David Mason, 1926-2011

One of many Beatle bootleg gems I have is just the instrumental track from “Penny Lane”. I think there are also fourteen versions of “Strawberry Fields…” as well, mostly incomplete starts and stops.

Car rides with me at these times are only for the hearty few – or kids already held captive by their Graco carseats.

@Nabisco: For realz? Could you somehow copy the instrumental track on to the tubes?

The Beeb clip up above is getting stuck (at least on my computer), so the original YouTube clip is here.

I remember when I learned that the Penny Lane single has a trumpet tag missing in the album track. It was like, wow, you can release different versions?

In related news, I was young.

Meanwhile, to take it back to the trashy Stinque After Darque level, I just noticed how hawt the BBC correspondent is. He’s rivaling Anderson Cooper with the tight t-shirts and amazing biceps.

/fans self

@SanFranLefty: Plus sexy accent.

Don’t tell Benedick I said that.

Four-valve trumpets confuse the shit out of me. Too many choices.

@Tommmcatt Be Fat, And That Be That: Your secret is good with me.

@nojo: Forget the fingers, I couldn’t ever figure out what to do with my lips.

27-some #s? That’s Pennys.

@SanFranLefty: I could, but I don’t have my boots with me.

@nojo: The version of “Misery” on our family copy of “Introducing…the Beatles” skipped, and to this day I think the clean version sounds wrong.

All the rich cool kids played piccolos. I had no idea there was a piccolo trumpet. Omberture.

@SanFranLefty:

Bffffffffffffffffft!

Like that.

“Penny Lane” a love song? Says who?

@nojo: Easier said than done.

Despite my trumpet idiocy, I console myself with the fact that I can roll my R in Spanish, can roll my tongue, can touch my nose with my tongue, and have been told I’m a good kisser.

@mellbell: It’s clear as day. “Four of fish and finger pies/” See?

Oh, HEY! Play the Google!

@nojo: Ah. You have competition.

@SanFranLefty: I can touch my nose with my tongue also!

You don’t need a picc to play the cadenza. In fact, I saw clip once in which Mr Mason grabbed the big, conventional Bb trumpet from the stand and played it, for added badness, of course while looking like he was falling asleep. Trumpet culture in London may be different in UK and Europe as I heard that Maurice Murphy, icon and principal of the London Symphony for most of forever, played absolutely everything on the big Bb. (American orchestral sections in the last 100 years or so were moved by the influence of French players who were recruited by the Boston Symphony in the 20th century to C trumpets and whose students went on to play in influential orchestras like Chicago). The Penny Lane cadenza is not rangy as they go, topping off the final arpeggio on a concert F above high C on a Bb trumpet. Any big band chart has the usual lead player tooling around a third to a fifth above that as a matter of course.

@JNOV knows Sport: There’s a bunch. Bb/A, sometimes with interchangable shanks, one of which usually puts the horn nominally in the right pitch but out of tune, is common. There are a lot of just Bb and just A piccs. When Smedvig at Empire Brass started playing a lot of literature on a G picc, a lot of guys in quintets started a run on Schilke G piccs and liked the way they handled – kinda dancey – and the fact that you got picc-like performance with a big bell and kept a relatively big sound.

Embouchure

@FlyingChainSaw: The Penny Lane cadenza is not rangy as they go, topping off the final arpeggio on a concert F above high C on a Bb trumpet.

Yes, but I don’t think Maynard would play it so tidy. You’re in screaming range up there, sez this former MF Horn owner.

(Yes, Maynard marketed his own trumpet. Shut up.)

Oh, I am sure he could play it tidy and in ppp. But I wasn’t talking about Maynard per se but any first call lead player. The last time I saw Maynard’s band, the lead player was a kid from the Miami U conservatory and was typical of modern lead players. He was all over the fourth octave at complete ease. Zero pressure or force involved.

@FlyingChainSaw: The only time I saw Maynard’s band was in 1976 or so, at the Springfield High School gym. Enthusiastic audience, but the venue was kind of sad.

Also saw Woody Herman’s band around the same time, at an equally sad Eugene hotel meeting room. Keeping twenty players on the payroll was depressing work.

@nojo: Was he running 20 sidemen in those days? By the early 60s he was running a band with a dozen sidemen. Didn’t know he went with a big corps again. If you appreciate the genre do see if you can get the Message from Newport album. So tight, it’s like 13 guys sharing one nervous system.

@nojo: It got sadder. Friends reported guys working with Maynard in the 1990s sold T-shirts during the intermissions. Still, who else figured out how to keep that literature alive until the 21st century?

@FlyingChainSaw: Full band 5+5+5+rhythm, more or less. Or maybe 4+4+4. Certainly not a lite line-up.

Around the time of the Chameleon album, to date the sound.

@nojo: @FlyingChainSaw: I have no fucking clue what you two are saying but I’m enjoying this.

@SanFranLefty: For civvies…

Standard stage band consists of saxes (4-5), trombones (4-5), trumpets (4-5) and rhythm (piano, drums, bass, maybe a guitar).

So, that’s 15-19 mouths to feed, if it’s a professional group — which is one reason stage bands died out after the swing era. They’re capital-intensive.

A popular subsequent alternative, at least in major cities, were Monday Bands — groups of otherwise-paid session musicians who would gather on their off-nights. The classic example of this was the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis orchestra, which apparently is still around in some form.

@nojo: Sounds like Lyle Lovett’s Large Band – but he has all that plus two guitarists, a cellist, stand-up bass, violinist, and five back-up vocalists.

@SanFranLefty: You can certainly augment the basic setup — although upright bass is part of classic Big Band staffing, and “rhythm guitar” is very common. (You can hear Freddie Green strumming along on a number of Basie cuts.)

It’s starting to disappear from living memory, but Doc Severinsen’s Tonight Show band was a classic big band, occasionally augmented with strings or harp as needed. Even if you didn’t follow jazz, there was always that.

@nojo: It was the only part of the show worth watching. Carson liked the band and threw money at it. Severinsen hired all these monsters who were beached as the big band scene crunched to an end.

@FlyingChainSaw: Including the late, great Joe Pass.

@FlyingChainSaw: If you have a Philly accent, it’s omberture. Freedom fries are not pommes frites. Sheesh.