[Dixielandjazz] Re Edinburgh Jazz Festival (was Ban on Musicians)

[Ken Mathieson]

Message: 10
Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2008 11:37:22 +0300
From: "Marek Boym" <marekboym at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] Ban on Musicians
To: "John McClernan" <mcclernan1 at comcast.net>,
Dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
Cc: Dixieland Jazz Mailing List <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Message-ID:
<28fe10560804280137u229c384h5fe2824e04520ddd at mail.gmail.com>
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Hi Marek, John et al,

The Edinburgh International Jazz Festival still goes on every year, featuring a lively mix of styles and musicians from all over the world  and still features the best of the local bands. The "highbrow" part of the Edinbugh Festival runs from mid August into early September, while the Fringe Festival runs from early till late August. 

The Jazz Festival, like the Book Festival and the Film Festival was encouraged to run at a different time from the main festivals, and a number of years ago opted to run in the week preceding the start of the Fringe. Before the move, it was becoming increasingly difficult to hire venues, find accommodation etc, and getting about the city was becoming tricky at peak times. I guess that John must have arrived in town after the Jazz Festival had finished.

Marek mentioned The Bachelors of Jazz, a band led by trombonist Dave Batchelor, which has been around for ever and is still doing occasional gigs. It is rumoured by the band members that it pre-dates Buddy Bolden, but I've been playing drums for the Bachelors since the beginning, and can tell you that it only feels as though we've been around that long. It's very like being at the dentist's: you feel you've been in the chair for hours, but it's never anything like that in reality (I'm using this simile to convey the feeling of elasticity of time and the possibility of suffering great pain)!

All the musos in The Bachelors (including Dave himself) are involved in other bands, most of which take their music pretty seriously. With The Bachelors it's a bit different. The musos all set out to play to the best of their abilities, but the fun often gets out of hand and reduces the band to gibbering wrecks. We used to play a pub gig in Glasgow years ago and one of the regular punters was a little old lady, who may have been "one sandwich short of the full picnic" as we say here, and who used to give us hard time just setting up our equipment. "Do you call that a drum kit? I've seen better drums on the Muppet Show"... etc. One night, she failed to appear and Dave held auditions with the audience for the vacant post of Band Heckler. In the middle of this, with the audience hurling insults at the band and the band putting them down expertly, the pub owner walked in. It took some time to convince him that it was all good fun, although you could tell by the look on his face that he thought we were all completely mad.

Swing '84 has grown up and become Swing 2008 and still purveys its excellent take on Django Reinhardt-type material. Imagine having to change your website and all your stationery every year on the first of January! Mike Hart is still heavily involved in the management of the festival and still puts together an all-star band for a concert each year. Lots of other local bands perform too, including my own Classic Jazz Orchestra, Dave Batchelor's serious band, The Scottish Jazz All-Stars (which features such luminaries as clarinettist Forrie Cairns, trumpeter Lennie Herd, pianist Brian Kellock, bassist Ronnie Rae and singer Fionna Duncan), a great jazz/salsa band called Salsa Celtica, Jim Petrie's Diplomats of Jazz and a host of outstanding young musicians playing in more modern idioms. Apologies to all those omitted.

The programme for 2008 has still to be announced, but it's guaranteed to provide an excellent week's jazz of all types and is well worth a visit.

>Hello John,
Edinburgh had enough good bans of its own in those days - The
Advocates of Jazz (led by Mike Hart), Swing '84 (heard them at that
year's Edinburgh Jazz Festiva, and they were wonderful), The
Barchelors of Jazz, etc.  Had they wanted to have a jazz band at that
festival they could have easily provided one of their own.
Cheers,
Marekl
>snip