[Dixielandjazz] Playing Too Long

[Patrick Cooke]

>>> 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!!!

     I'm 75, and I believe I play better now than I did then.  Studying
guitar has given me much more chord knowledge, and a better feeling for
chords.  My ear is many times better than it was then, and I can play things
I never could then.
      I just don't schlep all the equipment around as well.  By the time I
get the stuff downstairs, loaded into the car, get parked, unload into the
gig and set up, I'm ready for break.  If  I were a drummer, I would have
given up playing long ago.....I couldn't schlep all that gear around.
      Pat Cooke



----- Original Message -----
From: "Stephen Barbone" <barbonestreet@earthlink.net>
To: <Pepett@aol.com>
Cc: <DIXIELANDJAZZ@ML.ISLANDNET.COM>
Sent: Sunday, October 06, 2002 10:46 PM
Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] Playing Too Long


> > 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
>
>
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