[Dixielandjazz] Why guitar, not banjo?/Tubas, too

[Charles Suhor]

Although some might find these historical strands very delete-able, I 
find them more interesting than evaluations of Woody Allen. I'm 
grateful too for the instructive and dazzling scholarship you-all have 
shown. Thanks.

Moving on to more recent history and matters of taste, my preferences 
run the opposite of Ginny's, below. Banjo and tuba are a hard sell for 
me because the setting is so often brassy and razzmatazzy. In the N.O. 
of the forties, when I began listening, the tuba was considered 
hopelessly corny and rarely heard in jazz groups. The tuba and banjo 
were both seen as limiting factors in generating a good feeling for 
improvisation. Few working bands used banjo, and only Lawrence Marrerro 
with George Lewis was talked about as a banjoist. He used a mute, BTW, 
which avoided the jam-it-up-your-backside quality of many of the banjos 
in revivalist bands of the time like the Firehouse Five. (Looking back 
to the Hot Fives and Sevens, it's hard to imagine a masterpiece like 
"Hotter Than That" with St, Cyr on banjo rather than guitar.) 
Guitarists in my times didn't get much work because combos preferred 
pianists. My favorite guitarists were Angie Palmisano and Herman 
Pffeffer and later Bill Huntington, but he was a bopper when we met 
around 1954.

The weekend combos and working Dixieland bands of the postwar years 
were playing mainly in four, established in the swing era of course. 
When I played with Irving Fazola's brother, Blue Prestopnik (a slim 
talent--couldn't jam!) around 1955, we played the first chorus as two 
beat, then went into a flat four the rest of the way. Nice. The "2" 
caught the dancers, and they felt a propulsion rather than a letdown of 
rhythm on the second chorus to the end.  As someone (Steve?) wrote a 
while back, the flat four backup (and later, comping) gave the soloist 
a smoother field for improvisational flight and exploration. A 
relentless oom-pah/two-beat felt kinda like walking with one foot on 
the curb and the other in the street.

It was the lingering impact of the revivalist movement and tourist 
expectations that brought the banjo back in New Orleans in late 50s and 
early 60s. The marching bands, long out of the spotlight, brought back 
the tuba around the same time. It now appears as if the two instruments 
were a staple there in uninterrupted sequence since the 20s, but not 
so. Many players still grimace when they show up on a jazz gig, but 
that's where the money is. Finally, some banjoists actually comp, 
modern style, to good effect, just as many drummers have been 
effectively integrating modern jazz comping into Dixieland settings for 
decades. My favorites were guys like Buzzy Drootin with Condon and 
Sonny Igoe with Phil Napoleon early on, then Jack Sperling with Pete 
Fountain and Jimmy Zitano with Al Hirt.

Charlie Suhor

On Dec 26, 2006, at 11:22 AM, Gluetje1 at aol.com wrote:

>
> And bless them for that!  I always check instrumentation when coming  
> across
> a group unfamiliar to me.  If they use tuba/banjo I am for sure  going 
> to
> check them out further.  If not, they've got to work twice as hard  to 
> sell me on
> their sound.  But then, here in flyover country, we have  always had 
> "that
> sound" available since I've been listening which is about forty  
> years.  DL with
> tuba/banjo was the motivating factor in my trying to  learn banjo.
> Ginny
>
> In a message dated 12/26/2006 9:33:21 A.M. Central Standard Time,
> barbonestreet at earthlink.net writes:
>
>
> I  think banjo (and tuba) became prominent rhythm instruments in many  
> bands
> when they started recording. Mainly because the early recording  
> devices did
> not pick up guitar, or string bass very well, if at all. And  
> banjo/tuba was
> a prime feature of the West Coast revival starting in the  late 30s. 
> The left
> coasters here in the USA are very partial to that  sound.
>
>
>
>
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