[Dixielandjazz] Sacramento Jubilee - The Way It Was 22 years ago.

[Ross Anderson]

Dear Steve and all list mates !!
Ah I remember it as if it were yesterday !!!
Our first trip to the USA, What a great time we had ,and , we went back
again in 1985 for our second of what ended up being 14 tours in all to your
wonderful country !!!
One memory , We were standing near the "BAR" after a set and talking amongst
our selves when we noticed a crowd of people gathering around us !!
I ask if I could help ?? And a lady said , "Please don`t think we are being
rude !! we are not listern to what you are saying , We are listerning to the
"WAY THAT YOU SAY IT ""!!!
Also had the pleasure of meeting and talking to "Bob Crosby"
As I said " I remember it well !!
We (my wife Beryl and I) still talk by phone to our dear friend Judy Borcher
on a regular basis !!
We have videos of "Fans" dancing and waving the "Boxing Kangaroo Flags" that
we handed out !!
Great memories !!
Thank you Steve for sending the post .
Regards to all,
Ross Anderson , New Melbourne Jazz Band , Australia.
the NMJB web site address is http://home.iprimus.com.au/rossjazz/

Anderson bass link is http://home.iprimus.com.au/rossjazz/Double_Bass.htm






----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve Barbone" <barbonestreet at earthlink.net>
To: "DJML" <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2006 12:28 PM
Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Sacramento Jubilee - The Way It Was 22 years ago.


> Came upon this 1984 gem while surfing.
>
> Cheers,
> Steve Barbone
>
> NY TIMES - May 27, 1984 - By ROBERT LINDSEY
>
> FESTIVAL FILLS THE WILLING EARS OF CALIFORNIA'S CAPITAL WITH DIXIELAND
JAZZ
>
> This city is paying homage to Dixieland jazz this weekend with a noisy,
> stomping spectacle that has drawn 101 bands from 13 countries to play and
> more than 150,000 spectators to listen.
>
> California's capital, local partisans say, has replaced New Orleans as the
> nation's capital of Dixieland. That is an arguable claim, but one
difficult
> to challenge amid the din of trumpets, trombones, drums, banjos,
washboards,
> tubas and singing ''red-hot mamas'' all over Sacramento this weekend.
>
> The Soviet bloc has is not participating in the Summer Olympic Games, but
> Dixieland ensembles came here from Poland and East Germany.
>
> The Goose Island Jazz Band from Simi Valley, Calif., is wowing audiences
> with a repertory of Dixieland tunes written about Charles A.Lindbergh.
Franz
> Biffliger, a Member of the Swiss Parliament, is playing a torrid piano for
> the ''Red Hot Peppers'' from Bern, and a Scottish band wearing kilts is
> stirring audiences with a fast-paced, Dixieland version of ''Peter and the
> Wolf,'' along with more conventional standards like ''South Rampart Street
> Parade.'' Food for Hungry Ears
>
> All are catering to an apparently insatiable demand for Dixieland here and
> an international resurgence of interest in traditional American jazz.
>
> The Sacramento Dixieland Jubilee is the largest of dozens of festivals
held
> around the world to keep alive a musical art form so often declared dead.
>
> Dixieland festivals are held annually in St. Louis, Seattle, Denver,
> Decatur, Ill,, Sturgis Falls, Iowa, and many other communities. In Europe,
> there are similar festivals in, among other places, Dresden, East Germany;
> Breda, the Netherlands, Edinburgh, and Prague. What accounts for the
> resurgence of Dixieland?
>
> ''It's happy music; it makes people feel good,'' said Rex Swann, the
drummer
> of the New Melbourne Jazz Band, which he estimated is one of more than 500
> Dixieland bands in Australia. Besides standard American jazz, the
Melbourne
> band plays a Dixieland version of ''Waltzing Matilda.'' 'People Can Have a
> Good Time'
>
> ''I think America is discovering its musical roots,'' said David R. Doerr,
a
> senior consultant on the staff of the the Legislature here. Like many
> Sacramento jazz buffs, he said he planned to listen to Dixieland for
> virtually all the 48 1/2 hours scheduled for the festival, which ends
> Monday.
>
> He said he agreed with his wife, Elaine, who said she thought tens of
> thousands of people were jamming Sacramento this weekend ''because the
music
> is fun and people can have a good time listening to it.''
>
> Traditional American jazz has its roots in the improvisations of black
> musicians who played in funeral marches and in bordellos' bars in New
> Orleans more than 70 years ago. That era was to produce some of the
nation's
> great musical folk heroes, among them King Oliver, Sidney Bechet, Louis
> Armstrong, Johnny Dodds, Edward (Kid) Ory.
>
> In the 1920's, Dixieland migrated north to Chicago, along with blacks from
> the South. In Chicago white musicians such as Leon (Bix) Beiderbecke
> amalgamated its improvisations with more traditional musical discipline.
The
> music was, in somewhat of a departure, put on paper. And on to New York
>
> According to musical historians, The evolution continued in New York,
where,
> under Paul Whiteman, Benny Goodman and others, jazz became swing. Later,
> swing blended into the big-band dance music of the 1930's and early 1940's
> and finally yielded in popularity after World War II, to bop, progressive
> jazz and eventually rock.
>
> Over the decades, traditional Dixieland was kept alive by a few New
Orleans
> bands such as the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, by the ''Dukes of
> Dixieland,'' and Bob Crosby's ''Bob Cats.'' Meanwhile, musicians and jazz
> enthusiasts established traditional jazz societies around the country to
> keep a candle lit for the music.
>
> But perhaps in no community does the candle burn brighter than in
> Sacramento. The jazz society here decided in 1974 to invite a few bands to
> play one weekend, and about 5,000 people showed up to hear them. The
> festival has grown rapidly each year, along with a year-round
preoccupation
> with Dixieland among many people in Sacramento.
>
> There are now at least 17 Dixieland bands in the community. Half a dozen
> high schools teach the young people the musical glories of Ferdinand
(Jelly
> Roll) Morton, Beiderbecke and Oliver, and more than 2,700 people volunteer
> to stage the annual jubilee. As for Making a Living at It . . .
>
> More than 700 musicians are playing. While each will be paid several
hundred
> dollars, most, including those from abroad, earn their living other ways.
> Even with a renaissance of interest in Dixieland, they say it is still all
> but impossible to make a living playing it.
>
> ''I've played every jazz festival there is around the world,'' said Bob
> Crosby, the ''emperor'' of this year's jubilee. ''This is the biggest and
> the best jazz festival there is.'' It is centered, as in the past, in Old
> Sacramento, a community of restored historic brick buildings. The area was
> the main staging area for the Gold Rush 135 years ago.
>
> It has grown so large that bands are performing, seemingly nonstop, at 49
> different places, small cabarets to stages beneath freeway bridges.
>
> Tapping their toes, eating pizza, popcorn and ribs, emptying 750 kegs of
> beer, often rising spontaneously from their seats to dance to the beat,
jazz
> fans have taken over the city.
>
> Friday night, after a performance led by Mr. Crosby during which he was
> reunited with four members of the original ''Bob Cats,'' Hilton Napoleon
> (Nappy) Lamare, Bob Haggart, Eddie Miller and Yank Lawson, a middle-aged
man
> turned to a companion and said:
>
> ''That was almost like going to church. That was a religious experience.''
>
>
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