Andrew White, "The Living Legend"

If you are a jazz person, and you are not already familiar with Andrew White, this post is for you. I'm putting it up here because Andrew does not have a web presence befitting his stature, and his work might be interesting to some readers.

What can one say about Andrew White that has not already been said...by himself? Here are some of his self-descriptions:

“The world’s leading authority on the music of John Coltrane”

“Living Legend of Music Historiography”

“Renaissance Man of Music”

“the enormous and unquestionable prowess of the highest acclaimed, irrepressible, legendary, leading saxophonist of the day”

“the ultimate bad-assed-Zorro-Super-sax”

“I am considered to be the world’s most voluminously self-industrialized artist in history and possess one of the greatest minds of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.”

“the legendary self-purported genius”

“the master himself, 'Mr. Bionic Saxophone', 'Mr. Saxophonitis', 'Mr. Vocalese Buz', 'Jaws White', and 'Mr. Musical Achiever of the ’70’s and ’80’s' ”


Well, that’s all true, allowing for just a little self-promotional hyperbole. Andrew White is best known as the man who has transcribed virtually every John Coltrane solo that was ever recorded. The transcriptions are accurate, and his musical calligraphy is good too. Andrew is also a world-class jazz saxophonist who has recorded with McCoy Tyner and toured/recorded with Elvin Jones; as a funk bassist he toured with Stevie Wonder and recorded with Weather Report; as a classical oboist he played for a couple of years with the American Ballet Theater.

And - of practical interest to you if you are a jazz player - Andrew runs a mail-order business selling his Coltrane transcriptions (also some transcribed solos by Charlie Parker, Eric Dolphy, and Andrew White), along with many self-produced recordings and various essays and treatises. The latter range from scholarly to humorous, sometimes both.

Andrew doesn’t do the internet. To enjoy his works, you will need to write him for his “Comprehensive Catalogue of Over 2500 Self-Produced Products.” Last time I checked, the catalog was priced at $10.00. You will easily derive $10.00 of amusement from the catalog alone. Then you can decide on the transcriptions, recordings, or prose works that interest you, and mail him an order.

Andrew has written an amusing and informative autobiography, “Everybody Loves the Sugar - The Book.” I'm reading it for the second time. Probably not too many people can make that claim. It is 794 pages of stories (often risqué, often humorous), opinions about the music industry, opinions about racism, opinions about "jazz education," various other digressions, and of course self-promotion, all in the context of autobiography.

The book reminds me of a medieval tome. It's a large book, typewritten (on a typewriter). Andrew does not do word processors. It is written in a colloquial style, and not meticulously edited for spelling. Personally, I dig Andrew's writing (as well as his musical work). It's not for everybody. However, if you want to try to understand where he is coming from...

For a taste of his prose, here is a link to "Chicken Alto," a great story from "Everybody Loves the Sugar."

For catalogs and products, you can contact Andrew White at:


Andrew’s Musical Enterprises
4830 S. Dakota Ave., N.E.
Washington, D.C. 20017
phone: (202) 526-3666
fax: (202) 526-4013


Although Andrew does not maintain a web presence and seems to dislike computers, here are a few more links that you might want to check out:

Andrew's Wikipedia entry

A youtube video - "Giant Steps" and "Everything I Have is Yours"

Another video - Andrew talks about "Improvisation on the Bandstand"

Andrew's statement acknowledging the "Benny Golson Jazz Master Award"

A great recent article on the CapitalBop site, including some old and new recordings - Listen!

Encore and Sibelius

Back in the early 1990s, when music notation software had just become available, I bought Finale and Encore, and after working with both, settled on Encore. It seemed quicker and more intuitive, with fewer actions required to perform routine tasks. I used Encore to chart some clarinet duets to use with my students; the duets eventually became a booklet. I also made transposed, compatible versions for alto sax and flute. The book was then picked up by Mel Bay Publications and published as the "Easy Classics" series, with additional versions for trumpet, tenor sax, and violin, and with piano accompaniments (written by my mom and my sister). A year or two later, the company asked me to produce versions for viola and cello. I did so and sent them in, but these books never were actually published. Then - a few months ago - I got an email from the company asking if I was still interested in seeing them published, and if so, could I provide digital files.

Unfortunately, Mel Bay no longer accepts Encore files, only Finale and Sibelius. Fortunately, I have been working on a different project for which I have been learning Sibelius (current version: Sibelius 7). Sibelius' user interface is similar enough to Encore that the transition was easy.

I really did not want to recreate everything from scratch. So the problem was: How do I get old Encore files into Sibelius? The first thing I tried was exporting the files from Encore into MusicXML, then opening the MusicXML files in Sibelius (MusicXML is a format designed to facilitate the transfer of music files from one music notation program to another). Although this procedure worked OK, the original formatting was lost, necessitating extra work on my part to restore the format.

The next thing I tried was using PhotoScore Lite, the note recognition program that is included with Sibelius. I exported the Encore files as PDFs, then read those PDFs with PhotoScore Lite (since PDFs would likely be cleaner than scanned versions of hard copy). This worked well, preserving the original format. Unfortunately, Photoscore Lite does not pick up articulation marks or text, only notes - meaning more work on my part, putting that stuff back in.

Finally, I bit the bullet and purchased the upgrade to PhotoScore "Ultimate." This was really the best solution. It reads the PDFs pretty accurately, although occasional errors still occur. Although I still have to proof and revise each file, my time spent was cut to about 25% of either of the other methods I tried. So for anyone faced with the problem of transferring Encore files to Sibelius, that's my suggestion.

Sibelius is working well for me, though it has its quirks.

I'm rather fond of Encore; there are some things it does better/quicker than Sibelius, such as manually editing staff or note spacing, or selecting non-contiguous elements. Encore was developed in the early 1990s by Passport, and in 1998 became the property of GVOX. For 10 years, very few improvements or updates were made, and Encore fell out of favor with publishers and with serious users. Since about 2008, GVOX has made a renewed effort to support and improve the program. I think it still has potential.

I admit that it has been years since I have tried to work with Finale; I understand that it has been improved quite a bit in the last few releases. Eventually I'll find the time to try it again.

Paul de Ville, Continued

Happy New Year!

The web has yielded up some more arcane Paul de Ville data! Google Books has not yet gotten around to scanning in any of his publications from c.1900, but has posted copies of two old Carl Fischer publications with references to de Ville’s products. (Sax players, of course, know de Ville as the author of the still-popular "Universal Method for Saxophone" - see my Dec.19 post.)

The first is “The Band Teacher’s Assistant, or Complete and Progressive Band Instructor,” copyright 1888, by Arthur A. Clappé (a well-respected bandmaster and author, in his time). Google copied it from the Stanford Music Library. It’s full of information that every band director needs. For example, did you know that “clarionets” should be oiled lightly with salad oil once a month, and the joints greased periodically with a little deer tallow? (What was “salad oil,” exactly, in 1888?)

My old clarinet teacher, Paul Pone, who started playing in Italy in the 1910s or 1920s, once told me that his mom used to make cork grease by straining lamb chop fat through a piece of cloth. He added that if you ever run out of cork grease, “you’ve always got a little right here,” rubbing a finger on the side of his nose.

Anyway, the Clappé book includes an appendix listing “Best Methods and Studies for Wind Instruments.” There we find the “Eclipse Self-Instructors” by Paul de Ville - for flute, piccolo, clarinet, cornet, Eb alto (horn, that is, not saxophone), Bb tenor (horn), baritone, tuba, and drums. These are priced at 60 cents each. There is also “Carl Fischer’s New and Revised Tutor” for Eb cornet, by de Ville, listed at $1.25.

The Clappé appendix also lists “Universal Methods” by de Ville, for flute, saxophone, trombone, baritone/euphonium, and xylophone. These are priced at between $2.00 and $4.00; I assume that the price varied with the size of the book.

The second book is “The Practical Band Arranger: A Systematic Guide for Thorough Self-Instruction,” by L. P. Laurendeau, copyright 1911. It seems to have come from the New York Public Library. This would have been a pretty decent introduction to theory and arranging, for someone wanting to arrange music for their town band in 1911.

As far as Paul de Ville goes, the interesting part of this book is the section at the end that advertises Carl Fischer products. Here we find listings for “Universal Methods” for flute, saxophone, trombone, harp, baritone/euphonium, drums, and xylophone. All are by de Ville except the harp method. There is also a list of “Eclipse Self-Instructors” for violin, cello, string bass, piccolo, flute, clarinet, cornet, alto horn, tenor horn in treble or bass clef, slide trombone (treble or bass), valve trombone (treble or bass), baritone horn (treble or bass), tuba, Bb Bass (treble or bass), Melo horn, drums, fife, mandolin, guitar, and banjo. No specific author is listed for these, so we can’t be sure how many were written by de Ville.

The Eclipse books were priced at 50 cents each in 1911, down from 60 cents in the 1888 book. Was there deflation between 1888 and 1911? According to Wikipedia, perhaps: "Between 1875 and 1896...prices fell in the United States by 1.7% a year." But then again, the appendix of "Best Methods" in Clappé's 1888 book also lists the 1908 "Universal Method for Saxophone" - so the appendix must have been revised (or added) in a later printing, maybe some years after 1911.

As you can see, I’m into saxophone trivia. If anyone has any biographical info on Paul de Ville, please send a comment (below).

Paul De Ville: His Saxophone and Banjo Methods

I came across this copy of Paul de Ville's "The Eclipse Self-Instructor for Banjo" (1905) at a sheet music give-away. Sax players will recognize Paul de Ville (or deVille) as the author of the "Universal Method for Saxophone" (1908), a very good instruction book that is still in wide use today. I wondered for a moment if this could be the same person - but of course it is. How many Paul de Villes, writing music instruction books in 1905-1908, could there have been?

On the first page of the banjo book is a "Dictionary of the Principal Words Used in Modern Music." An identical list, under the title "A List of the Principal Words Used in Modern Music," appears on page 13 of the saxophone book. The next page of the banjo book starts a section called "Rudiments of Music." I thought that looked familiar as well. In fact, there is a "Rudiments of Music" section in the saxophone book too. The subjects, layout, and wording are similar but not identical, as though de Ville had revised his 1905 banjo version for the 1908 saxophone book.

Banjo book

  

But wait! My edition of H. Klosé's "Celebrated Method for the Clarinet" also has a similar "Rudiments of Music" section at the beginning of the book. And "A List of the Principal Words Used in Modern Music," the same list exactly, appears in Klosé, on page 120. 

All three books were (or are) published by Carl Fischer. It looks as though it was company policy to include a standardized "Rudiments" section. Incidentally, on the Petrucci site I found a free download of an 1879 English language edition of the Klosé (pub. Jean White). Comparing it to my 1946 "Revised and Enlarged by Simeon Bellison" edition, it's possible to make some guesses as to which parts of the Klosé were simply lifted by Carl Fischer from the earlier Jean White edition (e.g., most of the wording in the translation from French to English), which parts may have been added in early Carl Fischer editions, (e.g., the "Rudiments" section) and which parts may have been added or rewritten by Simeon Bellison (substitution of less antiquated wording, much extra musical content).

So, back to the banjo book - after the 8-page Rudiments section, de Ville has 3 pages on how to play the instrument, followed by 8 pages of short exercises. Then he gets right down to business, with 139 "Standard, National, and Operatic Melodies." This would have been a pretty cool song collection for most Americans in 1905: Irish, civil war, minstrel show, Gilbert and Sullivan, Verdi, Stephen Foster, jigs, polkas. By comparison, the saxophone book is rather dry - no popular songs at all. I imagine that de Ville modelled the sax book after "serious" classical method books, like Klosé, or the Arban trumpet method.

According to an article on www.concertina.net, de Ville published "Eclipse Self-Instructor" books for accordion, concertina, banjo, flute, clarinet, guitar, mandolin, trombone, piano, saxophone, and violin, between 1893 and 1906. The concertina book is still in print (as are the later 1908 "Universal Method" and the Klosé clarinet method, of course).

De Ville seems to have taken his saxophone "Universal Method" seriously, more so anyway than the banjo book. It's aimed at students with patience and discipline, rather than at those just interested in playing popular songs. The "Eclipse" and "Universal" series were aimed at different sorts of customers.

It's interesting that de Ville, and the Carl Fischer company, thought that the saxophone was worthy of a method with a "serious" approach (and that it would sell). As to why that might be, I'm thinking about the social status of the saxophone in 1908. The popularity of the instrument at that time would have been based on its use in the very popular Patrick Gilmore (active 1848-1892) and John Philip Sousa (active 1880-1932) bands, and in thousands of town bands playing similar music at the time. The saxophone's ascendency in pop culture via vaudeville (e.g., the Six Brown Brothers, 1910s) and early commercial recordings (Rudy Wiedoeft, late 1910s and early 1920s) was still in the future. Jazz saxophone came even later.

De Ville is listed as having revised the Lazarus clarinet method c.1900 (Eastman library). In his Author's Note at the beginning of the "Universal Method for Saxophone," he calls the saxophone "my favorite instrument." Maybe he was a single-reed guy.

More about De Ville in my next post.

Charlie Parker's Musical Quotes

Lawrence Koch's book "Yardbird Suite," reviewed in my last post, offers quite a bit of analytical detail about most of Charlie Parker's recordings, including the musical quotations in Bird's solos. Below is a list I extracted from the book as I re-read it. (Thanks to the author for his kind permission.)

Update 12/21/15 - I've added a few more at the end of the list, from Thomas Owens' dissertation "Charlie Parker: Techniques of Improvisation" (1974).

Parker was more likely to employ musical quotes in live performances than in the studio; it was his way of telling a little joke to his audience. Sometimes his choice of quote was intended as a message to a fellow musician or to a particular listener, sometimes it was just being silly.

This list is more or less chronological, 1941-1955. I haven't included examples of Parker quoting his own previous recordings, or quoting other musicians' solos (e.g., Lester Young's), and I have only listed the first instance of each song quote that Koch cites. When a jazz standard like "Star Eyes" or "I'll Remember April" appears on the list, it's because it was quoted in a solo over a different tune.

There's no independent research on my part here, just a collation of the melodies cited throughout the book. I'm sure that the list is incomplete. It's posted for your amusement, and as bit of musical history.

Isle of Capri
We're in the Money
Scatterbrain
Bye Bye Blackbird
London Bridge
Happy Am I With My Religion
Drum Boogie
Mean to Me
Cottontail
Somehow
Woody Woodpecker
Cocktails for Two
In the Gloaming
Happy Birthday
Dardanella
Canadian Capers
Country Gardens
D'Ye Ken John Peel
Le Secret
When The Red, Red Robin...
Why Was I Born?
Buttons and Bows
Then I'll Be Happy
I'll Remember April
The Kerry Dancers
Jingle Bells
The Man On the Flying Trapeze
Pop Goes the Weasel
My Kind of Love
On the Trail
Blues in the Night
West End Blues
Habanera
High Society
Barnacle Bill the Sailor
The Prisoner's Song
That's A-Plenty
Johnny One-Note
My Man
Did You Ever See a Dream Walking?
In and Out the Window
Stumbling
Memories of You
A-Hunting We Will Go
Claire de Lune
National Emblem March
Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair
Ladybird
Cross My Heart 
Star Eyes
The Song is You
Humoresque
Let's Have Another Cup of Coffee
Mozart Symphony #40
Honey
Tenderly
Temptation
Let's Fall in Love
Please
Three Blind Mice
I Love You Truly
Why Do I Love You
William Tell Overture
Santa Claus is Coming to Town
I Can't Get Started
Casbah
I Cover the Waterfront
Minuet in G
Moon Over Miami
Nightingale

Addenda: from the Owens dissertation mentioned above:

Over There
Poinciana
Put Your Little Foot
Oh Come, all Ye Faithful
Minute Waltz (Chopin)
"Introduction" from "The Rite of Spring" (Stravinsky)
"Dance of the Ballerina" from "Petrouchka" (Stravinsky)
"Anitra's Dance" (Grieg)
"In the Hall of the Mountain King" (Grieg)
"Menuet Celebre" (Paderewski)
"Star of Eve" from "Tanhauser" (Wagner)


Addendum 9/26/17 - I just ran across this page with more great Bird quote info: Quotes in Bird's Performance.

Addendum 6/13/19 - A few more from the new "Charlie Parker Omnibook Vol. 2":

Tickle Toe
It Don't Mean a Thing
Volga Boat Song

Review: "Yardbird Suite," by Lawrence O. Koch

Lawrence Koch’s “Yardbird Suite: A Compendium of the Music and Life of Charlie Parker” combines several aspects: biography, annotated discography, psychological speculation, and musical analysis; these aspects are integrated into a chronological narrative of Parker’s life. This book is invaluable to any musician who wants to understand the man who, more than any other individual, was responsible for modern jazz. Following are some comments about each of these facets of “Yardbird Suite.”

Biography

It’s a tricky thing, writing a biography of Charlie Parker. As an artist, Parker created an enduring musical language that was optimistic and joyful, as well as intellectually brilliant. In this respect, he was an exemplary human being. But at the same time, his substance abuse problems made him an awful role model, damaged the lives of others, and degraded the public image of jazz. How can a biographer convey the beauty and brilliance of Parker’s contribution, while acknowledging the realities of his personal life? Clint Eastwood’s film, “Bird,” attempted to do this. I remember leaving the theater with a feeling of depression. To me, that meant that the film had failed.

Koch manages to negotiate this problem well. He does not avoid the factual details of Bird’s life, but attempts to place them in proper perspective by making some psychological speculations, and more importantly, by simply focusing far more on the music.

The personal details of Parker’s life are generally drawn from other biographies, but are selected and presented in a way that Koch intends to be as accurate and succinct as possible. Occasionally, he discusses “Bird stories” that he finds factually dubious.

Discography

Virtually every Parker recording that had been documented at the time the book was written is discussed, both in the frame of historical narrative and in musical terms. Koch offers his opinions on each recording's relative artistic merit, and suggests which recordings he considers to be more (or less) essential. He lists Bird’s musical quotes in detail; I rather enjoyed that.

In the descriptions of the recording sessions, you will find information and perspective on just about any Parker recording that you may own.

Psychological speculation

I’m not qualified in any way to evaluate Bird’s mental state or motivations, or to evaluate Koch’s comments in this regard. But he offers his opinions, and to me they do not seem particularly out of line. Koch speculates that a lack of discipline in Parker’s early life led to his pattern of self-indulgence as an adult, and that his self-destructive tendencies were due to a conflict between the self-indulgent side of his personality and the higher, artistic side. You’ll have to read this book for yourself to see if I’m paraphrasing it properly.

Musical analysis

This, to me, is the book’s greatest strength. Besides the musical comments throughout the book, there is a 32-page appendix that presents an excellent study of the elements of Parker’s compositional/improvisational style. Topics include: Use of the b6, Use of the Major Scale, Treatment of the Dominant, Substitute Chords, Shifting Harmonic Accents, Superimposition, Blues, and so forth - 17 subjects in all. The appendix concludes with a transcription and bar-by-bar analysis of Bird’s solo on “Embraceable You.”

Personally, and as an ornithologist myself, I agree with most (not all) of Koch’s analytical comments. My disagreements are on the level of minor quibbling. (One quibble concerns his tendency to ascribe chordal thinking [substitutions, interpolations] to virtually every note, where I’d guess that Parker’s thinking might in some places be better explained as employing tension notes, neighboring tones, and passing tones.)

Koch’s writing style is personal and informal, rather than scholarly; this is appropriate, as the book includes a fair amount of personal opinion along with the biographical narrative and musical analysis.

The advertising blurb that you’ll find on Amazon and elsewhere doesn’t really do this book justice. It’s OK until it promises “stories of Parker’s eccentric behavior, sexual appetite, drug addiction, and compulsive drinking.” That sentence seems to have been intended to help sales, but aside from a few well-known incidents, this book doesn’t really deliver prurient details. It’s actually a well-researched book by a musician, directed primarily at other musicians, that delivers a respectful biography and quite a bit of musical insight. If you’re a jazz player, it’s a must-read.