[Dixielandjazz] Small Band Swing or Dixieland?

[Stephen G Barbone]

On Feb 16, 2011, at 4:39 PM, Marek Boym wrote: (polite snip)

>> "A 1937 pick-up group led by Teddy Wilson . . . recorded "I've  
>> Found a New
>> Baby" with Buck Clayton, Buster Bailey, and Lester Young as the  
>> horns. It
>> was heard and discussed as 'small band swing'. When two years later  
>> Bud
>> Freeman's Summa Cum Laude Orchestra with Max Kaminsky, Pee Wee  
>> Russell, and
>> Brad Gowans in the front line recorded the same number in much the  
>> same
>> style, it was 'dixieland'."
>
>
> As the French say, "vive la petite difference!"
>
> I know both performances, have cherished them for ages, but even after
> all these years can hear the difference.  Not so much the same style.
> Plus, all the musicians in Freeman's band had been known Dixieland
> players before the swing era.

Dear Marek:

Yes, of course there is a difference. They are two different bands.  
<grin>

Pee Wee Russell denied throughout his entire life, (as did Bud  
Freeman), that he was a Dixieland Musician. Both claimed only to be  
musicians. I think that is part of Sudhalter's point. That WHITE jazz  
musicians were classified by fans and the media as Dixieland Musicians  
and BLACK musicians were not. Yet the musicians themselves did not put  
their playing into that narrow box.

That was even true of Wild Bill Davison who many fans will claim was a  
Dixieland musician. He, and his 5th wife and manager Anne, often said  
that he was much more than just a Dixieland Musician.

Similarly, Vic Dickenson is often called a Small Band Swing Musician,  
but then, that claim fell flat when he played with the Condon gang.

Sometime I think we tend to forget that guys like Russell, Freeman,  
Davison, Pee Wee Erwin and many others got their grounding in the Big  
Bands, or studios. Or that even Phil Napoleon was a studio musician in  
NYC and was also with the Tommy Dorsey band for a while.

As Bechet might have said, they "were musicianeers".

Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband