[Dixielandjazz] Playing music live

[Steve barbone]

Cees wrote: (polite snip)
 
> My advice for all of you musicians: keep on playing your music live, don't
> fall for the poor imitation of "pop" music, it will always be second hand. 
> Play your own style with conviction and you'll create a new audience. The fact
> that the media don't pay any attention to OKOM, will work for us in the long
> run. Young people like to have their own unique taste, so in the long run that
> could work for us. Just think about what happened to the Buena Vista Club of
> Cuba. Our time will come again. 
 
Solid advice. In jazz, think Thelonious Monk who was laughed at for most of
his career. Then, all of a sudden he became a genius. Yet for 40 years or
so, he played mostly his own compositions, about 80 tunes. Over and over.

I will never forget Monk's answer to a jazz writer who asked him at the Five
Spot in NYC one night in the 1950's; "Monk, why do you keep playing your
compositions, those same tunes over and over again?"

Monk replied; "Why to build an audience for them, of course."

And he did, just ask TS Monk how much royalty money his Dad's compositions
generated from about 1970 on and still do now in the 21st Century.

Monk, crazy? Yeah, like a fox.

Cheers,
Steve