[Dixielandjazz] Noses in Charts - Listening - Jazz

[barbonestreet at earthlink.net]

"LARRY" <sign.guy at charter.net> wrote
                                        
"Sadly that's true.  Dixie is both for listening and having a good time both in moderation. We have a Jazz club here in my town and many of the mid level musicians won't have anything to do with them because they get more fun out of picking groups apart than in trying to support what they are doing.  That's sad.  I played with a group at one of the traditional Jazz festivals over 2 days.   They used the book that I now own with about 150 original Dixie arrangements, many by Zep Meisner.  We got trashed because we were reading.  The group was made up of some of the better players in town and these arrangements are killer tunes and they were performed well.  I really think this is sad.  The kicker is that almost none of them play anything just set around and criticize."

Larry & Listmates

I think we all hear/see/perceive the music slightly differently. And so Dixie, or Jazz, is what "you" are.

Like Brian Harvey, I prefer totally improvised jazz. To the point that I don't ever want to have to learn a song by looking at the music. I want to ear it, period. Not difficult to do with most songs that are in the OKOM repetoire, because they are harmonically simple and relatively easy to play compared with most other forms of music. (Hold the cards and letters folks, because that is the musical fact of the matter whether we like it or not) 

And like John Farrell said, I want to holler, stomp, smoke cigars, dance and drink when a ragtime and/or stride piano player and /or a Dixieland Band is performing. Yeah, give me that smokey dive, and old upright piano, and Fats Waller like in that famous picture of him, grinning and playing. Oh my, that's who I am and what my jazz is. 

One of my mentors, Thelonious Monk instilled "ears" in me saying: "Learn to play jazz by hearing it, not by reading it." He was also of the opinion that the first time a muso played a tune, was the best jazz. Because after that, the muso was starting to repeat patterns. Plus, I grew up musically in NYC with Condon's freestyle OKOM jazz. And with all the black swing musicians in NYC who played an uncharted, free wheeling Chicago/Kansas City style Dixieland in the 40s and 50s to make a living after their swing gigs died. Unfortunately, it was never recorded and so like me, or Vache Sr., or Conrad Janis, or Kenny Davern, you had to have been there, or have played with them to understand the power of that Dixieland style. So I am convinced that a chartless band plays with more energy, inventiveness and emotion than a band using charts.

However, I also get a huge kick out of bands like Ed Metz's Bobcats which display a tight ensemble yet also allow for plenty of solo space within that charted format. Great musicians in that group and they play wonderful music. So if there are a few critics who trash your reading, ignore them because they are idiots who for the most part, probably can't read. Most "professional" musicians have no inner need to trash the efforts of others. They leave that to those who are insecure about their own talents.

I believe in showmanship and entertaining because that's what pays the bills. But, I do not  believe in funny hats, striped blazers, arm garters etc. They came and went with ODJB, and then again with the Dukes of Dixieland. They were right for those audiences at those times. They are WRONG in this day and age for today's audience . . . unless you are playing at the old folks home or what is left of the "art music" OKOM festivals. They are corny, but then, if your audience is corny by all means wear them.

And like that Japanese kid who stated that there is nothing left to invent in OKOM and/or Jazz, I think most of what you can say musically in Dixieland, has already been said, by better jazz musicians than the current crop. And that if we do not seek our own voice in the music and/or presentation of it, then he rightly compared us to folks that spend their spare time as Civil War re-enactors. Neither living in the present, nor preparing for a future, but rather trying to live in a past that is largely made up of myths. 

Sometimes I wonder if that is really anything more than musical masturbation performed before an audience of aging voyeurs. :-) VBG

Cheers,
Steve Barbone

v