[Dixielandjazz] OKOM in California--why?

[Bill Gunter]

Jerry Gordon added:

      "But watch out for forest fires, mud slides and especially 
earthquakes"

Jerry left out transvestites, Marin County hot tub events, terminators, 
shark attacks, urban sprawl, smog, overpopulation, UCB, San Francisco 
alternate lifestyles, Big Sur Hippies, and Disneyland (just to mention a few 
local aberrations) - California is a place where your wildest fantasies are 
just waiting for you.  Come out and join a jazz band (or a nudist colony . . 
. there's something for everyone).

The American Rag carries a list (Igor's Map of Traditional Jazz Festivals) 
which is informative:

California lists 16 jazz festivals this year.

The West Coast (including Washington, Oregon and British Columbia) totals 30

Add in Idaho, Montana, Nevada and Arizona (all way out west) and you now 
total 36

Still pretty much out west (Colorado) and the total goes to 38.

The rest of the country all put together offers 24 festivals.

That means that out west, 8 states plus one Canadian Province offiers 38 
annual festivals and the remaining 42 states can only pungle up 24.

Running the numbers and the west offers an average of almost 5 annual 
festivals per state while the rest of the 51 states offers only a half a 
festival per state.

Of course there are ameliorating circumstances . . . the 8 Western States 
are damn near half the geographical area of the whole country.

I suppose one can make the case that jazz exists primarily in the far west 
and the far east. The middle west is pretty much in the "polka" belt.

What do you suppose the results would be if we were looking at the number of 
festivals featuring accordians.  Then, of course, in the southeast we're 
looking at bluegrass festivals (5 string banjos and mandolins).

Then there is a lot of intermingling . . . Buck Creek plays in Sacramento 
and the Boondockers play in Florida . . .

In retrospect, I don't think a convincing case can be made for any one 
section of the country producing a lopsided majority of OKOM as opposed to 
the rest of the country.

It's a wonderful world, full of strange and amazing things,

Bill "Thimbles" Gunter
jazzboard at hotmail.com





>From: Jerry Gordon <jerrygordon at juno.com>
>To: dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
>Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] OKOM in California--why?
>Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2005 20:15:36 -0500
>
>But watch out for forest fires, mud slides and especially earthquakes.
>
>Jerry Gordon, Troy, NY - Web master for
>http://timesunion.com/communities/jazz
>
>
>On Tue, 1 Mar 2005 20:09:06 EST TCASHWIGG at aol.com writes:
> >
> > We have no Hurricanes, Blinding Dust storms, Baseball size
> > Hailstorms,
> > usually no Tornadoes, and no Blizzards, and so far no Tsunami.
> >
>
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