[Dixielandjazz] Phil Napoleon & more

[Marek Boym]

Dear Steve,
Semantics or not, I beg to disagree.
We do not quite know what Daily played in 1930.  The review does not
prove anything.  It even claims that "Napoleon's outfit features a lot
of original players from the 1920s."  This alone casts serious doubt
on the reviewer's knowledge of jazz history and understanding of the
music itself.
As to playing "retro" - I reiterate my statement that so were
Napoleon's sidemen.  As professional musicians, sidemen in both bands
played what the leaders required.  True, Napoleon sounds his old self,
but the music does not sound all that similar to the Original Memphis
5.  It can easily be checked.
A personal note: for a long time, I believed that the Yerba Buena
people were "young West Coast amateurs" -a quote (in translation, of
course) from my letter to the person who had the first jazz radio
programme in Israel.  OK, I was still in high school, and had a lot to
learn. but the addressee, too, used that expression.  Unlike me, he
already knew English in those days, and read lots of jazz books and
jazz press.  My English was a bit limited in those days - I started at
16 from scratch.  But we both got that impression from reading about
jazz.  The "powers that be," who were not mouldy figs, tried to create
the impression that professionals played modern, while amateurs
revived old (and obsolete) music.  I strongly suspect that his
underlied the statements of both Marshall Stearns and Bruce Elder (I
don't know him,and he probably belongs to a much younger generation
than Marshall Stearns).

As to trumping - difficult to say.  I like both groups well enough to
want vol. 1.
BTW, my first exposure to Pete Daily (I had known the name before) was
in the 1980's, when a friend bought the "Jazz Band Ball " compilation
on Good Time Jazz; it presents three bands, two of veteran black
musicians and the third one - Pete Daily's.

And that was many years after I contracted the jazz microbe.

Cheers,
Marek
P.S.
I'm leaving your posting for reference.


On 1 June 2011 19:41, Stephen G Barbone <barbonestreet at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Dear Marek:
> No, I did not ignore "younger". We are arguing semantics. Napoleon  and
> Daily were the leaders. Napoleon, who was one of the innovators in
> "Dixieland" jazz in New York City of the early 1920s, was using his own
> original arrangements. His band was playing them. Daily, who did not play
> Dixieland jazz until the 1930s, and even then, sparingly until the post WW2
> years, was recreating.
> Certainly a sideman like McHargue had played in the 1920s. With a variety of
> bands including the Wolverines. But Daily was neither playing in Bix's
> style,  nor in the style of most of the bands Rosy had played with in the
> 1920s, or the 30s, or the 40s. Rosy was adapting to Daily's style, not the
> other way around.
> And Joe "Country" Washburne, while older, was not primarily a "Dixieland
> jazz" tubist  in his youth.
> Below is a review of the 1950 release of their battle of the bands that
> seems to agree with that of Mr. Stearns:
> "A 1950 10" LP release showcasing two of the top-named bands in Dixieland
> jazz, amid the brief postwar revival in popularity of that sound. Phil
> Napoleon's outfit features a lot of original players from the 1920s,
> including drummer Tony Spargo, while Pete Daily has a somewhat younger
> generation of players in his band, playing in what, for them, was a
> deliberately retro style. Either way, they delivered what was called for, in
> a series of performances that were good enough to justify a second volume,
> and also a limited revival to recording for both veteran leaders." ~ Bruce
> Eder, All Music Guide
> I agree that Daily's band might have been older but believe that Daily was
> fronting a band that was consciously reviving an older jazz style (generic)
> while Napoleon was fronting a band that played the same style his bands
> played in the 1920s.
> One could take issue with the statement that "Napoleon's outfit features a
> lot of the original players:. since there are only 2, himself and Spargo.
> Then again,Daily's band features at most  2 original player, Rushton &
> McHargue.
> Semantics I guess, but In my ears, Napoleon & Spargo trump McHargue and
> Rushton.