[Dixielandjazz] OKOM Festivals

[Stephen Barbone]

Someone said "perhaps the festivals" are in large measure what is
killing off Dixieland, or something similar.

Yeah, probably very right. When Dixieland was popular, I don't think
there were any festivals. It was FUNCTIONAL music. Not PSEUDO ARTISTIC
music.

It was played mostly as Dance Music prior to WW2. Folks danced,
caroused, picked up the opposite sex, drank, and generally had a ball.
They were YOUNG people for the most part.

Then as the nightclub scene disappeared. The fans got old and remembered
the good times. Festivals were born. Fans could go there, talk about the
good old days, and a few would dance. However. most in the USA seem to
go for the camaraderie and to "listen" to Pseudo Art Music. It was
living like The Way We Were.

That fan base is dying before our eyes. Now, Festivals get pissed at
each other about scheduling conflicts, jazz societies are losing money
and so they cheapen their offerings. Etc.., etc.., etc.

So if we are wired into that scene, we are wired into a loser.

Jazz, Dixieland, Music in general, has to make it on its own. Delivering
a profit for both the musicians and the promoters. That will keep it
viable.

Otherwise, a few bad bands and a few preservers will continue on, so
that the music still exists live, but as a shadow of what it once was.

Professional musicians play where the money is. Otherwise they starve.
Its like Vince Giordano's Nighthawks at the Cajun in NYC. Yeah they re
create the 1920s twice a week (weeknights) for virtually no money. They
pack the place because they are professional musicians and excellent.

However, if they get a "better paying gig " for those nights, they send
substitutes. Sometimes most of the original band is not there. But don't
run them over the coals for sending subs, don't accuse them of low down
trickery or "fraud" as many of you did when the simultaneous gig thread
was active.

Because that is the only way musicians of the caliber of Jon Erik Kellso
or Dan Levinson, or Vince et al can afford to play jazz.

Want to hear excellent Dixieland? Make it profitable for the
professionals to play it. How? Ask Kash, Jim Cullum, Kenny Davern, Art
Vignola, Joe Ascione and some of the others who are doing just that.

Or maybe some of those OKOM festivals should get professional promotors
involved. You know, someone with a profit motive.

Cheers,
Steve