[Dixielandjazz] Older tunes...

[Laurence Swain]

Larry StL wrote, re Jazz Dying:

    The hardest thing for me was knowing songs.  I was a teen in the 50's and
    that's the music I liked and wanted to play but all the bands who paid
    money weren't playing those tunes so I had to fall back on my memory of
    tunes that I had heard when I was younger.  It was good training and I had
    some help from the few bands that used fake books. 

I had a small dance/Dixie combo when I was in high school in the early 50's, and I bought my 
first fake book then -- hundreds of "standards", etc.

I still have it -- dog-eared, but still usable.  Nothing in it from later than 1950.

I usually have the book with me when I perform solo, even though I long-ago committed 
much of its contents to memory.  When there are people my age and older around, there is 
usually lots of singing and dancing from listeners -- very rewarding for me.

But, as I think I have reported here before (sorry!), what continues to pleasantly surprise me 
is the compliments I get from kids in their teens, twenties, thirties.  They never get a chance 
to hear the old stuff, and many find that they enjoy it when they do.

There's a lesson here, and I am grateful that Steve B and others on the list are doing what 
they can to get OKOM before the younger set.

Larry Swain
(Backup piano player of last resort, Boston area)