[Dixielandjazz] instruments lining according to NO tradition

[TCASHWIGG at aol.com]

In a message dated 1/7/04 8:04:37 PM Pacific Standard Time, 
tmartino at terra.com.br writes:

> And actually in the many many pictures in the book "New Orleans Jazz - A
> Family Album",  by Al Rose &Ed. Souchon, you can see many bands lining
> up like this.  
> 
> I can grant you that it works! I made the experiment with my own Band
> and just found that it REALLY sounds better!  The only problem, the guys
> in the Band prefer to play jammed together as a bunch of pussy-cats in a
> nest.
> 
> Sounds good too.
> 
> Tito Martino
> Sao Paulo Brazil  
> 

we must firstly however remember folks that most legitimate dance halls and 
ballroooms were originally designed acoustically to accomodate acoustic 
instruments before amplification was in vogue or even needed.

The times they have changed, like it or not so we have all been forced to 
adept to the changes.  Now a days most places that sport LIve music are far from 
acoustically adequate and certainly not planned for.   Empty shopping malll 
stores, old warehouses, old houses,  vacant lots, old fire houses,  empty 
supermarkets, or any place else they decide to call a club.   

The glitz and glamour of old fashioned Cabarets and real Night Clubs are for 
the most part long gone and may very well likely never reappear.  

This is why so many Dixieland societies are still using old worn out Elks 
lodges and Moose lodges, to try and re capture that old ambiance, unfortunatley 
when they put up those damned stupid non intimate highschool lunch room eight 
feet long cafeteria tables with chairs strung alongside them and turn the 
floresent lights on full blast overhead they lose any potential ambiance they might 
have had to begin with.

Dimmly lit clubs have atmosphere, and the drinking adds to the ambiance and 
culture of the room, cafeterias drain the feel of the music no matter how well 
the band might play, offered up in the wrong ambiance and circumstances it 
just becomes annoying noise in the background for old ladies to sit and knit and 
old gentlemen to adjust their hearing aids and look around the room and try to 
imagine the ladies back in their hey dey wearing the dresses and hairstyles 
of yesteryear.

To get things anywhere near what they used to be folks we have to recreate 
everything that made it work, if not it just continues to dissipate into what 
noone will ever relate to being fun enjoyable for all.   Just hearing the old 
music is simply not enough, we can all stay home and get drunk and listen to it 
on CDs and old recordings dream a moment and toddle off to sleep for free.

I am sorry folks but it has been our generation and the one before mine that 
destroyed all of the things that we all long for and hold so dear in our 
memories of the good old days.

It was a time before Mothers against Drunken Drivers, Just Say No, 
Sufferance, and all the other causes that changed our life styles, like passing laws 
that you could build a church next door to a nightclub, but you could not operate 
a nightclub within 3000 feet of a church and on and on and on in the name of 
better society.

I have always said If it aint broke don't fix it, too bad somebody had to 
come along and fix our business so it does not thrive any longer as many of us 
used to know and enjoy it.

 Progressing Regretfully,

Tom Wiggins