[Dixielandjazz] Dixieland

[Stephen G Barbone]

On Jan 14, 2011, at 7:46 AM, Pat Ladd wrote:

> performance of a song is what places it in a jazz or not category.>>
>
> Twas ever thus. This from Humph Lyttleton `It just occured to me`
> This was in response by Ellington to critics of Ellingtons Concerts  
> in 1958 `that they did not contain enough jazz`
> "When Armstrong plays `Pennies from Heaven` or Hawkins plays `Body  
> and Soul`, they call it jazz.
> When Duke Ellington plays Ellington they say it is not.
> I don`t understand that"
>
> Humph also makes the point that  the Cotton Club where Ellingtons  
> Band presided....was redolent with jazz. Yet many of the performers,  
> Florence Mills, Ethel Waters,Bojangles Robinson, Adelaide Hall would  
> not now be acknowledged as jazz artists at all.
>
> Just to stir the pot.

Well said/stirred Pat:

Kenny Davern often said "to try and define jazz is a masturbatory  
exercise". Jazz means different things to different people depending  
upon the filters of our minds.

IMO Jazz is musical freedom. (I think Armstrong may have said that  
half a century ago).

IMO there are no absolutes. For example it is not ALWAYS the  
performance of a song that places it in a jazz or not category. Proof  
of that? The jazz tunes that have been written specifically as jazz.  
Songs that Thelonious Monk wrote. Songs that Charlie Parker wrote  
etc., ad infinitum. They are jazz no matter who plays them how.

Heck, I'm not even sure that Bourbon Street Parade written around 1944  
does not fit into the written specifically for jazz category.

Other areas where absolutes go to die are exemplified by the jazz  
tunes written these days that have no room for improvisation. The  
scores, including solos, are completely written out and played as  
written. The composers and musicians call it jazz. They are performed  
in the hipper jazz environs of New York, New Orleans, Stockholm,  
Berlin, Rome and other cities throughout the world.

Not sure about London Pat, what say you? <grin>

Regarding Ellington, he often said much of what he wrote and played  
was not Jazz. By the late 1930s, he was calling it "Negro Music". So  
perhaps Humph should have cut those who agreed with Ellington a break?  
<grin>

Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband