[Dixielandjazz] Dixieland before ragtime?

[LARRY'S Signs and Large Format Printing]

Bill and all:
It's true that generalizations aren't good but you have to admit on the
overall scale what I said is true.  Reading anything is a skill and the more
you do it the better you get and the opposite the less you do the less you
can do something.

I'm fighting that battle right now.  The trombone player with my group is a
good jazzer but can't find his way through the D.S 's and codas and repeats
of charts which frustrates him and he wants to quit.  Well that would be OK
but we are a reading as well as an improvising group.  I need both talents.
I would be overjoyed at having another player but there just aren't that
many guys around that want to play this in the first place and there aren't
that many who can.  I can count them on one hand and most are already
working or with groups.

Personally I have to work at reading all the time or else I have a lot of
problems and then I'm infected with the jazzers love of changing things
around when he sees a printed page.  I work at it and try to keep both
skills up but there is no chance that the Symphony would ever want me.

I personally envy a bit the guy that is very accurate and plays exactly
what's on the page and does it well but I've never been happy doing that.  I
almost didn't get my music degree because I was always that half bubble off.
Jazzers just can't bring themselves to stay in the lines and always try to
be free to create.  Others enjoy following the rules and staying inside the
lines and subjecting themselves to  musical dictators.  That dictator might
be the musical director/conductor, the music it's self, the arrangers whims
and the composers writing. Then they try to make it perfect every time like
a tape recorder playing back over and over.  It gives them the security that
they are right and others are wrong that they have followed all the rules
and they strive for the reward of the occasional attaboy from the big guy.

I just strive for a different form of perfection.  I'm not a tape recorder
or reproduction device and I use the printed page as a frame to put my
painting in.  that's what is so cool about Dixieland and other forms of
jazz, the creative parts of ourselves can fly as free and as far as we have
the talent to go.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bill Gunter" <jazzboard at hotmail.com>
To: <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Friday, January 21, 2005 6:24 PM
Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] Dixieland before ragtime?


> Hi all,
>
> Sign guy wrote:
>
> >There is a very
> >definite phenomenon that happens with Musicians.  The over trained just
> >can't play jazz and the Jazzers just don't read very well.   . . .
>
> Now while it is true I know some really well trained musicians who don't
> seem to be able to really swing and I also know some fine jazz guys who
> don't read too well (if at all), is it possible that the above statement
may
> be a bit over generalized?
>
> I do know some really well trained musicians who are kick-ass jazzers and
I
> know some fine jazzers who can read anything you stick in front of them!
>
> I did have to laugh, however, at a birthday party which was attended by
> symphony players and dixielanders and who all brough axes to play the
> Birthday Song (Haaaappy Birthday to you, etc). What made me laugh was that
> the Symphony players didn't want to play it in "F" (the standard key) but
> indicated they'd like to play it in "A" (a good key for fiddle players).
> The jazz musicians played it in A with no problem and seemed a bit amused
by
> the whole thing.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Bill "I can play anything provided it's written for washboard" Gunter
> jazzboard at hotmail.com
>
>
>
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