On 2002-11-23 05:09, mike.r wrote:
Learning to play Jazz on a diatonic whistle makes about as much sense as ir-trad on a tuba.Pork pie hat played on a soprano whistle sounds a little ridiculous to me considering Mingus played(plays?) double bass and a low whistle is too awkward and would offer little advantage over a keyed flute a-la Herbie Mann. Mike
Lots of people other than bass players have played Pork Pie. I don’t know whether Mingus ever featured himself playing melody or not. The International Shakuhachi Association says “This piece was composed for shakuhachi by Mingus, Charles”. Hmmm..well. Mingus has pretty much given up playing since his death.
For an amazing non Irtrad alternative on whistle, check out the Positively Testcard ( I plug this wonderful stuff every chance I get-- no commercial interest, yadda, yadda). Just go listen to it. Nuff said.
On 2002-11-23 08:11, brewerpaul wrote:
For an amazing non Irtrad alternative on whistle, check out the Positively Testcard
Good stuff. Jazz clarinet player Buddy De Franco heard some kwela sometime back in the 50s. He appeard to have liked it and recorded a piece called Pennywhistle Blues. I just looked up a De Franco web site and found that he’s still playing and going on an 80th birthday tour! There’s some good news after all. Another piece of good news was that apparantly the Mitchell-Ruff duo (piano and french horn) is still going.
The other Billy Novick tape with Guy Van Duser on guitar is also Geen Linnet.CSIF 1013 . Spectacular stuff. Called The New Pennywhistle Album,it’s great but I guess I’d call the first one (Pennywhistles from Heaven) a must have. (CSIF 1049)
,
French asked about jazz flutists, so here’s a list of some that I like and/or find important.
Robert Dick (Jazz Standards on Mars is great, or his Hendrix album, Third Stone From the Sun)
Rahsaan Roland Kirk
Eric Dolphy
Matt Eakle (check out his work with the David Grisman Quintet)
Andrea Brachfeld (played lots of charanga with Charanga 76 some years ago)
Jamie Baum
Hubert Laws
Mark Weinstein (has a new klezmer-jazz CD out)
Here’s an idea: Since the flute in Cuban charanga plays mostly in the third octave, with manageable chromaticism, this may be great uncharted territory for the whistle!
For a list of good charanga flutists, look at http://home.earthlink.net/~charanga/ or for Latin CD’s and articles, check out http://www.descraga.com
Micah
[ This Message was edited by: Micah on 2002-11-23 09:40 ]
On 2002-11-23 05:09, mike.r wrote:
Learning to play Jazz on a diatonic whistle makes about as much sense as ir-trad on a tuba.Pork pie hat played on a soprano whistle sounds a little ridiculous to me considering Mingus played(plays?) double bass and a low whistle is too awkward and would offer little advantage over a keyed flute a-la Herbie Mann. Mike
Lots of people other than bass players have played Pork Pie. I don’t know whether Mingus ever featured himself playing melody or not. The International Shakuhachi Association says “This piece was composed for shakuhachi by Mingus, Charles”. Hmmm..well. Mingus has pretty much given up playing since his death.
The definitive Mingus performances of that piece are on the albums ‘Ah Um’ and ‘Mingus, Mingus, Mingus’. The latter features Booker Ervin on lonesome Texan-style tenor sax. (I think the former does too.) The tune is ideal for low whistle and slow enough to do a bluesy improvisation on it too. Hey, you’ve just given me an idea …
Just a few comments on things that others haven’t covered adequately—as someone just did in providing a good list of jazz flute plyers which is plenty to be going on with.
I love Irish trad. But I play it only in private at this stage as I’m new to it as a player but not as a listener. More publicly, I play jazz, blues, folk, gospel, pennywhistle jive—whatever works—on whistle in styles that I’ve been playing on other instruments for longer than I’d care to admit. (I was playing Herbie Mann flute numbers while practicing today.) Problems with chromaticism cease to be problems if you play modal jazz which I largely do. You can change modes mid-tune so long as the new mode fits the whistle you’re using, just as a modulation from D major to Em to G major poses no problem on a D whistle. Half-holing quickly can be a problem but playing slowly and making a feture of smearing sounds very good on bluesy jazz numbers. But I’m going to order a Goldie 10 hole special soon, I think, to help with faster numbers.
I’m surprised there isn’t fairly constant discussion here of pennywhistle jive. It’s not easy to get CDs but several epeople came up with quite a few sources about a month ago.
On 2002-11-23 11:22, Michael Sullivan wrote:
Jazz is America’s art form? I don’t want to have to take responsibility for that stuff.
I like to play other than Irish on my whistle but I don’t see jazz ever working its way in.
I don’t get your point Michael. Who was asking you to take responsibility? A tone deaf Irishman or an Irishman who plays blues isn’t contributing to his native folk-art form but that doesn’t make Irish trad any less his in a sense which requires nothing from him, not even interest.
On 2002-11-23 11:22, Michael Sullivan wrote:
Jazz is America’s art form? I don’t want to have to take responsibility for that stuff.
Ok, I’m gonna think positive : I’m slow; I’m thick; so I dummy didn’t make anything of this, is all.
It can’t possibly have any connection with the fact so many jazz playing veterans chose they’d stay in Paris in 1946. It just cannot be: we’re in 2002. Aren’t we
Interesting thread this- interesting list of jazz flautists from steve k. and micah(curiously enough,i mentioned some of them in my post on the ‘keyed polymer flute thread’ on the flute board).As far as soprano sax goes,you can’t fail to mention Sidney Bechet,also johnny Hodges(o.k. his main horn was alto),Wayne Shorter,and to my mind,one of the unsung ‘greats’ Steve Lacy.Steve started off playing ‘dixieland’,but went on to play with avant gardist Cecil Taylor in the 50’s.With his well known thoroughness, he played briefly with Thelonious Monk,then spent the best part of a decade exploring Monk’s compositions.It has been suggested that it was hearing Lacy perform that first interested John Coltrane in taking up the soprano.Lacy,like so many American muso’s before him,is now resident in Paris,France.Three British soprano players worth mentioning;Lol Coxhill(brilliant i.m.h.o.),Evan Parker(about as far away as you can get from his namesake,Charlie-if you haven’t heard him before,prepare to be amazed,disconcerted,or frightened!)and John Surman.Surman has played pennywhistle on one or more of his albums,and also concertina on his solo album ‘westering home’.Kwela is a 'must listen to’if you fancy a change from Itrad.-it’s joyful,infectious music-made all the more amazing when you think of the downtrodden lives that it’s practitioners must have suffered in the apartheid South Africa of the 1950’s. Different genres,but at the end of the day it’s all great music,to get your toe tapping,or your brain working!
I have to say that I’ve never been able to relate to Steve Lacey’s playing. That, of course, is not Steve’s fault but just the way my taste developed. For soprano playing, nowadays I would prefer something like Jim Galloway or Bob Wilbur-both swing musicans. Here’s something that might interest somebody who has an interest in jazz. Go to http://www.salmosca.com and check out a couple of MP3s there. I’d reccomend Give a Rag a Ride-a solo by Sal and Featherbed with Warne Marsh on tenor. I started listening to these guys and other members of the Tristano school a long time ago and it has always been one of the most interesting movements in modern jazz to me.
In my rambling around the internet since this thread started I found another older musician still playing besides De Franco and Mitchell-Ruff. Clarinettist Tony Scott. Sheesh, who knew that?
Steve Lacy! On yes, forgot abt him. Like SteveK, I tried 1 album of his and decided he wasn’t really my cup of tea. There’s Jane Ira Bloom who also plays only sop sax, but I don’t really like her stuff either. Except for her “Hawkin’s Parallel Universe” or something, where she plays a really weird but interesting tune over the “Body and Soul” chord changes.
If you’re talking about jazz whistle, Howard Johnson the Jack of all trades guy (bari and lower saxes, tuba, I think the trombone) also plays whistle.
Hi Steve,i saw Bob Wilbur years ago,playing with ‘The worlds greatest jazzband’(sic).He played for many years as part of 'Soprano summit’with kenny Davern.I have an album somewhere, featuring a band of Kenny,Steve Lacy,Steve Swallow(bass guitar)and Paul Motion(drums).Jazz is a broad church!
