[Dixielandjazz] Cap Handy and the open air

[ROBERT R. CALDER]

Two themes:


I have no idea whether the Cap Handy RCA LPs have been reissued, I have one with 
Doc Cheatham and Claude Hopkins and it's always seemed to me a bit tame. It 
never seems to get going. I gather his status as the last major New Orleans 
musician of a generation active in the 1930s was due to some disputes about his 
alto playing, about which some people were rude -- and that he suffered for not 
having been a clarinetist. Though he did gig on the instrument. The rave notices 
I remember from his heyday were all associated with performances on which he 
just got to let rip. 


As for the open air, I remember Billy Hunter, the outstandingly lyrical 
trumpeter in Ken Mathieson's CJO, enthusing about the open stage in the large 
city square (George Square) in Glasgow one year the Glasgow Jazz festival's 
former normal main venue was out of commission for serious restoration work. 
There were big crowds for the free music and the planned marquee was never 
erected because of the marvellous sunny weather. All week!
Billy's enthusiasm meant more because his lip wasn't well after putting his all 
into an amazing all-out band set in a physical context which pretty well needed 
and pretty well had two of him. 

Lots of city centre crowd and after-work beer-drinking in the sunshine, and 
lunchtimes, and even girls in their middle teens on the bus talking about the 
jazz festival as a place to be. 

I don't know about the economics, the performances I heard and had reported to 
me were not just pleasing background music for strangers. 

It would be great if it could be done again. Without the couple of miles of 
sectarian parade which silenced one set by marching past for about an hour at 
least, and rescheduled to the Saturday afternoon because its original date 
coincided with the G8 economics conference (where Dubya fell off his bike in the 
grounds of the venue) and the police detached to guard him and others were also 
required for the parade ....
There was of course no police detail at the jazz. I did see a couple of happy 
looking cops in shirtsleeves strolling where the music could be heard.