[Dixielandjazz] Dixieland Zombies & Working Musicians - Was Terrasi's Jazz Club

[Stephen G Barbone]

On Oct 9, 2009, at 3:00 PM, dixielandjazz-request at ml.islandnet.com  
wrote:

>  Marek Boym <marekboym at gmail.com>
>
>> Barbone wrote: Roy Eldridge  finished his playing career at the  
>> "new" Ryan's after that.
>
> Yes, I heard Roy Eldridge at Ryan's in 1980.  Both he and the band
> sonded bored by what they were playing, and it didn't jell.
>
> during teh intermission, two ladies about Eldridge's age and height
> approached him, talked ablut some concert of his they attende in
> Chicago, and gave him a cassette tape.
>
> The intermission ened - and wow!  It was a transformed Eldridge!  He
> played his old hits from the swing era, with all the fire one could
> expect.  And, at least at first - with no consideration for the band.
> It was Eldridge and the ladies.  At first the band did not follow, but
> he didn't care.  Eventually the other musicians caught up.  A really
> memorable performance.

Dear Marek:

I think your experiences reflects the mundane world of the "working  
Jazz musician". Whether Eldridge at the new Ryan's, or the DeParis  
Brothers at the old Ryan's, the curse of the constantly working jazz  
musician was boredom. After World War 2, some of these guys were  
working 6 hours a night, 5 or 6 days a week, sometimes for years.

The audience was requesting the same warhorse tunes every night,  
sometimes more than once in a night. That grind gets old very quickly  
and so what was a creative band/musician becomes a bit of a jazz  
zombie. Bill Bailey, The Saints, Muskrat Ramble, etc., become a chore  
and so the musos lapse into familiar patterns just to get through each  
evening.

Then, when an audience member engages one of them and talks about  
something different, like in DeParis' case, Wrought Iron Rag, the muso  
snaps out of his boredom and for a while gets back to being energized  
creatively.

I had the same experiences as you when listening to DeParis at the old  
Ryan's one or more nights a week for a year. Much of the time, they  
were simply going through the motions, but when something triggered  
them such as my discussions with Omer Simeon about his Hot Pepper  
years, or how he learned to improvise, or why his style was so  
different from George Lewis, or why as he pointed out, Charlie Parker  
often quoted Picou's High Society, he became a very different player,  
communicating his pleasure, and passing on his knowledge, through his  
horn.

That's why, to a working musician, audience feedback is so important.  
That audience energy transfers to the musicians and everyone benefits.

To many of the 1950s OKOM jazz musicians who were constantly working,  
it was mostly just a job and not continuous artistic creativity.

That's why many jazz musicians seek to become energized by playing for  
the women in the audience. It is still the best way I know of, even in  
my old age, to get turned on creatively. The guys in our band always  
seek eye contact with the ladies and play to them where possible.

And, as I can attest about Eldridge, he had a way with the ladies.  
<grin>


Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband