[Dixielandjazz] Saving dixieland jazz

[Fred Spencer]

  Part of my career was spent as a state epidemiologist so I tend to 
approach material from the perspective of the group. It would perhaps be 
interesting, even valuable, to document the compositioin of the 
audiences who attend  as many "dixieland" festivals as possible, of 
which "The Mississippi Rag" lists some 70 during the rest of this year, 
most of which are in the USA. This would be a completely impersonal, 
anonymous survey requesting answers to "choice"questions about age, sex, 
race, education,.income range, and other data that festival 
producers/band leaders/statisticians consider relevant, possibly 
including answers to how the attendee learned about the show, whether 
he/she owns dixieland recordings, if so how many, favorite 
band/musician, etc. The survey form, surveyors/ band leaders would 
explain the reason for the survey was to improve the national 
presentation of the music the attendee enjoys, or he/she would not be 
there. Ideally this would be financed by some non-profit source, but...
I realize that this is unlikely to happen, and may be received by some 
list members as being too intrusive on fans' privacy, although this is 
standard survey procedure. Data derived from a study of this type, if 
conducted properly, would at least provide a limited basis of fact to a 
discusion of where dixieland is goiug. Best wishes.
Fred