[Dixielandjazz] Re: Letter on Sacramento Jubilee

[Patrick Cooke]

Cash said:
>he probably thinks there are only ten or twenty >Dixieland songs ever
written.

There are a lot of 'dixieland' tunes.  Just about any tune except Ave Maria
or the Star Spangled Banner can be a dixieland tune; but I can understand
how one could come to the conclusion there are only a few.
      In the concern to "play something we all know" comes the exclusion of
the less played tunes.  consequently, they stick to playing the same few
tunes over and over.  Never mind that the last band just played them.
      Mainstreamers are guilty of this as well.  I remember when "How high
the Moon" was played to death till they all got sick of it.....now its
rarely heard.  The Girl From Impanema has also been played to almost
exhaustion.
      There is a notion among working musicians that they
don't have to practice because they work 3 or more nights a week.  So if
you're going to learn new tunes, you have to do it on the gig.  This is fine
as long as you're able and not afraid to do it.  Then there's disagreement
on the selection of tune, the key, the tempo, etc; and you've used up at
least 5 minutes just talking about it.
        Whatever is keeping your band from learning new tunes....get over it
and past it, or your audience will get over and get past you.  Our band gets
together once a week for 2 hours just to learn new tunes and keep our chops
up.  Some tunes stay in the repertoire, some do not.  Sometimes you run into
a really good one.
Pat Cooke

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <TCASHWIGG at aol.com>
To: <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Thursday, August 05, 2004 12:45 PM
Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] Re: Letter on Sacramento Jubilee


In a message dated 8/5/04 7:50:31 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
ds.augustine at mail.utexas.edu writes:


Third, as others have said, this guy is either lying or was at a
different festival when he talks about "group after group of guys
with straw hats and banjos playing 'When the Saints' Go Marching
In'"--no group i saw had straw hats and no group i saw played Saints.
Sounds to me as if he just doesn't like dixieland in the first place;
so why go?

Maybe he was talking about previous years when he did see the Straw Hats and
heard  Saint's by everyone playing, and is one of those many thousands out
there who never came back because he got turned off the last time he was
there,
and now has that old attitude that all Dixieland and Traditional Jazz sounds
the same.  Heck he probably thinks there are only ten or twenty Dixieland
songs
ever written.   He is obviously a member of the unwashed born again Jazzers
that are the core of such Festivals and Societies.

These are exactly the folks that should be cultivated however and converted
into Jazz enthusiasts at some level to keep the numbers of attendance up to
keep the events viable economically.   If the societies continue to ignore
these
folks while the older fans are dying off in record numbers then indeed there
will come a time in the not to distant future when it will simply be too
expensive to do such festivals.


> ?  I bet dixieland would gain a
> wider audience if (as Steve Barbone has always said) we go play where
> the people are, especially in other huge 'jazz' festivals that seem
> to ignore dixieland.  As the attendance at his band's concerts at
> these festivals continues to demonstrate, if you play this style of
> music well and entertainingly, people will not only come and listen
> but will really enjoy it and seek it out next time.
>
>    Dan
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
---
> ---------

No question about it and I should know, Since 1990 My band has not played
ONE
SINGLE DIXIELAND FESTIVAL  or one date for any Jazz Society in the USA. Have
not even been asked to play at one, or even how much we charge.    But then
again I am sure we are not the ONLY group in that situation.  So Be it.

Musical content:
"We got along without them before & We can get along without them NOW"

Cheers,

Tom Wiggins
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