[Dixielandjazz] Well, it ain't The Dutch Swing College Band!!!!!

[tcashwigg at aol.com]

Well said Cees,

  That is exactly how some  guys on the list get into cat fights, 
because they come at the music from two different directions and speak 
similar but different musical languages.    As you say they rarely meet 
and sound right, I say the players have to FEEL the music to be able to 
do it justice and sell lit to a real audience. Hence Classical guys 
sometimes make less than desirable Jazz players especially for 
Traditional Jazz, and the early recordings bear a lot of this out to my 
ears as they were developing jazz from their Classical roots.

  I think the feeling that was transformed into the early jazz from the 
Black players in New Orleans is what breathed the breath of life into 
the Music and made it come alive  often with leaving out notes and 
hence the phrase it is often what you don't play that is important to 
the song and the audience response, provided of course you have an 
audience :))

Many Technically trained and often over musically educated players 
often try to take it from it's simple feel good form and avant garde it 
out to show off their proficiency and technical skills but almost 
always leave the music flat and boring even if technically brilliant. 
They seem to play it as if to put it down and show off their Aloofness 
at being above such simple music, but in my opinion, when they do so 
they really don't have a clue about how to play it and get a real 
audience response, as if they totally miss the often simplicity of the 
music that makes it truly SWING :))


  Hey Cees:    Your email address is bouncing back on me:  I tried to 
send you a reply offlist.
Cheers,

Tom Wiggins


-----Original Message-----
From: Cees van den Heuvel <heu at bart.nl>
To: Steve barbone <barbonestreet at earthlink.net>; DJML 
<dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Thu, 23 Mar 2006 21:35:42 +0100
Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] Well, it ain't The Dutch Swing College 
Band!!!!!

   I've never liked it. It's always the same trick: 
 Go from chaos to an imitation of a jazz style and back. 
 The audience falls for it and thinks "they can play 
 orninary jazz also, so the chaos must have an artistic 
 meaning" But when you listnen closer, you'll hear that 
 their imitation of e.g. dixieland is less than mediocre. 
 Big bands do the same: a written arrangement which 
 incorporates a dixie or New Oleans part. 
 The "dixie part" is always a caricature of the real thing. 
 A few years ago my band's trombone player got ill 
 and I contracted an in that scene famous trombone player. 
 When we started the concert he did all the caricatures: 
 vibrato, long tailgates etc. for a short while and then found 
 out he could'nt cope. I will always remember his words: 
 "I did'nt know you take this music seriously.." And after 
 that tried to do the right thing, but stayed less than mediocre 
 in this style. 
 It's a bit like people who think they can imitate a Spanish 
 flamenco singer. 
 Playing trad jazz is a special craft. I know more trad musicians 
  that can play dixie, swing, bob and free jazz than the other way 
around. 
 Last week I played in a session with a big band trumpet player that 
 is regarded as one of the best in the trade. A meaningful solo 
 in Royal Garden Blues? Forget it: just a plethora of meaningless 
 notes. 
 I have also played in a session setting with some of the musicians 
 that were mentioned in the article. Forget it, without music 
 they don't have a clue. 
 On the other hand, as a non reader, I could not hold their 
 chair in a big band for a minute. 
 Different worlds, each have their own value, but I hate it 
 when OKOM is put down as simple. Nonsense! 
 To each his own, without putting down other men's crafts. 
 
 Cees van den Heuvel 
 http://www.revivaljassband.nl 
 
  ----- Original Message ----- From: "Steve barbone" 
<barbonestreet at earthlink.net> 
 To: "DJML" <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com> 
 Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2006 4:35 PM 
  Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Well, it ain't The Dutch Swing College 
Band!!!!! 
 
  For Cees and our Dutch friends, as well as the more adventurous 
members of 
  the DJML. The ICP, seems to be grounded in basic jump swing. 
Interesting if 
 only to illustrate the progression from OKOM to Avant Garde. 
 
 Cheers, 
 Steve 
 
 Jazz Review - ICP Orchestra's Experimental Jazz Swings at Tonic 
 
 NY TIMES - By NATE CHINEN - March 23, 2006 
 
 For the first 10 minutes of the ICP Orchestra's early set at Tonic on 
  Tuesday night, the pianist Misha Mengelberg and the drummer Han 
Bennink 
  indulged in an improvised duet, something they have been doing 
together for 
  roughly 40 years. Their styles were complementary, if a bit bizarrely 
so. 
  Mr. Mengelberg gave the impression of a man groping for the doorknob 
in a 
  darkened room. Mr. Bennink occupied the same room, but with a 
different 
 temperament, impatiently and heedlessly knocking things around. 
 
  That somewhat comedic contrast has always characterized Mr. 
Mengelberg's 
 rapport with Mr. Bennink; as an exploratory pair, they have as much in 
  common with Laurel and Hardy as with Lewis and Clark. In 1967, they 
applied 
  their collective energies to the formation of a Dutch avant-garde 
movement 
  called the Instant Composers Pool, or ICP. (A third founding member, 
the 
  multireedist Willem Breuker, left the organization within its first 
decade.) 
  The ICP Orchestra, a flagship in a small fleet of like-minded 
projects, took 
  shape in the early 1980's, with Mr. Mengelberg and Mr. Bennink at the 
helm. 
 
  The 10-piece group still adheres to Mr. Mengelberg's mandate of 
"instant 
  composition," a term that's best understood in opposition to the 
formless 
 expanse of free jazz. At Tonic, most of the music was spontaneously 
 conceived, and a good deal of it bore the hallmarks of free-form 
  experimentalism: clarinet squeals, saxophone shrieks, twitchy arco 
bowing on 
 viola, cello and double bass. But there were signposts embedded in the 
  music. Coordinated ensemble figures cropped up unexpectedly, hinting 
at a 
 secret discipline and a fondness for bygone jazz styles. 
 
  Swing < the jump-band variety, not the polished orchestral fare < was 
a 
 shadow presence throughout the evening. On one tune, horns and reeds 
  attacked a scrap of melody with ramshackle exuberance, while Mr. 
Bennink's 
  bass drum thumped four beats to the bar. Mr. Mengelberg, soloing with 
the 
  rhythm section, reached for a modern sensibility; he sounded more than 
a 
  little like the Duke Ellington of "Money Jungle," a 1962 outing with 
Charles 
 Mingus on bass and Max Roach on drums. 
 
  Every other member of the orchestra had at least one solo turn; a few, 
like 
 the clarinetist Michael Moore, the cellist Tristan Honsinger and the 
  trumpeter Thomas Heberer, made multiple contributions. The most 
engagingly 
  emphatic was Tobias Delius, playing tenor saxophone on a set-closer; 
he 
  began in the hard rhythmic style of Illinois Jacquet, and gradually 
pushed 
 toward catharsis. 
 
  Mr. Delius was essentially riding the wave of the ensemble's 
propulsion, 
  which transported the song from crisp Ellingtonian swing (circa 
1930's) into 
 cacophonous group improvisation (late 60's). In that moment, and on an 
  equally immersive rumba, ICP lived up to its name; not just the first 
two 
 letters, but also P, for "pool." 
 
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