[Dixielandjazz] OKOM and The College Circuit

[Stephen G Barbone]

On Oct 21, 2008, at 3:00 PM, dixielandjazz-request at ml.islandnet.com  
wrote:

> doctordubious at verizon.net  a/k/a Tom Duncan wrote (polite snip)
>
> My college fraternity chapter has reunion get-togethers at various  
> locations
> and draws from classes from the late '40's to the '60's for  
> attendees. Our
> party music in those long ago days was Dixieland and we we were  
> particularly
> spoiled in that the band we had for those "big" weekends was usually  
> headed
> by Johnny Windhurst and Ed Hubble with subs for Windhurst being Max  
> Kaminsky
> or Herman Autrey. Johnny Vine, Jack Fuller and Charlie Hoyt rounded  
> out that
> group and may be known to many of our Eastern DJML'rs

Yeah Tom. Weren't those College Circuit days and nights in the 15  
years or so after WW 2 just great?

Besides your weekends with Windhurst, et al, (great players all) the  
Condon groups and others regularly made that circuit. Even a couple of  
bands where I was a sideman  did. Many a weekend we'd jump into our  
cars and travel from home base in NYC to colleges in New England and  
other states. The Southampton Dixie, Racing and Clambake Society Jazz  
Band, and/or The Beale Street Stompers joyfully made that scene every  
spring and fall until Elvis took over.

We played at Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Cornell, Hamilton, Colgate, St  
Lawrence, Smith, Vassar, Brown, Bard, MIT, etc., and even as far south  
as the University of Virginia and  Duke. Great times.

Right up until about 1960 or so when Rock took over at those parties.  
My last memory of OKOM's dominance over Rock is when the Southampton  
Band played opposite a Rock band at  a Cornell frat party, (DKE) about  
1960. The party goers doused the rock band with pitchers of beer,  
chased them away and demanded more Dixieland from us.

But then, a few years later most of the OKOM College scene was over.  
Barbone Street gets a few college gigs every year now, but it is  
surely not like it was 50 or 60 years ago when we couldn't keep up  
with demand and were treated royally by kids, just a few years younger  
than the band members, who idolized us and called us "Sir".

And let's not forget the coeds who saw us as "worldly". I will never  
forget making a college weekend with Roy Eldridge who charmed quite a  
few gals. We kept asking each other, after each break,, "Where's Roy?"  
<grin>

Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband