[Dixielandjazz] Dixieland Concert Review - Barbone Street

[Charlie Hooks]

on 7/31/02 11:48 AM, RAHBerry@aol.com at RAHBerry@aol.com wrote:

> the ENERGY comes across on their CDs.  It isn't just visual.

Exactly.  Why these guys define "energy" as beads and straw hats is beyond
me.  If the kind of "energy" we're talking about is present, it will come
across on a recording.  If it's absent, no beads and funny hats will create
it.  We've all experienced this.

Are we just talking at cross purposes here?  I remember a certain clarinet
player who shall remain nameless, used to hold his horn in the air with both
arms after every chorus and do his little dance.  This may have appealed to
some in the audience (first few thousand times he did it) but it always
annoyed hell out of me.  This ain't energy: this is just a mannerism and
means nothing at all.

The energy I mean is not necessarily seen at all, but is always felt: the
energy a great symphony orchestra can project, even on soft passages, the
intensity, the feeling of possible unleashed power--none of which is jumping
around, throwing beads or wearing funny hats.  Not, at least, with the CSO.

Charlie the Blabbermouth