[Dixielandjazz] Does "Dixieland" Matter Anymore?

[Charlie Hooks]

Aw shucks, Chuck!  

But seriously, old friend: those are some fine fine things you are saying,
and I would like nothing more than to deserve them.  All I can assure you of
is: I have had enormous fun for the last thirty years!  I have met numbers
of men, musicians, who have been talented enough--or crazy enough, or both--
to have become one of us.  I don't think that any one of us was born crazy
enough to choose Jazz music (of whatever variety!) as a vocation.  We all
drifted into it because we just couldn't help it.

For better or for worse, we hear this stuff and have to play it.  But I'll
tell you this: what we hear and must play is the most clean, the most clear,
the most "organic" (Oh! is that a good thing?), the least cluttered with
crazy baggage, of any music on the web today.

May Barbone prosper and grow great!  Spreading the Word to the heathen! And
may we all do so!  I, for one, am with him all the way.  He's nuts about
God, of course, but that's ok.  God just grins.  So should I be a worrier?

love him--and all of us.
Charlie