TromboneChat

Does anyone know if Jimmy Knepper used alternate positions more than most? I was playing middle C in sixth today, and the timbre was considerably darker than in third. Sixth position is a really awkward place to be, but I could see someone carving out a personal style based on favoring the lower half of the slide, or defaulting to trigger notes over their non-valve counterparts.

I'm told that he did. I'm also told he was a very tall guy with very long arms, and he developed a particularly fluid slide technique.

Jimmy Knepper





A terrific profile of Jimmy by one the best:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1991 ... -mouth/amp

I took some lessons with Jimmy Knepper and can relay the following. (1) He practiced alternate positions in the keys of Eb, Ab, and Db and said that he had to particularly learn to get around in those keys because they were favored in quite a few of Charles Mingus' compositions. (2) He relentlessly practiced the Bach Cello Suites and had his students do so as well. His book of the suites had many alternate positions marked up. Many of the patterns were counter-intuitive at first but definitely clever. (3) Crossword puzzles were the only other print material I ever saw on the table, aside from the Cello Suites and very personalized notations for practicing Charlie Parker alto saxophone solos on trombone. Steve

sabutin should reappear for this one.

I was looking for some sort of connection between Knepper and John Swallow, and all I came up with was this: The search result on a Russian site mentions Knepper in a Third Stream article. John Swallow was of course big in Third Stream, he was also very dedicated to alternate positions, and incidentally the use of the cello suites to work all of that out.

I don't know if there was a real connection between the men.

Does anyone know where Swallow's use of alternates and his system of playing across the breaks and only glissing one position came from? Did the system have a name?

Swallow studied with Neil DeBiasi of the NBC orchestra. I studied with John, and he told me it was DeBiasi who influenced his approach to alternate positions. One book that DeBiasi used with John was the Simone Mantia book “The Trombone Virtuoso”. now unfortunately out of print. Mantia’s approach, which is also evident in his editing of the Arban, heavily stresses the use of “alternate positions”. Subsequent editions of the Arban have largely taken that approach out. John took those basic concepts and then put his own unique approach to teaching it, such as the use of the cello suites and the Rochuts, especially the higher numbered ones most of us don’t even know exist.

One thing I remember him doing was a thought exercise: you’re at an audition in the finals and you wack your slide into a table in the warm up room right before you are going to play.. It’s damaged as so you can’t move it above 4th position and you have to play Tuba Mirum to win the job, what are you going to do? Well, if you had prepared to solo in more than one set of positions, you could still win the job. And yes, he could play the Tuba Mirum solo beautifully only below 3rd position.

I put alternate positions in scare quotes because John would bristle at the idea that any position on the trombone was any more normal than any other. Your job was to get the best possible sound on any note over the entire instrument no matter where the slide was, and it was only a matter of neglect of the further reaches of the slide that he called “The Bermuda Triangle” of the far positions that was the reason those notes didn’t match the ones in the close positions.

John didn’t have a name to this approach, he just saw it as common sense that anyone would want to use as much of the instrument as possible to get the best possible phrasing and agility. John, like Mantia, originally started on valves, where players don’t give alternate fingerings a second thought, and that was certainly a major part of his approach to the trombone.

A good start to his approach would be to get an old Mantia/Randall edited version of the Arban and the Mantia Trombone Virtuoso and follow Mantia’s slide position suggestions. The Trombone Virtuoso can be found on the internet as a download.

As far as I know, John didn’t know Jimmy Knepper personally; it never came up in conversation, although as a general concept, John thought the approach jazz trombonists used for slide technique needed to be part of classical technique.

I studied just one year with Swallow, and didn't get a lot of the background. From that year, I do have the Mantia book, along with the cello suites transcribed by lafosse, Bitsch, Rochut 2&3, Top Tones for Trumpet, and I think I did the Deux Danses by Defaye. I felt like I learned more in that year than the 10 before it.

We never worked on jazz or 3rd stream or even except. I guess with younger students like me he had a lot of fundamentals to get through first.

One book that DeBiasi used with John was the Simone Mantia book “The Trombone Virtuoso”. now unfortunately out of print.

I spent much time in the Mantia book as well. My original copy is quite dog-eared.

Happily, there is a nicely reproduced copy available here:

https://imslp.org/wiki/The_Trombone_Vir ... a,_Simone)

Appreciate the info, everyone, both on Knepper himself and on John Swallow, who I'd never heard of until now. I've never practiced the Cello Suites before; seems like a logical next practice item.

Studied with Michael Balogh for eight years during my re-entry into bone playing.

Bless him every day for his inclusion of alternate positions right from the start, insisting on practicing the alternates until they sound as good as "standard" positions. Cello Suites were part of the program as soon as my embochure was together enough to start on them. Bass clef, tenor clef, Ralph Sauer for bass bone. Holds for dependent and independent double valve bass as well ("you've got two valves, use 'em!).

I smile when I can make simple work of a "sawing wood" passage by alternates beyond third position. Playing in a college community band I can pass on the tips to younger players.

Lots of interesting info here. Knepper was one of my major early influences, since I first heard him on a Mingus record at age 14. Somehow I never considered the use of outer positions in his style until now. It's interesting that Jack Teagarden, who had a similarly fluid approach, pretty much never used anything past 3rd!

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I’d be interested in this. Email sent.

Bruce may have comments on Mantia.

baileyman wrote: ↑Thu Jun 02, 2022 7:35 am Bruce may have comments on Mantia.

Actually, the king of alternate positions was Arthur Pryor. Some of his solos require a lot of 6th position above the bass staff.

My Randall-Mantia Arban's made liberal use of 4th position D and 5th position Bb. Right now I'm working on Cimera and he shows a lot of alternate positions as well.