Quotes while soloing

[Shrdlu]

Paul Desmond was a master at quoting!

Dave Brubeck, an employer of his I understand, tells the story of a time when Paul was driving and Dave was a passenger. Paul was over the speed limit, and was arrested and spent a few hours in a slammer.

At the next gig, Paul described the whole episode, step by step, with quotes. Dave said that the quotes were brilliantly blended into the solo. That would have been something to compare with the famous Mulligan-Terry exchanges at the Vanguard!

[Jim R]

Paul Desmond was a master at quoting!

Dave Brubeck, an employer of his I understand, tells the story of a time when Paul was driving and Dave was a passenger. Paul was over the speed limit, and was arrested and spent a few hours in a slammer.

At the next gig, Paul described the whole episode, step by step, with quotes. Dave said that the quotes were brilliantly blended into the solo.

As with jazzypaul's previous example, I've heard that somewhere before. Where did you get that from? I know that Desmond (unfortunately) never got around to writing his memoirs. Has Brubeck done much writing about his years with P.D.?

[Dr. Rat]

Paul Desmond was a master at quoting!

Dave Brubeck, an employer of his I understand, tells the story of a time when Paul was driving and Dave was a passenger. Paul was over the speed limit, and was arrested and spent a few hours in a slammer.

At the next gig, Paul described the whole episode, step by step, with quotes. Dave said that the quotes were brilliantly blended into the solo.

As with jazzypaul's previous example, I've heard that somewhere before. Where did you get that from? I know that Desmond (unfortunately) never got around to writing his memoirs. Has Brubeck done much writing about his years with P.D.?

Don't know about Brubeck, but someone is writing about Desmond:

talkin 'bout Paul

[Cornelius]

I don't get it. How could Desmond tell (speak) the story of being arrested while he was soloing? He was quoting melodies while he was soloing, but the melodies related to the driving incident? I'm confused.

/

Dr. Rat

I don't mean to endorse any particular outlets, but I just had in mind the usual places like half.com, amazon.com, et al.

[mikeweil]

Some of Dexter's quotes were way cool: I have an LP of the Slide Hampton/Joe Haider Orchestra with him where they play a Hampton original on the changes of "Giant Steps", and he quotes Coltrane's "Some Other Blues" in his solo:

It can be overused, and wear out like a joke that has been told too often - the Thad Jones quote is a good example.

Track 8 on Disc 1 of my blindfold test has a nice quote in the fours at the end, where both players paraphrase a well known tune - that's what I like. It has to be done intelligently - then I really dig it. Track 9 is another example: What does the pianist quote in the very last bar of his solo? A totally unexpected turn in an unexpected place.

[king ubu]

Some of Dexter's quotes were way cool: I have an LP of the Slide Hampton/Joe Haider Orchestra with him where they play a Hampton original on the changes of "Giant Steps", and he quotes Coltrane's "Some Other Blues" in his solo: 

On MPS? I just received the 2CD set reissuing an MPS album (don't know if it was a 2LP set or two separate LPs) of that band, great line up! Not listened yet.

On topic: PREZ! He knew how to quote! Also there's the Getz quartet dates, the ones with Horace Silver for Roost, they have a ball throwing quotes at each otehr there.

Desmond, of course! Dry Martini or not, he was the cool as can be!

ubu

[mikeweil]

Some of Dexter's quotes were way cool: I have an LP of the Slide Hampton/Joe Haider Orchestra with him where they play a Hampton original on the changes of "Giant Steps", and he quotes Coltrane's "Some Other Blues" in his solo: 

On MPS? I just received the 2CD set reissuing an MPS album (don't know if it was a 2LP set or two separate LPs)

"Give me a double" was the title (double LP) - great music! Billy Brooks is on that one!

[king ubu]

Some of Dexter's quotes were way cool: I have an LP of the Slide Hampton/Joe Haider Orchestra with him where they play a Hampton original on the changes of "Giant Steps", and he quotes Coltrane's "Some Other Blues" in his solo: 

On MPS? I just received the 2CD set reissuing an MPS album (don't know if it was a 2LP set or two separate LPs)

"Give me a double" was the title (double LP) - great music! Billy Brooks is on that one!

That's also the title of the 2CD set I just got. Looking forward to hearing it! Idrees Sulieman is also aboard, as are a few other great ones, Andy Scherrer, Isla Eckinger, Ferdinand Povel... I guess it's a straight reissue of the LP set, then.

[Jim R]

I don't get it. How could Desmond tell (speak) the story of being arrested while he was soloing? He was quoting melodies while he was soloing, but the melodies related to the driving incident? I'm confused.

Of course, I wasn't there, but how about...

Two For The Road

Detour Ahead

Shifting Down

Get Me To The Church On Time

Ella Speed

The Chase

Brilliant Corners

You're Driving Me Crazy

I Surrender Dear

Everything Happens To Me

Prisoner Of Love

[JSngry]

Maybe they were driving on Route 66.

[Free For All]

I don't get it. How could Desmond  tell (speak)  the story of being arrested while he was soloing?  He was quoting melodies while he was soloing, but the melodies related to the driving incident? I'm confused.

Jazz is a language. Musicians that are intimately familiar w/each other's playing can easily communicate in a non-verbal manner. I've also heard Desmond and Brubeck would also "play" as quotes phone numbers of people they knew (the phone numbers would be represented by scale degrees). I'm sure there was and is much of that type of communication everywhere among musicians.

For example, I'll bet Herbie, Tony and Ron (and miles and Wayne) constantly did stuff simliar to that.

[Dan Gould]

It can be reeally stupid, really sublime, and almost anywhere in between.

Ain't whatcha do...

OK, then what's the verdict on quoting "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" in the middle of "Two Bass Hit"?

I just discovered that my memory was faulty.

Actually, what I heard was "Two Bass Hit" incorporated into "Take Me Out To The Ballgame".

Does that change the verdict?

[Shrdlu]

I don't get it. How could Desmond tell (speak) the story of being arrested while he was soloing? He was quoting melodies while he was soloing, but the melodies related to the driving incident? I'm confused.

This has already been explained, but what he did was to play recognizable snatches of tunes about jails, police, etc. You know, "Workin' On The Chaingang" kinda stuff, I guess. I wasn't there, so I don't know the actual titles.

Bird played a bit of "Charmaine" when one guy was late coming in - that's on one of the airshots.

[Shrdlu]

Paul Desmond was a master at quoting!

Dave Brubeck, an employer of his I understand, tells the story of a time when Paul was driving and Dave was a passenger. Paul was over the speed limit, and was arrested and spent a few hours in a slammer.

At the next gig, Paul described the whole episode, step by step, with quotes. Dave said that the quotes were brilliantly blended into the solo.

As with jazzypaul's previous example, I've heard that somewhere before. Where did you get that from? I know that Desmond (unfortunately) never got around to writing his memoirs. Has Brubeck done much writing about his years with P.D.?

I was afraid someone would ask that, Jim!

I saw it very recently on a website about Dave - I was browsing a discography when I came across it. But I don't recall where it was.

Paul was working on a biography entitled "How Many Of You Are There In The Quartet?". Having lived at the time of the Quartet's peak years in Australia, and having frequently seen how dumb their TV interviewers were back then, I can well understand how a wit like Paul would use such a title.

[BeBop]

Like so many things, the practice of quoting has lost its appeal to me over the years - both as I've aged, and as the practice has become more used (in the cumulative sense: the first quote probably would have struck me as clever; by the five millionth...)

One example sticks out in my mind (though I don't have the recording here to provide details) is that of the Gerry Mulligan Concert Jazz Band at the Village Vanguard (part of the Mosaic set, methinks, though I still inhabit vinyl world) with Mulligan and Clark Terry trading quotes of mostly geographical theme (Chicago, Way Down Yonder in New Orleans, Indiana, Broadway...) on Blueport, I think it was. (Sorry for the sketchiness on all of this.) Cute, if not planned in advance. Well executed at tempo.

[JSngry]

Paul was working on a biography entitled "How Many Of You Are There In The Quartet?". Having lived at the time of the Quartet's peak years in Australia, and having frequently seen how dumb their TV interviewers were back then, I can well understand how a wit like Paul would use such a title.

Supposedly that was a real question asked of Desmond by an airline stewardess!

[BeBop]

As I think more about quoting, I feel like there are quotes inserted with a pair of tweezers (good) and quotes inserted with a sledge hammer (not so good).

There are spontaneous quotes and quotes planned out well in advance.

There are sly quotes and no-brainer quotes (Whispering on Groovin' High or What is This Thing on Hot House - hope I got those derivatives correct).

Okay, I'm rambling. Shut up, BeBop.

[Spontooneous]

The other night, a piano player had me chuckling at his quotes from "Mean to Me," "Sunday" and "Love in Bloom." But the people around me weren't responding. Not much knowledge of pop tunes from those times, I guess.

After the set, I mentioned to the piano player, who's a few years younger than I (I'm 45), that people didn't seem to be getting his quotes of tunes from the '20s and '30s.

"Is that what those were?" he said.

Turns out he doesn't know those tunes. He learned the phrases he quoted when they were quoted in other people's solos.

[Spontooneous]

P.S. What quotes are the most overused?

My nomination would be "Rockin' in Rhythm." It worked when Fats Navarro used it in his "Nostalgia" solo. But that was 55 years ago, and it hasn't worked since.

[nmorin]

but suddenly jumping into "Pop Goes the Weasel" or whatever is what I think of as a stupid musician trick.

Regarding Thad Jones quoting PGTW on April In Paris....

I heard they had done MANY takes of the tune, and I'm sure Thad was trying to do something different each time on his solo. Out of the blue he plays the quote, and wouldn't you know it, that take ended up being the keeper. He was then obliged (I'm sure to his chagrin) to recreate it in subsequent live performances, and most anyone who plays the solo on that arrangement today plays that same quote.

They must have thought right away that it was pretty cool and decided to keep it--the quote is on both the master take and on the alternate take included on the current edition of the CD.