[Dixielandjazz] Sacramento Festival

[Marek Boym]

>
> I don't think all Americans agree on just what "trad" or "traditional jazz"
> is. To me it means a 5-8 member group, usually (but not always) with tuba &
> banjo rather than string bass & guitar, playing mostly music written before
> 1930, and with improvised solos played in a 1920's style, not 1930's or
> later style.

Does that exclude all those great number Lu Watters and Turk Murphy wrote?
I strongly suggest listening to The Anachronic Jazz Band (a link was
provided on the list some time ago).  A two beat group that played
almost exclusively compositions by "modern" jazzmen (although at the
Grand Parade du Jazz in Nice in 1976 I heard it play two very
different versions of "I Hope Gabriel  Likes My Music" on the same
day!).
>

>
> I'm told that Turk Murphy once said that he called his band a "Traditional
> Jazz" band rather than a "Dixieland Band" because it paid better.

Traditional - I know.  I have also known for a long time that Murphy
preferred the term, albeit not necessarily for the reason given.
>
>> For me, any traditional band will do if it is good, but I prefer string
> basses and guitars to tubas and banjos.
>


> I can listen to swing, but prefer the 1920's style to the 1930's and later
> swing style. (And this preference, coupled with the reduction in the
> proportion of "trad" bands and the festival's lumping trad & swing together
> as if everyone loved both, is the root of my earlier comments on the
> Sacramento Festival. Yes, a lot of people do love both, but my preferences
> are my own & I think I'm entitled to them.)

Has anybody queried THAT?  I don't think so, even if Steve mixed swing
and traditional groups in his reply.

Cheers
>