[Dixielandjazz] Porte ñ a Jazz Band (was Please don't Misunderstand)

[Bill Haesler]

Dear Steve,
I am not surprised that you did not 'really' care for the Porteña Jazz Band,
given your oft-stated jazz preferences on this and other forums.
A pity.
But to call it 'cartoon music' is to miss completely what it is all about.
Perhaps you feel the same way about the exciting music of Vince Giordano &
the Nighthawks?
It is music of a period with strong echoes of the early, pre-Swing black
bands like Duke, Moten, Charlie Johnson, McKinney, Jelly Roll Morton's
several big bands (think "Burnin' The Iceberg"), Henderson, Luis Russell,
Louis in the 30s, Calloway, et al. (Even the white Goldkette orch.)
A period music which many of us grew up listening to on records in the mid
40s when we were knee-high to a grasshopper.
A music which shaped our appreciation of what else was happening at the
time, and what was to come.
It is not just "good music for them [Porteña]", it is "bloody" good music
full stop, if you can ditch your 'cartoon/Mickey Mouse" pre-conception.
(Do what John Farrell does. Play it in hifi at full blast!)
OK, they may be reading, although it sounds like they know the charts
backwards, as it was with those early bands mentioned above.
It was consistent with the jazz (Condon called it music) mix of the time,
and the Porteña do it extremely well.
However, I concede that you have probably based your assessment on the
available <youtube> and Google extracts. This is the current band and the
swinging video clips/sound bites come from the 90s on.
Try and locate the LPs/CDs the band made in the 60s and 70s. Those from
which I first discovered them in the late 60s.
They contain 'hot' jazz, based on an understanding of the recorded music of
1923-29 Oliver and the Louis Hot 5/7s through to early 1930s Henderson,
Ellington and all in between. And it is not cloned.
Perhaps you hit it on the head when you said "My only point is that it is
not the kind of Jazz, if jazz at all, that will go anywhere at all with
TODAY'S GENERATIONS IN THE USA. [my emphasis]."
Perhaps you ARE right, but packed audiences in Europe, Britain and South
America would disagree with you.
Very kind regards,
Bill.
PS: I've Googled and Yahoo'd trying to find where to buy the Porteña JB CDs,
particularly those I do not have of the early LP reissues I have had for
yonks.
Perhaps someone 'listening-in' to this exchange of views might have a
definite lead.
Bill.