[Dixielandjazz] The Nostalgia Business - Was Jazz Is Not A Museum Piece.

[Steve Barbone]

Hello Ray:

I think your last paragraph is right on the mark. Especially that not many
can do it successfully. IMO, too few of us bands and band leaders even try
to "pour old wine in to new bottles". And so the public perception of what
most of us do revolves around musical archeology and/or nostalgia. They are
not wrong for that is what many of us are actually doing. That's OK as long
as you have "nostalgic" audiences for whom to perform. However the average
age of folks like me in the USA who are old enough to be nostalgic, is dead.
Not a good audience to target for those musicians who wish to claim vitality
and public enthusiasm or public awareness of their music. We should be out
of, or figuring out how to get out of, the Nostalgia business.

As you know, Davern was my main man. Few on this list realize how involved
he was with Archie Shepp, Roswell Rudd, Carla Bley, Steve Lacy and Paul
Motian other free jazz players in the 1960s when Avant Garde started in NYC.
He even played some Cecil Taylor arrangements. Or how wired he was into
Classical Music. But his heart was always with Trad or straight ahead jazz,
done his way with some of his own creative, modern licks. He was a master
who made OKOM relevant into the 21st century and was definitely not in the
nostalgia business. Perhaps that's why he would ask for requests from the
audience, and then tell them he wasn't going to play them saying with his
impish smile, "I just wanted to see where your heads were."

Cheers,
Steve Barbone

>Ray Osnato at rorel at aol.com wrote: (polite snip)

>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.