[Dixielandjazz] Dixie vs Trad

[Rick]

Oh, yes, I'm NOT really a historian.  I'm a MUSICIAN!!

First band was the Honolulu Hot Shots -- 7 
Ukulele's, at Little Rock High School in 1949.

I've been playing and leading every since then.  I 
can enlist a group of player to play
+ Trad Jazz
+ Country (I play lead)
+ Blue Grass (I play guitar or Dobro)
+ Cool Jazz (I play Jazz Guitar)
+ Bossa Nova (I play rhythm or lead)

So, everybody is entitled to an opinion.

In my case, as a leader, I have to have a vision 
which I can share with the group.

"Without a vision -- the people perish.!"

I can do that.

Some people call it "opinionated"  Some people 
have complained that I'm too bossy.

But, if you're the leader, you have to know what 
you want, and you have to try to communicate that 
to the group.

I do that pretty well.
(By the way, I have an MBA in Organizational 
Behavior.. so I do know a lot about small groups.)

However... I'm not trying to WIN anything here.   
I don't think this is a zero-sum game.
(i.e. Winners vs. Losers.)   If we all contribute, 
we all win.

right?

RIGHT?

Rick
Keep on Contributing, Marv, and so will I.


On 1/15/2011 6:48 PM, Marvin Ipswich wrote:
> I was going to keep out of this, but I'm afraid I can't bite my tongue any
> longer.
>
> Rick, Rick, Rick...
>
>> Although Lu was copying the King Oliver band, the  time period was the
> 20's...
>
> Lu Watters denied repeatedly in interviews that he was copying the King
> Oliver band. Just adding an extra trumpet to the seven piece lineup and
> playing a few King Oliver tunes doesn't imply copying anyone. For instance,
> there were other bands in New Orleans in the 1920s that had two trumpets
> (Papa Celestin and Sam Morgan immediately come to mind). There is a
> well-known interview with Lu by Terry Waldo in his book "This is Ragtime"
> where Lu emphatically states "How the f*** can you copy the King Oliver
> band?"
>
> Steve Barbone makes an excellent point, too, in pointing out that the Oliver
> band used string bass (Bill Johnson) to begin with, then when Bill quit
> Oliver used bass saxophone, then tuba with the Dixie Syncopators - which was
> Oliver's larger group with three saxes. If you listen to the sides by Johnny
> Dodds' band recorded for Victor, Johnson plays a mixture of two beat and
> four beat on the bass. Unfortunately the primitive recording equipment at
> Gennett and Okeh didn't allow Johnson to play bass. Great pity, that.
>
> Some researcher, somewhere at some point a few years back, determined that
> Turk Murphy was the first person to use the term "traditional" jazz. I don't
> remember the exact details, but it was either used by Turk in an article in
> Record Changer magazine or in the book "The Heart of Jazz." I seem to also
> recall the term "jazz revival" coming along even later. It always seemed a
> ludicrous term since there had been bands playing early style jazz or
> dixieland since the music first appeared. A renewed interest in early jazz
> began in the mid-to-late 1930s when big band swing was the thing, but all
> throughout the 1930s there were five, six and seven piece plays playing
> dixieland or whatever you want to call it, throughout the country - in New
> Orleans, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, etc., etc.
>
> Just FYI,  Sharkey (i.e., Charquet et Co.) disbanded in the 1970s, so,
> technically, it is not really a "new" band. Jean-Pierre Morel has gone on to
> front other groups playing 1920s big band jazz (big band = ten pieces).
>
> And I can't let this one escape without a comment...
>
>> Unfortunately, the early trad bands didn't pick up the Splash Cymbal,
> which was a 20's staple.
>
> I've studied a lot of material on early drum equipment, and as far as I can
> infer there was no such thing as a "splash cymbal" in the 1920s. That has to
> be, without a doubt, the most misconceived notion of all time with  some
> ill-informed drummers playing early jazz. If you spend time listening to
> early jazz recordings, i.e., the ones where the drummer is actually allowed
> to use a cymbal, you'll find they are playing cymbals that range in size
> from 12 - 16 inches. Technically, a splash cymbal is a thin, six to eight
> inch cymbal, that doesn't put out anything more than a whisper of sound -
> especially when choked - as the drummers frequently did then. The first
> drummer I know to use a splash cymbal was Gene Krupa. All one needs to do is
> take a look at the pictures of bands from the 1920s in a book like *Black
> Beauty, White Heat*, or *The Pictorial History of Jazz*, to realize drummers
> used much larger cymbals than some people mistakenly think.
>
> Rick, you obviously are very passionate about early jazz, but realize there
> are a lot of very knowledgeable folks here who know A LOT about the history
> of the music. Tread carefully or you might get bitten!!
>
> Sympathetically,
> Marvin
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