[Dixielandjazz] Geodixie

[Daniel S. Augustine]

    All right, i admit this question is a little nutso, but maybe it's the season, or maybe it's me (nah, couldn't be).
    Friday night i was at the never-to-be-world-famous Carousel Lounge in Austin, listening to the Chaparral Dixielanders (with DJML's Dave Stoddard) play a couple sets, and they started off with Hindustan.  Somehow the notion of the proximity of Hindustan (the old name for India) to New Orleans crept on little cat-feet into my awareness, and i began wondering if a band could play a series of songs, starting with Hindustan and ending with (say) "New Orleans" (or any song set in New Orleans), such that each song would be geographically next to the last one.  
    For example, in the United States, you could start playing "Chicago", then "Meet Me in St. Louis" or "East St. Louis Toodle-oo" (continuous to Chicago's state), then "Memphis Blues" (down the Mississippi), "Arkansas Blues", "Louisiana", and finally "New Orleans".  Lots of other possible songs.
    BUT!  How to do it from Hindustan?  Go east or west?  Go up from "At the Indian Cabaret" singing the "Song of the Volga Boatman" to see "Midnight in Moscow", but then how do you get through Poland and Germany (i'm not sure if "Georgia on My Mind" is cheating, referring to the SSR)?  "A Love Tale of Alsace Lorranie"? Once past that, of course, you could do "Copenhagen" and the "London Blues", then a dixieland arrangement of "Over the Waves" maybe, to get to the USA.  Going the other way might be easier: Oriental Strut, March of the Siamese Children, China Boy, Bali Hai, to Australia and "The Road to Gundagai", but then where?  Up to Hawaii and "Hawaiian War Chant", i suppose, and over to the mainland ("On the Good Ship Lollipop") with "California Here I Come".
    See?  Isn't this a crock?  But what better use are you going to make of your time on these long cold nights without a gig?
    Any suggestions for better routes and songs?  Go through Africa, maybe?

    Dan

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**  Dan Augustine  --  Austin, Texas  --  ds.augustine at mail.utexas.edu
**  "God tells me how the music should sound, but you stand in the way."
**                -- Arturo Toscanini to a trumpet player
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