[Dixielandjazz] Front Line - Back Line - Yerba Buena

[Steve barbone]

I've hear it said that the peculiar arrangement of the YBJB when Turk Murphy
in the group was due to the fact that when standing out front, Turk would
sometimes get in altercations with the fans for one reason or another.

So therefore, they switched positions and put the horns in back to keep the
Turkster from assaulting the paying customers and vice versa.

You know how those TB players are. Opening the spit valve on folks, or
moving the slide into them, in an effort to get attention, etc. :-) VBG

Maybe urban legend, maybe not, I don't know.

As opposed to Bob Ringwald's opinion, I think it makes no musical sense to
set the horns up behind the rhythm section. But, that's just a personal
opinion.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone

PS. On occasion we have moved the trombone player into an area where he
would not be subjected to audience members bumping into his slide and that
might be part of the reason. In small clubs, I think all players are very
wary of getting a fan in their horn and hurting their chops. We play several
venues where a club workers are assigned to keep fans/dancers out of our
playing space.