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

[Steve Barbone]

Dear Bill

Are you kidding?

Just what the hell is wrong with cartoon music? I did not say cartoon music
was bad. It is simply, in large measure, what those bands you describe play,
and it attracted several generations of old codgers like us.

Note also the last sentences of your post. I specifically said "in the USA'
because I was aware that European/Asian/Oz audience might actually like
cartoon music. And no doubt they might be huge Paul Whiteman fans, as say
opposed to Duke Ellington. So how can those audiences disagree with what I
said? "In the USA". (which you even emphasized)

What's past is prologue. That's what the music is about. And what's past is
cartoon music. 

Cheers,
Steve Barbone 

on 1/16/07 12:55 AM, Bill Haesler at bhaesler at bigpond.net.au wrote:

> 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. 
> 
> 
>