[Dixielandjazz] Re: The "Jazz" Police

[Mike]

Very true. There will always be hard critics who are never satisfied 
with how you play a tune. Personally, I just ignore them.

Mike


patcooke77 at yahoo.com wrote:
> Steve wrote:
> 
> "They will frequently say something like "That's not the way to play trad
> jazz", or a specific song or what ever. Those of us who play to people who
> do not have those hang ups about a right way, or a wrong way to play jazz
> and/or Dixieland are very fortunate in avoiding self appointed "experts"."
> 
> It seems the jazz police are always there to tell you that they know something that you don't know.  I always thought the whole idea of jazz was to play a tune just a little (or a lot) different from every one else.  Without that creativity, it just isn't jazz.  I'm guessing the jazz police were there to tell Louis he wasn't playing like Buddy Bolden.
>     I have a friend who said her favorite tune is Misty.  So I put on a track of Erroll Garner playing Misty.  After the first chorus, he started to improvise a little.  She said "He's not playing it right, he's ruining it."  I said "he wrote it.  He can play it any way he wants to."  She didn't agree.  I knew it would be futile to say any more.  
>      Preservation and creativity seem to have a problem coexisting.  It depends on what you want to do (or are able to do) best.  If one leans more to the creative side, the creativity will be hard to contain and preservation will suffer.  Just how much creativity is allowed depends upon the mindset of the policeman du jour; and the mindset depends a lot on what said policeman has been listening to most. 
>     Some time back, someone was bemoaning the fact tht there have been no great innovators since Louis.  My answer is there have been a number of innovators, but if I mention any of their names the jazz police will want to throw me off the list.   The truth is that true preservation does not allow innovation.
>      It may come as a shock to some, but the present (young) generation regards traditional jazz as players like Dave Brubeck.  They really don't want to learn about real trad any more than the older generation wants to learn about heavy metal.
>     
>          Pat Cooke
>      New Orleans