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I've heard:
Sears & Roebuck chord changes, the same as ice cream changes.
Being a hired gun: not a member of a band, just hired out for a gig.
Honk: to improvise (heard Nashville studio guitarist Brent Mason use this)
Play a Cantor: I heard this from Hank Mackie, jazz professor at the University of New Orleans. I believe the entertainer was Eddie Cantor(?) who wanted a particular intro when he walked out on stage. It was a simple chord change. So, when someone wanted some sort of an intro, they'd say play a Cantor.
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01-18-2011 11:55 AM
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Originally Posted by Dookychase
Peace,
Kevin
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These may be dated....
Lizard = a bad note
Train Wreck = the entire band collapses into chaos during a song
Cookin' with gas = playing a hot solo
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KS, Hank really is a great player. He's also an incredible teacher. Of all the people I've heard play, I would like to play like him.
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Originally Posted by ksjazzguitar
And one from Benny Carter: After his pianist played a very soft and beautiful ballad, complete with soft whisker comping, Carter said "Now, that sure sounded like mice pi***ng on cotton!"
Lester Young is likely the alltime unchallenged champion of jazz slang. He had a partly private version of the hippest talk of the day. He also had some wonderfully oblique expressions. "Ding Dong" meant that something was very good - it was eventually abbrevated to "Bells". White musicians was "gray boys": "Talking about the grey boys, I'd say Allen Eager can play". When someone said something he disliked, he'd say "I feel a draft!". When someone, whom he didn't like, entered the room, it was "Von Hangman is here". Poul Quinichette tried to play more like Lester than Lester himself, and Lester said of him:"I don't know whether it's Lady Q plying like me or me playing like Lady Q, because he plays so much like me." Lester didn't want to be "a repeater pencil" - and wouldn't want anybody else to be either. Confronted with the fact that so many played like him, he said: "If they all play like me, then who am I?". Of course everyone was a MF - meant affectionately or negatively, depending on the context. The keys on his sax was his "people". He invented nicknames for a lot of colleques: "The Holy Man" for Count Basie, "Sweets" for Harry Edison, "Pepper" for Freddie Green, "Lady Day" for Billie Holiday and "Mr. Five By Five" for Jimmy Rushing, just to name a few.
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Strangers - wrong notes in a chart (from Rick Wilkins, the great tenor player and arranger.)
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"Four on the floor" - good solid swing era, four quarter notes to the bar, Freddie Green style. Also applicable to drummer or bass player doing a similar feel.
Humiliating Confession
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