[Dixielandjazz] Dixie vs Trad

[Marek Boym]

Marvin mentions "The Heart of Jazz."
I remember reading the book ages ago; there I read for the first time
that the saxophone was not a jazz instrument!  I often say it,
although, of course, I know otherwise (Johnny Hodges and Bud Freeman
are some of my all-time favourites).
The book also claimed  and tried to prove that traditional jazz was
morally superior to other styles.  Oh, well...

Some 20 years ago I found a copy in a second hand book store, but then
llent it to somebody and never got it back.

Cheers

On 16 January 2011 02:48, Marvin Ipswich <cornet at clearwire.net> 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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