Alcide Pavageau,” from The Only World There Is

That note you hold, narrowing and rising, shakes
Like New Orleans reflected on the water,
And in all ears appropriate falsehood wakes,
Building for some a legendary Quarter
Of balconies, flower-baskets and quadrilles,
Everyone making love and going shares–
Oh, play that thing! Mute glorious Storyvilles
Others may license, grouping around their chairs
Sporting-house girls like circus tigers (priced
Far above rubies) to pretend their fads,
While scholars manqués nod around unnoticed
Wrapped up in personnels like old plaids.
On me your voice falls as they say love should,
Like an enormous yes. My Crescent City
Is where your speech alone is understood,
And greeted as the natural noise of good,
Scattering long-haired grief and scored pity.
–Philip Larkin, “For Sidney Bechet,” from The Whitsun Weddings