Jazzer’s Videos

Damn, Jazzer! You seriously have a bag full of tricks. The way you build ideas and deliver licks over that tempo is amazing. Really relaxed, playing with the spaces and with great, and I mean GREAT, taste. Total class there.

Me being a fan and a freak of a more contemporary, risky approach to jazz, rarely enjoy the trad side of the game but mate, I've celebrated with true joe every bar of that solo of you.

 

Bloody hell mate - steady on!

Since I started playing jazz I realised that taking a jazz solo means telling the audience a story, at a tempo that they can follow. It’s really a bit like writing an essay. You have to take them with you.

If you look back in this thread I make quite a nice job of:

“When You Wish Upon Star,”
“Old Rockin’ Chair”
“I Cover the Waterfront.” (valve trombone.)

I’d built up quite a reputation in the U.K. until ‘T’ put a stop to it. But I remind myself that ‘I Was That Soldier.’

P.S. There’s a quite interesting one.

I was asked to put some jazz together for a group of business men. They told me they could not afford a fee. I went along with just an old boy on guitar, and we did a duo for nothing.

A famous trombonist called Jack Teagarden used to do a party trick where he took the bell off of the slide, and played chorus’s on the slide, with a glass tumbler to direct the sound forward. It puts all of the positions in different places. I learnt how to do it, and demonstrated it on here.

I have never seen anybody else do it.

I’ll go find it and put it below this post.

St James Infirmary

 

First instrument I took when I was 7 was slide trombone, then and after some neighbors persuaded my parents in not so diplomatic ways of me moving to another musical device more suited for the overall mental health of the block, I started playing clarinet, which I love lots but didn't suit the rock bands my friends formed in our teens, so in order to hit the stage and ingeniously thinking I was going to get the sights of the girls, I changed again, this time tenor saxophone was my tool then later also soprano. I made some moves with Afro-Cuban percussion as well. Broke half my left hand playing basketball and remained unable to play sax anymore so I took electric bass and... One day I left the rehearsal room with this tinnitus thing stuck in my brain. It was game over for me in terms of playing music. I kept rolling with my second love, boxing, which I still doing to this day, always afraid about the curse changing my plans one more time, now boxing being even more exposed fir it to happen in a drastic way but, hey, this life thing hasn't second acts so I go for it and whatever makes me feel alive.

I like Jack Teagarden, as I really like Roswell Rudd and everything he did with Steve Lacy. Curtis Fuller oh yeah.

And OMG, that rendition of St James Infirmary sounds as it just was conceived to sound!

 

“Ballad medley - ‘You Made Me Love You.’”

(I come in at 1m 36s.)

Ballad Medley

 

@El BUZZ

Bennie Plays The Blues (Remastered)

Nice blues playing Buzz. Real groovy repetition.

 

Sunday - The Swing set @ Stratford 2010

‘I used to be Jazzer.’

 

Original Dixieland One Step

Jazz - anybody???

 

“The Original Dixieland One Step” was written by Nick La Rocco in 1917, 105 years ago, and was the very first jazz recording ever made. It is still a great number to let your hair down on. It goes like the clappers.

Tinnitus made me terminate my playing career in 2017. I now have Parkinson’s disease, and due to a disastrous fall I have a broken shoulder which is inoperable. In many cases they can rebuild the shoulder with a bionic shoulder joint, but my shoulder bones are in pieces so not a chance.

However, I joined an organisation called the U3A (University of the 3rd age) and I now give two lectures on the history of jazz every month. I was active on the scene for 57 years, so as well as dishing up the history, I can throw in plenty of anecdotes. Like the semi-retired gynaecologist famously said: “It’s just nice to keep your hand in.”

Just a word on ‘Tinnitus Acceptance.”

As we all know, there is no cure and no viable treatment.

My lovely wife Sylvie became a clinical hypnotherapist, and witnessing my obvious distress, she put me out, and gave me just one hypnotherapy session, which she recorded onto my iPhone.

Her messages for me, which I absorbed subliminally were:

“...you will find that your tinnitus noises will fade... further and further... into the background... to the point that you will... hardly hear them at all... and you will find... stillness and peace... and will regain your lovely life.”

She herself did not have tinnitus, but she knew how to get through to somebody who did.

Hypnotherapy cannot cure your tinnitus, but if you can relax and if you are receptive to the idea and the suggestions given to you, you may find a tremendous change in your circumstances over time.

As I think you all know - my own tinnitus is very loud (approx 60 dB).

I hardly ever notice it.

Dave xx
Jazzer

 

I truly hope you are doing well and this so called new year is good to you. As always we on Tinnitus Talk think of you.

Elmer and the tinnitus gang

 

‘Cheers Elmer.’

 

Dark Eyes

 

I Had a Dream

Just a bit of fun from my own jazz club in 2013.

Hope you like it,
Jazzer
Dave x

 

‘The things I used to do... x

West End Blues

 

Beautiful playing @Jazzer and thoroughly enjoyable.

 

Thank you Michael.

 

@Jazzer, I am giving you a huge hug. Wonderful video. Miss you and think of you often.

 

Mood Indigo

Still dredging up jazz recordings from a misspent life.

 

Honeysuckle Rose - John Petters Swing Band

A few years ago I played a jazz festival alongside these two brilliant world class saxophonists. Trevor Whiting on alto, John Crocker on tenor.

You won’t hear better than this either side of the Atlantic.

 

Hi folks - does anybody remember me?

 

Tote remember you @Jazzer, you're legendary.

 

You are unforgettable my friend!

 

I do. How are you young man? I think about you often. I hope you are well.

Elmer

 

Hey Dave-

I forgot why I am supposed to be remembering you right now, but I don’t remember ever forgetting you so you got me all confused.

Anyway, thanks for all those videos. They got me thru that ruthless hour or two between 3:33am and breakfast this morning. I pretty much found all of it enjoyable to some extent because it was you playing. You were a freaking god damn stud up there. I bet you had to use your trombone to beat back those ferocious Jazz Felines just to get to the bar between sets.

I tend to gravitate more towards the slower stuff like Baker, Davis, Trane and Bill Evans etc as opposed to the faster bebop of Parker, Dizzy and Monk, so I favored DarkEyes and IndigoMood out of the recent posts but I would happily listen to just your stuff all-day for the rest of my life if the only other alternative was Modern Country.

 

To all of you guys above - thank you for your kindness.

It means much. It means a lot to me. As you probably remember, I have progressive Parkinson’s disease, and am now housebound unless some kind soul picks me up with my wheelchair. My lovely daughter Corinna picks me up every Wednesday evening for a philosophy class, which is so magical - the wisdom of the ages - as opposed to stale religious dogma. We have to find our own truth in this life - by means of our own power of perception.

I also give two lectures every month to the U3A (University of the Third Age) on Jazz Appreciation.

I really do value the friends that I made on Tinnitus Talk, and should make a point of coming back more often.

I do hope everybody is doing ok, and allowing your tinnitus noise to gradually fade into the background, and thereby fade in importance.

I’ll post one more jazz clip. “I Cover the Waterfront” - a great melody, which is more reflective in a mainstream style than my usual ‘make ‘em ‘ave it Dixieland.’ (Slide trombone and valve trombone.)

Love you all,
Jazzer
Dave
xxx