[Dixielandjazz] What the Audience Hears

[Steve Barbone]

GREAT discussion. Thanks for starting it mopo.

Like mopo and JCJB, and Kash, much of Barbone Street's audience is made up
of the jazz oblivious. They have no real idea of what we are playing, yet
they enjoy it because we have a recognizable beat and because we engage to
audience, without boring them.

I suspect that is also the reason for the popularity of smooth jazz, at
least for the recognizable beat part of it. And it doesn't get in the
audience's way.

Avant garde may be an entirely different phenomenon. Perhaps like modern
classical. There is a segment that likes it, while the rest hate it. I try
and listen to it all, even going as far as seeing Cecil Taylor twice. Still
don't understand his music, but get a huge kick out of the energy he expends
in his performance. Others, notably Branford Marsalis have said; Aw, that's
just bullshit in A flat.

As some know, I grew up with Kenny Davern and watched him play some avant
garde. And listened to him talk about both sides of avant garde. The fun and
challenge he had doing it, and also his opinion that some who claimed to
play it were "just running the changes". Both of us marveled about how
"together" the band of Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry and Charlie Hayden was
when we first hear it circa 1960 at the Five Spot in NYC. How they listened
to each other, etc.

Does the mass audience like avant garde? Probably not, but then they don't
like modern classical either. (And most probably don't really like OKOM
either, regardless of what some tell us when we perform).

But there certainly are audiences that appreciate both. About 1 AM this
morning I saw a broadcast of a recent Newport Jazz Festival. Don't know the
group playing or the year as I hit it while surfing TV and preparing a late
night snack. Very Avant Garde Group. The camera panned the audience and
while some were hardly reacting, they were outnumbered by those who were
obviously very much into it, nodding, smiling, tapping their feet.

Do some go to hear it in fancy places because they want to appear hip and
want to be seen on the scene? Sure. But that is also true of every OKOM
festival audience out there. Only they want to be hep.

Could someone like Cecil Taylor exist without financial support from the
"Arts" groups, or other patrons? Who knows, but then Van Gogh couldn't have
existed without similar financial support either.

One thing all of us musos know is that we hear very differently from most
other people. and like Bob Ringwald says, we easily multi task. We play and
hear at the same time, whether that play is on a musical instrument, or us
talking while someone else is performing.

What does the audience hear? Hopefully us.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone