[Dixielandjazz] Pres. Hall's Stories

[TCASHWIGG at aol.com]

In a message dated 7/12/03 2:25:20 PM Pacific Daylight Time, 
drjz at bealenet.com writes:

> 
> "Preservation Hall" by William Carter (1991) presents the story of the 
> New Orleans venue and bands, with several vignettes of the musicians, 
> the most interesting of which is Sweet Emma Barrett, the "Bell Gal" 
> (1897-1963) who refused to fly, and replied "None of your damned 
> business" when asked how old she was. She was paralyzed on her left side 
> after a stroke in 1967, but continued to play with her right hand. When 
> I saw her, the bass player was resting his gluteal region on the lower 
> third of the piano keyboard! Another book is "Preservation Hall 
> Portraits" (1968), with 100 black and white reproductions of paintings 
> by Noel Rockmore, and text by Larry Borenstein and Bill Russell. Narvin 
> Kimball is shown resting on his instrument case, which is a shame 
> because there aren't many left handed banjoists. Regards.
> Fred
> 

And all this fodder feeds the MYTH of what a GREAT BAND they were or are 
still purported to be, at best they were barely adequate players consisting of 
unemployed musicians with no place else to work, because of habits and problems, 
or not being good enough to play in the working bands around New Orleans and 
road bands.

Somebody posted a comment by some great legendary New Orleans player about 
why he never played with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and his comment was 
"None of those guys were good enough to play with me twenty-five years ago why 
the Hell would I want to play with them now."

That pretty much dispels the MYTH about the Quality of that Organization and 
it's players no matter how much we try to glamorize the band.  They were and 
are still a bunch of wannabes or never were players not quite good enough to do 
anything better.

It is too easy to write a fictitious story about some old Black guy and his 
years of long suffering and being a struggling musician in the shadow of Louis 
Armstrong and other greats.  I am sorry folks but Being Old and Black and 
holding a musical instrument having no teeth, and a cigarette hanging out of his 
mouth does not make them a LIVING LEGENDARY Blues or Jazz Player.

I have personally seen many of these old folks trotted out to the festival 
circuit as Legends
 and the audiences who never saw or heard them in their pitiful youth forgive 
their arthritis and lack of skills in performing, merely attributing it to 
their glorified status as Legends in the media to sell tickets.  When in all 
actuality they never were very good.

Cheers,

Tom Wiggins
The only White guy playing in a Black Band full of guys who know the truth 
about Black musicians and Legends.