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Re: Re: No Swing in the U.K.?

On Wed, 29 Jan 1997, Jack Alexander wrote:

> Gregor Spowart said:
> 
> >All i'm saying is that British Brass bands can't play jazz or swing, but

It amuses me too.  It comes from normally playing everything exactly as 
written, to the last dot.  And when players get the rhythms right, they 
are often far too aggressive as they are trying too hard.

> 
> If I can add a few comments:
> 
> 1.  Very few modern bands really "swing".  By "bands" I mean any group
> playing written ensemble music, be they British, Australian, American,
> brass, concert, symphonic or even "jazz" orchestras.   The reason is that
> you can't notate "swing".  It's to do with rhythmic things like knowing
> when to play on the beat and when to anticipate the beat, how to divide the
> beat, and not-so-rhythmic things like knowing which part of a phrase gets
> emphasis.

Things like playing the second quaver shorter or accented.  Also, offbeat 
crotchets are normally only quaver length

> The closest you can come to notating it is "syncopation" where a
> semi-quaver (or shorter) is tied to a note on the next beat.  The jazz
> player sees the short note as belonging to the next beat (i.e.
> anticipation) rather than tied to it (syncopation).

known as an 'early first', or whatever

> If you can look at some original scores from 1930s-40s swing bands there is
> very little "swing" written in.  Just as a baroque musician knew what to do
> with ornamentation, so does a good jazz musician know how he/she (and the
> rest of the band) will play a particular phrase.   It's all in the head, as
> they say.
> 
> Dividing the beat: true enough, two notes in one beat in jazz are often
> played long-short (gee, I wish I had some manuscript paper!), but it isn't
> always crochet-quaver (triplets or 12/8 time) or dotted quaver/semi-quaver.

Sometimes a 3:2 ratio

> There is a Henry Mancini selection in which the bass part of the "Peter
> Gunn" theme is written out in triplets, which sounds abominable because (a)
> brass players make it sound like an English folk song and (b) Mancini wrote
> (and played) it in straight quavers anyway.   This is a good example of an
> arranger who otherwise does excellent stuff completely misunderstanding the
> notion of "swing".
> 
> "Swinging" music written out in 12/8 time is, to me, rhythmically
> incomprehensible, maybe because I cut my musical teeth in jazz groups.
> 
> Now none of this should mean that brass bands shouldn't try playing
> "swinging" music, but it would be nice if arrangers, conductors and players
> could study the elements of jazz writing and playing - not by reading
> books, but by spending some time with jazz music and musicians.

Anybody else doing Milton Keynes?  Rhythm and Blues infuriates me, as it 
is unclear how much of it is swung.  If Philip had written it out in 2/2 
rather than 2/4 I would find it much clearer

> Finally, before someone else does, let me quote 'Fats' Waller who was asked
> to define swing.   He said "If you don't know what it is, you ain't got
> it!"
> 
> Jack Alexander
> Waverley Bondi Beach Band
> Sydney   Australia

-- 
  Alastair Wheeler
  Euphonium, Bass Trombone
  Alastair.Wheeler@xxxxxxxxxxxx   http://users.ox.ac.uk/~newc0349/
  "I am following my fish"


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