[Dixielandjazz] pet musical peeves

[Bill Gunter]

Hi all,

Nancy Giffin's post reminded me of a wonderful old musician's joke:

A famous orchestra conductor was in love with two ladies and he couldn't 
decided which one to marry. One was a beautiful but dumb blond (sorry about 
the "blond" joke at this part) and the other one was a gifted but ugly 
operatic coloratura soprano.

He pondered this question for a long time and in the end his artistic nature 
asserted itself and he decided to marry the gifted but ugly opera singer.

On the morning after their wedding night the conductor turned to his new 
bride and said: "ALL RIGHT, DAMMIT, SING!!"

Respectfully submitted,

Bill "My wife can't sing" Gunter
jazzboard at hotmail.com




>From: Nancy Giffin <nancyink at ulink.net>
>To: <barbonestreet at earthlink.net>,Dixieland Jazz Mailing List 
><dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
>Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] The Audience - Was Front Line Only - peeves
>Date: Wed, 28 Jul 2004 11:34:39 -0700
>
>
>
>From: Steve Barbone <barbonestreet at earthlink.net>
>[much edited snippet]
>I have some pet peeves of my own:
>1) The self important musicians in the audience.......
>2) Bands that don't play requests of any sort.
>3) Musicians that wear a look of "I wish I were somewhere else"........
>4) Overly-arranged Dixieland that lacks balls.
>5) Bands proclaiming that the warmed-over dance music of the 20s and 30s
>was real "jazz" and so repeat it ad nauseaum while waxing eloquently......
>6) Bands that insist upon dredging up "obscure" tunes that don't 
>swing......
>7) Folks that have a neat compartment, with boundaries and rules for
>jazz, and insist that theirs is the only true path and that others must
>follow it or be left out of jazz heaven.
>8) Etc. ;-) VBG
>
>
>Hi, Steve,
>Under the etc. category, I'd like to add "Musicians who push their
>amateur-singer wives and girlfriends on the band and the audience,
>unannounced and uninvited, at major festivals." It's not fair to anyone.
>
>This happens all the time, but at the recent Jubilee, I was forced to 
>endure
>two painfully-long vocals by the new girlfriend of one of Jubilee's
>most-esteemed "featured artists." It was especially frustrating because I
>had walked in late just after having left a really great set, half-way
>through, so I could catch the tail-end of Allan Vaché in his only set of 
>the
>festival with Jim Galloway. (I really enjoy this match-up.) Yet, in that
>last half-hour that I did manage to see, I only got to hear Jim and Allan
>play two tunes because of this amateur singer using up so much time --
>because of the unprofessional move on the part of her boyfriend, the
>designated leader of that set.
>It's a pet peeve because there are hundreds of professional musicians and
>singers who follow standard procedure for acceptance to a festival but who
>don't get invited. It's not fair to them since they have to wait, it's not
>fair to the musicians who have to backup the singer, and it's not fair to
>the audience who came to see one act but unexpectedly got another.
>
>There was a Partridge Family episode that made fun of this idea that, "Love
>is not only blind but deaf, too":
>Young David Cassidy was in love with a beautiful singer and gets the family
>to listen to her as an audition for the band. Now, when HE hears her sing,
>there is this beautiful voice on the TV, but then they switch to show what
>she sounds like in reality (what the rest of the family hears), it's like
>fingernails on the blackboard!!
>
>Funny (if it weren't so common)!
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