[Dixielandjazz] Ridiculous Newspaper article

[Robert S. Ringwald]

Listmates:

As most of you know, we, at the Sacramento Jazz Jubilee have endeavored to
attract more young people and people of racial diversity to the Jubilee
while still keeping the Traditional/Dixieland/Classic Jazz fans happy.

We were very successful at this, this year what with the Rebirth Brass Band
as headliner and several other bands that appeal to the younger and
so-called "hip" audience.  There were many more young people and people of
color there,
enjoying the music and fanning out to enjoy other types of music.

At the same time, we still had 22 or 23 Traditional type Jazz bands, more
than any other festival in the U.S.

For years an alternate newspaper in Sacramento, the Sacramento News and
Review, has constantly knocked the Jubilee.  This year we made some headway
in getting some good press from them.  Then this yahoo (did I say yahoo)?
wrote the following article.

Below is the article which appeared in the Sacramento News and Review,
followed by the STJS Exec Director Jill Harper's reply to the editor.

-----

Trust your ears
Dixieland: Hey, it still sucks
By Jackson Griffith
trustyourears at newsreview.com
This article was published on 05.31.07.
I could tell you about last weekend, about the double slice of
"mushroom" pizza I bought from a sidewalk vendor in Old Sacramento
and scarfed. I could tell you about the spectral whisper I heard
hissing from an alley an hour later, which I followed, only to be
frightened out of my wits by the ghosts of Bix Beiderbecke and Bunny
Berrigan, warning me to "best oil yo'self up" with High John the
Conqueror Root Oil for protection against crossed-up conditions--or
else. And I could tell you about the brigade of 97-year-old flappers
doing the parasol dance, who began chasing me down Front Street like
a pack of feral dogs and, once I began to elude them, released their
dentures to fly out of their mouths and continue in hot pursuit,
nipping at my heels while an army of disembodied clarinets mockingly
squealed a funeral dirge.
But that would be, as my dad used to put it, "bullshitting."
You see, after a run-in with a sadistic dentist as a teen, his office
full of clown paintings he'd painted himself, who played loud
Dixieland jazz as he gleefully drilled, I'm all Monty Python and the
Holy Grail when it comes to the Jazz Jubilee: "Run away! Run away!"
So I'll do a few mea culpas for some recent mistakes instead.

-----

 Editor of the News and Review:
I've just read the unfortunate piece by your reporter, Jackson
Griffith, regarding the Sacramento Jazz Jubilee in your issue of May
31. I'm not sure what mushrooms he might have had on his pizza; he
couldn't have bought it from a sidewalk vendor in Old Sacramento,
because there were no sidewalk pizza vendors there. He surely must
have been at some festival that existed only in his mushroom induced
imagination. There was, however, a jazz festival that featured a
dozen different styles of music, including 60 bands that were not
playing traditional jazz. The happy result was an audience that was
younger, more diverse and, frankly, hipper for such acts as the
Rebirth Brass Band and other contemporary groups.  We have worked
hard to broaden the Jazz Jubilee into something that appeals to a
very wide audience; it is a pity that Mr. Griffith felt he had to
reinforce a stereotype that has long since been superannuated. Ah.
Perhaps he thought he was being funny. Not.
                                     Jill Harper
                                  Executive Director
                                  Sacramento Jazz Jubilee

-----

The Jubilee was established in 1974.  It takes place over the 4-day Memorial
Day weekend, brings in thousands of attendees and millions of dollars into
the city.

Before the Jubilee, Sacramento was a ghost town on that holiday weekend.
Everyone escaped out of town, either to Tahoe for camping &/or gambling, or
the coast.  You could shoot off a cannon down the middle of J St. and the
only thing you would have hit would be three flies and a stop sign.

It is a wonderful, citywide event for all ages.

Now, tell me why this so-called writer, or should I say druggy, and his
retarded editor would want to bash such a great event?

It takes all kinds...

--Bob Ringwald