[78-L] Bird with Stringency

[Eric Goldberg]

I don't think that Dave could have swung if he was being hanged. 
Unfortunately, Dave broke his arm before Dorsey made a film , whose name I do not recall, so Dave was not in the movie. 
He told me stories about the Dorsey band and Buddy Rich and Dorsey himself, but he never showed any love for the music itself. Of course it was often goose eggs, and he was a violist.

Eric





On Thursday, January 9, 2014 1:19 PM, Joe Scott <joenscott at mail.com> wrote:
 
On those T. Dorsey and James (and Krupa and...) recordings the extra guys might as well be playing on a movie soundtrack behind a pop singer, they have no more to do with that jazz rhythmically than (unfortunately) Jack Costanzo had to with the swing the King Cole Trio had previously had. John Lewis managed to do an actual creative fusion with strings in the late '50s, "Sketch" by the MJQ with the Beaux Arts String Quartet, in which the strings seemed interested in swinging and could; if there's something comparable from the '30s-'40s I'd like to hear it.
Joseph Scott
P.S. Third stream music was invented, of course, by Paul Whiteman and his peers. The idea that the likes of Kid Ory could be improved upon by becoming a Rimskyish trombone section instead was revolutionary, wrong, brilliant...
----- Original Message -----
From: Julian Vein
Sent: 01/08/14 04:15 PM
To: 78-L Mail List
Subject: Re: [78-L] Bird with Stringency

On 08/01/14 19:17, Eric Goldberg wrote: > My friend Dave Uchitel played viola for a couple of years on the Bird with Strings club engagements in NYC. He never understood jazz at all, in fact he said of Bird "I hear he was great but he never played the same way twice" I guess all those winters with the Metropolitan Opera were the standard. Repetition (no pun intended) of repertoire was not an issue. > > > Eric > > ====================== Uchitel recorded many sessions with Tommy Dorsey and Harry James before Bird. Surely he must've picked up some feeling for or understanding of jazz with them? I would imagine the stuff he played with Bird he could've done in his sleep. That seems to be one area of research that hasn't been covered: string players in swing bands, though I recall Teddy Blume was interviewed once. Julian Vein _______________________________________________ 78-L mailing list 78-L at klickitat.78online.com
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