[Dixielandjazz] Dixieland Tunes

[Stephen G Barbone]

Ed, and List Mates:

Dick Sudhalter's Chapter in "Lost Chords"  on "Dixieland" (pages 274  
to 299) has an interesting take on the change in  the meaning of the  
word "Dixieland". From "Southern" prior to the 1930s, to a style of  
jazz during the 1930s. See specifically, page 279. He claims that the  
term started to be used style wise musically, in the mid 1930s, first   
by the trade press and then by the public

According to Sudhalter, the first jazz bands, New Orleans or not,   
used the term "Dixieland" as a Southern reference, not a musical one.  
Like "Tom Brown's Band From Dixieland" which played in Chicago in 1915  
with Larry Shields on clarinet, a couple of years before he recorded  
on that first ODJB record.

It appears, to Sudhalter, that the name Original Dixieland Jazz Band  
also referred to being from the South, rather than a musical style. At  
that time, according to Sudhalter, the style was "jazz" and that word  
was used in the Chicago Press in 1915 at the time of Brown's gigs  
there, and in New Orleans about 1913. (As well as other cities,  
earlier and later)

What was so appealing about the South back then?  Well, there was a  
social nostalgia for songs and bands to, in Sudhalter's words,  
"celebrate the virtues of a halcyon and largely fictional South,  
prescribing a prompt return there as medicine for all modern, big city  
melancholy." (page 275)

There were all kinds of bands, jazz and pop, which used "Dixie" and/or  
"Dixieland" in their names, bands; "of both races playing any music  
even distantly reminiscent of a southern Arcadia." (page 276) Some  
jazz and some not.

If Sudhalter is correct, all those early tunes were not written for  
"Dixieland" as we commonly use the word today to reference a musical  
style. They were simply dance music tunes.

IMO, NORK did not have a Dixieland connection as to music designation.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.barbonestreet.com
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband


On May 14, 2008, at 6:28 PM, EDWIN COLTRIN wrote:

> Steve and others, I don't know when "dixieland" was used to  
> designate some of OKOM. However in the the early 1800s, a bank in  
> Louisiana printed ten dollar bills, dix is the word for ten in  
> french, and therefore the bills were referenced as "Dixies". I  
> assume that because they came from the South, they could then be  
> considered to come from "Dixieland" .
>
> The ODJB  which recorded music i the ealy 1900s could have been  
> responsible for the connection. By associating their name with the  
> kind of rythm and musicc they produced. Especially where the group  
> came from.  A question, did NORK have a "Dixieland" connection as to  
> music designation ??
>
> As for "Jass" or "Jazz", many stories abound for this connection.
>
> As a conjecture, could there have been a designation, musically,  
> that music from the New Orleans region be called "Dixieland" and the  
> other, Fox Trots, one Step and others be  called JAZZ ?, The music  
> played by the White dance bands at the time ??
>
>
> All this is MHO.
>