[Dixielandjazz] Playing Too Long

[Stephen Barbone]

> And the point of my message is not to infer that because we all age
> and mainly are not as good at 70 as we were at 40, that we should hang
> up our axes!!!
>
> What I thought I made clear was the fact that seeing an, old, sick,
> dying (yes, dying) Coleman Hawkins was NOT my cup of tea, I would much
> rather live with my memories of this GIANT among Giants.

> Sugar Ray Leonard was a great fighter, but if I could turn back the
> clock and NOT witness his "comeback" fight at 40 something, I would do
> so.

> I am happy as hell that I never saw Hawk as was described in an
> earlier post,
> or, to reiterate, I would still be crying!!!

I hear you. Didn't think you were implying that we should hang up our
horns. I was asking a general question., and agreed that your opinion
worked for you, but perhaps not for others. I got your point and stated
mine.

Louis Armstrong is a case in point. Many of the jazz literati considered
him washed up by 1950 and disrespected him. They avoided him. Said
"Louis should quit playing, he hasn't said anything in years."  Same for
the others I mentioned. Holiday, Sinatra, etc. How true the lyric for
"Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out"

Then these giants died and those who ignored them flock to pay homage to
their genius. I saw Louis in his declining years. Best Dixieland sets I
ever saw and heard in my life. And he could hardly play the last time I
saw him. But, the even the last performance was much better than anyone
on the scene today. Thank goodness he and the others performed until
they dropped. Even at their bottom, with an exception for not being able
to blow at all, a time or two, they outperformed us all.

I visited Bean a few days before he died, when Thelonious Monk and Nica
were the only ones looking after him so I am a bit opinionated about
when we should see and support people. And I heard him play when he was
a mere shadow of what he once was. But I still remember Bean both as a
great musician and as a man who died with as much dignity as any of us,
given similar circumstances, so why not cry a little for him?  After
all, it is about him as much as it is about us.

Cheers,
Steve