[Dixielandjazz] Offended by Dixieland?

[Stephen Barbone]

Charlie Hull writes about "Dixieland"  (polite snip)

"I don't find the term offensive at all.  The target group for my Band's

services are not jazz aficionados, just people looking for happy music
that
will make their clients or party attendees feel good and spend their
money."

List  mates:

Hear hear. Speaking of "Jazz Aficionados" aren't they just older people
who when they were young, like the audiences Charlie and I target, were
"just people looking for happy  music . . . or party attendees..." That
was of course, before they became knowledgeable aficionados. :-)

Heck, I only know about 100 "knowledgeable jazz aficionados" and they
can't seem to agree on anything except the importance of their own
diverse and often conflicting opinions. Not a big enough audience to
target. And not much fun in a group by themselves.

Plain speak: If you are looking for intellectual music Dixieland ain't
it. What we would like to believe, as musically informed Dixieland
aficionados, is/was art form dixieland between 1920 and 1940, is/was
simply warmed over pop music done in a jazzy style. Real jazz, yes
before 1920 and after 1940. It's peak, Eddie Condon groups, 1940 to
1975, and the groups at the Metropole in NYC.  (My opinion, maybe not
yours)

And those groups were fun. Biggest problem they had was that they were
in clubs where you couldn't dance. (That damn 20% tax on dance joints)
Those bands, black and white, were fun. The laughed, they hollered, they
had a good time, and the audience did too.

Now, we aficionados say, "keep the dancers in the back, we want to
listen and not be distracted". Are we kidding? Listen to what?

Cheers,
Steve Barbone