"My Heart Stood Still"

My Heart Stood Still.mp3

Another tune from Chet's crazy-sweet 1958 recording: It Could Happen to You, this one really gave me some trouble.

What makes this session different is the fact that i thought it was going much better then it ultimately did.
it began pretty copacetic. i was feeling pretty good about myself for having learned the lessons from the last session ("The More I See You"). readers who recall that that one was the one in which i fucked up the cable routing so instead of recording in stereo, i was running in mono, which of course necessitated doing the whole shebang over again. Yay.

in any event, i started with a basic drum track and not yet figuring out how to make a loop to simply plug in when needed, i did my hat, ride and brush act Virtual instrument pass. that went ok i guess. i say i guess because after recording a 16 bar pass and copying it over 175 measures, i found it got all messed up due to my screwing around trying to copy and paste different sections of the tune apart and together.

And if this last part sounds confusing, it was for me as well. and i was the one creating the damn thing.

Even listening to the file i ended up with here after the fact, the tracks don't line up properly: the drum track seems to be rushing ahead of the bass track. this sucks because it sucks.

i know words like 'suck' are terribly technical but i know musicians out there will know what i'm talking about.

But let's start with what i like about the session. hmmmm, what would that be? oh, yeah the piano track.

one thing i'm looking to learn here is the style of comping the piano players on Chet's tracks exhibit.

Comping, for the tragically unhip (oh settle down, i'm freakin kidding) is short for...comping...which is short for competition. No. again. just kidding.

Comping is what those musicians not soloing at the time do to support those who are....soloing that is.
Comping is actually shorthand for a style of playing that compliments the soloist. not complimenting as in: "dude you're fucking awesome. keep the hell going man"
no, comping is complimenting the same way a 30-degree angle is complementary to a 60-degree angle... or is that supplementary?

You know what, i'm gonna leave it up to you to set me straight on this one: this way i'll know if anyone ever reads this thing.

Anyhow, comping is an art. i mean a real art. to support a soloist, coming into a phrase and leaving a phrase, echoing, anticipating, leading. It's a beautiful thing when it happens.

Kenny Drew does it on this recording.
Wynton Kelly does it.
Teddy Wilson does it.

The way he voices the changes (those are the chords remember?), the way he applies the harmonic rhythm (that's where he puts the changes in time), the way he uses his right hand to help define the chords in his left, the choices he makes in terms of notes in each chord (leaving out the third here, the fifth there)

Anyway, I want to feel how to do this. I want to play rhythmically as well as melodically. i want to take advantage the piano's percussive nature.

And so i think, listening back to this session, this is beginning to happen, although the sound of the piano patch itself, sounds pretty harsh and angular and stabbing. too much midrange? too much high end? shitty piano patch to begin with?

These are questions for post production i think.

Look at me throwing these terms around like i knew what the fuck i'm talking about.

How'd you like me now?


That said, this session really points out the difficulties of playing good, convincing music.

the individual parts fitting together...or not
the intonation...or not
the facility...or not

so many aspects to this. so much to do. so much to do well.

and i've not gotten a horn part on this yet. i tried to put one on the other day but it never gelled. yet anyway. i'll give it another whirl today or tomorrow.

speaking of horn, i tell you what....my poor old stripped bach 1000 series. it really just needs to be put out of its misery. but

i'm in there pitching

I was trying to lay a trumpet track (on this tune actually) and it wasn't going well; i couldn't string a chorus together to save my life: either the beginning sucked or the middle was weak or there were too many clams (i'm assuming you can guess what those are right? if not, write to me and i'll give you some aural examples)

It was while trying for the life of me to get a horn track in the can that i noticed a constant drip of water. finally i stopped and gave my horn a good looking over. this is when i discovered the leak.

My friggin horn was leaking! i never, ever, saw this before. in fact i never ever witnessed such a thing in all my forty years of association with this piece of brass plumbing. jesus.

But no matter if i ever saw or heard of a horn leaking before, there it was before my very eyes. my friggin horn was leaking...and not in only one place!

Turned out it was leaking from the tuning slide (on the lead pipe side no less) and from the spit valves.

Well shit i thought. i've already put in like 10 hours into this thing, what with stripping all the lacquer off of it and sanding it down and using lava soap on the valves and third valve slide etc. jesus what now?

That was it for the day. The session ended with me nearly throwing the damn horn into the fireplace.

But instead, I put it on my trumpet stand, (the one that gets stuck inside the bell due to the fact at one point in its life, the poor thing got freakin smashed to shit. it must have judging from the fact that the bell had to be severed from the horn, then soldered back on(which is yet another heretofore unseen phenomenon in my experience as a trumpet player).

Whatever. it's all good right?

Lest you think i am sort of maladjusted temperamental musician, i actually did fix the leaks, re-polished and refit the corks on the thing the following weekend. we'll see what the next challenge is on this thing.

Aren't you gratified that i used the word 'challenge' instead of a more vitriolic term like...oh i don't know...the next....horror show, or fuckin piece of shit bullshit thing....maybe.

OK, i'll stop.