[Dixielandjazz] African-Americans in Jazz

[TCASHWIGG at aol.com]

In a message dated 7/21/03 5:00:53 PM Pacific Daylight Time, 
jazzboard at hotmail.com writes:

> And they were all playing Trad and Dixieland, right? --
> 
> Remember, my comments were about booking dixieland bands for the "Sacramento 
> 
> Dixieland Jubilee."
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Bill Gunter
> jazzboard at hotmail.com
> 

Depends totally upon what you wish to call Traditional"

I call all Black Jazz styles Traditional Jazz starting with the Blues as do 
most folks I meet around the world who are hiring them and paying them to play. 
  Sadly however I never get a request for a Dixieland Band.   Seems many 
festival producers and folks actually do view them as two different genres of 
music.

Now I will also challenge you to do something else, walk up to any one of the 
bands I saw last week and ask them to play a Dixieland tune for you and they 
will blow your ears through the back wall with some that will sound every bit 
like it used to sound in the good old days way down yonder in New Orleans.

I actually got my Black Tuba Player from Sacramento, who tried for three 
years to get the Sacramento Jazz Society to book our band, and nobody would even 
give him the time of day, nor did they even ask for a promotional kit or CD on 
the band.   I tried myself way back in 1990 and nobody wanted to talk to me 
either.  Too bad too because in those days they could certainly have afforded us 
and gotten us very reasonably.

Such was the case with every other so called Jazz Society in the USA, I 
contacted all of them endlessly for several years trying to book Black American 
Jazz acts of many styles, and was politely ignored by all of them.

They were however happy to take a White band playing the same material.

I experienced exactly the same thing when I booked Hotel Chains in the USA, 
and in some cases when I booked Black acts at a Hotel they had to go sleep in a 
cheap hotel down the road five miles or more from the Hotel in which they 
played.

And we wonder why they don't play a lot of DIXIELAND MUSIC, today?

I have been working with great Black musicians and ran an almost all Black 
Band for over thirty years, been there and done that, heard that song before, 
and will no doubt hear it again.  I finally beat the game by not sending out 
publicity photos of the band, and just showed up and blew the lid off the joint 
and converted a many a redneck audience to Jazz and Blues and Gospel music of 
the Darker shade of pale.

When I sent out photos of the band to many Hotel entertainment managers, I 
was told flatly "Lose the Niggers and you can work here" or "If you want to lose 
this chain of Hotels for booking, just put one Mollunjohnny on our stages and 
out you go."

And that folks was not back in the good old days, it was in the Sixties and 
Seventies, in my opinion if it were not for young people in colleges across 
this country that "Discovered" Blues and programmed Blues and Jazz events on 
campus, this art form could have died out a long time ago.  The funniest thing 
however is that if you attend a Blues Festival in the USA the audience is almost 
always 95% White, and the other 5% are on the stages.

Folks we talk like we are liberated and all are welcome, but it just ain't 
so, in many places in this homeland of Jazz and Blues.

And, just in case ya'll ain't noticed, There really is Jazz Other than 
DIXIELAND and for a lot of us it is OKOM.  There is a lot of Good Dixieland, and a 
lot of BAD Dixieland music and bands.  Even though some folks on this list 
would disagree, and state that ALL DIXIELAND IS GREAT and any thing else is BAD.

Tell that to guys like Paco Gatsby who got standing ovations at the 
Sacramento Jubilee at every performance I saw, or Mumbo Gumbo, or Swing City, Big Band 
Trio & Jumpin' Jive Orchestra, Conquista Musical, Fat Sam's Band, Gator 
Beat,Sue Palmer and her Motel Swing Orchestra, Sister Swing, Swing Session, Motor 
Dude Zydeco.

I saw and heard some excellent Dixieland bands and music and I also hear some 
bad ones, and some not so impressive ones, I am not spouting off because I 
don't like or appreciate good Dixieland music I do, but I heard a lot of it at 
Sacramento that I could have laid right down and gone to sleep by it.  It 
simply ain't All good folks, get over it.

I saw twenty-three Black Musicians in the souvenir program counting one group 
who called themselves Pieces of Eight, but actually had nine members.

I am not counting the Gospel Choir because they did not have more than four 
singers visible in their program photo.

The most disturbing part however is that I see no Black youngsters in the 
youth bands, and I am sure there are one or two in the mix somewhere.   

Why do you not see more Black musicians in Dixieland and Jazz?

Most of them do not have instruments, or money for music lessons, and 
certainly do not see any future in making a living playing Dixieland Jazz.

Want to do something about it, and preserve this great music and get future 
generations interested in reviving it?  Then put something back into it, many 
of you are retired and have a lot of leisure time, get a program going in your 
school districts like Barbone is doing and like I have been doing for 13 years 
in two different countries.  Both of us will be willing to show you how to do 
it anywhere.

Take the music and the lessons to the kids in grammar school and get them 
interested in something besides Classical and European art forms.  Heck if you 
can afford it go downtown and buy some used instruments from the pawn shops and 
give them to the needy kids who can't afford to buy one, heck tell the guy 
running the pawn shop what your going to do with them and he just might give them 
to you for free and a tax deduction.

There are too many very intelligent people on this list to let these 
opportunities slip past yet another generation.  

Did any of you see what Washboard Willie was doing out there with kids?

Now that is how you get kids interested in music.  I''ll venture to bet you 
that you can ask 100 Black kids what Dixieland music is and 99 of them won't 
have a clue what you are talking about.  Now who's fault is that?  Ask 100 White 
kids the same question and I doubt if more than ten of them will know what it 
is.

"A Mind is A terrible thing to waste" especially an idle one.

Enough of my sermon for today: Sorry to ramble folks, but I call em like I 
see's em.

Rev. Tom- Bob
Preachin' to the choir again I am sure.
from that Trouble Makin' Rock the Boat' in your face Band Leader of
Saint Gabriel's Celestial Brass Band