[Dixielandjazz] By George, Ned, half the friggin' secret is sloth!

[will connelly]

It is futile to argue with the peripatetic, omniscient and all-around
seer plenipotentiary, His Exalted and Fragrant Cerebral Phosphorescence,
who sat for a time at the Right Hand of the late K.O. Eckland to mentor
and nourish the ninds, even as now, of unwashed multitudes.

As the Maestro would have  taught had he not been so busy illuminating
the root truth that we, by gum, invented jazz, a significant difference
exists between how youthers are instructed and how they learn music in
the US and in other lands.

Fewer than one in a hundred US brass students, for example,  begin to
achieve the near sinusoidal tonal purity, precision attack on each and
every note at any tempo, and mastery of embellishments that toungle many
a US tang but which are de regueur for British brass band artisans.
The Brits In America, on the other hand, the main function of music
education is to provide the athletic department with a band at half time
during varsity football games. It is small wonder that members of bands
that must swing and sway,   and in which sousaphone players must
pirouette upon stages of mud, grass and snow might evoke a certain
sloppiness in intonation and articulation  and carry these aptitudes
into the saloon, there to productively employ the unusual chord
progression learned by tripping in a gopher hole at the thirty yard
line, the millisecond advance or retard of a note, and the  random
semitone deviation as elements of jazz innovation.

The musical sloth that distinguishes jazz from lesser forms is also 
attributable to the fact that jazz plaayers areintrinsicaly romantic 
figures who get laid a lot and sccordingly have less tim for practice

Respectfully submitted ... and
Kindly,
Will Connelly