[Dixielandjazz] Dixieland in the Desert

[Steve Barbone]

>From the Banning - Beaumont (California) Record Gazette.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone

Traditional jazz still lives - but for how long?

By Larry Rand Record Gazette

Dixieland jazz is alive and well in California, with 27 clubs in the state
dedicated to the preservation of it.

The Dixieland Jazz Society of the Desert had its festival March 9-12 in
central Palm Springs, using the city's Pavilion building, senior center,
high school auditorium and Boys & Girls Club as venues. Attendance was in
the thousands, but seemed limited to the senior set - which is something of
a mystery.

Traditional jazz, ³hot² jazz, or Dixieland - for most of us, the terms are
interchangeable- is older than most retirees, having begun in New Orleans
early in the 20th century and achieved its biggest popularity in the 1920's.
Nobody under 90 grew up dancing to the New Orleans sound; today's retirees
were listening to swing bands as teens and young adults. Dixieland may have
been their parents' music, but it couldn't have been theirs. So it's not
theirs to claim.

At the same time, the traditional ³hot² jazz that moved from New Orleans to
Chicago to the Hit Parade 80 years ago is seminal American music with
infectious rhythms and easy accessibility - there is no need to be hip,
slick and cool to enjoy Dixieland. It's not esoteric music for adults only.
The genius of the genre, Louis Armstrong, was an iconic entertainer famous
worldwide, and Dixieland has left its mark on most other genres, from
Broadway to country music. It is as familiar an American musical form as
gospel or barbershop.

But somewhere along the way, Dixieland picked up a ³for seniors only² tag
that it doesn't seem able to shake. It's even stranger than the connection
that Dixieland seems to have with baseball (why Dixieland at the ballpark
instead of bop, bluegrass, blues or barbershop?).
Sunday's crowd at the festival was resolutely senior; my 40 year-old wife
may have been the youngest person there not with a parent.
 
The talent onstage was heavily senior, too, though not as universally as the
audience, and not everyone playing was of professional caliber. I hesitate
to call the bands that played ³amateur,² because of the limiting connotation
- and because it's not quite accurate. The Royal Dixie band, for example,
plays professionally at a Las Vegas casino (and sounded much more like a
lounge act than a Dixieland band). Some Dixieland bands seem to rely on a
regular circuit of Dixieland engagements that aren't dissimilar from the
barbershop quartet world - gigs on the cusp between amateur and
professional. The gigs pay, and therefore are professional, but the circuit
seems mostly made up of chances to preach to the converted - jazz
preservation clubs and festivals. Dixieland hasn't ³crossed over² to a more
mainstream audience since the 1950's, when Pete Fountain, Al Hirt and other
Dixieland traditionalists got a boost from Lawrence Welk (a self-proclaimed
Dixieland fanatic who was driving to New Orleans to become the first
Dixieland accordion player when he got a gig on the radio). It seems to have
given up trying.

A few of the musicians at the festival were older players whose chops have
seen better days - but they were a distinct minority. Overall the
musicianship and showmanship were excellent, and the music remains as
appealing, upbeat and vibrant as ever.

In any case, age should never be the determinant of a musician's talent;
having gigged with Martin, Bogan and Armstrong dozens of times in the 1970's
- a black string band that had played together for 50 years - I have
experienced being left in the dust by them at 5 a.m., the end of an
eight-hour Saturday night gig in Chicago. And I twice watched 80 year-old
Joe Venuti, jazz fiddler extraordinaire, gleefully chew up a trio of
musicians half his age.

The Night Blooming Jazzmen, based in Claremont, were a shining example of
Dixieland music, with three men sharing vocals (and guest vocalists sitting
in) and everyone more than adequate on his instrument. There are
professional musicians in the group, but also a retired math teacher,
retired cop, and a scientist from the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena (the
two groups obviously lack mutual exclusivity). The band played the purist
forms of Dixieland, such as ³Tin Roof Blues,² but could breath life into
mundane old Tin Pan Alley ditties like ³Sit Right Down and Write Myself a
Letter,² too.

Like Rahsaan Roland Kirk of free jazz fame, reed player Jim Richardson felt
quite comfortable taking a duet on two saxophones simultaneously; the
yet-to-be-senior Brad Roth switched easily and well from a 1950's Gibson
electric guitar to a plectrum banjo (not the banjo they played in ³Oh,
Brother, Where Art Thou;² it lacks the droning fifth string), and Les
Deutsch, who mainly held down the piano, also soloed on trumpet, sax and
piccolo and has been known to perform on organ, trombone, clarinet, flute,
tuba, horn, and percussion when not planning deep space communication
strategy for the jet propulsion lab.

There was no reason for anyone of any generation not to like the Night
Blooming Jazzmen, which is why we left the Pavilion with faces puzzled by
the unanimity of gray hair.

There were two hopes we carried with us. One is that the ³for seniors only²
tag would perpetuate itself; as people became seniors, they would suddenly
develop a new affinity for Dixieland (both listeners and musicians). The
other was that the Palm Springs locale, surrounded by 55+ communities, drew
a more universally senior crowd than San Diego's longstanding Dixieland
festival on Thanksgiving weekend and other trad jazz festivals. The good
folks in Palm Springs won't live forever, and we don't want them to take
that wonderful Dixieland music with them.

Contact Larry Rand at lrand at recordgazette.net or 849-4586, ext. 26.