[Dixielandjazz] Handel's "Messiah" and "When The Saints..."

[Fr M J (Mike) Logsdon]

> Steve, why can't people just do what they want to do? It seems like every week you write the same post telling us that the only way to keep traditional jazz going is your way. There is nothing wrong with jazz chestnuts, if that's what you want to play, nor recreations, if that's what floats your boat. If there is an audience, no matter what age, what's the difference?
> 
> I remember attending a performance of an "all-star" group a few years ago. Everyone in the band sounded tired and bored, and looked the same. Good players but I had the feeling they would rather have been watching TV or playing golf than playing music. Better to see a group of musicians enjoying what they are doing, even if it is a recreation, than to witness an apathetic performance.

I've hesitated until now to say something on this point.  Steve, I 
certainly respect your perspective.  If it weren't for folk like you, 
that really hoppin', publicly visible business end of the thing we call 
OKOM would be suffering much more than it does.  (If it in fact does.)

But on the Messiah example, I feel the need to remind you and others 
that there's a big difference between "interpretation" and "changed". 
The average conductor of the Messiah or any standard work brings his own 
special take to the piece, be that take good or bad.  But when things 
are changed beyond what the composer even could've imagined, you no 
longer have his work, but what it has been changed to.  A good or bad 
thing?  Totally up to the listener, as what he's listening to isn't what 
it actually was, so who cares, actually?  But don't call it what it was, 
because it no longer is what it was.  I once listened to a few nauseous 
minutes of a "rock Messiah", and accepted that for what it is, it was 
good, but it wasn't Handel's Messiah.  It was something new and deserved 
judgment on its own merits.  Just don't call it Handel's Messiah, 
because it's not.

Same goes for jazz.  If you present an old saw (say, Saints) based upon 
a fresh interpretation, okay.  If you substantially change it from what 
it had historically been known as, you've created a new thing, that can 
no longer be judged by the same criteria.  It would no longer be, 
legitimately, Saints.

Just call new new, and leave the old what it is:  perfectly okay, and in 
no need of alteration, just because one might want young people to care. 
  I've heard plenty of folk on this list (including me) indicate that 
even the old is new to such young farts.  Give 'em a chance to hear an 
unadulterated something every now and then.  At no time is a greatly 
altered version any better than a perfectly staid and true attempt.