[Dixielandjazz] Backbeat versus downbeat

[ROBERT R. CALDER]

This topic reminds me of a gig where I found myself
seated in the audience near a precise gentleman who
kept making rude remarks about the American guest and
the local rhythm, and maintaining with one foot a
metronomic downbeat,  an oppression I was able to
relieve only by making an emphatic backbeat.  
It's interesting that the German conducting 
tradition, utterly spurned by the vile Herbert von
Karajan with his horror of error and imprecision,
spurned the downbeat.  Karajan boasted that he could
match the metronome, and had his piano playing tested
to confirm that.  
Older conductors, not merely Furtwaengler but
Knappertsbusch and in recent years Horst Stein,
appalled some English musicians by not making a
pronounced downbeat  --  I've heard Stein opening
works I am very familiar with, and have not recognised
the opening phrases. 
The point seems to be to make the phrase the unit, the
felt shaping pulse which seems to have come into jazz
with the New Orleans string bass.  Which is
rhythmically more subtle and interesting than a steady
even fixed beat.  Bad drummers bang down, great
drummers lift.  




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