Bugle Call Rag, SWING to BLUEGRASS

[JMOSS99]

This is great. I just found this on Youtube.
The Benny Goodman Band was really great.
Whenever I am teaching bluegrass I always get around
to showing the person the studio version of Bugle Call Rag, by Benny Goodman.

This is a live version with all the same musicians as the studio version.
This version is faster then the studio version, but it is no less hot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujRmfdX0-p4

I think it is important to hear this having heard the Flatt & Scruggs version
that was influenced by the studio Swing version and to get a feel for the conversion
from Swing to Bluegrass. There is a lot of Swing in hardcore Bluegrass.
Flatt & Scruggs made the transition without leaving the Bluegrass format.

There is a lot to learn from simply being able to understand the alterations
that are needed to go from this Swing version to the Bluegrass version
without leaving the Bluegrass style. Kenny Baker told me that he got a lot
of his notes that he played with Monroe from Swing bands.

Jim Moss

[Don Stiernberg]

Farewell Blues is another one.

[allenhopkins]

Little Rock Getaway. Though almost more ragtime than swing...





Joe Sullivan composed the tune; Sol Burton is the '08 KY state mandolin champion.

[swampstomper]

Thanks for posting this Jim. Sure that Scruggs got his syncopation on the Foggy Mountain Banjo LP from this. And I would not be surprised if Tom Gray hadn't studied those swing pieces also. But one thing we don't have in bluegrass music is Gene Krupa!

[Pete Martin]

Kenny Baker told me that he got a lot
of his notes that he played with Monroe from Swing bands.

Jim Moss

It sure sounds like he got a lot of his timing there as well.

The pre Flatt and Scruggs Bluegrass Boys (and Sally Anne) was to my ears much closer to Bob Wills than to what we later call Bluegrass.

[JMOSS99]

Thanks for posting this Jim. ...one thing we don't have in bluegrass music is Gene Krupa!

Not so...
In a standard 5 piece traditional Bluegrass band, the entire band makes up the drum kit, Gene Krupa's part.
This is what I teach:
The Guitar with it's hammer-on bass lines and the standup Bass ARE the kick drum.
The mandolin and banjo are the snare... and sometimes the fiddle when chomping cords. In my mind, how well this is done is what separates the good bands from the young ones with potential. It also defines the character of the "HOT'ness" the band has. Some bands find it is easier to swing the kick snare parts, but what is more powerful is the keep the kick and snare straight time and syncopate the leads. This gives the individual lead breaks the ability to lean into the swing, because you are referenced against a straight time snare. I have always thought that Flatt and Scruggs liked this sound too.

And if you happen to have Frank Wakefield in the band, you also have all the other of Krupa's drums and cymbals. In fact, Frank plays less of the kick snare stuff then he does all the other parts of the drum kit like Gene Krupa, which is much more musically complicated to do with all of the poly-rhythms. That is why I would play the fiddle chomps in the band... This allowed Frank to feel comfortable enough with the off beat to stretch out and get into the real innovative poly-rhythms. His playing backup was even more important after we stopped having a banjo, a move that I made to let Frank play more cool backup. I noticed that when a banjo would not have anything in mind during backup that Frank just stepped up and spit out these great Bluegrass licks. So when the quality of banjo available to us dropped off, I just opened up the slot for Frank to move forward and play better banjo backup then most banjo players know how to play these days. Frank would do all these great JD Crowe (from the Jimmy Martin era) backup licks that would just remind you how the quality of banjo players had dropped off since the 1970s.

You can see this in the online video at this site:
http://www.rentalfilm.com/frankwakefield/

Kenny also taught me to count in double time like a drummer counts, ie
One, E, And, Ahh,
Two, E, And, Ahh... and so on.

To play with Frank Wakefield I told the band members to re-sync timing every 8 bars. Frank is brilliant with his ideas and this can be unpredictable. Often he doesn't know what he will do next his own self. This is like jazz improvisation. To mentally be ready to re-sync every 8 bars allowed the band to stick together if things started to go somewhere unexpected in mid-flight. Listen for and be able to, make mid-flight corrections at any time. We are not in a recital here, I told them. This is art in the making. Anything can change. You must be able to follow it when it does. I must have told banjo and guitar players this a hundred times each when they were beginning with the band. I would say, your job, when NOT playing lead, is to make the person playing lead sound as great as you can. This means give them whatever they need to lock-in and stretch out. David Nelson put it like this, "You have to be willing to spill blood" to allow the person you are backing up sound good. If the lead heads north you better be there with him. It is like you are part of a single drum kit, not a bunch of unrelated drums. If they couldn't get this, or refused to, they would not be invited back on the next tour.

If one is playing with a bunch of average musicians who are just having fun, trying to meet girls, then this is not an issue. However, when you are playing with someone like Frank Wakefield, as well as other great musicians I have played with, then you must be heads up for mid-flight changes in direction. It is this improvisation that makes the music exciting to play and hear. I would tell them, it is like you are laying track 10 feet ahead of a speeding train. Wherever, that train wants to go, you lay the track for it to go there.

When the banjos would pause after playing a break in response to an audience applause, you can see me in some of the shows yelling out to them, "Focus, Focus, Don't Stop". In this pause between the banjo break and whatever followed was where the band would lose the timing for a bit and there-in the edge. It only took a few shows for them to get this.

Jim Moss

[swampstomper]

Jim, I stand corrected. Thanks for the fantastic post! I had never thought of it this way but your explanation immediately made sense. The big difference of course is that Krupa had it all in his own hands (and head), and we have four or five individuals trying to fuse our chops. Yes, listen to the others, focus, and feel where the train is going... I guess that's what makes certain ensembles (e.g. F&S) just so "tight" and rhythmic.

[JMOSS99]

Gene Krupa was C change for big band music, that is for sure. I am a really big fan of Benny Goodman. I started out listening to music when I was 4 by listening to my mom's Benny Goodman 78's. I got in so much trouble for that, but it never stopped me. I just pulled those Goodman 78's out and went for it. I still have those 78's. In the 1970s I purchased the LP collections. That band with Harry James and Gene Krupa was tight. I even think they had Glenn Miller in the band. They influenced a lot of Bluegrass musicians.

Jim Moss

[ralph johansson]

Farewell Blues is another one.

Is there a law against dim chords in Bluegrass?

Another NORK original done BG is Milenberg Joys which Monroe recorded. I understand he learned it from the Hoosier Hotshots in Chicago, and credit for transforming the piece into something more stringband friendly probably goes to them. I've heard a similar version with guitarist Leon Chappelear.