[Dixielandjazz] Jazz - the US vs Europe

[Clive Smith]

Greetings everyone. As a new member of dixielandjazz, I hope I am going the
right way to add to the fascinating comments made by Bill Haesler and other
members concerning the fact that Traditional or Classic Jazz (and I
*never*spell Jazz with a small j !) in the USA has one foot in the
grave whilst in
Europe it appears to be thriving.

Recently I fished out from my collection a 1982 Stomp Off LP called "Its the
right thing" by the Scaniazz Jazz Band. The liner notes were written by Tex
Wyndham and I would like to quote verbatim from his comments;

"The USA may have originated Jazz but Jazz has usually received its most
intense appreciation beyond the US borders. Unfortunately, except for small
enclaves of fans gathered in various Jazz societies or in occasional weekend
festivals and except for a few dedicated LP producers, the American public
regards Classic Jazz as a type of pop music that had its heyday some 60
years ago and then like other ephemera of pop culture, disappeared into a
more-or-less deserved oblivion. By contrast, European musicians and critics
recognized ragtime and Jazz at the outset as a unique contribution to the
arts - to this date America's only native art form, in fact - worthy of
being studied, mastered and preserved, communicating the genius of its
practitioners in a way time cannot diminish" . End quote.

I was fortunate enough to live in New Orleans for some 14 years until
Katrina and I am proud of the fact that all my friends were Jazz musicians.
For five or so years back in the 80s, as a volunteer, I hosted a weekly two
hour Traditional Jazz program on WWOZ. After some time, I found a stack of
(mostly) Stomp Off and GHB LPs thrown in a corner, all recordings of
European bands. Added to my own collection, this was quite a stack. So, as
all my other daily Jazz programmer colleagues concentrated mostly on US
bands, I decided to make my program more 'international' in hopes of awaking
listeners to the fact that Jazz is very much alive and kicking across the
pond. I kept this up for about two years and if phone calls to the station
are any guide, it was clear that people were enjoying hearing different
interpretations of this wonderful American music by non-American musicians.
Then one day, the GM of OZ, David Friedman, dropped a bomb in my lap - he
called me in to his office and stated in very clear terms that OZ is an
American radio station, Jazz is American music and I should stick to
American musicians and if I refused, I was out. To my question "can
Italian opera *only* be sung by Italians when some of the greatest voices
happen to belong to black Americans?"  I got a blank stare and no response.
Hmmmm. I took the matter to the Jazz & Heritage Foundation Board (owners of
the station), stated my case, played six 30 second cuts I had taped of US
and European bands and challenged them to identify the nationality of each
band. No takers. The Board was very courteous but I heard no more as,
naturally, and I accept this, they had to support their own manager so  I
was on my bike. If this is the sort of mind set of a "Jazz station" (my
inverted commas) manager, what can it be in station managers round the
country? We can drag the younger generation to Jazz concerts, symposiums etc
al until everyone is blue in the face but if the radio stations do not
support us, what hopes have we got
of propagating this magic that was started so many years ago in New Orleans?
How would Britney, the Spice Girls and others have made it without
commercial radio's support?

No apologies for banging on so long about this episode, Bill and you other
fellows who have commented on the imminent death of Jazz in the US, but I
get so hot under the collar when I consider the results of this kind
of nonsense thinking - let me finish by telling you that a very popular
T-shirt in New Orleans says "Its not the heat - its the stupidity". Amen

Red beans and ricely

Clive Smith