[Dixielandjazz] Sitting in and Practice

[David Dustin]

Steve wrote:
No, I said exactly what I meant. Practice is/was, a different subject. IMO
practice by oneself, or with jazz musicians who are not competent, will not
help make one a competent jazz musician anymore than performing live with a
professional band will, without prior practicing. They are both important.

By the same token, however, again IMO, if one wants to become a competent
jazz musician, one must perform, live, with professional jazz bands. I would
call that "paying dues", simple as that.
====================
I¹m simple enough to get it: someone who is not a competent jazz musician
but desires to become one must find a professional jazz band unprofessional
enough to allow an incompetent jazz musician to pay dues in live
performances and achieve jazz competency.  The proverbial self-eating
watermelon.

If the incompetent jazz musician possessed sufficient means, could hiring
professional jazz sidemen and forming one¹s own (largely) professional jazz
band serve the same purpose, and without the risk to the jazz incompetent of
being voted off the stand after one chorus?  That would be my choice, if I
had the means, as I don¹t know any professional jazz bands likely to let me
within a bargepole of one of their hard-won live performances with anything
more musical than a beer Œn a brat.

Or you could simply enroll in any of the vibrant community college jazz
programs scattered around this country, led and populated by some highly
competent jazz musicians from diverse walks of life, and pay dues that way.
I will never have the chops of Russ Phillips Jr or Sr, but I sure learned a
lot about jazz (and improvisation) performing live for years with
non-professional jazz bands in those environments. One community college
band I played in was directed by a Maynard Ferguson protégé (I got to share
the stage briefly with Maynard through that association), and another by a
man who had played with Stan Kenton and remained close to him for decades.
(It¹s not OKOM, but it sure felt like jazz to me.)

David Dustin