[Dixielandjazz] From The Ellsworth American, Ellsworth Maine. USA

[Stephen G Barbone]

BLUE HILL — Students in Deer Isle and Blue Hill last week got a  
primary-source lesson in how music is learned in New Orleans. The  
lesson came from Bennie Pete and Shamarr Allen, members of New  
Orleans’ Own Hot 8 Brass Band.

Tuba player and bandleader Pete and trumpeter Allen led student  
workshops at Deer Isle-Stonington High School in Deer Isle and at  
George Stevens Academy in Blue Hill.
The musicians will be back on Deer Isle with New Orleans’ Own Hot 8  
Brass Band to perform during the eighth annual Deer Isle Jazz Festival  
July 25-27 at the Stonington Opera House.

The band also will conduct a clinic and lead a traditional second-line  
parade down Stonington’s Main Street.

Last week the jazz players were in the schools teaching students the  
fundamentals of the blues, New Orleans style.


“How many have been to New Orleans?” Allen asked an attentive class of  
budding jazz musicians at George Stevens, including one student who  
made a trip to the Big Easy as a boy.

When Allen asked him whether he had heard any music there, he said,  
“It’s impossible not to.”

When Allen asked what is different about the music associated with New  
Orleans, students offered one-word responses like “rhythm” and  
“Dixieland.”

He stopped many students cold when he asked for their personal  
definitions of music.

Students venturing to define it on personal terms suggested music is  
“heartfelt and enjoyable,” “different sounds coming together to create  
something individual” and “any sound I can get into.”

One young musician ended the exercise when he suggested “It’s like  
porn, you know it when you see it.”

Allen offered his personal definition: “It’s something that I love to  
do, something I enjoy doing. It’s something that makes me feel good.  
Music is the only thing in the world that you can take to any place in  
the world and be understood. It’s a universal language.”

When Allen asked about the blues, the detailed explanation from one  
student impressed him.

“I might even take you back to New Orleans with me,” Allen said. “I  
need a bass player.”

Other young players from GSA’s award-winning jazz program impressed  
Allen and Pete, who were there to tell the students something about  
music in New Orleans.

“A lot of music in New Orleans is not like jazz in New York,” Allen  
said. “It’s more like playing what you feel instead of what you  
learned, but you still need to know how to play.”

A young student trumpeter apologized for hitting a wrong note, but it  
wasn’t necessary.

“There’s no such thing as a wrong note, especially when you’re playing  
jazz,” Allen said.

Allen used musical notation to explain blues concepts, but after the  
discussion in a language familiar to GSA students, he drew a line  
between the music education they receive and the way music is learned  
in New Orleans.

“That’s not how we learn music in New Orleans,” he said as he gestured  
to the sheet music he had drawn on the board. “And there are kids  
there, 8 and 9 years old, who are good players. They’re making a  
living.”

Allen said there are no jazz programs in the public high schools in  
New Orleans.

So, how do people learn to play the music that has made the city  
famous worldwide?

“This is how we learn,” Allen said after showing student musicians  
some basics of New Orleans brass band music. “Someone older than us  
passes the tradition down. Someone teaches you the songs, and someone  
comes along and teaches you how to read music.

“How else can you learn it if you don’t learn it from someone else?  
It’s part of our culture. That’s how we learn, but as things get  
passed down, they change.”