[Dixielandjazz] What A Wonderful World - Lesson #1

[Stephen Barbone]

I often wondered why this song became so loved by "regular" audiences
and not by so-called jazz literati. It seems as if the literati are
often hung up on "esoteric" songs which imparts a feeling of smug
superiority among them. perhaps they really don't want jazz to be
popular ;-)

WAWW is plain and simple. The melody starts with some borrowed bars from
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Just about everybody in the USA, if not the
world knows "Twinkle" and has loved it since they were kids. And a band
can put some very lush harmonies into the melodic line, with a little
thought.

Mass audiences love WAWW. Little wonder.

So too, do the kids in elementary school where, if we musicians get the
chance, can shape their musical appreciation when they are kids 5 to 10
years old, have open minds and haven't yet learned to be closed minded
and cynical about OKOM.

Our band plays Twinkle in straight time for these school programs with a
very short explanation that "Jazz" often borrows from tunes even the
kids know. Then we morph it into WAWW with a jazz beat and vocal. The
kids are spellbound. They hear it, they understand it and maybe, just
maybe, we've started a young person or two on the road to "hearing" jazz
in an unbiased manner. Especially if we follow it with Tiger Rag and the
animal sounds of the horns, or even the trite Livery Stable Blues which
goes over big time here in Chester County PA which is horse country.
(Smarty Jones was foaled here on a neighboring farm)

Like Sheik, we always play it at ALL of our weddings, and ALL of our
wedding performances are OKOM Jazz. The guests love it and that's why we
love it. If I can paraphrase the advice given to President Clinton by
his advisors as he defeated Bush Sr., a while back.,  What was the
central issue? Said they to Clinton, "It's the economy, dummy". Central
issue to OKOM? It's the audience, dummy.

IMO the audience for OKOM should be regular folks, not just old fart
literati. And we play for the audience.

Though many will not admit it, so do/did jazzers like Acker Bilk, Louis
Armstrong, Louis Prima, Eddie Condon, Sidney Bechet and a host of
others. That is a lesson we might all learn.

WAWW? Not to different from Bilk's "Stranger on the Shore", or "Saints
Go Marching In", or "Hello Dolly" or a host of other familiar tunes that
can either be made very exciting by a competent group of musicians, or
can be sniffed at by the defeatists and literati. In the USA, at least,
those tunes are certainly far more relevant to the success of the genre
than "Yama Yama Man" or yet another faithful reproduction of the King
Oliver book, or "Here Comes The Hot Tamale Man", or waxing eloquently
about Armand Piron or about how jazz was, never to be that way again.
Get the audience on your side and then mix in the other tunes you like
better. Rapport, pure and simple.

Jazz? Perhaps it really "is", as one of it's writers (disliked by most
OKOMers) opined:

"It's the ultimate in rugged individualism. It's going out there and
saying; It doesn't matter how anybody else did it. This is the way I'm
going to do it."

Cheers,
Steve (JAZZ IS) Barbone