Joe MacNaghten and Return of The Regiment

[Jody Stecher]

"Return of The Regiment" was recently suggested as a tune of the month or season or something, (good idea I think) and music was posted by Dave Wade who today also posted a photo of Joe MacNaghten. This provokes a question that some of the English players here might be able to answer. It might be a case of UK and USA being "divided by a common language" but I've looked at the dots, listened to the recording of Ernest Jones playing Return OTR and read what "Mac" had to say about it and hit a brick wall.

http://www.zither-banjo.org/pages/jones1.htm


In describing EJ's improvements to the third movement he writes:

"Play all melody notes not written for the fourth string on the third string and it will be found that all accompanying chords "come out" an octave higher on the first and second strings."

Say what?

Assuming that the third string is tuned to G, the melody notes that do not have an encircled 4 below them are not available on the G string. "Not written for the fourth string" can also mean any note above f sharp. But playing those notes on the third string is Business As Usual. So Mac may have meant something else. something more likely.

I think he might have meant to say that Ernest Jones played the melody in this section entirely on the fourth string and we should too.

Could it be that he meant to say * When all melody notes one would expect to play on the third string are played up the neck on the fourth string instead and the chords are still gotten on the first and second strings it will be found that the lower note of the chord (actually double stop) is an octave higher than the melody note*?

another way to say the same thing:

Play all melody notes that seem to be written for the third string on the fourth string and (if one uses appropriate chord shapes) it will be found that all accompanying chords "come out" well on the first and second strings."

For instance the dots in this section begin with an A followed by 3 iterations of C and F on strings 1 and 2. If the A is played at the 9th fret of the 4th string and the treble notes that follow in that measure are played on strings 1 and 2 at fret 10 then they will sound at A and C. That gives the melody A an echo of an octave on the second string. Carrying on like this gives the melody more punch too.


"Mac" goes on to say " The slight effort required to invert these chords correctly is well repaid by the vastly improved results".

That seems to corroborate my idea. Listening again to Ernest Jones' 1930 z-b recording again sure enough I can hear him playing higher inversions of the chords than as written.

Have I cracked the code or was something else meant?

Cross Eyed In San Francisco

[Trapdoor2]

Ah, but where do we find the recording to listen to? Link? mp3?

I'm in the middle of creating TAB for ROTR, just getting to the section in question. I agree with your assessment, switching from 3rd to 4th and picking up the higher inversion works fine. I'll TAB it out as written (as best as I can interpret) and then go back and re-work it with the "Ernest Jones" version.

[Jody Stecher]

I can post a sound file of EJ's recording Return of The Regiment in due course if there's interest. I have it on a cassette so I need to get it into digital format first. Some years ago Norman Field, a jazz record collector in Birmingham (the one not in Alabama) with a soft spot for banjo, made some of his early banjo record collection available on a series of cassettes on the Neovox label. The cassette in question is Neovox M1006 "Banjo Concert # 3. There must have been about 20 titles or so. You could once find them around the UK if you looked in the right corners.

With the growing interest in classic banjo it would be great if these collections were made available again.

Norman Field now has a digital transfer business and can be found here:
http://www.normanfield.com/

[Trapdoor2]

Thanks for the sound files, Jody. I believe the Neovox stuff is available on CD now, I have the one with Joe Morley, Tarrant Bailey & J.P. Cunningham. Great stuff.

Re: EJ's recording. Interesting to hear that he plays each section with a 'repeat' (not marked on the sheet music). I'm not sure I prefer it that way...will require more listening (and picking thru it).

[Jody Stecher]

Hi Marc. The CD you're referring to was released on the private label called Neophone, Steve Walker's endeavor, which seems to no longer be in operation and may have been as short lived as the original Neophone which was in business for a few years in the first decade of the 20th century. The website's been down for some time anyway. These were rather more elegantly packaged than Neovox, had good liner notes, and were themed. The disc you're referring to was all home recordings for instance. Confusion between the 2 Neo-s is understandable especially because there was at least one identical package title (Out Of The Dawn) albeit with different content. Both were small operations, friendly gestures of sharing rare recordings with kindred spirits.

The way I hear it EJ repeats the A and B parts just as indicated in the sheet music and plays the D once just as indicated and the final part (the return to the trio) once as indicated. It's only in the C part (what was called the trio, the contrasting third part) that he deviates from written indications and goes back and plays it again, this time with chords doubled (twice as many at double speed). I think it's very effective. If I may indulge in some ignorant speculation: sometimes record companies wanted the customers to perceive they were getting their money's worth. By repeating the trio Ernest Jones produced a 3 minute recording. Same price/more notes. Gotta be better? Right?

[marc dalmasso]

i think it is a beautiful tune ; Didn 't knew this one .Thx Jody