Playing Jazz and Playing Minstrel Music

[Tim Twiss]

There are many similarities here. Both genres are built mainly upon vocal songs and subsequent instrumental arrangements. Often, the original tune becomes so lost, than new generations of players have "lost" the original tune. Compare the Real Book to Briggs'.....many players do not know that much of the music has words.....and are clueless other than having heard somebody's arrangement about how the song actually goes. Any thoughts or experience with this?

[Tim Twiss]

I think one point I am trying to draw out of this topic is the evolution of a tune in the pop genre. Take a tune like "All The Things You Are". Most young players are introduced to this through some smokin' hot bebop arrangement. They have no clue as to the 1939 original version. I think the early swing players that adapted these standards and evolved into bebop after hours DID know the tune and had great respect for it, but the vision is lost as it is transmitted to a generation that is largely unaware.

[Al Smitley]

I guess this has always been the way it was.  When I was in the 2nd grade, I would surely have thought that the Platters' "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" was their original.  I could name dozens of others like that which, later in life, I discovered original older versions.

[Tim Twiss]

Now, what if we had no recordings?....of ANYTHING. What current rendition of anything would sound like the original? The other question is.....does it matter? Is the current life of a piece of music the value we place on it, or does some homage to the original intent have value? I think Art Music and Pop Music deserve differentiation....but then you have the gray areas in between.

[Tim Twiss]

I'm sort of talking to myself, but that's okay I guess. When I say something too weird, I'm sure someone will jump in.

I think we all share a curiosity of the source material...what was the practice of that music like? Back the truck up a bit beyond the banjo...and ask, wasn't it piano that would have accompanied these first tunes like Jump Jim Crow, and Coal Black Rose?

[Strumelia]

Fiddle, I'd think.  and flutes, whistles, drums/tambos/bones/patting, voices?