List of the Month

List of the Month

Favorite Male Singers who have influenced me (in the order and way that I was influenced)

1.  Frank Sinatra - I began to learn about phrasing for the meaning of a lyric from him. Breath support, notebending for the style. Unshakeable self-confidence.

2.  Louis Armstrong - The voice as horn - the horn as voice. Improvising rhythm in your phrasing, and sincerity.

3.  Nat Cole - Enunciation and smoothness.

4.  Sam Cooke - Back of the throat melisma. Refined joy.

5.  Ray Charles - Manipulating coloration with the inside surface of the lips. Controlling screamin in the lower throat without hurting myself. Passion.

6.  Marvin Gaye - Changing pressure within a phrase. Hard rhythmic phrasing, improvising rhythmic phrasing.

7.  Smokey Robinson - Breath control in light applications. Falsetto high up in the head

8.  Muddy Waters - Force. Blues notebending and alternate pronunciation for personal authenticity.

9.  Little Willie John - Emotional tension from singing up near the break. Intensity. Expressing pain.

10.  Claude Jeter - Different kinds of falsetto from full to light and ecstatic. Changing timbres and volume levels within a phrase.

11.  Julius Cheeks - Roughening up the voice in the bottom of the throat (“Squalling”) for a raspy, explosive effect.

12.  Stevie Wonder - Modern very tight ornamentation, well back in the throat but controlled behind the lips. Powerful breath control.

Some favorite Armstrong recordings and why they stand out for me

1. Wild Man Blues (1927) - in the stop time passages, he carries the time deeper.
2. Potato Head Blues (1927) - again, you can feel the time stronger when the rhythm section has stopped.
3. Weather Bird (1928) - duet with Hines allows us to feel the time in a more modern way, with out the rest of the rhythm to date it.
4. Blue Again (1931) - he thinks rhythm first - not harmony, not even melody: rhythm.
5. When Your Lover Has Gone (1931) - declarative opening of solo and where he takes it.
6. Stardust (1931 - issued take) - using the saxes to accent the one and the three leads to majestic rolling phrases.
7. Lawd, You Made the Night Too Long (1932) - who wrote that the solo starts like Beethoven? This one's deep.
8. Laughin' Louie (1933 - issued take) - sublimity in the playing, and a life-force which laughs in the face of doom.
9. Song of the Vipers (1934) - otherworldly glissandos.
10. Swing That Music (1936 - not the later one) - in the last part of the solo, on the repeated notes, rhythm so deep I can barely listen to it, much less play it.
11. My Walking Stick (1938) - he scales back his sound to blend with the vocal horn imitations of the Mills Brothers. Vocal horns, indeed!
12. Snafu (1946) - first cut of his with Hodges and Ellington that I encountered. Tone and tone.
13. Raymond St. Blues (1946) - hard to find (recorded for the film "New Orleans", but unused, and issued on Definitive in 1999) - he changes his tone and growls the beginning of this old NO tune. It lasts less than a minute, but there's a phrase where the growl makes him sound like Sidney Bechet. If you know their history, it's delicious.
14. Short But Sweet (1966) - pure distillation of sound and economy of means makes this my favorite example of his poignant late style.
These are deep scratches on the surface, but only scratches: one lifetime is not enough to listen to Louis. You may begin...
Ten Songs I Wish I'd Written
(in no particular order)
1. You Don't Know Me (Eddy Arnold) - favorite performance: Ray Charles, Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music. I like songs that tell a story and offer a dramatic situation succinctly. Don't overlook country songs because you don't care for the style - there are great songs in every style.
2. I Didn't Know About You (Duke Ellington/Bob Russell) - favorite performance: Sylvia Syms, Lovingly. This was written as an instrumental first, like so many of Duke's sings. Unlike many of them, it was given a lyric worthy of the music later.
3. All Along the Watchtower (Bob Dylan) - favorite performance: Dylan, John Wesley Harding. I know the Hendrix version is more overtly dramatic, but the use of a series of images to create a mood and suggest a story was done better in Dylan's understated version, I think, and that's where I learned that technical approach to a lyric which I employed on The Change is On, found on Duke Robillard's Temptation.
4. Feel Like Going Home (Charlie Rich) - favorite performance: Charlie Rich demo version, Feel Like Going Home: The Essential Charlie Rich. The song gets stronger the more you take away from the arrangement; Rich's demo is the most stripped down and affecting. I don't really identify with the emotional stance, but I like songs of all stances if they express their point of view powerfully enough.
5. That's Where It's At (Sam Cooke) - favorite performance: Sam Cooke, A Man And His Music. This creates the mood and places you there in the room with it. "...just stay one minute more..." says it all.
6. Do Right Woman, Do Right Man (Dan Penn) - favorite performance: Aretha Franklin, The Queen of Soul. This lyric says something that needs saying. I'm not sure why more lyrics don't.
7. It Never Entered My Mind (Rodgers/Hart) - favorite performance: Frank Sinatra, In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning. I like lyrics which capture moments of realization. The tone is exquisitely handled here as well.
8. Here, There, and Everywhere (Lennon/McCartney) - favorite performance: the Beatles, Revolver. It's very singeable - a pure melody which carries the mood. A little like Coconut Grove by John Sebastian in that respect.
9. Morgengruss (Schubert) - favorite performance: Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Die Schoene Muellerin. I like singing this one. Schubert's melodies seem to have sprung from the ground, and the dramatic situation is expressed nicely in the middle.
10. Choosey Beggar (Smokey Robinson) - favorite performance: Smokey and the Miracles, Anthology. Poetry at eye level.
What to do about Chuck Berry, Ray Davies, Percy Mayfield, Boudleaux Bryant, Harold Arlen, and a host of others not represented here? Stay tuned: blues songs will be treated separately next.

My Ten Favorite Trumpet Players

1. Louis Armstrong - incomparably better than anyone else, in every respect
2. Roy Eldridge - powerfully emotional; his mouthpiece made high notes easy but mid range and below almost impossible to play (I tried once)
3. Cootie Williams - my plunger mentor; stark power and eloquence
4. Ruby Braff - lyrical and ornate; uses the full range of the instrument
5. Shorty Baker - criminally undervalued; unique tone and taste
6. Clark Terry - inimitable technique and ebullience
7. Ray Nance - sounds easy to duplicate; go try it
8. Miles Davis - personal, vocal sound; I prefer the pre-fusion Miles
9. Bobby Hackett - small but sumptuous tone; a lyrical adaptation of Pops
10. a three-way tie among Buck Clayton, Sweets Edison, and Lips Page

If Bix, Bunny, Fats, and Clifford had lived, this list would look a little different; but not at the top.

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