[Dixielandjazz] McQuaid's Rhythmakers/cartoons

[Charles Suhor]

John, Steve, Tom, and all--

IMHO the discussion of cartoon music has gone awry on one hand. On the 
other, it needs refinement to avoid talking past each other; on the 
other (I have three hands), it reflects real disagreements.

We went far afield when the idea of cartoon music was stretched out 
beyond the razzmatazzy, identifiable stuff that was heard behind 
cartoons in the 30s and 40s, to include any music that was matched to 
cartoon animation, from hot music behind the short cartoons to the 
symphonic stuff of “Fantasia” to the hip modern jazz behind the 
“Peanuts” TV specials. The focus of the discussion is for me, and has 
returned to:  the style of the early cartoon music and its resemblances 
to other “hot” music such as  the dance music charts played by vintage 
bands of the early years and current bands like McQuaid’s Rhythm 
Makers, the New Leviathan Band, S.F. Starlite Band, Portena Band, etc.

Speaking for myself and just about everyone I personally grew up with 
in jazz (I’m 71), unlike Steve we were not, make that NOT impressed 
with the music of cartoons as a prelude to liking jazz. Cartoon music 
was clearly funny stuff and intended to be silly and loaded with zany 
effects, whereas most jazz of the time was not. Even the music of 
Lombardo, the Mickey bands, and the recordings we heard of early 
dance/pop music, though regarded as corny, weren’t thought of as 
cartoon music. The common elements in all of those musics were a few 
things like syncopation, growls, and hot, foot-tapping rhythm, but we 
sensed that jazz went well beyond that.

The refinement of our discussion was made along the way by a DJMLer who 
said that, only if you name your criteria for what constitutes jazz can 
you talk to someone else about whether a given performance is jazz. I 
shouted hooray and added that some “hot” performances will meet all of 
the criteria, others will meet some, still others just a few. In my 
list, the music of the Portena, McQuaid, Leviathan, Starlite bands has 
very few of the qualities on my list of criteria for jazz, and a lot of 
the qualities of pre-jazz. Too much to enumerate here, but for 
instance, the McQuaid band purposely plays ricky-tick ragtime phrasing 
(in common with my criteria for cartoon music) but the clarinetist is a 
fluidly swinging improviser (one of my many jazz criteria). Also by my 
criteria,…the Firehouse Five was usually pretty jazzy and kinda 
corny…Condon’s bands were usually 100% jazz…and so on. The ODJB and 
other very early improvising bands were essentially jazz, but there 
were still plenty of pre-jazz elements in them. But the early 
improvising bands were, in retrospect, clearly works-in-progress 
towards what shook out as jazz when the music found a distinct identity 
in Armstrong, Hines, Bix, and others.

The disagreements outright among us might well be what’s in our implied 
but unstated lists of criteria. Mine lead me to say, along with John 
Farrell and others, that that Portena, McQuaid, etc., aren’t “cartoon 
music”-- but to agree with Mssrs. Barbone and Wiggs, that they aren’t 
“red hot jazz.”  I call them—take a deep breath—mostly corny. As 
mentioned earlier, we just don’t have an untainted vocabulary to apply 
to those old-style bands. It’s not “early jazz” in the sense that 
Oliver, Louis, the NORK, etc. were. We’ve inherited terms like “corn,” 
“razzmatazz,” “Mickey Mouse,” and “cartoon music.” If we could adopt a 
term like “razzmatazz” or defuse “corn” of it’s pejorative 
connotations, those terms might be generic descriptors of the music 
we’re talking about.

Charlie Suhor



On Jan 23, 2007, at 9:13 AM, John Farrell wrote:

> Despite protestations to the contrary the phrase "cartoon music" 
> conjures up
> a demeaning image of the music played by bands like this, in 
> particular the
> Portena and Michael McQuaid's great band.  There are some who cannot 
> resist
> putting jazz of any stripe into a pigeon hole - and where there is no 
> slot
> appropriate to a particular style then they seem to believe that the 
> one
> next to it will suffice.
>
> If Messrs. Barbone and Wiggins will not face the fact that this kind of
> material is out-and-out hot jazz of the highest calibre then I cannot 
> take
> seriously any of their copious comments on our music.
>
> Cartoon music? Phooey!
>
> John Farrell
> http://homepages.tesco.net/~stridepiano/midifiles.htm
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Dixielandjazz mailing list
> Dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
> http://ml.islandnet.com/mailman/listinfo/dixielandjazz
>