[Dixielandjazz] Fwd: Roof Garden Jazz Band Concert

[Marek Boym]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Marek Boym <marekboym at gmail.com>
Date: 27-Feb-2007 01:03
Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] Roof Garden Jazz Band Concert
To: Steve Barbone <barbonestreet at earthlink.net>


Recreations are fine, as long as they are not slavish copies.
Thus, the British "Muggsy Remebered" are great, as is Gordon
Witworth's Bix tribute.  Also, while listening to Randy Sanke's
Hackett tribut at Waterloo Village, NJ, I heard a complaint "He's
playing a tribute to Bobby Hackett but palys like Armstrong" - to my
mind, a great compliment: Sandke played himself!
Judging by the pr. blurb, this sounds as a slavish copy, but then, I
missed a great group at den Bos due to a public relations blurb
mentioning some Coltrane influence.  I caught the group in Amsterdam
playing on the street, and if there were any influences, they were
alionel Hampton - Django - Red Norvo!
Cheers

On 26/02/07, Steve Barbone <barbonestreet at earthlink.net> wrote:
> If you are in to Re-creations of Early Jazz, this concert is for you.
> Monday, 8 PM in The Bickford Theatre at the Morris Museum, Morristown NJ.
> Tickets are $15 at the door. Call 973-971-3706 for directions. This is an
> excellent band with Kelso, Reinhart, Levinson, Dorn and Barnhart.
>
> Cheers,
> Steve Barbone
>
>
>
> Morris concert marks birth of jazz recording
>
> BY ROBERT HICKS  - SPECIAL TO THE DAILY RECORD 2/25/07
>
> Dan Levinson has spent the better part of his music career reproducing early
> jazz. At times, he's been disconcerted by racial politics that have
> attempted to sully the reputation of white jazz musicians in the early
> 1900s.
>
> What keeps bringing him back to those early recordings, though, is the
> energy of the music.
>
> "Jazz was dance music in those days," he said. "People danced fox trots,
> two-steps and waltzes to the music."
>
> Levinson's Roof Garden Jass Band will perform at the Bickford Theatre in
> Morris Township Monday. The concert will celebrate the 90th anniversary of
> the first jazz recording, performed by the Original Dixieland Jass Band for
> the Victor Talking Machine Co. on Feb. 26, 1917, in New York City.
>
> The lineup includes clarinetist Levinson, cornetist Jon-Erik Kellso,
> trombonist Randy Reinhart, pianist Jeff Barnhart and drummer Kevin Dorn. The
> quintet also will perform music by the Frisco Jass Band, The Louisiana Five
> and The Original Memphis Five from the early 1900s.
>
> Special guest Peter Sbarbaro will talk about his grandfather Tony, the
> drummer in the Original Dixieland Jass Band.
>
> After performing at Riesenweber's Café on Columbus Circle in January 1917,
> cornetist Nick LaRocca's Original Dixieland Jass Band signed with Victor to
> record "Livery Stable Blues" and "Dixie Jass Band One Step" for its first 78
> rpm record.
>
> Public response to the animal noises worked into these two novelty tunes set
> new sales records for the record company, surpassing Enrico Caruso and John
> Phillip Sousa in popularity and marking the beginning of recorded jazz.
>
> The first jazz recording predates the music that King Oliver and Louis
> Armstrong recorded in 1923 by six years.
>
> Levinson, 41, first discovered the Original Dixieland Jass Band's recordings
> in a local library during his teens in California, and he immediately fell
> in love with early jazz.
>
> "It's right on the cusp between ragtime and jazz. I like to call it
> rag-a-jazz. It's sort of ragtime and sort of jazz. It doesn't really have a
> lot of improvisation. There are almost no solos, except for two-bar
> instrumental breaks," he said.
>
> Levinson met jazz musician James Eugene "Rosy" McHargue, who became his
> friend and mentor. A clarinetist himself, McHargue heard the Original
> Dixieland Jass Band recordings when they first came out in 1917. He learned
> how to play clarinet by copying ODJB clarinetist Larry Shields. McHargue
> played early jazz recordings for Levinson and emphasized their importance.
>
> During his remaining 15 years, from age 82 to 97, McHargue taught Levinson
> much about music and life.
>
> As a budding jazz musician in 1987, Levinson transcribed the Original
> Dixieland Jass Band's early recordings and formed his own band to reproduce
> them to mark their 70th anniversary in concert at Eisner and Lubin
> Auditorium at New York University. The concert was a big success.
>
> Over the years, Levinson has repeated the tribute at various concerts in New
> York, Los Angeles and New Jersey, and he has devoted his jazz career to
> reviving music from 1917 to the end of the Swing Era.
>
> "I've always been a musical iconoclast," he said. "I did things because of
> what my heart told me to do."
>
>
>
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