[Dixielandjazz] Woody Allen again

[Mike Durham]

The Wild Man Blues film shows Allen to be a somewhat unattractive 
personality (cold and distant towards the other musicians, tries to buy 
historic clarinet from Selmer's museum, etc., etc.) but I guess we should 
separate this from his playing, which is (in my view, anyway) perfectly 
adequate and appropriate within his chosen style. At least he gets some 
visibility for this aspect of OKOM! Incidentally, I seem to recall reading 
somewhere (Traditionalists & Revivalists In Jazz, by Chuck De Faa???) that 
Woody told his then banjoist, Eddie Davis, to stop playing the same chords 
as the piano player, since this just didn't sound like real New Orleans 
jazz. Hmmm......

MikeD

>From: "Brian Towers" <briantowers at msn.com>
>To: <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
>Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Woody Allen again
>Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 19:48:46 -0500
>
>
>
>
> > >  Now thqat I have heard him, I just don"t know what to say.
> >
> > That's not fair.  I'm sure many of us have wondered how Allen plays.  
>I've
> > heard him called, "a gifted amateur", which sounds like damning with 
>faint
> > praise to me.
> >
> > Is he any good or not?
> > Bill Biffle
> > Albuquerque, NM
>
>Woody Allen plays with lots of soul plus good rhythm and with modesty.
>These are very important ingredients for me and the amateurs can sometimes
>do it better than the pro's (Where's Eddie Carson?)
>I like what Woody is trying to do, which is based on the New Orleans 
>revival
>style initiated by Bunk and George Lewis, with some Johnny Dodds etc.  I
>would rather listen to Woody than to many of the professional technical
>wizards on the scene today.
>
>Not everybody's cup of tea, however.
>
>Brian Towers,
>Canada
>
>
> >
> >
>
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