Sam Butera

[Jules]

Couldn't find any threads dedicated to one of my personal faves, so here goes. Sam Butera! For any one who's not familiar- he's the tough looking tenor honker from Louis Prima's band. As such you can hear him on 'Just a Gigolo', 'Oh Marie' and all those other great Louis P. tracks.
Good old honking R&B at its finest, but rather more melodic and slightly less bluesy than some. I'm playing quite a bit of his stuff in my current band and have felt the pretty much emulating his original solos is the way to go... 'Gigolo' in particular doesn't sound right with a jammed solo, as the original one is so strong. The feeling I'm getting form quite a few of his solos is that his Italian origins come across in the form of a collection of little melodies in the middle of the honking that almost sound like Italian folk tunes (not obvious but I'm convinced they're there). Plus the tone he gets is great, just the right amount of growl and edge..... I salute him!

 

[mfox]

as I'm at the moment just in the early stages of getting a jump band together I'm transcribing quite a few Sam Butera solos..I've been a big fan of him for years.. and while hes not the most technical player in the world, his solos have so much verve and cheekiness.. not a bad singer also..

there is plenty of SAM on your tube.. just type in Louis prima

 

[rhysonsax]

I love jump music, especially the sax playing of Louis Jordan and Sam Butera.

Curtis Swift http://www.saxsolos.com/ does great transcriptions. He can do them to order for $10 to $20 depending on the length and complexity. He already has transcriptions of three Sam Butera solos, "Buona Sera", "When You're Smiling/Sheik of Arabi" and "Oh Marie". The transcriptions he's already got, he emails for 50c a sheet, so that would be $4.50 for all three.

But maybe it would be better to do the transcribing yourself as part of the learning process.

Good luck with your band - I'd be happy to swap some transcriptions or arrangemnets if you like. Just send a PM.

Rhys

 

[Jules]

Jump blues & jive music in general is very possibly the most fun music to play live that I've ever come across (speaking as a horn player). The whole thing is set to make life easy/fun for tenor saxes- lots of solos, usually played in very sax friendly keys and no loud,distorted guitars to compete with.. Woo Hoo!! Plus it works superbly as party music. There's a very appealling thing that it's also got good cross generational appeal- Its a genre everyone can relate to- I've played in jive bands to full-on ska/punk audiences and they totally 'got it' and bounced around in the appropriate manner.
All that and its got a good genre dress code too (speaking as someone thoroughly enjoys dressing up as a slightly sleazy looking spiv!! )