Word: oompahs
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...discothèques and rock-'n'-roll joints, the trouble is not so much in the instruments themselves, or even the sustained fortissimi or the close quarters. The blame goes to the electronic amplifiers. An old-fashioned oompah military band, playing a Sousa march in Central or Golden Gate Park, generated as much sound. But the sound was not amplified, and was dissipated in the open air. A trombonist sitting in front of a tuba player might be a bit deaf for an hour or so after a concert; then his hearing returned to normal. A microphone hooked...
...arms. The work is laced with musical and verbal wit. Widow Popova's complaints about her dead husband ("What could a poor, weak woman do / But humor his caprices,/ When acts more suited to a zoo / Took place with neighbors' nieces?") are set to an oompah rhythm and sardonic melody. Though The Bear is no immortal work from the Olympian heights of human creativity, it is blessed with fine craftsmanship and expert musicianship. The album's cast and orchestra are excellent as well...
Despite these gifts, he failed to invest his orchestra with enough expressiveness or subtlety to rival Doc Severinson's band. Carmen's rousing prelude came out as a consistent, if uninspiring, series of oompah-oompahs, and in the orchestral finale to the Gypsy Song the melody somehow got lost beneath the percussive power of the tambourine...
...recent years, summer music has moved steadily indoors for air-conditioned comfort. But this season more and more Americans are defying chiggers and heat for the trill, the toot and the oompah-pah of old-fashioned outdoor summer band concerts...
...With Fats Waller and James P. Johnson dead, he is the last of the great "stride style" pi anists who flourished in Harlem in the '20s and '30s. The style - so named be cause the left hand shuttles between low notes and midrange chords in an oompah pattern - draws its riches from ragtime, and it requires a "two-fisted tickler" to make it roll...