[Dixielandjazz] Fwd: Jazz is not a museum piece

[rorel at aol.com]

The estimable Steve Barbone (excerpted) note appears below.  My own, unsolicited opinion, FWIW, follows.

I believe there is something to Steve's perceptive take on the 'nostalgia racket' but I think it goes further than playing a solo so you sound like Berigan.

First of all, i think "I Can't Get Started" may be an extreme example which raises another question -- that of copying solos.  Few would disagree that many solos have gone on to become classics.  A handful of solos -- Berigan's ICGS, Al Klink/Tex Benecke "In the Mood", actually have become part of our collective memories.  Even people who are not familiar with the BB era somehow know the In the Mood solos and for those people those notes actually define the Swing Era.  i am sure that even those of you Gentle Readers with the most open of minds are a little taken aback when you hear the Miller chart and you don't hear the famous sax battle.  These are, as I said, extreme examples and their numbers are few.

Then there are the solos that may be even more important.  I mean those solos whose creators, with the same 12 notes availabkle to every other musician, have changed music itself.  Think only of Louis, Bix,  Stacey, Parker, Coltrane, to name a few that spring immediately to mind.  I think these solos should be preserved and heard live so we can hear what they heard at the time they came into being for the very first time.  They become, living, vibrant expressions rather than pieces of history coming to us from the impossibly distant past.  In my misspent youth I was fortunate enough to meet Zutty Singleton and I asked him, with my lack of experience and knowledge, why didn't the Red Hot Peppers and the Hot Five go on tour?  His response was surprising, if only in the hindsight of age -- he said, "Because the music was too new."  We forget that.  We forget at that time "Black bottom Stomp" was the experimental jazz of its day and Jelly was its John Zorn.  This music had a limited live audience at the time of its creation, let alone now, 80 years later.  Aren't we lucky to be able to hear these historic notes live?

However, not everyone can play these solos.  To bring them off a musician must 'speak the language'.  You must know this music, live it, play, respect it and love it.  you must feel when to smear a note, when to heistate behind the beat or push ahead of it and all the other little nuances which were second nature to players of their time.  i remember a documentary on Dizzy Gillespie where he claimed he could play any kind of music and the cameras followed him around the world supposedly offering proof culled from live concerts.  Dizzy played some salsa, some Reggae and, of course, some 'dixieland'.  He was a lousy dixie player.  Period.  That's because he did not grow from those roots.

"Alright Ray," some of you may be saying, "so you are saying to play this music we should be schooled in The Tradition and not venture outside the Trad jazz Shangrila?  Absolutely not, Gentle Readers.  I wish it were that simple.

Jazz Education of yore was based on the Master / Apprectince idea.  You had a student you took under your wing and they learned from you until it was time for them to go out on their (think only ofthe Oliver-Armstrong relationship).  The founding fathers of Jazz never expected their students to slavisly emulate them but rather to take their teachings and add their own shine to it.  From its inception Jazz was an evolving tradition.  i think many of the Old Players would be incredulous of the fact that we sit and analyze their solos, doing all kinds of Schenker analysis, reductions, transcriptions and the like.  That wasn't what it was about.

So, I think the nostalgia racket is not always the nostalgia racket.  It is being true to the music, of being able to speak its language fluently and coming out of the tradition and pouring that old wine into new bottles.  Not many out there can do it successfully.  Mr. Thompson can.  Mr Kellso can.  dick Wellstood could.  Kenny Davern could.  There is a prime example.  Kenny played more modern than many trad or swing players but he could play in those surroundings because he learned from those masters of the past but did not stand still musically.  He took their teachings and traditions and refracted them through the prism of his own creativity, taking his life experience of the past and making it totally of the present.  I think that the business we are in is not nostalgia or jazz at all.  It is a question of musical integrity and truth.  Integrity and truth are rare traits in any field.

i apoligize for my rather diffuse ramblings.  Next time I'll stick closer to the changes.

Respectfull submitted,

Ray Osnato
of the French Jazz Band, Ray Osnato and the Moselle Toughs


  

 
-----Original Message-----
From: barbonestreet at earthlink.net
To: dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
Sent: Fri, 29 Dec 2006 1:02 PM
Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Jazz is not a museum piece



IMO, the business we band leaders and players of OKOM are in, depends upon
the audience for whom we perform. If we are playing in front of old folks at
Jazz Society Concerts, or at OKOM Festivals, perhaps we are in the nostalgia
business whether we like it or not. Haven't we all gotten a request for say
"I Can't Get Started" by some knowledgeable old fan, who after the trumpeter
finishes playing it, comes back and says with obvious disappointment; "That
didn't sound like Bunny," And the guys who played it to that reaction
included greats like Randy Reinhart, or Jon Erik Kellso. Many of those folks
want not to hear a jazz take by today's greats, but a nostalgic rendition of
some dead guy's version.

On the other hand, there are some OKOMers playing today, for young
audiences, who hear the music for what it is right now, not what it was,
back in the good old days. They are not in the nostalgia business. Kenny
Davern was a player like that.

Yep, perception of what we do as bands is key, and the nostalgia perception
is out there big and bold. Let's change it.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone



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