Just kidding. But until I came across Dennis Gonzales’ video a few weeks ago, I hadn’t thought about cornets since High School, some thirty plus years ago! I also forgot about the pretty sound you can produce on them. Well, it started me to thinking I needed to add a cornet to my arsenal. In the process I came across a real gem that I wanted to share with you all.

There’s this guy named Nick DeCarlis, who started to play as a kid, quit, and later, while in college, taught himself how to play. Well, since that time, he’s become a collector/restorer, gifted cornet player and avid promoter of jazz music. There is some really neat stuff on his web page ‘vintagecornets’, including an article and photos of cornets with two bells. I have placed some of the links to Nick’s sites below. Check these sites out and find out what the ‘Cornet Conspiracy’ is all about. Also, if you haven’t listened to the Dennis Gonzales video, please do!

TD

http://vintagecornets.com

http://www.jazzcor.net/

http://www.pocketcornets.com/index.html

http://www.decadesign.com/scptest/classicjazzbrochure.pdf

This has always been one of my favorite jazz genres. I mean it was the first sort of rock I heard. Although my mother was a very capable singer with a beautiful voice, the music available in the household was fairly limited, Perry Como, Johnny Mathis, Nat King Cole. Soft stuff, you know. No Elvis or Beatles or anything close. When I started playing the trumpet, I gravitated to the trumpet records by Louis Armstrong, Al Hirt, and of course the old ‘Echoes of an Era’ Maynard Ferguson Orchestra stuff. So, when my friends showed up one day with the Bill Chase ‘Pure Music’ album, I was completely blown away. Mind you, I was all of 12 years old at the time. To this day, that is still one of my favorites. Although, I now find myself listening to Bill Chase’s ‘Ennea’ album more than the others. Strange what age will do to you! I mean if you want a practice work out, start transcribing and playing some of that stuff. Four highly skilled trumpet players playing just absolutely amazing. Songs like Poseidon and Zeus. Oh yeah!

Bill was the godfather of Jazz Rock or Fusion as its now called. Nothing else has ever come close to the awesome sound he created with his group, ‘Chase.’ Speaking of the ‘godfather,’ Bill Chase’s original family name is a true Italian one, Chiaiese (key-ah-tze). His father, however, decided to simplify it to Chase. Prior to forming ‘Chase,’ Bill paid his dues playing lead with the big bands of Stan Kenton, Maynard Ferguson and Woody Herman. Trumpet was not Bill’s first instrument. Rather, he started as a drummer. Sometime in the middle of High School, Bill decided he had had enough of carrying a heavy bass drum in parades. His father had played trumpet and so he started playing his father’s horn and took to it quickly.

Bill was truly an innovator both as a lead player and of course with his own group. His creations were legendary. Unfortunately he was taken from us too soon. He died in a plane crash between gigs in August of 1974.

So, when I discovered recently that all three of his albums are available in a cd set through Amazon I was euphoric, to say the least. Check this out, this is an absolute must have for trumpet fans.

Trumpet Dude salutes one of the best today, Happy Birthday Kenny! Yes, Kenny Dorham was one of the best voices to ever travel the trajectories of a trumpet. While his playing voice was incredible, he never received the accolades he should have from the jazz establishment, always overshadowed by the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Lee Morgan, Clifford Brown and Fats Navarro. Perhaps this is simply because he didn’t have a flamboyant personality like the others. I can only speculate, but in fact, he was referred to as ‘quiet Kenny.’ Regardless, his playing has stood the test of time and is now considered some of the best and a must listen for any aspiring jazz trumpeter today. I myself had not heard of Kenny until trumpeter Dave Scott turned me on to him some years ago, asserting that Kenny was his favorite. To this day, I am utterly amazed and challenged by the music that Kenny composed in his improvisations.

Kenny grew up in south Texas and began to teach himself piano and trumpet during High School. During High School he also spent a lot of time on the school boxing team. He studied chemistry and physics in college and was drafted into the Army in 1942. By 1945 he was playing in the first Dizzy Gillespie big band. Thereafter, he played with other great jazz players and leaders including Billy Eckstine, Lionel Hampton, Mercer Ellington and also the BeBop Boys (aka 52nd Street Boys).

Kenny was a wonderful composer. He composed and arranged several great pieces including, “Okay for Baby” for Lucky Millinder and Benny Carter, and “Malibu” for Cootie Williams. He also did ghosting arrangements for the infamous Gil Fuller that were sold to several name big bands, including Harry James, Jimmy Dorsey, and Gene Krupa. He is also remembered for writing the jazz standard, ‘Blue Bossa.’

In late 1948, Kenny replaced Miles Davis in the Charlie Parker quintet where he continued to play for a year or so. This group played together at the Paris Jazz Fair in 1949. Following that gig, Kenny did free lance work in New York playing alongside many greats including the brilliant players and composers Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk.

Twice in his playing career Kenny replaced trumpeter Clifford Brown. First, for Art Blakey’s group the ‘Jazz Messengers,’ in 1954, when Clifford formed the infamous quintet with Max Roach (Brown/Roach Quintet) and then replacing him in that same group in late 1956 when Clifford tragically died in an auto accident.

Kenny also headed several of his own groups including a group he named the ‘Jazz Prophets.’ A notable player that joined one of Kenny’s groups was a young tenor saxophonist, Joe Henderson, who was 26 when he teamed up with Kenny in 1963. They formed a long lasting friendship and were quite prolific producing many fine pieces for Blue Note and Prestige, including my favorite, ‘Una Mas.’ This documented period also reveals Kenny playing with up and comer, Herbie Hancock.

During his short life, Kenny also wrote several great and insightful reviews for the jazz magazine, ‘Downbeat.’

Happy Birthday, Kenny!!

This series, “Jazz: An American Art Form” is quite incredible and should be viewed if possible. In this series, Ed depicts the evolution of jazz music from its roots in Africa to the contemporary jazz superstars of the jazz era, and focuses on this style as a pure American musical idiom. Various works from the Jazz series are on display at major galleries and museums throughout the U.S. The series has received critical acceptance internationally. The complete series consists of over 70 works focusing on the African tribal contributions, and also includes such great jazz performers as Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, “Satchmo” Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald and Benny Goodman.

For information about Mr. Dwight or if you wish to purchase some of these fine productions, go to http://www.eddwight.com/galleries/jazz/index.htm#

Arthur Stewart Farmer, August 21, 1928 – October 4, 1999.

 I would like to say a special Happy Birthday to one of my personal mentors, Art Farmer. Art began performing as a jazz trumpeter in the 1940’s and 50’s. He, along with Clark Terry, was influential in bringing the flugelhorn into the sounds of jazz. He also later played what I just learned was called a Flumpet, a combination trumpet and flugelhorn designed for him by David Monette.

In the mid 40’s he started playing professionally in Los Angeles, California with the bands of Johnny Otis, Roy Porter, Benny Carter and Jay McShann and others. Many of these groups also featured his identical twin brother and bass player Addison Farmer. In 1953 he joined the Lionel Hampton orchestra, playing alongside trumpeters Clifford Brown and Quincy Jones. During his career he played with many of the jazz greats, including Gigi Gryce, Horace Silver, Gerry Mulligan, Benny Golson and McCoy Tyner, among others. Art played in a trio with Jim Hall and Steve Swallow during 1962-64. In 1968, Art moved to Vienna where he joined the Austrian Radio Orchestra, worked with the Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland Big Band and toured Europe with his own groups. In the 1980s Farmer began to visit the United States more often and remained greatly in demand up until his death on October 4, 1999.

Art played beautifully lyrical and inventive passages that really produced a unique complimentary quality to his bop oriented music. Art left us with a large number of quality recordings to enjoy.

Roy’s goal on this project was “to have a recording that is steeped in tradition and sophistication, while maintaining a sense of melodic simplicity.” He truly achieved that goal and then some. Roy Hargrove, one of the ‘young lions’ to arrive on the scene in the late eighties and early nineties, is continuing to do very nice things. With a style most closely aligned with Lee Morgan, Roy knows how to sound like a ‘badboy’. This compilation is masterful, taking post-bop to the next level. Roy has beautiful and warm ballad ability and demonstrates that here as well.

Mathias has previously worked with the divergent likes of Chick Corea and the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra to Norwegian psychedelic rock band Motorpsycho.

Trumpeter Mathias Eick, in the first album released under his own name, ‘The Door,’ captures all the qualities that have made him a musician to be reckoned with in and around jazz for the last decade. ‘The Door’ is distinguished by vaulting lyricism and clear-edged melodies, a strong sense of ambient space in the writing, and edge and excitement and open improvisation.

You also might want to acquire some of the work Mathias did with the jazz rock group Jaga Jazzist.

The ability to ‘track,’ while learning to develop our phrases is of utmost importance. I encouraged you all to practice developing one bar phrases, and resting a bar in between those thoughts. Although I didn’t instruct you to move on from one bar phrases, I’m certain you all did anyway. That’s ok, because I want you now to focus on two bar phrases. After you think you have that down, move on to three bar phrases, or statements. Now in practicing building your phrases as statements, however, I want you to be strict in stopping at the end of the third bar. This will help your mental discipline in planning and developing phrasing abilities while keeping track of where you are within a chart.

Meaningful conversations can be emotional, and I hope they are. In order to express the thoughts and emotions you may think and feel, you will need to be able to draw on your jazz vocabulary.

To develop our jazz vocabulary, we must begin to become fluent on our instruments. What do I mean by becoming fluent? Just that – ‘fluent’, like you verbally speak your native language or other speaking languages that you have mastered and become ‘fluent’ in. My exposure to this concept came from the late great Oscar Peterson. In his words, in order to truly play jazz you had to be ‘fluent’ on your instrument. As instrumentalists that means we have to have committed all of the scales and their chord relationships to complete and utter memory. To begin we must master all twelve of the major scales and two of their basic modifications.

MAJOR- C Scale C D E F G A B C Chord Relationships CMaj., CMaj.7, CMaj.9

Practice these stopping on the seventh, eighth and ninth note of the scale. Know your Major scales and the rest is a snap!!

DOMINANT- C Scale C D E F G A Bb C Chord Relationships C7, C7/9, C13

Practice this scale pattern in all twelve keys. Think of this scale as a major scale with the 7th note lowered a half step.

Minor C Scale C D Eb F G A Bb C Chord Relationships Cmin., Cmin.7, Cmin.9

Again practice in all twelve keys and play the scale to the eleventh note of the scale to sound the ninth of the chord. Think of this VERY popular scale as a major scale with the 3rd and 7th note down one half step.

Now although I want you to work at practicing these scales so they can become ingrained where you can play them in your sleep, I recommend that you conduct your improvisation sessions as a separate time period of your practice.

Finally, have fun, begin to spend time each day simply ‘doodling’ on your horn, playing whatever you can think of and whatever note sequences you decide to string together. Don’t worry about the rules when you’re doing this, just play and listen. You’ll discover some things that sound really cool and begin to develop ‘licks’ that you really like. When you come across something you dig, transpose it to the other keys.

Keep jamming!!