[Dixielandjazz] Banjos,tuba & unhip spell-check

[Charles Suhor]

Typo in 2nd-to-last sentence--should read "zippy-but-unswinging" mode. 
My spell-check wasn't hip to the word "unswinging." --Charlie Suhor

On Feb 23, 2005, at 8:07 AM, Steve barbone wrote:
>
> Or when folks say, hey, Condon sometimes played banjo so there were 
> banjo
> bands in NYC. Yes, of course there were. . . but not many "MANY" which 
> was
> the qualifying word in my post. The MAJORITY of Dixieland in NYC, 40s 
> - 70s
> was played without banjo. How do I know? I was there.
>

I’m with Steve on this.  As the swing era blossomed in the 30’s and 
40s, the banjo was perceived as an old-timey rhythm section 
instrument--played well by many early jazzers but superceded by 
piano/bass/drums and at times guitar in the rhythm section. (A few 
exceptions—Chick Webb’s big band used a banjo at times.) There was a 
certain amount of intolerance in this, but the banjo was after all 
associated with minstrel shows and stereotypes of barefoot blacks 
a’strummin’ on the streets. Right or wrong, this was a psychological 
reality at the time.

Also, it’s undeniable that the banjo generates a different rhythmic 
feel from what became the typical banjo-less Dixieland and swing rhythm 
section from the mid-30’s on. The metallic, plunking sound  (that’s not 
a slur) doesn’t glide well with the swing and Dixie  4/4, at least the 
way most banjo players do it. As a drummer, I can testify to that. Add 
a tuba (again, as typically played), and you’re even deeper into the 
rhythmic conception that was seen as passé by so many in the movement 
towards Dixie and swing.

The banjo was kept alive in N.O. by a few older players, notably 
Lawrence Marrero in the 40s with George Lewis and others. Early jazz 
fans and jazz purists loved it but it wasn’t revived as a popular 
instrument until around the 60s, where it showed up—not always—at 
Preservation and the other Halls. My recollection, which could be 
wrong, is that Danny Barker played mostly guitar between his earliest 
years and the revival.

The Lu Watters/Turk Murphy/Castle Jazz Band & other revivalist groups 
had really brought the banjo back nationally in the 40s, often to good 
effect—but in time it showed up to lesser effect as a party instrument 
and in pizza bands everywhere (and with young George Segal on the 
Carson show—acting the cornball frat boy all the while!). As the banjo 
regained popular interest, guys in N.O. dusted off their instruments 
and started playing them in walking trios in hotel lobbies and 
restaurants. Banjoists migrated to the city, too. Bill Huntington, who 
began on banjo understudying Lawrence Marrero in the Lewis band at 
Manny’s Tavern and then became an ace modern jazz guitarist and 
bassist, has been gigging occasionally on banjo again.

I’m describing things as I recall them here, not devaluing the 
instrument in its traditional and extended settings. Re the latter, Amy 
Sharp in N.O. played with Al Bernard on bass and my brother Don on 
clarinet at the Court of Two Sisters and was a very liberating player. 
She played great traditional backup and also knew tunes like “Darn that 
Dream” and harmonized with Don on tunes like “Air Mail Special.” Re the 
tuba, it obviously works well in revivalist and marching band settings. 
But Richard Garret, the bass & tuba man I work with here in Montgomery, 
lays down a gentle and natural “1” on 2-beat tunes and also plays 4 to 
the bar lines in a way that doesn’t force the rhythm section into a 
confining, zippy-but-unwinding mode. Rigid attitudes towards the 
instruments and the genres be damned, that’s good music.

Charlie Suhor



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