[Dixielandjazz] Contradictions

[Marek Boym]

Bunk in San Francisco is on American Music AMCD 16, which also
contains one number with the Lewis band and two partial takes with
Yerba Buena.

I prefer listening to LPs; it's the CDs I need to dig up (well, not really).
Whule I cannot find it right now, I have the feeling that GHB has
issued the Carey on one of its labes.  Unfortunately, they failed to
send me their last catalogue with my kast order (all CDs - they've
lost their LP stock to Katrina).
Cheers

On 16/10/2007, jazzchops at isp.com <jazzchops at isp.com> wrote:
> Hi, Marek,
> I haven't listened to the Spicy Advice session in years. I may drag it out
> of the garage (where I keep my lps) and give it a listen.
>
> I thought Bunk sounded really nice with the San Francisco guys. A friend
> of mine played me a very worn acetate of Mutt Carey playing with basically
> the same bunch. Very nice...but too worn to issue. A real shame, maybe
> someday...
>
> Cheers,
> Chris
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > I believe that the Spicy Advice sessions on a GHB LP (reissued, if I
> > am not mistaken, on an American Music CD) are a better example.  Buk's
> > West Coast recordings, not only those with the Yerba Buena, are also
> > good, but to these jaded ears, the Spicy Advice session is the best!
> > Cheers
> >
> > On 15/10/2007, jazzchops at isp.com <jazzchops at isp.com> wrote:
> >> Mr. Barbone gave us the quote from Baby Dodds' book, but here is the
> >> first
> >> sentence from the paragraph...
> >>
> >> "I played with Big Eye Louis Nelson in different bands and at different
> >> times. He used to play clarinet with the Duson band, not as a regular
> >> player, but just now and then." (Duson lived in the downtown section of
> >> New Orleans, and essentially took over Buddy Bolden's band when Buddy
> >> was
> >> committed to the insane asylum in 1907.)
> >>
> >> In the early 1890s a law was passed in Louisiana that stated that anyone
> >> with a drop of black blood was black - period. The law was challenged by
> >> Homer Plessy, a Creole whose great-grandmother was Black. Although Homer
> >> could pass for white, he was arrested for sitting in the "whites only"
> >> section of a streetcar. The case went to the Supreme Court and the law
> >> was
> >> upheld, not to be overturned until 1954.
> >>
> >> This law effectively changed the musical scene in New Orleans
> >> drastically.
> >> Up until that time Creoles considered themselves a separate class from
> >> Blacks - even though they had Black heritage. Creole musicians played
> >> for
> >> Creoles, and for Creole functions. As Baby Dodds stated, the Creoles
> >> were
> >> generally Downtown (in the French Quarter and the Faubourg-Marigny areas
> >> of New Orleans), and the Blacks were Uptown. But some Creole musicians
> >> began accepting jobs with Blacks. To them, a gig was a gig. So things
> >> began to change, and Creoles started working with Blacks playing all
> >> over
> >> town, especially younger Creole musicians like "Big Eye" Louis Nelson
> >> and
> >> Sidney Bechet.
> >>
> >> The problem is there are no hard and fast rules, such as "Uptown" music
> >> or
> >> "Downtown" music, and it's a waste of time to try to create such
> >> classifications, especially in a city like New Orleans, which is a
> >> totally
> >> confused place anyway. I once had a musician tell me he didn't really
> >> know
> >> whether he was white or black. So, maybe in 1889 there was a definite
> >> demarcation between uptown and downtown music, but by 1909 things were
> >> considerably different.
> >>
> >> Another point I'd like to make is the importance of the dancing at that
> >> time. Bands, whether white, Black, Creole or a mixture, played almost
> >> exclusively for dancing. (Even brass bands played for dancing.) They
> >> played schottisches, mazurkas, waltzes, one-steps - all kinds of popular
> >> music for dancing. We tend to have a skewed idea of what New Orleans
> >> music
> >> was like based on the recordings.
> >>
> >> The recordings of Bunk Johnson are a perfect example. Bunk was NEVER
> >> happy
> >> with the band that he was saddled with - George Lewis, Jim Robinson,
> >> Slow
> >> Drag. That band was put together for him. When he had an opportunity to
> >> work with a group of musicians he selected, he got to play the things
> >> that
> >> he really wanted to - rags, pop tunes, etc., things that were written
> >> out.
> >> (
> >> available on the Delmark CD "Last Testament.") I personally had the
> >> opportunity to look through Bunk's sheet music collection at jazz
> >> historian Bill Russell's apartment. Although not a large batch of music,
> >> it was definitely a cross-section of numbers geared for dancing, as I
> >> mentioned above.
> >>
> >> There has been a lot of false information written about jazz in New
> >> Orleans. Fortunately, over the past decade or so there have been more
> >> books published in attempt to give a more accurate picture of how jazz
> >> came to be. One of the best I've read recently is Louis Armstrong's New
> >> Orleans by Thomas Brothers. It was nice to read a book that FINALLY
> >> didn't
> >> try to make "The District" (Storyville) the birthplace of jazz.
> >>
> >> Sincerely,
> >> Chris Tyle
> >>
> >>
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