[Dixielandjazz] NEW TUNES FOR OKOM?

[Steve barbone]

on 6/17/05 3:22 PM, john petters at johnpetters at tiscali.co.uk wrote:

> I've got no problem with new songs IF you play them in a dixieland or swing
> style. The biggest problem is that a lot of recent songs lack the quality of
> the great American songbook. Also many do not adapt to a 4/4 swinging
> rhythm. 

I'm with you John. so we're looking for the newer tunes that do adapt. I
expect there must be at least 100 out there.

> When a jazz band starts to play with a rock beat, then it becomes
> something different and you might as well ditch the brass front line and get
> a set of electric guitars. Jazz has to swing for me.

Me too. Of course quite a few of those old obscure tunes so popular with the
OKOM jazz literati (all 100 of them), don't swing either.

No point playing Rock beat & Jazz unless you are Miles Davis, or one of
those new wave smooth jazzers. :-) VBG.

> Agree, some Beatle
> tunes swing, Michelle for example, When I'm 64 etc. But try and get the
> Spice Girls repertoire to work. Give me Snake Rag or Stockyard Strut anyday.
> Have a good weekend everybody.

We do both of those Beatle songs. Agree about Spice girls, but then I have
never heard them do any more than 2 or 3 bars before I tune them out. Only
play Stockyard and Snake as a sideman with Tex Wyndham's Red Lions now.
Because of Barbone Street's audience, we've discarded most of the older
tunes/Rags except for special situations. Of course, we do play the warhorse
tunes, but they are "new" to our audience and among the most swinging 4/4
tunes out there. 

A point I would make (60 years after Max Kaminsky did the first time), is
that it is time for the MUSICIANS AND DANCERS to take the music back. Away
from the critics, would be critics, the record companies, the art lovers and
the blue hairs etc., that would tell us what Jazz is, what instruments
should be used to play it, and what songs should be played.

Case in Point. We did "If I were a Bell" and "Fly Me To The Moon" during a
set in a nightclub. Tunes swing their butts off. Blue haired lady about 75
comes up to me after the tunes with a look of great distaste on her face and
says: "Humph, I didn't know THOSE were jazz."

Like Mike Vax often says, when that happened I knew the band was also
swinging its butt off. ;-) VBG

Everybody else in the joint just LOVED them. Following set we played and I
sang "Ain't She Sweet" to the old gal and she just beamed. She KNEW that was
jazz.

Cheers,
Steve