1/25 - Marvin Stamm

Today I slept in Poli Sci, did homework in Theory, had a good lesson with Christopher Deane, and learned a lot of Gamelan music. But that's not what I really want to talk about today.

Today Marvin Stamm came to UNT. He played in the One O'Clock when he went to school here, and he went on to play with Stan Kenton, Woody Herman, Thad Jones and Mel Lewis, Benny Goodman, Bill Evans, Quincy Jones, Bob Mintzer, Maria Schneider, and just about every jazz musician in NYC.

He talked about how the lab bands played in an army barracks, not a concert hall, and there was one person on the Jazz faculty when he was around. His treat at the end of the day was to play along to records given to him by his brother, who was his main inspiration. He told us the key to really getting your name out was to be on time, respectful, easy to work with, and then be really good; I thought it was interesting how the skill level wasn't really the deciding factor.

And the main thing he told us was to have fun, because if having fun is the reason you want or wanted to pursue music in the first place, what's the point of playing if you aren't having fun?

Have fun.

I recorded these, but I haven't listened to them yet.





Not only was it a good performance, but he was a cool person in general, and that was really nice to see.

Interesting thing of the day:

French grip, in which the palms of the hands face directly toward each other, and the stick is moved with the fingers and some wrist, is based on a French fencing grip. German grip, where the palms are parallel to the drumhead, and the stick is moved primarily with the wrist, is based on a German fencing grip. The grips were already common knowledge in those regions and they just applied it to timpani.

I thought that was cool. I should probably check with Todd on that though.

I have a lot of music to learn, so I'm done for the night.

M