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SOME 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 FUN 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
broadcast 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.
THE TOP 10 THINGS TO DO DURING BASS SOLOS:
(co-written with Dory Green)
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.
WANNA SEE ME PLAY A SONG?
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
THE WORLD'S WORST TRIO?
Bagpipes, Sitar and Accordion! (imagine the sound)
Here is my entry that appeared in Trumpet Kings about the unique trumpeter and personality Jack Purvis:
JACK PURVIS
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.
Purvis appeared on records with Kemp, Smith Ballew, the California Ramblers, the Carolina Club Orchestra, Roy 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!