[Dixielandjazz] Audience Applause

[Steve Barbone]

Interesting, the difference in opinions. Perhaps also, the difference in
audiences. IMO, the audience should applaud, or whistle, or stomp their feet
whenever they damn well feel like it. Isn't the performance for them? Who
then, are the musicians, to say that the audience are the Booboise because
they applaud or otherwise show appreciation at the wrong times?

How can we expect the audience to know when a solo warrants applause. That
is so very subjective. Can we, as individuals, ever adequately define "good"
solo (applaud) or bad (punish with no applause) from an audience standpoint?

If good is musical difficulty, wouldn't we then loudly applaud avant garde,
and bebop and all the other virtuoso music that we disdain?

And if we appreciate swinging and exciting wouldn't we then loudly applaud
showy solos, because they swing and excite us?

Applause to our band is always better than no applause. What is really
exciting to us is when we generate applause in church services. The audience
wants to be reverent, yet cannot just sit there. So if they interrupt the
solo flow, by applause, or by dancing in the aisle, we love it.

Perhaps a good example of a long and musically simple solo that generated
enormous crowd response is that of Paul Gonzalves on tenor in Ellington's
band at Newport RI in 1956. He took a  27 or so, chorus solo on Diminuendo
and Crescendo in Blue. Mostly a loud, 27 blues chorus performance with a lot
of honking and single note repetition.

Yet it, plus the blonde who got up to gyrate to it, ignited the crowd. There
is sustained applause, whistling, and shouting building as the solo
progresses. 

By many of our standards, that solo should not have been applauded by the
cognoscenti for it was relatively simple music and very showy. Kind of like
Kenny G holding a note via circular breathing for 45 minutes. Big deal, we
say. But what about the audience?

Well, the audience went absolutely crazy. They got involved with the music,
they became part of the performance. That performance re-started Ellington's
career which had, for several years prior, been stuck in the mud.

IMO, audience reaction is what it's all about. I was there back in 1956 and
wouldn't trade that experience for anything. I strive to duplicate it, as a
jazz musician, when I perform. IMO, that's what jazz is all about.

As the incoming President of the NEA (National Endowment for the Arts) said
a while back, we artists spend too much time talking among ourselves and not
enough time communicating with the audience.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone