[Dixielandjazz] The Promotion King of OKOM

[Steve Barbone]

Since the beginning of June, when our 4 night a week Showboat Casino gig
ended, I've stepped up promotion efforts to fill in the schedule. At
tonight's gig, a young substitute player said to me. "Your band works so
much only because you promote the music." As if that was wrong. Well maybe
so, but who was the consummate OKOM band/music promoter? Certainly not me.
It was . . Eddie Condon.

>From 1937 until the mid 1960's, his bands were the workingist and probably
the most popular Dixieland Bands on the East Coast, and arguably in the
world. Why? Because Eddie Condon knew the marketing end of the business.

Condon had a simple philosophy. In addition to just playing he realized that
you had to talk, both about the music and to the people. To the audience and
to the media, via newspaper and magazine articles, and to the radio folks.

When jam sessions became the rage, he jumped on the idea, producing them and
hiring a broad spectrum of jazz musicians to participate. That's how he met
Milt Gabler. He talked to Gabler at the right time when the big record
labels were not recording OKOM. He and Gabler after numerous tries, in
January 1938 finally got the musicians Gabler wanted. After Gabler strong
armed Benny Goodman into releasing Jess Stacy from a last minute session on
that same date. (no one is quite sure how he did it) The results were
stunning and soon other small labels began to record hot jazz also. Most
notably, in addition to Commodore, Blue Note. A new era was born and
Commodore recorded a lot of Condon.

Condon was a darling of the press. They loved to quote him. Like his answer
to the question; "Is Edmond Hall black" . . . "I don't know, I never asked
him." Media coverage? Life Magazine, for example, ran 11 pages in late
summer, 1938 about swing, with Condon band photographs at the Commodore
sessions as their visuals.

And he attracted the movers and shakers of the music world. Because he was a
doer as well as a thinker. He got things done regardless of what obstacles
might be impeding him.

And when he opened his own joint in 1945/46, on west 3rd street in NYC, it
took off like a rocket. Sure partly the music but also because of the media
coverage. And because it became a hangout for movie stars, artists, writers
and assorted characters including other jazz and classical musicians.

Folks like Kirk Douglas, who did some of his homework for "Young Man With a
Horn" there to Bing Crosby and/or Johnny Mercer, or Robert Mitchum, or John
Steinbeck and countless others. It became an "in" place. Who among us kids
could resist going there to see the famous people in addition to hearing the
great music? That's why his place was always crowded.

Yep, Eddie Condon had become a beacon, both for the fashionable people and
for us music lovers. The cachet of his joint was irresistible. And the press
coverage, the radio spots, the concerts, the magazine articles, etc., etc.,
etc., all added up to keeping the music alive.

Today, few of us, if any, play the music like his groups did. Fewer still
promote like he did. Damn, how soon we forgot the power of his promotion.
Too bad we all did not witness it first hand.

The music is not enough. It never has been.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone