[Dixielandjazz] Are charts good for audiences? (Was Dixieland)

[TCASHWIGG at aol.com]

In a message dated 9/3/04 11:39:22 AM Pacific Daylight Time, 
towers at allstream.net writes:

> 
> Brian Harvey is on to something here.
> 
> Personally I have found that the average jazz fan wants to watch jazz as
> well as listen to it -- it is something like a 60/40 thing - 60% watching 
> the
> players and 40% listening to the music.   So....when you get a band whose
> eyes are glued to the charts, it can be boring for a big chunk of the
> audience.    I remember watching the Stan Kenton band in Brighton many
> years ago.   Absolutely wonderful symphonic music but the band looked so
> bored, as they stared at their charts - it spread to some of the audience.
> 
> 

Under certain circumstances with certain acts that fall into that category of 
players like Stan Kenton did for many years, of wanting their audience to sit 
back shut up and listen to them in all their technical musical brilliance, 
and academic approach as John Farrell mentioned earlier about the Rag time jazz 
literati's.

Imagine paying and going to see Barbara Striesand or Tony Bennett, or Frank 
Sinatra walk out on the stage with a lyric sheet in their hand or worse yet on 
a music stand in front of their face blocking the great element of a singer's 
ability to sell a song to an audience, their facial expressions.

I have always preferred to see and hear a group that had committed the song 
to memory and could improvise it and make it different every time they played 
it.  This keeps the music interesting and no predictable to the musician and 
the audience and fosters greater spontaneity and interaction which usually 
produces more enjoyable events for all.

Cheers,

Tom Wiggins