Cavies Screamer

[Einstein On The Beach]

Wah!? You people are over reacting, WWC, why are you acting like I'm bashing Cavies when I most certainly did not. I really like their show this year. I haven't liked one of their shows this much since Niagara Falls. Chill out man. I don't appreciate being called a borg and the like, when I am definitely not. I didn't not make a comment about what a corps was doing, but however, making a general reply to what the person was saying before. I disagreed with it, just like you disagree with me...for whatever reason. Am I not as much of a musician as anyone else on this board? By the way, I would be marching Boston this year, but with college and money and everything, I just couldn't do it. I do, however, have 2 more years of eligibility, so I will be marching next year since I will have the money :)

I blast everything and everybody all the time? Hold on, let me go round up all my posts where I'm congratulation various corps for moving up in the ranks, or SCV and Phantom for having some GREAT shows! No, let's just forget that, and misconstrue one thing that I said that others agree with anyway. I guess that's what I get for being rational.

[Nizerifin]

Have you people heard that trumpet scream about 3/4 of the way through the Cavies show tonight?  Right after a impact chord in the jazzy piece he rips up extremely high very much sounding like a real scream.  Just wondered if anyone else heard this thing! 

Actually it's approximately 9:30 into the show.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Now I think it was someone whistling or something... I can't see how an argument rose out of this though. I think DCP people are just darn argumentitive! I don't see anything wrong with that, I guess.

[Aaw]

What textbook did you get that out of?

There is plenty of Jazz (real Jazz) that's performed the same each time it's performed.  It doesn't require improvisation to be "real" any more than you should need to have marched to be someone who's "real" drum corps.

Granted, having marched does give you the right and privilege to ask others who appear to be talking out their bunghole if and where they marched..  but NOT having marched shouldn't automatically preclude you from the ranks of "real drum corps."

Man.  I think I need some sleep.

Stef

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Sure there is jazz that is played the same evertime. I didn't say that wasn't ture. But really there is always some kind of improv in all true Jazz that. Thats where the word Jazz came from. The used to say "I'm Jazzin the tune" meaning messing with it or improving.

Granted sometimes these guys like Lester Young, Louis, and others played the same solos but thats because everyone else wanted to hear the solos that were on the recordings. The solos really became institutionalized.

If you want to hear real Jazz go hear a Jazz orchestra. Having said all of this, it doesn't make the stuff that the Cavies are playing bad, just not Jazz.

[Geneva]

Now I think it was someone whistling or something... I can't see how an argument rose out of this though.  I think DCP people are just darn argumentitive!  I don't see anything wrong with that, I guess.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yes, I would agree. An interesting effect, but serendipitous. However, even more interesting is where the discussion went from there. I suspect that most did not even listen to it.

[ScribeToo]

Sure there is jazz that is played the same evertime.  I didn't say that wasn't ture.  But really there is always some kind of improv in all true Jazz that.  Thats where the word Jazz came from.  The used to say "I'm Jazzin the tune"  meaning messing with it or improving. 

Granted sometimes these guys like Lester Young, Louis, and others played the same solos but thats because everyone else wanted to hear the solos that were on the recordings.  The solos really became institutionalized.

If you want to hear real Jazz go hear a Jazz orchestra.  Having said all of this, it doesn't make the stuff that the Cavies are playing bad, just not Jazz.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well then technically.. because the solo at the beginning of Sweet Home Chicago was or is improvised, then the tune IS "real Jazz" by your definition. I heard it at the very beginning of the rehearsal season .. and then again later.. and then again at a show.. each time it was different -- indicating that the guy playing it WAS improvising.. or had improvised the solo to a point where it, too could become "institutionalized" and could be played the same every time. But it was born out of improvisation.

If it walks like a duck...

Stef

[Aaw]

Well then technically.. because the solo at the beginning of Sweet Home Chicago was or is improvised, then the tune IS "real Jazz" by your definition.  I heard it at the very beginning of the rehearsal season .. and then again later.. and then again at a show.. each time it was different -- indicating that the guy playing it WAS improvising.. or had improvised the solo to a point where it, too could become "institutionalized" and could be played the same every time.  But it was born out of improvisation.

If it walks like a duck...

Stef

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

This is most likely due to the fact that any given bar of music canges about 20 billion times over the course of the season. In the same maner that Sinatra was never a Jazz singer, the Cavies, well I don't have to say it by now.

If it walks like a duck..........its probably a person walking like a duck looking kind of silly

[mobrien]

Well its not exactly Jazz.  Jazz isn't really Jazz until there is some type of improvization.  Yea, they're paying tribute the the Chicago jazz style but not really playing Jazz.  Now if they could improv every night that would be cool....

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Kenton's and Ellis's and Ellington's charts were all very specific in the orchestration, and the ensemble effect required that the players played the notes as written. According to your definition, they weren't playing jazz?

And the soloist, on the occasions I've heard him, does vary the opening theme night to night, so it would appear that he understands the concept of being SOMEWHAT free with the melodic line while still observing the needs of setting up the tune. Bill Evans did no less with his piano approach. If you listen to various recordings of the same tune from different takes, you find that Evans and others are generally playing the same thing, with slight variation. This is no different.

I'd quibble with the tempo they've chosen for the tune (too fast, too glib), but the stylistic approach of the soloist is plenty authentic.

Edited July 26, 2005 by mobrien

[Einstein On The Beach]

Poor Duke, all those years he thought he was revolutionizing the jazz idiom and he wasn't even playing jazz at all.

[Aaw]

Kenton's and Ellis's and Ellington's charts were all very specific in the orchestration, and the ensemble effect required that the players played the notes as written. According to your definition, they weren't playing jazz?

And the soloist, on the occasions I've heard him, does vary the opening theme night to night, so it would appear that he understands the concept of being SOMEWHAT free with the melodic line while still observing the needs of setting up the tune. Bill Evans did no less with his piano approach. If you listen to various recordings of the same tune from different takes, you find that Evans and others are generally playing the same thing, with slight variation. This is no different.

I'd quibble with the tempo they've chosen for the tune (too fast, too glib), but the stylistic approach of the soloist is plenty authentic.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Of course the Duke played Jazz, orchestration of a piece has nothing to do with it. Look at how close to the original tune his arrangements are...not very. Again, thats where the word comes from....Jazzing the tune or chart.

Although Duke was one of the only jazzers to acctually write down his music, it wasn't in the form that the Cavaliers have in modern notation. He would right licks on napkins on the way to the gig, give it to the player and say play this after the shout chorus or something. Most of these guys new the music becuase they learned it by route. Jazz is more than just a style, groove, or sound. Its a way to being able to play through a chart or orchestration by just knowing the form of what is to come.

Call it what you want, but in mine and many other jazzers' opinions, what the Cavies are playing isn't jazz.

[Aaw]

Something that hit me after the last post. It seems to me, that what the Cavies are playing this year is more like that of Glen Miller and groups of the like. Not in terms of style, but how they are playing it. Make no mistake about it, bands like Glen Miller's were not jazz bands. They were "white dance bands" or swing bands. Look at In the Mood. They play it like a concert band would. They had it written out every night, and would read the music. This particular tune probably hasn't changes since it was wirtten. Of course this piece sounded like jazz to most people, but because of they way that they were playing it, it wasn't.

Im not even beggining to say that the Cavies don't chance the music. But if they do, its from a show design stand point. When it does change, it stays that way until the next change. In otherword its not as truely flexible and free as jazz is.