[Dixielandjazz] Re: 'Art Form' Dixieland

[Charles Suhor]

Dan Augustine and others--

Wow! Beautifully and wisely stated, Dan!

I like your generosity of spirit combined with the acknowledgment that
there are some excellent and flat-out bad performances in ALL styles. I've
sometimes had to leave the room when the music was just awful, but most
often there was someone in the group worth listening to and some good
moments in the band.

It's also galling to hear bad music being cheered by audiences that are
naive, tipsy, or both. But as you suggest, something in that music is
touching something in them. It's like my Auntie Lou getting all teary-eyed
over mawkish greeting card verse. Someone once said about experience of the
arts: Start anywhere. Never stop.

I suspect that Steve's friend who originally identified "art form"
Dixieland with concerts & festivals was resurrecting the old idea that jazz
was once a part of the social fabric at dances, picnics, parties, etc., not
something that people gathered to listen to in an auditorium like the
presumably highbrow art of symphonies. That's true, but as Dan says the
site doesn't define the kind or the quality of music that's being played.
It might be regrettable that some of the cultural settings for jazz at
dances and picnics are gone with the wind, but that doesn't mean, as some
have snobbishly suggested, that you'll never hear good jazz on Bourbon
Street or at the Lincoln Center, Tangleweood, the Palladium, etc.

Charlie Suhor



DAN AUGUSTINE WROTE:

Steve and DJML others--
     Please forgive (if you can) what i am about to say.
     Like self-styled 'conservatives' railing against unspecified but
disillusionary 'liberals' (one seldom sees the obverse), the argument
from 'contemporary' dixieland-bands against 'festival'
dixieland-bands is one hand on the elephant complaining about another
hand on the elephant.
     I've recently heard many OKOM bands, whether in person or by
recording, and (like many others far wiser than i have said) it's
either jazz or it ain't.  I've heard 'dixieland' bands in modern
styles lumber across a fetid plain of chord-changes without a clue
about the song they're playing in particular and jazz in general, and
i've heard other similar bands cook on the same tune.  And vice versa.
     Style ain't what matters.  East Coast vs. West Coast ain't what
matters.  Blue-haired ladies in the audience (who probably know more
than you think) vs. teenagers ain't what matters.
     I hate to see people trying to divide us into those who play
'good' jazz and those who can't play 'good' jazz on bases like
location, style, era, and external criteria.  Can't we just get along
together?  Let's celebrate those who play well, and that's it.  Read
Virgil Thomson's reviews of the orchestras who played around New York
in the last century.  He never tried to arrogate to them aspirations
to which they did in fact not themselves aspire, nor did his writings
(not necessarily 'criticisms') about them elevate their playing above
the level they deserved.
     We have many different kinds of dixieland these days in the good
old USA, to which i say "Bravo!".  Should they quit playing because
they are inherently incapable of playing as well as Eddie Condon's
various bands?  Was Eddie Condon trying to re-create music of the
past?  No.  Such bands are playing because they love the style, and
because audiences (once they hear it) also love it.  Should a novice
band not play at a local pizza-parlor because it would rob a
(non-existent) professional band of a low-paying gig?  Come on.
     The art of music exists NOW, and only NOW.  It is a view of inner
life heard from a raft speeding down a river of life-experiences,
different for each person's musical-life, and unique.  We never hear
the same tune twice, because we are always different.
     It is folly to try to say that one style is antiquated, or not
well done, because in the end all is expression.  The youth-band from
Canada i saw two years ago in Sacramento, in the cold night with the
High Sierra Jazz Band, surpassed the experiences i had watching other
well-established, advanced-age, highly (self-)promoted jazz-bands in
any venue.  What the youth-band communicated to the audience was not
so much jazz or OKOM but the stuff of life itself, striving to
express things not expressible in words, and therefore richer.
    This is not 'art' (what an awful word; but if you are interested,
'art' is that which most people can experience more than once with
pleasure).  Who cares?  It's FUN, it's LIFE, it's immensely
entertaining.  This is what Steve's band, other festival-bands,  and
their audiences are reaffirming: live (improvised) music makes you
feel good, elevates your perception of your own life and of others in
intensely emotional ways, and generally brings your entire self into
the NOW with a felt but not mentally understood (but that's OK)
gladness of being and body, often expressed in bodily movement
(dance, for those of us intellectuals suffering the usual mind-body
dichotomy).
     It makes NO difference how much experience you have with the
style of music. ("King Tzu confounded by the question of a dolt.")
Like i said, it's all HOW you do it.  It don't matter if your band
averages 70 years in music, or only 2. It don't matter who they
played with.  What matters is: can they play the notes, and can they
play the notes such that the audience (and they) will be moved by
them?
     Sermon over.

     Dan
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Date: Fri, 18 Jun 2004 17:33:08 -0400
>From: Stephen Barbone <barbonestreet at earthlink.net>
>Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] A parallel perhaps?
>
>Charles Suhor wrote:
>
>>  I'd be interested in hearing more, Steve (& other listmates), of your views
>>  about what "art form" Dixieland is, as contrasted with jazz.
>>
>  > Charlie Suhor
>>

--Steve and DJML others--
     Please forgive (if you can) what i am about to say.
     Like self-styled 'conservatives' railing against unspecified but
disillusionary 'liberals' (one seldom sees the obverse), the argument
from 'contemporary' dixieland-bands against 'festival'
dixieland-bands is one hand on the elephant complaining about another
hand on the elephant.
     I've recently heard many OKOM bands, whether in person or by
recording, and (like many others far wiser than i have said) it's
either jazz or it ain't.  I've heard 'dixieland' bands in modern
styles lumber across a fetid plain of chord-changes without a clue
about the song they're playing in particular and jazz in general, and
i've heard other similar bands cook on the same tune.  And vice versa.
     Style ain't what matters.  East Coast vs. West Coast ain't what
matters.  Blue-haired ladies in the audience (who probably know more
than you think) vs. teenagers ain't what matters.
     I hate to see people trying to divide us into those who play
'good' jazz and those who can't play 'good' jazz on bases like
location, style, era, and external criteria.  Can't we just get along
together?  Let's celebrate those who play well, and that's it.  Read
Virgil Thomson's reviews of the orchestras who played around New York
in the last century.  He never tried to arrogate to them aspirations
to which they did in fact not themselves aspire, nor did his writings
(not necessarily 'criticisms') about them elevate their playing above
the level they deserved.
     We have many different kinds of dixieland these days in the good
old USA, to which i say "Bravo!".  Should they quit playing because
they are inherently incapable of playing as well as Eddie Condon's
various bands?  Was Eddie Condon trying to re-create music of the
past?  No.  Such bands are playing because they love the style, and
because audiences (once they hear it) also love it.  Should a novice
band not play at a local pizza-parlor because it would rob a
(non-existent) professional band of a low-paying gig?  Come on.
     The art of music exists NOW, and only NOW.  It is a view of inner
life heard from a raft speeding down a river of life-experiences,
different for each person's musical-life, and unique.  We never hear
the same tune twice, because we are always different.
     It is folly to try to say that one style is antiquated, or not
well done, because in the end all is expression.  The youth-band from
Canada i saw two years ago in Sacramento, in the cold night with the
High Sierra Jazz Band, surpassed the experiences i had watching other
well-established, advanced-age, highly (self-)promoted jazz-bands in
any venue.  What the youth-band communicated to the audience was not
so much jazz or OKOM but the stuff of life itself, striving to
express things not expressible in words, and therefore richer.
    This is not 'art' (what an awful word; but if you are interested,
'art' is that which most people can experience more than once with
pleasure).  Who cares?  It's FUN, it's LIFE, it's immensely
entertaining.  This is what Steve's band, other festival-bands,  and
their audiences are reaffirming: live (improvised) music makes you
feel good, elevates your perception of your own life and of others in
intensely emotional ways, and generally brings your entire self into
the NOW with a felt but not mentally understood (but that's OK)
gladness of being and body, often expressed in bodily movement
(dance, for those of us intellectuals suffering the usual mind-body
dichotomy).
     It makes NO difference how much experience you have with the
style of music. ("King Tzu confounded by the question of a dolt.")
Like i said, it's all HOW you do it.  It don't matter if your band
averages 70 years in music, or only 2. It don't matter who they
played with.  What matters is: can they play the notes, and can they
play the notes such that the audience (and they) will be moved by
them?
     Sermon over.

     Dan
**--------------------------------------------------------------------**
**  Dan Augustine     Austin, Texas     ds.augustine at mail.utexas.edu  **
**    "Ignoramus, n. A person unacquainted with certain kinds of      **
**     knowledge familiar to yourself, and having certain other kinds **
**     of that you know nothing about."  --  Ambrose Bierce           **
**--------------------------------------------------------------------**

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