[Dixielandjazz] The Great Jazz Revival/Honky-Tonk piano

[Charles Suhor]

The revival actually began in the 40s in the U.S.  Lu Watters created a
stir in San Francisco in 1940, and the ascent of Bunk Johnson followed,
plus there were revivalist bands and veteran jazz artists in Los Angeles,
New York, Chicago, and any number of other cities--Bob Wilber in Boston,
Castle Jazz Band in Oregon, Doc Evans in Minneapolis, and numerous others
in the States and abroad. New Orleans had a great fig underground but
didn't ignite with a popular revival till after WWII, with Sharkey,
Celestin, George Lewis, the Basin Street 6, the Dukes, etc.

This national U.S revival was publicized widely at the time in jazz mags
like Metronome and Down Beat, too often in the context of Dixieland vs.
be-bop. TIME magazine actually wrote up Bunk. Many history books (by John
S. Wilson, Stanley Dance, Paul Rossiter, Dan Morgenstern, Chip Defaa, etc.)
have documented the great revival, with the exception of the New Orleans
scene. A chapter called "Revivals Beaucoup" in my book "Jazz in New
Orleans: The Postwar Years," gives an overview of the national revival and
traces the N.O. one in detail.

As for the honky-tonk pianists, I don't know that their work during the 40s
and 50s has been chronicled. If "honky-tonk" includes ragtime, of course,
there were pianists doing records at the time. If h-t means two-fisted
barrelhouse bar-room playing of lots of other music, commercial things from
"Waiting for the Robert E. Lee" to "A Bird in a Gilded Cage," I don't have
any idea about that-- it never captured my interest. I wrote liner notes
for an Armand Hug album in the early 60s when someone convinced him to play
razzmatazz on a treated, tinny-sounding piano. I didn't want to, and Armand
hated it, but he was a friend so I pulled punches like crazy. ("Here we
find the great ragtime and jazz pianist in a lighter mood...")

Charlie Suhor