[Dixielandjazz] Re: Dixielandjazz definitions

[Vaxtrpts at aol.com]

The  public perception of "Dixieland" e.g. old white guys in straw hats and
arm  garters damn near killed the music during the second half of the  20th
century. Took away its relevance to creative jazz.
IMO, The sooner  we get rid of that baggage, the 
better..................Steve  Barbone
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How right you are, Steve.  I can cite you an example.  It has to  do with 
IAJE (The International Association for Jazz Education) and their yearly  in
ternational convention.  Quite a few years ago, before all the sell-out  to big 
business, and before "IAJE," when the organization was NAJE (National  
Association of Jazz Educators), they had a "Dixieland" college band  competition.  It 
was sponsored by Southern Comfort.  It was actually  very successful and always 
had good crowds for the "finals" concert of the  competition at the national 
convention. I was one of the main judges for  it.  Some "nin-com-poop" 
(remember that word???) at Brown-Forman Distillers  got the bright idea to give out 
those horrible plastic straw hats to the  audience and also to have the bands 
"dress-up" in the kind of straw hat and vest  costumes that we all hate so much. 
I went through the roof and told them at a wrap up meeting that they were  
demeaning the music and giving people a reason to think of it as  "frivolous."  
They didn't listen to me and with in a couple of more years,  the competition 
was gone.   
I have always fought for the fact that traditional jazz or Dixieland or  
whatever you want to call it, doesn't have to be a museum piece.  We have  talked 
about this before in this forum.  It is a living, breathing art form  --- and 
as I have said previously, that is why my bands don't play record  copies, but 
new arrangements of those great old tunes.  And - heaven  forbid, we even use 
some more modern chord changes and rhythms.  
Mike Vax