[Dixielandjazz] South by Southwest Showcase - Austin Texas.

[Dan Augustine]

Steve and others--
     Yes, i think SXSW really ought to be able to showcase a number of 
OKOM bands, but (shhh) we can't tell them it's "dixieland" or 
"traditional jazz" or the like.
     For instance, here in town there are musical groups called the 
White Ghost Shivers, Aunt Ruby's Jazz Babies, and the Giant City 
Sextet that play popular music and jazz of the 1920's and 1930's, 
kind of like the Asylum Street Spankers (who started out playing, 
among other places, between our sets with the Wurst Band down at 
Scholz's Bier Garten).
     However, since groups like this tend to have names that don't 
tell you what kind of music they play, someone else has to write an 
article about them, or at least describe their style a little. 
Hence, it's almost impossible to tell which of the 1,300+ bands at 
SXSW might have been playing OKOM or something close to it.
     As you've been preaching for years, Steve, playing jazz where the 
kids are is what such groups (plus our bands) need to be doing, and 
in fact some of them ARE doing it. The trick lies in being able to 
let people who love this kind of jazz know about them and where and 
when they're playing.
     As the old saying goes, if the world is ever going to be saved, 
it's going to be saved by someone too young to know that it can't be 
done.  Similarly, OKOM may be saved by young folks who have heard it 
and liked it and liked to dance to it, and started bands to play it, 
not knowing anything about us and our attempts to get new and 
expanded audiences for it.  One hopes our two groups might eventually 
have some contact with each other, even if it does resemble somebody 
waving from an avalanche to someone else climbing the mountain.
     Conversely, i may be wrong (and i frequently am), but i think a 
lot of the folks in their 30's, 40's, and older would like some of 
the music created by these young bands, and jazz societies ought to 
program them also.  We did so here with the ATJS by bringing in the 
Giant City Sextet (who play kind of 1930's Condon-style jazz), and 
they were a big hit with the crowd, so much so that we're going to 
try to make them one of the regular bands we program.
     As some songwriter said (Dylan?), anything that's not busy 
growing is busy dying, so those of us for whom the race is almost 
over need to provide continuous new infusions and transfusions of 
good younger bands and viewpoints.
     So who knows? Don't throw those ukuleles away yet....

     Dan
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>Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 09:08:59 -0500
>From: Steve barbone <barbonestreet at earthlink.net>
>To: DJML <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
>Subject: [Dixielandjazz] South by Southwest Showcase - Austin Texas.
>
>Hey Dan Augustine:
>
>Any OKOM bands, besides the Ukulele players here for this Mega Music
>Showcase Event?. Damn, we missed our big chance. :-) VBG
>
>Hey Wiggins, what say we go in 2006? :-) VBG
>
>Better yet, how about we organize an 2006 OKOM showcase at Spirit Lake in
>Okoboji? We'll get help from the Spirits of Music Past.
>
>Cheers,
>Steve Barbone
>
>
>March 21, 2005 CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK NY TIMES By JON PARELES
>
>Talent Meets Commerce in Austin
>By JON PARELES
>
>AUSTIN, March 20 - Performing in a penthouse lounge, with the Austin skyline
>behind her, the songwriter Jesca Hoop sang skeptically about pop ambition.
>"Money make you change your style," she cooed, over a hint of a Latin beat.
>"If the price is right, you forfeit your style without a fight."
>
>Ms. Hoop, who has been building an audience around Los Angeles, isn't
>planning to change her style. Like most of the 1,350 singers, songwriters,
>bands, rappers and ukulele players who descended on Austin from Wednesday
>through Saturday, she hopes to make her music heard on her own terms.
>
>She was playing a showcase set at South by Southwest, the annual music
>convention that makes Austin the center of the music business for four days.
>It's rock's equivalent of the Sundance Festival for films, a place where
>talent, from grassroots to pro, meets commerce. Some 10,000 musicians and
>deal makers converged at South by Southwest, where bands could be heard
>nonstop at daytime parties and nighttime club shows 15 hours a day.
>
>(Remainder of this LONG ARTICLE SNIPPED)

-- 
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**  Dan Augustine     Austin, Texas     ds.augustine at mail.utexas.edu  **
**      "Most Texans think Hanukkah is some sort of duck call."       **
**                       -- Richard Lewis                             **
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