Little Brown Jug - trumpet trio

jazzrob

New member
Hi everyone,

It's not really "jazz" in an improvisational sense, but if you'd like a little interlude you may like to have a peek at my latest little gem :)

Glenn Miller's version of this tune was where my arranging interest started as I sat there with the cassette lifting a few lines when I was 13 years old. 30 odd years later I re visited it and added a bit of my own.

I had a little go at some fun video stuff, and managed to feature three of me! Not as good as the pros, but better than I expected :)

Hope you enjoy,

Rob

https://youtu.be/zPP3UZnGIgk
 

Ella Beck

Member
Loved it! :)
Great sound and arrangement.
Cool watching the three of you interact too.

I posted the video on TalkClassical - I hope that's okay?
 
Last edited:

John Watt

Member
The first thing that got me was seeing your "Paradise Cali" t-shirt.
I just posting a video about the extensive wildfires going on there.
I hope you're okay.

What do you mean by "my arranging interest"?
Obviously you learned to be a musician playing a trumpet,
but I'm having a hard time putting together being thirteen and starting to arrange.
My brothers and I were arranging when they were pre-teens and I was thirteen,
but that was building our own roads and little city in the backyard with our Dinky Toys.

Also, you look younger than me, so I'm surprised some Glenn Miller got you going,
not some psychedelic rock that came from California.
For me, Glenn Miller was a black and white movie starring James Stewart,
until I became a pro player and started to learn more about the music business.
That also included hanging out with musicians who played with Charlie Parker.

I wouldn't necessarily put myself down as amateur product.
The technology you're using wasn't around even when Jimi Hendrix was the most high-tech,
and you've created something worth listening to that isn't tiring to watch.
I'd be more apologetic about not being able to swing as hard as you probably can,
but anyone who appreciates dubbing together three parts can understand that.

Addressing jazzrob here, I'm having a very frustrating jazz time right now, here in the Niagara Peninsula.
A senior player has a 1930s Gibson L5 for sale, looking almost new, for $2,500 with the case.
It really looks good and there's nothing about it that is only right-handed, when I'm a lefty.
George Benson took me backstage to trade his 50s L5 back and forth, helping me decide how to play,
and I've wanted one ever since. This is the only chance I've ever had to try another.
It's natural wood too, my favorite.
The only thing that helps me keep it together here is knowing it doesn't have a pickup on it.
If I did get it, I know I'd want to install a big P.A.F by the neck... okay, and a tremolo unit too.
Can you... uh... help me arrange my thoughts about that?
 
Last edited:

John Watt

Member
You've got me making more than just amateurish moves myself, more like creating problems.
I tried my first "screenshot" to get a photo of the L5 and it said to use "Ctrl-v".
When I tried to add the photo here I did that, and the display changed to showing the entire thread,
like a thin column up the middle of the screen, and I couldn't get out of it.
I got offline and came back and when I returned to the home page here it was just as tiny.
There was no way I could click on forums.
That's when I noticed it said "30%" in the address bar at the top of the screen.
When I clicked on that everything came back as usual.
I went back and cut-and-pasted to get the photo and that worked, another first.
Wow! When I just did that as a quick reply the photo covered the text and I couldn't change it.
When I clicked go advanced it sorted itself out.
I better play some guitar so I think I know what I'm doing.
By the way, I play guitar left-handed with the bass strings on the bottom,
a left-handed body with a right-handed neck, so this is very playable.
I'm seeing a whole new musical persona just looking at it.


$_59.JPG


I know I'm just a word processor who likes doing photos,
but I don't want to leave you with the impression that's because I'm somehow deficient overall.
It is a lifestyle choice. Here's some online trivia you might like.
I was sponsored in a residence in Toronto by Professor John McCallum, Electronics at York University.
He accepted a one year contract at the University of Hong Kong to help them build their internet,
and write their curriculum. That was 1980, the year I got over my video game addiction, quitting entirely.
At the time there were three universities in Toronto that were wired into "the information highway",
what was other universities in the United States. They paid $50,000 a year for that service.
If I was still a gamer I'd be looking for a bar-top Asteroids, not a vintage L5.
Watching a new movie last night, "Ready Player One", about a gamer future, proves me right.
It made me cry. Here I am, in 2018, crying about a non-reality. Nuff said.

And I have to admit, if I was thinking of doing "Little Brown Jug",
I'd have to do a more funky update and title it "Big Oak Cask".
Sorry about that. I am a non-drinker but I am a showman, having to be suggestive,
even if I'm thinking about Vernors pop, aged for seven years in oak casks,
not Scottish whiskey.
 
Last edited:

jazzrob

New member
Hi John,

Thanks for your comments.

The paradise t-shirt was unrelated to the unfortunate fires first of all, I'm in Australia and I did the clip before all of this.

Yes, I was young to be listening to Glenn Miller. I still remember when Mum took me to the record store and I picked out A Glenn Miller cassette. She said "you won't like that, it's jazz". I had no idea who he was, or why I bought it, but I couldn't stop listening to it! I wasn't arranging as such back then, but rather sitting there with my trumpet trying to write some of the lines that I heard. I was able to make a trumpet trio from them.

Being able to swing harder? Hmm, hopefully that was as a result of playing an ensemble rather than improvising. Not sure :)

Great being able to drop that you met George Benson! Great memory to keep you going. If you've got the money just buy the guitar for collectors sake! :)

Rob
 

John Watt

Member
jazzrob! I logged in here this morning just to see if you gave me a reply. Thanks for that.
Australia? I know more about Australia, but you're right up there with New Zealand as a place I'd like to visit.
You country is so big and has so many climate and geographic zones, I can't imagine where you live.
I hope you don't mind a lengthy reply.

You must have been as strange a child as I was, if you were trying to write down music and play trumpet.
I had a harmonica that wasn't chromatic, and carried that with me everywhere I went.
I was playing slow songs to be easy, "The Days of Wine and Roses", "The Shadow of Your Smile",
songs I liked from my parents albums, but I had to sing the sharps and flats there weren't in the harmonica.
When I was standing in line with my parents at the bank or shopping market,
people would comment on this little kid playing such sad songs.
I learned "Silhouettes in the Shade" by Hermans' Hermits and the theme from "The Chipmunks" to be faster.

What you said about being not sure about my comment about swinging harder could go both ways.
I was thinking you need to be playing with other musicians to work up a swing sweat,
when dubbing together parts gets in the way of that.
What you did bubbled along, percolated along, and you pulled off the song, where it's at for me.
And your use of technology is beyond me. I'm just a word processor who likes doing photos,
even if I recently made some YouTube videos that haunt me.

A flute playing friend and I hitch-hiked in February in the middle of winter to Toronto.
George Benson was winning best jazz guitarist polls in Downbeat Magazine, even if I never heard him.
For the first time in my life I wanted someone to help me make up my mind about playing guitar,
left-handed, right-handed, and what was too easy for me, left-handed upside-down,
basically a lefty body with a right-handed neck.
After the first set I tried to go over to the table where he was sitting,j
but the bar was divided down the middle with a railing, whites on one side, a hippy audience,
even mothers breast-feeding children, and a dressy... uh... afro-American audience on the other.
Two big big men, looking impeccable in green rough silk suits, standing on either side of the aisle in front of the bar,
with two more in the same suits sitting behind them, wouldn't let me pass. I didn't make a scene.
I went down the railing and started talking out loud to Mr. Benson, talking about my '64 Stratocaster and Marshall,
saying I didn't know about playing left-handed or playing with the bass strings on the bottom, what I liked,
and after I said my flute playing friend and I hitch-hiked over a hundred miles to see him he turned around.
As he turned around the bodyguards moved forward and he waved them off.
He asked did you really hitch-hike over a hundred miles. I said yes. He said where are you from.
I said Welland, near Niagara Falls. He said that's over a hundred miles and got up, waving me along.
He took me backstage to his dressing room where we traded his 1955 Gibson L5 back and forth.
He moved my fingers into positions for barre chords I didn't know and laughed a lot, me too.
He said I could hold down chords he had a hard time with, and asked me to slide them up or down.
When I did that he would laugh.
He said the pads of my fingers were there to hold down the bass strings when I learned jazz chords,
and were there to deaden more strings when I was using feedback for lead solos.
He said I didn't have to scrunch up my fingers to play leads, just fluttering them up and down the neck,
and I was pulling the strings to bend them, being able to stretch them in ways he couldn't.
He also said some of the best guitarists he knew played like that.
As he was looking at me, thinking, I said Mr. Benson, can I say something about you. He said sure.
I said you've got a very soulful voice, he said thank you, and I said you only sing along with your solos.
Why don't you start a band singing songs with a bigger band and back-up singers,
and create more jobs for your friends back home, something I'm sure you could do and stand up behind a mike.
He got a big smile and said that was something he was working on, getting his vocals up for singing songs.
After a while he said it's time to start playing again so we should go, in their over twenty minutes.
What was as amazing was walking out onstage with him, not using the door we entered with.
As soon as we got out you could see the entire club turning to look at us, sharing that attention.
Men were waving and waving money at him, holding up drinks, and women were waving handerchiefs,
and the hippy side looked like they were frozen, just staring. That was an incredible moment.

My friend and I couldn't afford to keep buying pop at the intervals required to keep our table, pop at liquor prices,
and if we stayed past one we still had to hitch-hike home.
We walked for a half hour to get to the end of Younge at the Q.E.W. highway on-ramp,
and as we turned to hitch-hike the first car stopped and it was a high school baskeball player I knew.
He gave us both a ride home to our houses, a perfect end to an amazing night.
When my friend asked me what happened backstage I said I'm not sure,
but I'm going to be left-handed all the way.

I bought a trumpet from a pawn shop, really nice, but I have soft puffy lips and gave up.
My high school teacher said I couldn't play French Horn because of that, another instrument I liked.

I don't have a lot of money, that's for sure, and I'm not a collector.
If I bought that guitar I'd want to install a Stratocaster tremolo unit with a P.A.F. Humbucker by the neck.
And it would just be a beater guitar for me, something to carry around outside.
Guitars that thick are hard to play, and it doesn't have contours for working my arm.

Here's some photos of my first and second semi-solid-bodies, my inventive guitar.
You can see it's basically a Stratocaster shape, the perfect form for performance.

I am a little jealous of you as a trumpet player.
If I had a smaller instrument I could carry on my bicycle that didn't need an amplifier,
I'd be sitting in the shade along Lake Erie playing over the waves.


s-s-b 5.jpgs-s-b 8.jpg
 

jazzrob

New member
Wow John, that is an amazing story. We'd all love one like that to tell!

As to wanting a smaller instrument to carry on a bike, there was a character locally years back who was know to ride a bike whilst playing banjo! (Might've been a once off instance, but good story :) )

Love your enthusiasm,

Rob
 

John Watt

Member
jazzrob! Let me be real with you. I've met a lot of other musicians and have more stories,
but that's because I wasn't playing in a band myself or was doing anything else in the music business.
Here in Ontario, being a non-smoker non-drinker kept me on the fringes of the live music scene,
a real sex and drugs and rock and roll society.
I was also too cute, people saying I could be a rock star on looks alone, but I'm not like that.
Believe it or not, when I was filling in for another guitarist or getting into a band for the first time,
sooner or later it came down to everyone taking off their clothes with someone being the nurse with the needle.
And as far as looks goes, I would sing like a sax or trumpet player, or my favorite violinist, Nicolo Paganini.
I used to say I can hardly wait until I get older and have to work for it.

Please don't think I'm bragging or trying to trip over you, just what it was.
What were rock clubs lost the music and just became about the drugs and strippers.

I should have gotten into writing sheet music, a more than intellectual exercise.
That would give me something to do instead of sitting around wishing there were gigs,
or at least another band playing I could hang out to see.
I live in a city of over 60,000 people and there isn't one gig for a band.

It might be time for you to put up another video.
I'm working myself up to making a video of me playing along with a Frederik Magle video.
He might not be thinking that he's been living his entire life to end up as my back-up keyboardist,
yeah... we shall see... and hear... right here...

I could say I love your enthusiasm as I watched your video,
but as a senior I want to be careful about over-stimulating other seniors.
Seeing that you have three split personalities, I hope at least two of them like me, in stereo.
 

Ella Beck

Member
Thanks for that, and yes, very happy for anyone to have a look :)

You were replying to my post in which I said I'd shared your video on to Talk Classical.
Just thought you'd like to know that three people 'liked' it - we have the same system as Facebook, with a 'like' button.

So that's three people with very good taste! :)
 

John Watt

Member
jazzrob! You got me thinking about your video effort and when I saw this I had to watch.
At first I was just thinking there's four of her when there was three of you,
and yes... I'm having a hard time not riffing offa your little brown jugs song title.
But then this evolves into more parts and I'm thinking this might challenge you to add more.

What it really makes me think of is seeing the Walt Disney movie "Cinderalla" as a child.
Cinderella is washing the floor at the bottom of the stairs after everyone else has gone to the ball.
She starts singing and you see her reflected in one bubble. The bubble divides into two bubbles,
and you hear harmony, and those bubbles divide and keep dividing until she sounds like a choir.
The bubbles start popping until she's left alone with the sound of her own voice.

That doesn't even have to be bubbles, maybe musical notes... yeah!


 

jazzrob

New member
You were replying to my post in which I said I'd shared your video on to Talk Classical.
Just thought you'd like to know that three people 'liked' it - we have the same system as Facebook, with a 'like' button.

So that's three people with very good taste! :)

Great :) Thanks again.
 

jazzrob

New member
jazzrob! You got me thinking about your video effort and when I saw this I had to watch.
At first I was just thinking there's four of her when there was three of you,
and yes... I'm having a hard time not riffing offa your little brown jugs song title.
But then this evolves into more parts and I'm thinking this might challenge you to add more.

What it really makes me think of is seeing the Walt Disney movie "Cinderalla" as a child.
Cinderella is washing the floor at the bottom of the stairs after everyone else has gone to the ball.
She starts singing and you see her reflected in one bubble. The bubble divides into two bubbles,
and you hear harmony, and those bubbles divide and keep dividing until she sounds like a choir.
The bubbles start popping until she's left alone with the sound of her own voice.

That doesn't even have to be bubbles, maybe musical notes... yeah!



Sorry John, took me a while to get round to checking that out. Amazing isn't it! That poor bloke won't have any arm hairs left after rubbing it for the percussion effect aye :)

Rob
 

John Watt

Member
Rob! You saying amazing covers it for me. If you don't mind me being, not down to earth, but down to url,
I see your effort as a personal one, self-done, very impressive for me, while this new one has a more professional production.
Yours comes together for who you are and what you play, while it's too easy to pick this other one apart.

This is serious for me, even if I'm not interested enough to try and do it myself.
Okay... okay... I might go to Rodman Hall in St. Catharines and stand between the two big hallway mirrors,
so I can see myself reflected into infinity, but I'll stop here, sensing Ella Beck thinking I'm getting off topic.

This is serious enough for me to be asking "onacarom" for his personal mailing address.
He puts up a lot of videos with his wife, mostly in the rock and fusion sections, and I think they're wonderful.
I also watch them when I'm on YouTube.
I bought a deck of cards from Spain, where onacarom is, that feature hand paintings of Spanish topics.
Really nice. The box is a lined case with a separate card holder inside, with introductory papers.
It's old, but it's as new, really nice, and I got it for free after I bought some other stuff.
Some of his videos have separate rain drops, blowing leaves, drifting notes,
so I'm hoping he can sample these cards and do something with them.

I'm thinking you're in California, and a senior like me, so let me share this shopping suggestion.
I wasn't doing this on purpose at first, always being a talkative person,
but I realized that when I'm browsing used and buy and sell stores,
if I started showing the staff the item and start talking about it, why I like it,
sometimes they say you can have it, or give me a lower price,
or say you bought that you can have this for free.
I'm not suggesting you're a lo-to-no income person like me,
but we share a serious donate for resale business between us, Value Village.
In St. Catharines first, Niagara Falls second, moving in to Welland last year.
We might not ever share the same stage, studio or visit to your house,
but we might have been in that California based franchise.
I might be stretching things here, but you should hear me with my strings.
 
Last edited:

John Watt

Member
Rob! When I say yours comes together and it's too easy to pick the other one apart, here's an example.
You can do a black and white abstract painting that people look at and think it's good artwork.
You can do a panoramic scene in colour that people look at and think it's not very good.
That's the difference for me, seeing you as being there and maintaining your visual and audio flow,
while the other video has too much going for it that isn't coming together or maintaining a visual flow.

If you can comment on the video maker rubbing off his arm hairs while he was making it,
I'm already seeing you as knowing what I'm saying.
Whenever one of those gnarly old man Scottish hairs grows up out of my forearms,
I pick it off right away, or some day I might not have a good view of my fingerboard.
 
Top