[Dixielandjazz] RE: Hope for the future

[Ittzés Tamás]

Tony and listmates,

It seems that one of the most promising countries (at least as far as having
young jazz audience) is Hungary. We have several fairly young groups, all
Hungarian trad jazz bands with the exception of two have musicians under 40
only. Thus our audience is partly the youth. We have played many informative
concerts in schools (organized by a government-run agency  that runs series
of classical concerts for the school kids and includes trad jazz, too for
once in a while). At our club meetings and festivals and other concerts you
can also find lots of young listeners, sometimes 50 per cent of the whole
crowd. (When I say 'young' I mean mostly high-school and university kids.)
Of course, we, too have our 50 to 70 year old fans but these young ones can
go wild sometimes. In my band I am the second oldest (35) and we have three
young lions, really good players (T-bone 19, clarinetist 20, guitarist 21).
Check out those baby faces at our web site.

Hoping for an 'at least as good a future as ours will be',

Tamas
___________________________________________________________________
Tamas ITTZES - violin teacher, ragtime pianist, manager
Kodaly School, Bohem Ragtime Jazzband, Kecskemet Jazz Foundation
Address: Kecskemet-Hetenyegyhaza H-6044, Hullam u. 14.
Mailing address: Kecskemet H-6001, Pf. 652.
Cellular phone: +36(20)960-7169, Tel.: +36(76)509-178, Tel./Fax:
+36(76)472-438
E-mails: bohem@mail.datanet.hu, bohemragtime@hotmail.com
Website: http://www.bohemragtime.com/
___________________________________________________________________

Tony Davis wrote:
--------------------
...Also there was a teenage boy among the guests who didn't take his eyes
off the band all evening, and at the end came up and thanked us for the
great music.

This follows a gig I did three weeks ago at a pub in Bristol where the
audience was mostly young people, presumably students.  What's more, they
were really listening, some of them standing close to the band, obviously
*feeling* the music and showing their appreciation by their enthusiastic
applause.  It was like going back in time about 45 years.

It has to be said that such events are rare, at least in my experience,...