Rehearse!!!… You want a rehearsal???

 

That was pretty much the reaction when Scott Bailey suggested that it might be a good idea for the Second Line Jazz Band to get together a few times and actually work on playing some tunes the way they were intended to be played.  

The concept of a rehearsal is not entirely brand new – I can remember rehearsing with Tom Griffith’s Old Waterloo Jazz Band back in the 70’s – but since then, rehearsals have been few and very far between. After all, there are not that many musicians who play traditional jazz around here. The XYZ band that plays this week, and the ABC band that plays next week, often share the same musicians - the name of the band just depends upon who is calling the tunes that night! Besides, gigs in Austin don’t generally pay enough to make rehearsals feasible. The result is that every gig ends up being a jam session and every tune ends up being simply a succession of adlib solos. Ensemble playing is seldom featured. That’s ok, but it has not always been that way.

 

Geoffrey C. Ward, in his book, Jazz, quotes Jelly Roll Morton talking about his Victor recordings with his band, The Red Hot Peppers, “Nowadays, they talk about these jam sessions. Well that is something I never permitted. Most guys, they improvise and they’ll o wrong…. My theory is to never discard the melody. Always have the melody going some kind of way.”

 

 In a Frisco Cricket article, Jerry Stanton, who played with Lu Watters’ Yerba Buena Jazz Band, said, “All the guys in the YBJB had a lot of previous experience in improvising, but Lu wrote out all his numbers and rehearsed them that way before he let the improvising take wing, as it should in the middle of the tunes. In this way the band stood out from all the Dixieland-style bands that were often good, but long on jamming and short on substance and ensemble quality. It can’t be emphasized enough in a resume of Lu’s impact on the Bay Area, California and national jazz scenes. The band was unique, the band was organized, the band swung, the band was great. Period.”

 

So maybe Scott Bailey has been spiritually hanging out with Mr. Morton and Mr. Watters. At any rate, you can hear the difference this Thursday when the Second Line Jazz Band performs at Star Coffee, 114 E Main, in Round Rock. One of the featured tunes is “Grandpa’s Spell”, a tune written by Jelly Roll Morton. The arrangement is the original Lu Watters arrangement with some slight modification to fit Second Line's instrumentation. The performance begins at 7:00 pm. It’s a good idea to come early enough to get a seat.

 

See you there!

 

Jim

 

P.S., By the way, Here is a flyer you can give to your friends, or post on your refridgerator so you won't forget to be there this Thursday night.  Scott worked hard to prepare this, so pass it around to as many folks as you can!