[Dixielandjazz] What is Dixieland?

[Marek Boym]

> What is Dixieland? Who the hell can define it with any authority?

I don't think so.  And I remember someone on this list juxtaposing
white New Orleans Dixieland and black New Orleans style.
And I don't really care; I have already quoted the
Duke, so I'll refrain from doing so again.



> Dixieland has different meanings to different people. Regarding Hawkins
> playing "The Chant "with the band I mentioned, "Southampton Dixie Racing and
> Clambake Society Jazz Band", it was most assuredly played as DIXIELAND.

Very likely.  so?  His playing Original Dixieland One Step with the
Ramblers - a swing band - was not.


>
> Regarding what others think is Dixieland, or not, I remember well my band
> playing "If I Were A Bell" at a night club and a blue haired lady coming up
> to the bandstand and saying with some displeasure: "Huuumph, I didn't know
> that show tune was Dixieland."
>
> I smiled and said "It was the way we played it."


Now you're talking some sense!
>
> I guess one of my points is that virtually all Dixieland songs as folks
> describe them, are pop tunes played in Dixieland style.

How true.  Although some wee written for jazz bands to play.
>
> Another of my points is in  agreement with Richard Sudhalter who in
> discussing Dixieland vs. Small Band Swing made the following observation in
> "Lost Chords". (page 279)
>
> He opines that "by the mid 1930s, the word 'dixieland' was being applied
> freely to certain circles of white musicians, first by the trade press and
> then the public."
>
> "Often such compartmentalization ignored the sound of the music" he
> continues and then compares 2 records of "I've Found a New Baby"
>
> 1) 1937 with a Teddy Wilson band, with Buck Clayton, Buster Bailey, Lester
> Young in the front line.
>
> and
>
> 2) 1939 Summa Cum Laude with Max Kaminsky, Pee Wee Russell and Brad Gowans
> in the front line.
>
> He goes on to say that the two records are similar in structure and feel,
> have ensemble polylinearity and band riffing and have vigorous solos.

I have never thought so, but I'm prepared to listen again and compare.
 But in the case of the Summa Cum Laude it was not only the colour,
but also the musicians: None of those on the Wilson recording was ever
identified with Dixieland, albeit (much) later Claytopn joined Condon,
and Bailey played with the then fashionable traditional jazz bands.
The group comprising the Summa Cuym Laude had been identified with
Dixieland since the 1920's.  I've never read of the Norvo small bands
called Dixieland; even Joe Marsala's Hickory House band has not been
called a Dixieland band.
>
> Yet the white band's music was called Dixieland and the black band's music
> was called small band swing.
> by the trade press and the public. The rest of the discussion on that page
> is worth noting if folks have the book. Especially the Bud Freeman comment
> about how a "substantial musician" will say he just plays music and stays
> away from categories imposed mostly by people who are not musicians. Kind of
> like some Max Kaminsky comments that fans, record collectors, the media, the
> critics etc., etc., should stop trying to categorize jazz and just let the
> musicians play.


Eddie Condon said simply "We Called It Music."
>
> Or those comments we get from time to time that Dixieland MUST have a tuba
> and banjo.


I believe that this originated with Bill Russell, who insisted on
having a banjo, and with Lu Watters whose band had both a banjo and a
tuba.  And neither liked the description "Dixieland" for their music.


> What is Dixieland? Who the hell can define it with any authority?
>
Cheers,