[Dixielandjazz] Let's Get This Dixieland Business Straight.

[Marek Boym]

> Hello Steve,
>
>>
> Bebop was never featured there to my knowledge.

I know that.  Nor were big bands.  Just that, whatever condon might
have called it ("We called it music," remember?), it was Dixieland,
even when musicians like Buck Clayton were on board.  Indeed, judging
by listening to recordings (I only visited the "revived" Condon's in
1980), he was allowed to pay his own style (as was Bill Harris in Town
Hall).
>
> A bit formulaic?

I remember a listmate saying that



This would have been
> after Condon's had been open for 10 years or so. Then too, it is hard not to
> get formulaic when playing the same old short list of warhorse tunes that
> the customers request from 9 PM to 3 AM  six nights a week year after year.

That's for sure.  Formulaic and bored.
>
> I can't imagine anyone describing Condon's original club on West 3rd Street
> as a temple of mediocrity but as we agree, people listen with their own ears
> and form their own opinions. I can only opine that what I heard, many times,
>  at his joint on 3rd street was the epitome of hot jazz. I haven't heard
> anything like it since.  In 1961 or so they lost the lease and moved the
> club to the Hotel Sutton on 56th Street where it stayed till 1967.


I don't know which one, probably the later, but not the Red Balaban
one.  At least, when I was there, the music was great, and I fell in
love with the playing of Jack Maheu.



>
> I agree completely with fellow clarinetist Bob Maheu


The only Robert Maheu I've found was a businessman.  Are you sure it's
not Jac Maheu?


>
> Sudhalter went on to say this about Dixieland on page 299:
>
> "Listening to the records now, particularly those by three decades of Condon
> organized groups, it's difficult not to be struck by the polish and emotive
> power of the soloists and, perhaps even more, by the close-mesh texture and
> rhythmic verve of the ensembles. This last, surely, is an art that reached
> its fullest flower with these musicians and, as Maheu and others seem to be
> suggesting, may have died with them. But what to call it? Is 'jazz' enough?
> Do such terms as 'Chicago Style' still mean anything to anyone? Is there
> nothing better than tired, politically beleaguered old 'dixieland'?"


The records still sound great!

Cheers
>