[Dixielandjazz] Preservation Hall Players

[James Butler]

Dan I agree 100% with you.

Jim

Dan Augustine wrote:
>      Yeah, well, most of the Preservation Hall bands i've heard are 
> very very poor musically, very dated, and just flat uninteresting as 
> far as traditional or any other kind of jazz goes.  Maybe i heard 
> some poor recordings, who knows.
>      I don't give a rat's ass how much money they make.  Kenny G makes 
> a lot of money too.  I DON'T CARE.  You start equating musical 
> quality with money, thinking that lots of people wouldn't pay good 
> money to hear bad music, and you're flat wrong.
>      Maybe they're partly responsible for people not liking 
> traditional jazz.  They hear PH and think to themselves, gee, so 
> that's what it sounded like 100 years ago; sure don't want to hear 
> any more jazz like that.
>
>      Dan
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>   
>> Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2006 00:15:24 -0400
>> From: Steve Barbone <barbonestreet at earthlink.net>
>> To: DJML <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
>> Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Preservation Hall Players
>>
>> Hey, don't be knocking those guys. They are deliberately playing like that.
>> It is their "thing" and what many people think most N.O. Bands played like
>> in the very beginning.
>>
>> It also works to make them the most popular Dixieland Jazz Band in the world
>> sometimes with several touring units going on the road concurrently.
>>
>> It is as close as you can get to the original "art form" as created by
>> musicians back then who, for the most part, lacked formal training. It is,
>> in effect Folk Music Dixieland.
>>
>> Don't like it? That's fine. But they are working as much as any Dixieland
>> Band you can name and laughing all the way to the bank.
>>
>> Trust me, I had a long conversation at the bar with Wendell Brunius (a fine
>> musician who gigged in Vegas with our guitarist in the 1960s) several years
>> ago when we shared the stage on "New Orleans" Nights at the Berks Jazz
>> Festival (10 days, 150,000 attendees) and then The Clifford Brown Jazz
>> Festival,( 5 days 60,000 attendees) Both are Modern Jazz Festivals.
>>
>> What they made in $US for one set at each of these two festivals would
>> astonish most Dixieland bands who perform at low paying OKOM festivals. And
>> the $ they were offered, to play at The Red Sea Jazz Festival would also
>> astonish most people.
>>
>> How come they make so much? Because they draw LARGE audiences of people who
>> not only adore them, but will put their money where their mouths are to see
>> them. And, because they are "art form" they also get monetary support from
>> many private, state and federal arts foundations.
>>
>> Why don't our local OKOM Festivals hire them? Because, as they have said on
>> this List, "We can't afford them."
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Steve Barbone
>>     
>
>