[Dixielandjazz] Letter on Sacramento Jubilee

[Patrick Cooke]

Re: Sacramento Bee...

   The writer of the letter may have a few good points, but I'll bet he's no
older than 30 something.  He/She is not even aware that "traditional jazz"
is PC for dixieland.
    Well, the reasons I never have attended Sacto are:
    1) It's too spread out. I envision spending too much time riding a bus,
or waiting for one.
     2) As the writer says, mainstream jazz is all but totally ignored.  I
check the schedule every year, and all I see is trad band after trad band;
plus now they've added zydeco, which I really don't care for.  I would like
about a 50/50 mix of contemporary trad and straight ahead (mainstream) jazz.
As simple as trad is to play, there is a plethora of trad bands, but not
that many are of festival calibre.
      As for other styles the writer mentions, I could do without them.
"Pop jazz" is an oxymoron.
       Pat (either it is, or it ain't) Cooke

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tim Eldred" <julepjerk at surewest.net>
To: "DJML" <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Wednesday, August 04, 2004 9:57 PM
Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Letter on Sacramento Jubilee


For whatever it's worth, here is a letter from the Tuesday Sacramento Bee
commenting on the article regarding the Sacramento Jubilee.  For the record,
there were a number a significant number of excellent blues, zydeco, etc.,
bands and I did not see one straw hat in a band....

Re "Jazz Jubilee finances get rolling," July 27: If the drop in admissions
is troubling to the Sacramento Jazz Society, they need look no further than
their band lineup. What they call "traditional jazz" most everyone else
calls "Dixieland." Listening to group after group of guys with straw hats
and banjos playing "When the Saints Go Marching In" grows tiresome.
Adding a Zydeco act, a swing band and a blues outfit won't do the trick. To
attract more people, offer more variety. How about modern jazz, bebop,
Latin, free, classic or pop jazz? How many name jazz acts could be brought
in if instead of 120 Dixieland bands, they went with 60? They could turn
this into a quality jazz event people would flock to.

The society insists on sticking with unknown bands from a genre that just
isn't popular anymore. They can continue to cut costs and reduce the number
of acts each year until there is nothing left, but that's not the goal, is
it?
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