[Dixielandjazz] Marketing Bands - Getting Publicity

Sun, 29 Dec 2002 13:03:49 -0500

The below article from the Philadelphia Inquirer, the major newspaper in
the city and surrounding suburbs appeared today, Sunday 12/29/02. It
also contained 2 photographs of the Barbone Street Jazz Band in action.
It was 2/3 of a standard sized newspaper page.

Slowly but surely, for the past 8 years, Barbone Street has shamelessly
sought publicity such as this to expand its audience. We've been in this
newspaper 4 times, and in the West Chester Daily local 4 times, and in
the Wilmington News Journal twice. Plus in various on line sites, local
college papers, and 4 or 5 small local weekly and/or monthly papers as
far away as Rehoboth Delaware. As well as on several radio stations, and
a few short sound bites on TV.

This kind of thing, shameless as it may be, is a vital part of the "band
marketing" game. Find a "reason" to get mentioned by the media and they
will mention you. And you will build a new fan base to replace the older
ones who had "Just A Little While To Stay Here" and are taking that
heavenly journey.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone

HE'S BUYING BACK IN ON MUSIC

A clarinetist said he "sold out" for surer work. He's now playing jazz.

By Mary Anne Janco
Philadelphia Inquirer Suburban Staff

WEST CHESTER - Steve Barbone always intended to be a jazz musician. He
took up the clarinet after attending an Artie Shaw concert when he was
13. While in high school, with clarinetist Hank D'Amico as a mentor, he
sat in with top musicians at jazz clubs in New York.

During his college years, he played with such jazz legends as Thelonious
Monk, Coleman Hawkins and Roy Eldridge.

"Then Elvis came along, and music changed dramatically," Barbone said.
By the time he graduated from New York University's law school in 1962,
jazz was becoming passe, he said. Barbone says he "sold out" and put his
college education to work in the business world. He didn't play again
for 30 years.

In the early 1990s, as he was preparing to retire as a division manager
for a company that made auto parts, he took out his clarinet. He's been
playing ever since.

A carriage-driving enthusiast, Barbone, 68, of Oxford, first got a jazz
band together for a party for carriage-driving competitors, and one
thing lead to another, he said.

Now his band, the Barbone Street Jazz Band, plays about 160 gigs a year
- everywhere from the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in
Philadelphia to jazz clubs, private wedding receptions, and even
fraternity parties.

Joining him in a fun-loving celebration of Dixieland jazz are bass
player Ace Tesone of Swarthmore, who recorded with Mel Torme and worked
with Billie Holiday; Glenn Dodson of Chester Springs, retired principal
trombonist for the Philadelphia Orchestra; Paul Grant of Yeadon, a jazz
trumpet soloist with military bands; drummer Joe Mongillo of Wilmington;
and Sonny Troy, a jazz guitarist from Maple Shade.

Tesone, 72, fell in love with the bass when he was 12 or 13. "I hooked
up with good jazz people," he said.

He was on the road five years with Charlie Ventura, backed up Holiday
four times at the Rendezvous in Philadelphia in the early 1950s, and
recorded with Torme at the Red Hill Inn in New Jersey in the 1960s.

He played a concert with trumpet player Clifford Brown the night before
Brown died. That taped concert - Brown's last live performance - was
released on record 18 years later, said Tesone, who also worked as a
tailor in South Philadelphia and made clothes for some of the music
legends.

Tesone, who also played with saxophonists Lester Young and Ben Webster,
is on Chubby Checker's recording of "Let's Twist Again."

With the threat of a snowstorm on a recent Wednesday night, Barbone's
band found a small but appreciative audience at the Iron Hill Brewery in
West Chester. Starting off with the foot-tapping "Jazz Me Blues" from
the 1920s, the band played into the night, with energy and enthusiasm.

Dodson, 71, was introduced by Barbone as one of the four finest
classical trombonists in the world.

A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, Dodson played nine years
with the New Orleans Symphony, three years with the Chicago Symphony,
and retired after 27 years as principal trombonist with the Philadelphia
Orchestra.

Dodson got his start when a salesman going door-to-door offered him a
deal: $1 a lesson for 100 lessons and get the trombone free. So as a
9-year-old, Dodson found himself in a class of brass players.

"I prefer jazz to classical," he said, but the orchestra provided "a
good life for a long time. It took me to a lot of places I wouldn't have
gone.

"This is happy music," he said. "It's light stuff to play."

 The younger crowd seems to enjoy this.

"We do about 15 jazz weddings a year for young folks who hear us at our
local gigs and insist that we play the same kind of music at their
receptions," said Barbone, who is quick to share the spotlight with his
band members and offers the audience a bit of history about the pieces
they perform.

Becky Faust, 31, of West Chester, who enjoys swing dancing, said: "We
came out just to hear them."

Her friend, Sean Fitzpatrick, 30, of West Chester, added: "They're just
great musicians. They do a great version of 'Sweet Georgia Brown'...
they pull out the slide whistle for that."

Grant, who at 64 is the youngest band member, gave it his all in the
rhythmic blues tune "Night Train." Grant was a featured soloist in the
U.S. Army band, performing across the country and in Japan. Then he
headed to the Atlantic City casinos in 1989. Most recently, he's been in
a production of West End Blues: The Story of Louis Armstrong in New
York.

"It's what I really listened to early in life," said Grant, whose father
handed him the trumpet when he was 6.

In the early '50s, there was one type of jazz and bigger crowds, he
said.

"Now, you have so many flavors - smooth jazz, Dixieland jazz,
traditional," he said.

Barbone said his band performed a mix of New Orleans jazz, Dixieland and
small-band swing. They have a following of swing dancers from the
region.

The Pennsylvania Jazz Society, based in Easton, honored Barbone with
this year's Jazzer Award for his contributions to the preservation of
jazz.

"He's reached out to the universities and younger people to get this
music to them," said Hilton Rahn, the society's music chairman. He
described Barbone's band as "New York-Chicago style, more on the swing
side."

Lee Southall, music professor at West Chester University, said he
regularly invited the band to the university's annual jazz festival.

"They're just so much fun," Southall said. "They have fun making music.
They come from all walks of life, and they just love doing it. Dixieland
is a happy style. They epitomize it."

If You Go -
  The Barbone Street Jazz Band will perform at the Iron Hill Brewery, 3
West Gay Street, West Chester on January 8 from 9 PM to midnight and at
the Iron Hill Brewery in Media on January 17 from 10 PM to 1 AM.
  The band will also perform at Longwood Gardens' Valentine Jazz
Concert, 2:30 to 3:30 PM Feb. 16 The event is free after the general
admission of $12 for adults. Call 610-3388-1000 for information.
  It will also perform at the West Chester University Jazz Festival,
Emilie K. Asplundh Concert Hall, High Street, West Chester at 8 P.M.
Feb. 19; the event is free.