Thoughts and Fun Ideas

Thoughts:

I believe that there is no reason in the world that jazz cannot  triple its audience and
that jazz musicians and singers cannot make a decent living. If many more of us will
just use our creativity, this will happen.

Jazz is not too "complicated" for the average person. It just needs to be heard as a
regular part of life, introduced in schools and marketed properly.

Jazz is not a forbidding "art form." It is for anyone who has ears and an open mind.

It is the most fun, creative and rewarding music in the world. Otherwise, why would
we be listening to and playing it?

Five Time Machine Fantasies

If I had a time machine, here are five things I would love to do:

1  Visit New Orleans circa 1898 and find out what Buddy Bolden really sounded like.

2  Go to the Roseland Ballroom in 1927 and enjoy the legendary battle of the bands contest
in which the Jean Goldkette Orchestra (with Bix Beiderbecke) defeated the Fletcher
Henderson Big Band.

3  Enjoy a full performance by the 1943 Earl Hines Big Band, the first bebop orchestra and
one that never recorded or apparently roadcast on the radio. Its sidemen included Charlie
Parker and Dizzy Gillespie shortly before they changed jazz forever.

4  Attend the December Revolution concerts of 1964 which featured the top free jazz and
avant-garde jazz musicians in New York.

5  Spend 1935-47 living a block away from 52nd Street so I could enjoy the nightly jazz
performances by the major musicians of swing, dixieland and (by 1944) bop.

Would you like to see me play the melodica?

All too often it has been said that jazz critics are frustrated
musicians. Actually if you hear most of them play, the truth is
that jazz critics are frustrating musicians. I've long played tenor-
sax, clarinet and melodica for the fun of it.

A You Tube clip, from Dec. 2008, features me playing clarinet
and melodica at a party next to Cory Gemme (heard on C-
melody and clarinet but also a very good cornetist), pianist Bob
Mitchell, rhythm guitarist Dutch Newman and Jon Nelson
(usually an avant-garde trombonist) on drums. We jam "The
Sheik Of Araby." Although primitively filmed with rough
moments at the beginning, the last few choruses turned out quite
well.

Click this link and see what you think: THE SHEIK OF ARABY

Top 10 Things To Do During A Bass Solo:
(co-written with Dory Yanow)

Admit it. Most bass solos are about as exciting as hearing a banjo rambling on in a     
dixieland band, as fascinating as listening to an insurance agent explaining different
policies, and as pleasurable as hearing an electric drill as a dentist tunes up his
instruments in preparation for your next root canal. It may be necessary for bassists to
strut their stuff, particularly after they play 183 choruses on an up tempo blues, but
does anyone really want to sit through it?

So, to make the best use of time, here are the top ten suggested activities that can be
done during bass solos:

10  Listen to the saxophonist on stage trying out a new box of reeds.
9   Stand up and loudly recite the Gettysburg Address to those around you.
8   Use the opportunity to tune the piano.
7   Get into a heated debate over which singer had the best voice: Chet Baker or Bob
Dylan.
6   Steal the drummer’s drum stick and stab yourself repeatedly.
5   Watch the club owner proudly demonstrating his new blender.
4   Argue passionately with the waiter about the bill.
3   Have a fire drill
2   Break out a copy of War And Peace

And the #1 suggested activity to do during a bass solo:

1   Run out into the street and SCREAM!

The Bizarre Jack Purvis Story

b. Dec. 11, 1906, Kokomo, IN, d. Mar. 30, 1962, San Francisco, CA
Of all the trumpeters in the Trumpet Kings book, the one with the most bizarre life was Jack Purvis, a fascinating
personality whose complete story will probably never be found out. Purvis was involved in so many odd   
adventures and escapades in his life that it is almost as if there were three of him!

First for his musical career. Purvis’ mother died when he was a child and he spent several years in a training school
where he trumpet and trombone. He played in high school orchestras and dance bands in Kokomo as early as 1921
and gigged in Indiana in 1923 as a teenager. Purvis spent a period in Lexington, Kentucky with the Original
Kentucky Night Hawks and in 1926 toured New England with Bud Rice’s band. Next up was a stint with Whitey
Kaufman’s Original Pennsylvanians (1926-27). After a short period playing trombone with Hal Kemp, in July 1928
Purvis visited France with George Carhart’s Band.  Back in the U.S., in 1929 he rejoined Hal Kemp’s orchestra, this
time on trumpet.

Wilson’s Georgia Crackers, Ted Wallace and Rube Bloom during 1929-30. Most significant were two numbers cut
on Dec. 17, 1929 with the Hal Kemp rhythm section (the intriguing “Copyin’ Louis” and “Mental Strain At Dawn”),
and a pair of interracial sessions that he led in 1930. The latter utilized such sidemen as trombonist J.C.
Higginbotham, tenor-saxophonist Coleman Hawkins and bass-saxophonist Adrian Rollini. Purvis’ playing is full of
fiery bursts, unrealized potential and some crazy chancetaking, just like his life was. Although the Louis Armstrong
influence was unashamedly part of his style (few white trumpeters sounded as much like Satch at that point in
time), Purvis also sounds quite original in spots and, if he had continued in this direction, he might have been one
of the top trumpeters in jazz.

Purvis left Kemp in early 1930, played a bit with the California Ramblers and several radio orchestras, recorded
with the Dorsey Brothers, occasionally sat in as fourth trumpeter with Fletcher Henderson (spontaneously
improvising his ensemble parts) and was mostly with Fred Waring during 1931-32. Purvis traveled through the
South with Charlie Barnet in 1933. In Los Angeles he did some writing for the George Stoll Orchestra and some
studio arranging for Warner Bros. including composing “Legends Of Haiti” for a 110-piece orchestra! After being
off the scene, in 1935 he returned to New York, led a quartet, made his final recordings (with Frank Froeba),
toured for a couple weeks with Joe Haymes’ Orchestra and then dropped out of sight.

But that is only a small part of the Jack Purvis Story. John Chilton in his Who's Who Of Jazz and Richard Sudhalter
in Lost Chords (both are great books) have pieced together some but not all of the details of Purvis’ unique life. In
1925, Purvis took time off from his playing with the Original Kentucky Night Hawks in order to learn how to pilot a
plane. A few years later, when someone bet Purvis that he could not fly under all of New York City’s bridges, he
reportedly rented a plane and proved him wrong.

In 1928 when Purvis was hired for the George Carhart band, he played with the orchestra on the first night of their
transatlantic voyage to France. He then ran across a couple of famous aviators, talked them into letting him share
their first class cabin and was not seen by the other musicians for the rest of the trip, choosing instead to play with
the Ted Lewis band which was entertaining the first class passengers. After rejoining Carhart’s group in Paris, a
couple weeks later he was spotted by his roommates making a rather quick exit from their hotel room via the roof
while being chased by French policemen. He had apparently conned an American tourist out of his traveler’s
checks.

At one point in time in the late 1920’s, Jack Purvis ran the short-lived School of Grecian Dancing in Miami.
Because he was soon wanted by the local police due to moral charges with the ill-fated school, he had to quit Hal
Kemp’s band in Jan. 1930 when a Florida tour was planned. By then he had earned the reputation of setting his
hotel rooms on fire and not paying his bills.

Purvis’ Southern trip with Charlie Barnet was full of colorful incidents. Passing through Louisiana, Purvis managed
to talk himself into an appearance with the New Orleans Symphony playing The Carnival of Venice. He deserted
Barnet for a time in El Paso, Texas when he decided to work as a pilot by flying cargo (probably illegal goods)
between Mexico and the U.S.  

And during his Los Angeles stay, he was arrested at one point for standing in the middle of a busy road tunnel and
playing his horn; he told the police that he loved the acoustics! After his period with Warner Bros. ended, Purvis
worked for a time as a chef in San Francisco. There have also been rumors that he worked as a mercenary in South
America and as a chef in Bali but that has not been confirmed.

In 1937 Purvis walked into a club in San Pedro, California, carrying a horn and calling himself Jack Jackson (the
name of a British trumpeter). He told the bandleader (Johnny Catron) that he had been a ship’s cook on a freighter
and that police were after him about a murder investigation. A few months later he was working as a cook in Texas
but that job was cut short when he was sent to prison in June for being involved in a robbery in El Paso. In jail,
Purvis directed and played piano with a prison band, the Rhythmic Swingsters, broadcasting on radio station
WBAP regularly in 1938. Purvis received a conditional pardon in Aug. 1940 but soon violated it and spent six
more years in prison until being released on Sept. 30, 1946. Jack Purvis’ later jobs (he never returned to music)
included flying planes in Florida, working as a carpenter and being a radio repairman in San Francisco. He
committed suicide in 1962, maybe.

Quite consistent with his bizarre and mysterious life is the fact that a man who looked like Jack Purvis and was
about the right age showed up at a gig by cornetist Jim Goodwin and they had long discussions about his life on two
occasions. It was 1968!
World's Worst Trio?
Bagpipes, Sitar and Accordion!