[Dixielandjazz] "Old" does not equal "Boring"

[Stephen G Barbone]

This is a fun story, from a blog post in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband

Faster - Louder

No fool like a proud fool. I knew nobody would go with me to this - so  
I didn't even ask. But it is just exactly those events that you take  
yourself to that prove that you're someone with principles -  
convictions - weird fetishes that would embarrass your friends. So to  
heck with 'em. I'm here, accompanied only by my shadow, my pride, and  
a couple of hundred like minded souls.
KKK meeting? Snuff film festival? Puppy crushers convention? Naaah. I  
went to a (hide your eyes Ethel!) Dixieland music festival. Alone. In  
disguise. Under an assumed name.

Why am I so defensive, you ask? Because both my peers and my elders  
are on my case. The three venues for this festival are all centered  
around the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk's Cocoanut Grove Ballroom, which  
I had never been to before. On the night that I had chosen to make my  
lone pilgrimmage a free concert was also being held on the beach  
bandstand: One of those hoary, old, had-two-hits 60's bands, with two  
of the original six members and the sobering realization that your  
heroes are all too visibly mortal.

As I make my way through the Boardwalk I stop and ask several wage  
slaves where the Cocoanut Grove Ballroom is. Each and everyone of them  
said: "No. You don't want that. (sour face) You want the free concert  
over there."

I smiled sweetly at them. "No; I don't want that. If I want to hear a  
washed-up has-been band rehash the same old songs in the same old  
arrangements with voices that have lost some of their charm and stage  
presences that show that they can do these shows in their sleep (and  
perhaps are), then I would do better to stay at home and play a CD  
rather than join the mob on the cold beach getting sand in their  
underwear. What I do want is fast, loud, imrpovisational, syncopated  
music with timeless melodies, bluesy vocals, low humor, and musicians  
who can flat - out - wail!

But when I get to the venue I do want I get picked on by the seniors  
at the ticket counter, the door, the hand stamp station, even the  
mailing list table. "Are you in the right place, Sonny?" I am asked  
repeatedly. Their tone would be the same if I had on a ripped Judas  
Priest T-shirt, jewelry stapled to my face, and my hair was on fire.

Its always tough to bridge the generation gap, but this was a leap  
across three or four of them: Generation gauntlet.

And yes, New Orleans traditional jazz is populated overwhelmingly by  
Social Security receipients. I'm sure some of the folks on the dance  
floor remember when those new-fangled "auto-mobiles" came out. But  
maybe one reason why they are still here is that they have been  
dancing the One-step since "jet" meant: 'A stream of water.'

The One-step is an amazing dance to witness. You hold your partner  
close enough to share your internal organs and then you sprint in  
place, like your stomping poisonous snakes. One wrong move and you'd  
flip the other person across the room like a tiddlywink. The One-step  
is so named because you put a foot down on every beat - and the beats  
are going by like there's no tomorrow. It makes a mosh pit look like  
its standing in line.

And still they manage to look silly. A Dixieland show may be the last  
safe refuge for the sailor suit, the straw boater hat, fringed flapper  
dresses, American flag ties, sparkles, spangles, and more rhinestones  
than I ever thought existed. Ginger the Rainbow Lady would have gone  
completely unnoticed, here in the realm of "people so old they have no  
shame."

And a word about hair. Transport this entire crowd to a gale force  
wind and the womens hair would not. move. at. all. The mens hair,  
however, would be flying away like a flock of pelts.

The musicians cranking out this insane music were equally 'mature',  
generally 'calorically challenged', and all were wearing matching  
outfits. No, really; I swear. They actually wanted to appear like a  
cohesive unit. Weird.

So visually its not exactly MTV. Cut the sound and it looks like a  
bowling team standing around blowing into things. I saw one clarinet  
player who I don't think moved at all - except fingers of course - and  
in between songs he'd smile. At a Disneyland show I caught a few years  
ago the members of the band all but carried their bass player onto the  
stage with them and then inserted his stand up bass into his hands. He  
slapped the hell out of it for two hours and they took it out of his  
hands and carted him off.

And that's the point: "Old" does not equal "boring". "Unplugged" does  
not equal "ballad". And "Jazz" was not always rarefied and artsy. This  
is the sound that put the 'roar' in the Roaring Twenties. This is the  
first American Music. My toes were sore the next day from  
unconsciously tapping.

And to all my friends, peers and neighbors, who sat at home or endured  
flaccid pop in the cold sand - hear my cry: I saw a grown man sing  
through a megaphone, and I had a blast!