Jazz Trumpet Clinic Notes
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Jazz Trumpet Clinic Notes
Basic Trumpet Concepts
- Strive to get the best possible sound at all times.
Nobody cares how high or loud or fast you can play if your sound pinched.
If you work to get a full sound at all volume levels and in all registers,
your range and endurance will come along in good time.
- Pressure is your worst enemy.
Play with as little pressure as you can while getting the best sound you
can. Any benefit you get from applying any more pressure than that (usually
some small increase in range) is offset by loss of endurance and damage
to your embouchure! Learn now, you'll thank me later.
- Care for your instrument.
Keep your instrument clean and properly lubricated. Clean your moutpiece
regularly. Talk to your band director or a repair person if you have a
dent in the shank of your mouthpiece and get it fixed (it adds resistance
to the mouthpiece). Be careful to avoid getting dents in your horn,
and have them removed by a repair person as soon as is practical
(don't try and fix them yourself). Dents in the tubing of the trumpet
add resistance and can affect intonation and tone. Dents in the bell
inhibit good tone production.
- Don't play trumpet with your brain switched off.
The trumpet is a tool of expression. Engage your brain the same way as
you do when you're speaking. Concentrate on what's coming out of the
other end of the horn, not what your lip is doing or you're going to
eat for lunch.
- Don't wait until rehearsal to warm up and/or practice your parts.
Try to arrive at rehearsal warmed up and ready to play.
Rehearsal time is valuable, and is supposed to be used to fine-tune the
ensemble. Don't waste the band's time trying to learn your part at the
rehearsal if you've had time to work on it in the practice room!
- Arrive with all of your equipment and music, ready to play.
You should have a complete set of mutes (cup, straight, harmon, and plunger
are bare necessities in jazz music), your horn (clean, with valves oiled)
and mouthpiece, valve oil, and a sharpened pencil.
Playing in a Big Band
Lead Players
- Apply phrasing and dynamics consistently.
Give the other folks in the band a fighting chance to sound tight --
do your best to phrase things the same way from reading to reading,
and let folks know if you've decided to change the way you're playing
or releasing a note or section.
- Mark parts as necessary lightly, in pencil.
It's a reminder to you, not to the next ten people that have to read your
part. Give those that follow a fair chance to erase your notes.
- Schedule regular sectionals.
Ideally, the band director shouldn't have to spend alot of time in a
full band rehearsal helping a particular section get a figure right. Use
regularly scheduled sectional rehearsals to tighten up parts and come
to consensus on questions of style.
- Use vibrato sparingly.
It's very difficult to get the section to match your vibrato speed. Use a
slight crescendo, instead, to add "shimmer" to a note. An exception may
be made when you are playing an exposed part in the upper register (i.e.,
a melody line in the lead part where the other trumpets are not playing
the same figure harmonized), but again, use sparingly. You should almost
never use vibrato when the section is in harmon mutes.
- Get your head out of the music as soon as you can.
Do your best to dedicate your parts to memory as much as is possible.
Use the music as a reference, but don't be so focused on it that you
aren't watching the conductor or listening to the rest of the band.
- Don't play high notes that aren't written unless instructed to do so by
the band director.
Use your powers for good, not evil. The arranger usually has a
particular chord voicing established in the chart. If you freelance,
you're weakening one portion of the voicing in order to show off.
Clear it with the conductor first.
- Don't hang high notes past the director's cutoff.
If you have to hang over to be heard, it's not that impressive.
- The lead trumpet position is one of responsibility.
As lead trumpet, you are in charge of managing not only the trumpet
section, but also helping to establish good phrasing, articulation,
dynamics, and so forth. Think of yourself as a manager, and accept
input on issues of phrasing and style from members of your section.
Remember, the more people that buy into a method of phrasing, the
tighter and stronger the section and the band sound.
Section Players
- Follow the lead trumpet player for phrasing and dynamics at all
times.
Don't freelance, or try and lead the section from lower chairs.
- Support the lead trumpet voice.
Do your best to play at a volume level that supports the lead trumpet
voice without overpowering it or forcing the volume higher.
- Strive to make the whole section attack and release like a single
instrument.
Playing the 'Jazz' (Solo) Chair
Sight-reading a chart where you have a solo
- Look for harmonic 'signposts' in the solo.
Learn to recognize basic ii7-V7 progressions, they tell you where the
chords sound like they're heading. Look for major seventh chords (or
in the case of tunes that are in a minor key, try and find places where
this chord occurs), these are often "landing spots".
Improving your sense of how the solo fits into the chart
- Understand the relationship of your solo sections to the melody ('head').
More often than not, you can superimpose your solo over what's happening in
the melody at the top of a chart (though you might play multiple
choruses or come in at the middle of the form). Don't make your job
more complicated than it already is, use your ears to hear what's going
to be happening before it comes along!
- When playing along with a vocalist, don't create conflict with the vocalist -- fill in the holes.
Check out the greats like Harry "Sweets" Edison, who never overpower the
vocalist they're backing up, and pick their spots to compliment what's going
on musically. "Sweets" was in demand by all the great studio singers for
decades (Billy Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Joe Williams, etc.).
Selected Jazz Recordings
Big Band
- Miles Davis: The Birth of the Cool
- Miles Davis: Porgy and Bess
- Miles Davis: Miles Ahead
- Count Basie: Breakfast Dance and Barbeque
Great lead playing by Snooky Young, trumpet solos by Harry Edison et al.,
and vocals by Joe Williams.
- Bob Florence Limited Edition: All the Bells and Whistles
Fantastic lead, section, and solo work by Carl Saunders, George Graham, Steve Hufstetter, et al.
Small Group
- Clifford Brown & Max Roach
Clifford Brown is widely admired for his gorgeous sound, fluency in
all registers of the horn, sparkling technique, and mature compositions.
He died tragically at the age of 26, but left a great deal of
recorded work. Every trumpet player should listen to Clifford.
- Art Blakey: A Night at Birdland, vol. 1 & 2
- Clifford Brown & Max Roach: Live at Basin Street
- Clifford Brown & Max Roach: Jordu
- Clifford Brown & Max Roach: Brown & Roach Inc.
- Clifford Brown: Clifford Brown with Strings
- Sarah Vaughan: Sarah Vaughan
- Miles Davis
- Cannonball Adderley: Somethin' Else
- Miles Davis: Workin' with the Miles Davis Quintet
- Miles Davis: Steamin' with the Miles Davis Quintet
- Miles Davis: Cookin' with the Miles Davis Quintet
- Miles Davis: Relaxin' with the Miles Davis Quintet
- Miles Davis: Round About Midnight
- Miles Davis: Miles in Berlin
- Miles Davis: Miles in Tokyo
- Miles Davis: E.S.P.
- Miles Davis: Bitches Brew
- Kenny Dorham
- Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers: Live at the Cafe Bohemia
- Kenny Dorham: Quiet Kenny
- Kenny Dorham: Showboat
- Kenny Dorham: Una Mas
- Kenny Dorham: Whistle Stop
- Benny Golson: The Modern Touch
- Freddie Hubbard
- Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers: Three Blind Mice
- Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers: Ugetsu
- Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers: Free for All
- Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers: Caravan
- Herbie Hancock: Maiden Voyage
- Herbie Hancock: Empyrian Isles
- Freddie Hubbard: Goin' Up
- Freddie Hubbard: Ready for Freddie
- Freddie Hubbard: Here to Stay
- Freddie Hubbard: Breaking Point
- Freddie Hubbard: Hub-Tones
- Freddie Hubbard: Red Clay
- Blue Mitchell
- Blue Mitchell: Get Down With It
- Blue Mitchell: Blue's Moods
- Blue Mitchell: The Thing To Do
- Lee Morgan
- Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers: Moanin'
- Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers: A Night in Tunisia
- Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers: Indestructible!
- Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers: Meet Me at the Jazz Corner of the World
- Lee Morgan: Cornbread
- Lee Morgan: Candy
- Lee Morgan: Search for the New Land
- Lee Morgan: The Sidewinder
- Woody Shaw
- Kenny Garrett: Introducing Kenny Garrett
- Dexter Gordon: Homecoming
- Bobby Hutcherson: Live at Montreux
- Woody Shaw: The Moontrane
- Woody Shaw: Rosewood
- Woody Shaw: Setting Standards
- Woody Shaw: Little Red's Fantasy
- Woody Shaw: United
- Horace Silver: Cape Verdean Blues
- Larry Young: Unity
- Clark Terry
Clark Terry, a mainstay on the jazz scene since the late 1940s, is a veteran of several of the great big bands, especially those of Count Basie and Duke Ellington. Clark also led his own big band during a period in the 1970s.
- Oscar Peterson: Oscar Peterson Trio + One featuring Clark Terry
- Gerry Mulligan Concert Jazz Band: Live at the Village Vanguard
- Clark Terry: The Happy Horns of Clark Terry
- Clark Terry/Bob Brookmeyer: The Power of Positive Swinging
- Ray Brown: Some Of My Best Friends are...the Trumpet Players
Featuring Nicholas Peyton, Roy Hargrove, Terence Blanchard, James
Morrison, and Clark Terry.
- Bobby Shew: Playing with Fire
With Bobby Shew and Tom Harrell.
Selected Resources for Jazz Trumpet Players
Resources on the Internet
Computer Software
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