How to interpret In The Mood
Posted: Sun Jun 23, 2019 9:31 am
Yeah, it's a beaten-to-death tune that everyone in the jazz world has to deal with, but I think this kind of gets overlooked as a deceptively tough tune to play right. I'm wondering what some others' takes on this might be.
For reference:
For starters, the opening lick. Saxophones typically play their opening pretty aggressively, and I've found that if I match that, it's super easy to crack the high A-flat. Back off a bit, and I nail it every time. And it's super easy to be terrible with time in that opening, too.
Between various players I work with, there are a *lot* of variations on the length of held notes in the brass backgrounds in the first main melody. It kind of annoys me that the "stock" chart is not notated how the Miller band actually performs those. They do it shorter with a pretty quick diminuendo. It's more annoying to me that even in pro groups, that detail never gets agreed upon by the players, which should be a no-brainer if people are at least following the lead trumpet.
Trombones/saxes playing the background lick behind the trumpet solo at 1:40 typically play it too loud. Unfortunately, in the "stock" it's written mezzo-forte, but no one ever seems to correct this. In fact, this is a general gripe I have in a whole lot of jazz charts: writing in something like 'mf' when want's really wanted is more like 'p'.
I have come to *not* like people playing pedal tones on the long notes starting at 2:07. The reason is that playing a pedal tone and an octave above it makes the perceived note a bit louder, and especially if people start pedalling in the 3rd, quietest, iteration, it kind of destroys the effect.
For reference:
For starters, the opening lick. Saxophones typically play their opening pretty aggressively, and I've found that if I match that, it's super easy to crack the high A-flat. Back off a bit, and I nail it every time. And it's super easy to be terrible with time in that opening, too.
Between various players I work with, there are a *lot* of variations on the length of held notes in the brass backgrounds in the first main melody. It kind of annoys me that the "stock" chart is not notated how the Miller band actually performs those. They do it shorter with a pretty quick diminuendo. It's more annoying to me that even in pro groups, that detail never gets agreed upon by the players, which should be a no-brainer if people are at least following the lead trumpet.
Trombones/saxes playing the background lick behind the trumpet solo at 1:40 typically play it too loud. Unfortunately, in the "stock" it's written mezzo-forte, but no one ever seems to correct this. In fact, this is a general gripe I have in a whole lot of jazz charts: writing in something like 'mf' when want's really wanted is more like 'p'.
I have come to *not* like people playing pedal tones on the long notes starting at 2:07. The reason is that playing a pedal tone and an octave above it makes the perceived note a bit louder, and especially if people start pedalling in the 3rd, quietest, iteration, it kind of destroys the effect.