[Dixielandjazz] Re: Faster and higher than Louis

[Rev M J (Mike) Logsdon]

> And the players get better and better.

Okay....  I'm not one for controversy, least of all in a jazz venue. 
And I certainly hope that my contribution contained herein is not
interpreted as controversial.  So here goes:

The players get better?  This is, at best, a highly subjective, and
completely indefensible, proposition.  (The subjective in life can only
be explained or described, not "defended.")  Could this be a jazz
version of what C S Lewis calls "chronological snobbery" (please forgive
the term; I'm only quoting)?  Chronological snobbery, intellectually
speaking, is the error-laden belief that what is current is necessarily
better than what went before.  Now, in literature and painting and even
ecclesiastics, I can see this point as holding at least some ground, but
only for a while, and only because in things outward these areas change
so greatly.  There definitely is a *difference*.

But in an area like jazz, and traditional jazz, to boot, where essential
styles remain (for want of a better term) static, and only virtuosity
shines through the gloom of one generation of sameness after another, it
can't hold its ground for even one moment.  My point:  No one, NO ONE,
playing today is essentially better than Louis.  In an artistic arena
involving musical expression of an albeit historical type, virtuosity is
virtuosity.... "better" is simply, well, alien to the issue.  Different,
maybe, but not even that holds water.  To give only two examples out of
thousands, when I listen to Leon Oakley or even (bowing head reverently)
Ernie Carson (and just where is he these days?!) playing at their best
(and that is most of the time, at least in Leon's case), I hear
virtuosity that unarguably equals the great Louis.  I can conceive of no
way in which "better" could even appear on the spectrum, even if I
believed it.  Those who play their best, and play well, are in the same
boat as Louis, Bix, Red (Nichols), Red (Allen), ... Papa Ray Ronnei, Don
Kinch, Bob Short.......

I'm sure my point is made, if not exactly gotten.

Pax,
-- 
Etc,

Rev M J "Mike" Logsdon, Deacon
http://www.naorc.org