[Dixielandjazz] Jazz - the US vs Europe

[Cees van den Heuvel]

Excellent post.
Jazz belongs to the world!
Bigotrry kills jazz
Come on! Let's spread the music together!
(Strange words, coming from an atheist...)

Cees van den Heuvel
http://www.revivaljassband.nl



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Clive Smith" <scousersmith at gmail.com>
To: "Dixieland Jazz" <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Friday, February 02, 2007 9:32 PM
Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Jazz - the US vs Europe


> 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
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