[Dixielandjazz] Oh Yeah Day - playing for young audience

Wed Aug 17 12:46:08 PDT 2011

Hi everyone, again,

Steve's suggestion could be good but in the case of the Change Song, there
was a lot of money in the background. Provided by a sponsor, a record
company, if I'm not mistaken. In order to make it really professional and
sound good, you need to hire a sound guy who travels all around and makes it
work like they did in the Change Song. If you do it just with different set
ups, different tools, recording equipments over internet, etc., it's not
gonna work. It will but the quality will be NOT exceptional but probably
poor. And it ruins the whole thing. Not to mention than to do something as
second (unless you copy something from another business segment) always puts
you behind something. I'm not for it. If Bill Gates was my neighbour or my
best friend, I'd might say differently but if we have to build this up from
the ground with no money in it at the beginning, it could ruin' it, I think.
I am putting some money into it as we recorded our concert and we'll make up
a shorter and a longer video of the event plus we'll edit a demonstration
video of the OYD venues when I get the films from all the participating
bands. Then I'll upload it to YouTube.

As for playing for young audiences: I have mentioned several times that we
have been doing informative jazz concerts in schools for a long time. Last
year we did around 40 such concerts, this year only 20-25 but next year
again around 50. To keep kids attention for longer than just a concert I had
come up with an idea after years of wasting time with just losing them
although they were enthusiastic about the style at the concert but most of
them have never heard about jazz or my band afterwards. Now we give out a
flyer to EVERY kid in the audience. On one side there are some basic jazz
vocabulary (like and encyclopaedia) so they know how to spell Ragtime and
Jazz etc. and there is written explanation what they mean. Simple and short.
And a photo of Armstrong, too. On the other side there is some info about
our free internet JazzSchool where they can learn more about the genre if
they like the concert. The link for the JazzSchool is on the flyer, of
course. I have written a JazzSchool which is a 12-part series and kids can
subscribe to it by email then they get the link of the parts (lessons)
weekly. It gives them basic information about styles and players with 3-5
videos per "lesson". When they are finished they are urged to continue and
subscribe to the next series which is called JazzHighSchool and it is an
8-part series and each member of my band contributed with one part about
their instrument: we write a little about the history and role of the
instruments and introduce some of its greatest players. Text is
"kid-friendly" and videos are interesting and not long. I converted all
videos and uploaded them to our server so if any of them disappears from
YouTube it would not ruin our series. We plan to do a JazzUniversity with
videos, it's gonna be done some time later. Now I have enough to do.

Unfortunately the above school is available only in Hungarian but I am
thinking to translate it into English but, again, I need plenty of time to
do it.

What I am trying to do but it is difficult and is not working well yet but I
don't give up: we offer a school concert for free or for very little money
besides an evening concert. But organizers in cultural houses (which are
hosting most evening concerts in our case) are not very willing to do the
extra work to contact schools. I'm working on it and let you know if I come
up with something that works.

By the way, our audience in Hungary is way much younger than yours in the
States and Western Europe and probably elsewhere. Young people love it and
not only swing dancers do.

Best regards,

Tamas

From: Tito Martino [mailto:titomartino at gmail.com] 
Dear Steve

1. great idea the "World Oh,Yeah! Song" on youtube.
Let's find a proper song, some old public domain Buddy Bolden tune,
 with renewed lyrics including Oh, Yeah! of course.

2.  that's the key, that's the cue:
PLAYING FOR YOUNG AUDIENCES 
that should, that must be our goal.

It's your long term "mantra" and you advocate that, 
since many years here in this forum.

keep on swinging, oh, yeah !

Tito

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
---

ITTZÉS Tamás

violin teacher, ragtime pianist, festival director

www.bohemragtime.com

www.OhYeahDay.com

Address: H-6001 Kecskemét, Pf. 652., Hungary

Phone (classical): +36(20)82-447-82 

Phone (jazz): +36(20)960-7169

E-mail (classical):  <mailto:ittzes.tamas at gmail.com> ittzes.tamas at gmail.com

E-mail (jazz):  <mailto:info at bohemragtime.com> info at bohemragtime.com

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
---

Join us and make Aug 4 the International Day of Classic Jazz!

Be part of a great worldwide event!

Support at www.OhYeahDay.com