[Dixielandjazz] Band Personna

[Stephen G Barbone]

> "James O'Briant" <jobriant at garlic.com>
>
> Steve Barbone wrote:
>
>> IMO, when playing to audiences of what ever
>> type, the band should try and reach the majority
>> of them. There will always be folks who say "you
>> are too serious" as well as others  who say "you
>> clown around to much" , or those who say "you are
>> too loud" while others say "I can "t hear you."
>> Etc., etc., etc.
>>
>> ... It is what appeals to "most" of the audience
>> that will carry the day and assure continued success.
>
> Yes, unless we carry this to the extreme, which would mean we're
> doing no more than catering to the "masses" and reducing our music
> to its lowest common denominator. (I'm pretty sure that's not what
> Steve meant to recommend.)

You are right Jim. Moderation in all things. Otherwise we'd all be  
Kenny G. <grin>

However it is also good to realize that when the jazz we revere was  
America's Popular Music, it was just that because it appealed to the  
lowest common denominator. It catered to them. One of Paul Whiteman's  
goals was to make jazz acceptable to the masses. .

I may be parsing words about lowest common denominator. Hard to  
explain what exactly I mean, unless you have a jazz band/experience  
like my band does of playing for the general public in the USA as well  
as targeting young people for our audience. In effect, we avoid OKOM  
Festivals and strictly old folks audiences, except as they attend our  
public gigs, and/or pay us to perform at retirement facilities.  
Basically because our music is soloist oriented and most old folks  
seem to like "Popular Music Ensemble Jazz" and relish obscure tunes as  
"Art Form".  Fine for them, but not for us.

We figure that obscure tunes are usually obscure because they weren't  
any good in the first place. And we just like to create/compose, on  
the spot in real time rather than read the dots, or copy some dead  
guy, as we did in our apprenticeships. <grin>

Make no mistake, we are playing what Eddie Condon described as "Real  
Jazz" in  his autobiography. We are unashamedly catering to the mass  
audience demographic. We are also reaching them to a large extent  
given out 15 year track record of more than 2500 well paid local  
performances. So we believe we fulfill both our artistic goals and our  
communication goals, while expanding the audience for jazz in our  
territory.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband