[Dixielandjazz] Is this the real deal?

[D and R Hardie]

Hello everybody,

                  Kent has asked a serious question. In the early 1940’s 
people were asking what did early jazz sound like and they turned to 
performances by old stagers who had been around in about1900
                  Some  of  of the players in the youtube clip had heard 
the early bands and some played in them. The question arises: did they 
play in 1958 just as they had fifty years earlier? Oral testimony 
suggests that players like Charlie Love may have been more proficient 
than their later peformances suggest. In the case of drummer Barbarin  
there are a number of earlier performances that show him performing at 
a higher skill level than here. In the 1940’s he is reputed to have 
abandoned a four beat style to return to the earlier two beat style 
known to have been used by the earliest jazz bands. Here he is 
resolutely using the two beat style,using the classic early kit of bass 
drum one snare and one cymbal, so that at least is authentic.
                 The regular format of the first  jazz groups included 
violin, cornet, clarinet, valve trombone, guitar, bowed bass and drums. 
While this group has a violinist (Peter Bocage, I believe.) it has two 
trumpets, slide trombone, banjo,piano  and slap bass and drums -so not 
quite authentic before say1913.
                 The song is I Hear You Knocking but You Can’t Come In  
a tune very similar to Bucket’s Got a Hole In It. It’s a very old folk 
tune that is believed to have been one of a number of street songs 
known to have been in Buddy Bolden’s repertoire.
                The performance conforms to one of the criteria of early 
jazz performance in that it relies on endless melodic repetition, 
though I believe the better earlier bands might have played  more 
interesting variations on the melody and passed the tune to one another 
for ragging.. may be it is only the last part of a recorded 
performance. It seems a bit over recorded making it difficult to 
analyse individual performances. As usual you can’t hear the violin in 
what is an all ensemble performance. Presumably he is playing melody 
but the two trumpets drown him out.
                Perhaps the cruder chorus bands of the 1900’s would have 
sounded a bit like this, but really to me  it’s a fairly coarse jam 
session typical of the time in which it was made.

regards
Dan Hardie

On Thursday, October 18, 2007, at 01:32  AM, Kent Murdick wrote:

> I don't know if you historians out there have seen this, but it looks 
> like the real deal for early jazz.
>
> http://youtube.com/watch?v=fJT1PuCw4TA&mode=related&search=jazz
>
>
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