[Dixielandjazz] Dixieland

[Harry Callaghan]

Whether you tend to agree or disagree with Steve, Pat, Marvin, Marek or
myself, I  would never question this guy IMO, he's been around a lot longer
than all of us.

HC
On Fri, Jan 14, 2011 at 9:31 AM, Stephen G Barbone <
barbonestreet at earthlink.net> wrote:

>
> 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
>
>
>
>
>
>
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