[Dixielandjazz] FW: Is Jazz dying

[Larry Walton Entertainment - St. Louis]

Ron said--I've been listening to Dixieland/New Orleans/Ragtime
since I was a kid of 13 or 14 and I still hear tunes I never heard before.
The style covers music from the late 1800s to the 1950s,
__________________________________

For an old guy who hasn't always played Dixie and Ragtime your comment is 
especially true.  I wish I had played it for a lot more years because I 
would know the style better and what's more important I would have networked 
in with the guys who do play better.

When I play a gig with another band they are forever coming up with "New 
Tunes".  The kids are addicted to the latest from the net, radio, CD's or 
whatever.  Well so am I except my "New Tunes" are the tunes of my Mother and 
Father's youth and the music that my Grandfather tapped his foot to that I 
never heard.  There seems to be an endless supply of them and what's better 
an endless supply of ways that they are done.

Unlike some modern styles these tunes have understandable words, melody's, 
good rhythms that aren't restricted to a back beat and lots of cymbals and 
chord progressions that your audience doesn't have to be either geniuses or 
morons to like it.  Some people actually know the words and almost everyone 
knows or can hum or whistle the melody when you are done.

The styles that come closest to all those things is early rock and C & W 
music.  Both of which still have a huge following.

Why is it that when we play in a public venue, young adults bring their kids 
and baby's up to hear us?  It is true that we are not hired by the 20 
somethings and the money seems to be with the 50 up crowd.  Venues are 
mostly run by people who suppose for whatever reason that the 20 something 
crowd want's anything but what we are selling.

I suppose if you are counting bucks at the end of an evening at your bar 
that "loud and wild" fills the till more so that's what they go with.  Short 
sighted venues use DJ's and I guess that if you pay a band $300-$800 a night 
that is skimmed off the top of the profits as vs. paying some guy a hundred 
bucks to spin CD's makes sense.

There are a lot of bands that are just too tired  and have little or no 
showmanship.  I went to a antique rail road station that was re opening 
after years of just setting there.  It was a big civic deal and they hired a 
Dixie Band.  Musically they weren't too bad but they were outdoors and were 
standing off almost to themselves and obviously playing to each other.  If 
these guys had played the Saints and paraded to another part of the area and 
played a few tunes and moved again at least they would have seemed to be 
alive.

People like to see musicians play instruments.  In this TV age everyone is 
becoming more and more visual.  Look at almost any band on TV.  They are 
doing things to simulate movement.  Even the Zataran's (food commercial) 
clarinet player is kicking back and pointing his clarinet to the heavens.

If our music is so dead then why does a company pick as their symbol and 
logo a guy playing OKOM on a clarinet if someone up the corporate ladder 
didn't think it was cool?  That person could have picked almost anything 
else.  Does he know something we (Dont count me in the greater WE) don't 
seem to know.

What he knows is that people equate New Orleans with good times and fun and 
good eating.  The company hasn't gone broke yet.

Yes the tunes are "Old" and yes many of us are "Old" but if you look "Old" 
and "Tired" too it's no wonder people just go ho hum.

I booked a return gig a month or so ago and the comment was that the people 
liked us because we talked to them.  Could it be that my competition just 
stands there and plays music at them?

Look at a guitar player sometime from your least favorite TV band.  There is 
a 99% chance that he's not just standing there playing.  There is every 
likelyhood that he looks like he's having an orgasm or pumping the guitar 
neck up and down and the drummer is making great flourishes while smacking a 
cymbal.  That guitar player is also moving his body or has struck a pose of 
some sort or maybe is walking around the stage.  Does he know something we 
don't.

I was playing a wedding reception at one of the top hotels and to the horror 
of the band leader as one of my Rock screaming solos was coming up I walked 
out to the middle of the dance floor and played my solo.  When I opened my 
eyes all the young people had formed a circle around me and clapped as I 
sort of moon walked back to the band.  Did you know that as I left that 
night there were four couples waiting for me in the parking lot, wanted to 
carry my horns and stood and talked to me for a few minutes and wanted to 
know where I was playing next.  The band leader mumbled something about me 
not doing that again.  What a dunce.  I must have struck a chord with them 
and there was 40 or more years difference in our ages.

I got the idea from another band.  It's an 18 pc group.  They play a hot 
swing tune (I believe its' one o'clock jump) and they put the saxes 
immediately in front of the band and the brass are on the other two sides. 
The Band Leader who only MC's the group and the male singer put on black 
hats and sunglasses and do a Blues Brothers routine.  Solos step out from 
the line, Trombones wave their slides around and the trumpets strike poses, 
the sax section kneels on one knee while playing, stands up at the end and 
takes a bow. And yes kiddies the band is made up of guys that are over the 
hill like me.  The crowds always go nuts.  What did it cost anyone and how 
hard was it?  Nothing and not very hard.  Yet the people love it.  This big 
band works almost every week somewhere.  They do this routine near the end 
of the evening and people go away remembering that and not Mambo Jambo three 
hours before or that they didn't do anything special for the other 3 hours.

I really don't think it takes much if you do several things.  Move, appear 
to enjoy playing, do things with your instruments besides hold them, talk to 
the people and have as much color in your apparance as you can.  Look at 
some of Elizar's things on U-Tube.  I noticed on one that they paraded 
around in a six or eight foot circle and I bet the people loved it.  Even 
those who are barely ambulatory can do that.

For some reason musicains think people hire them to play music.(what a 
concept - burn him at the steak)  If they wanted just music they would hire 
a DJ but even the DJ's today have to do something besides stand there and 
spin records.  They use flashing colored lights, strobes, fog machines and 
all sorts of gimmicks.  They know just music is BORING and most bands are 
BORING after the first half hour or so.  At least the DJ moves from style to 
style but most bands are stuck with basically the same sound all night so we 
have to do something to make us interesting.  In this TV clicker age we have 
to work at it.  Sometimes I forget too and get lazy.

Some friends who were at a dinner half way across the state still talk about 
when we paraded around the room with me playing Yakety Sax and the rest of 
the band playing Saints with everyone in the room up parading with us in the 
line too.  That's what they remember and not the clever harmonies or solos 
or anything else.  They don't remember who was better than who or even how 
many there were of us or what else we played.
Larry
StL