[Dixielandjazz] Re:was/Cornet Education for Bill Biffle/ Denying History of Jazz

[TCASHWIGG at aol.com]

In a message dated 11/16/03 8:05:34 AM Pacific Standard Time, 
Adaywayne at aol.com writes:

> 
> One thing that cannot be denied about the origins of jazz, is the major 
> input made by New Orleans Creole musicians as well as Italian Americans.
> 
> Nobody said they denied this fact, however please take note that Creole 
> Musicians are Black Americans just ask anyone Black, I believe in those days it 
> was a nicer word than half breed which was reserved for Native Americans mixed 
> with white folks.
> 

Perhaps that is where we got the tune Cherokee.

> I have had lengthy conversations on this subject and been very enlightened 
> by a great OKOMer who happens to be Very High Yellow, Herb Jeffries, and one 
> of the finest men I have ever met, and does he have stories about them good 
> old days, and Blacks and Whites and Italians.   Herb is about 90 these days or 
> better, and lived it all back in the good old days, so his version and what 
> I hear from others on this list differs a great deal most of the time.   How 
> does he know so much, because he was one of those fortunate ones who always 
> Passed for White.

If you ever happen to get a chance to meet him, ask him about sitting at a 
table having lunch with a big Casino Owner in Las Vegas who got up and left the 
dining room announcing to Herb that he would not eat in the same room as a 
damned Nigger as Sammy Davis Jr. who was appearing at the hotel came in to have 
lunch.

Herb got up as well and went over and joined Sammy at his table.

 All this > stuff about jazz being born out of African rhythms, slave songs, 
> Negro 
> spirituals etc. was just a load of misinformation foisted on the public 
> during the 
> "Trad Revival" of the 1950s and 1960s. I think a lot of that stuff created a 
> 
> backlash from the boppers and others that is detrimental to OKOM to this 
> very day. 
> 
Maybe you just don't listen to OKOM at all, or maybe you only listen to one 
style that has no influence from Black American Spirituals, Blues, or Gospel, 
if so you know a lot less about Dixieland and OKOM than I do.  I can hardly 
find a Dixieland CD without a tune or two on it that can't be traced directly 
back to Black American roots music from Blues, or Gospel.

Maybe your idea of OKOM and the rest of the folks on this list is entirely 
different.

Yeah right and the Holocaust never happened, and there was really never a KKK 
in America or a Nazi Party, no WWI WWII, and we never had slavery in America, 
just a bunch of black folks who stole the chains off of the ship they came 
here on and tried to swim to shore with them.

Come on Arn, now who is spouting misinformation?

I may not be a Dixieland aficionado, but I was a History major and I grew up 
in Texas and Oklahoma, before escaping to California where I could broaden my 
education to something other than what was being taught in Texas at the time, 
which was about the equivalent of what you just said above.

Deny Deny Deny !  but it will not make it correct.  I know it was Hell to pay 
when Black Americans finally learned how to read and write in the South and 
tell the story from their side.

Musical content:

Gonna Lay Down My burdens Down By The Riverside,
Precious Lord 
Saints go Marchin' In
Bye and Bye when the mornin' comes
Just  A Closer Walk with thee
His Eye is on the Sparrow
Lord Lord Lord you sho been good to me
Lily of The Valley

Right out of the old south hymnals and on six OKOM CDs right in front of me.
 
Having said that, one can only cheer those black players who do make an 
effort to remember the roots of jazz and to incorporate them in their 
playing. I 
spoke at length on this subject to Milt Hinton just before he died, and he 
expressed his sadness that there were so few blacks playing the early forms 
of jazz.
Arn

I have had similar conversations with many Black musicians from Fats Domino 
to McCoy Tyner, Herbie Hancock, Taj Mahal, B.B. King, Milt Jackson, J.J. 
Johnson and many others who had to abandon OKOM or never played it at all to find 
another form of music to make a living from since most of their fans of OKOM 
died long ago, and nobody was hiring Black Traditional musicians in neighborhoods 
that were predominately White.

Black musicians have always been forced to stay on the cutting edge of Jazz 
and constantly reinventing their music just to make a living playing music, 
because anything they made popular soon went over to the other 88% of the 
American population and got a much larger audience with greater purchasing power, 
which bought white artists playing similar music.  It is simply a case of numbers 
and traceable historical facts if you look in the right places for the 
information rather than make it up as you go to justify what has happened time and 
time again.   I just read about Elvis Presley being discovered as a White Negro 
which  made a lot of former race record songs quickly acceptable to the 
mainstream white audiences and radio stations that would never play them when they 
were
Black.    

The Book,  The Death of Rhythm & Blues,  by Nelson George  a Plume Book
Another enlightening book for you :  "The Apollo"  History of the Fabeled 
Black Theater.

Next I suppose someone will write that Eminem created Rap music, with his 
buddy Vanilla Ice.  Or maybe it was DC Talk.  The winners write the History 
books, always have and always will.

Cheers,

Tom Wiggins