[Dixielandjazz] showmanship

[Steve Voce]

If you'd listened to the prewar Jimmy Lunceford band or many of the mainstream records of the 40s you'd have heard
him playing much better. He had to coarsen his style to play with Louis, which is why nobody ever matched Teagarden in that job.
This is from my column in the latest edition of 'Jazz Journal'.

  When Trummy Young was in the Jimmy Lunceford band and for some years after that, he didn’t pay his income tax and the IRS pursued him relentlessly.
To avoid them in 1947 he left to live in Hawaii. He became homesick and in any case, there was talk of Hawaii becoming part of the US, which would have
enabled the IRS to get at him. In 1952 Joe Glaser offered to settle all his tax bills if he joined Louis Armstrong’s All Stars and stayed until he’d paid Glaser back.
By the time Trummy made the trip to Europe in 1956, as he told me at the time, he wasn’t fit to travel because of a bad stomach ulcer. However, he had no option.
He’d been worn out and wanting to get away from the All Stars for many years before. By the early ‘60s, he’d repaid all his debts. But Glaser declined to find a
replacement for him. Trummy took what he saw as the only way out. When the All Stars arrived at New York airport on January 1, 1964, Trummy
announced ‘I’ve got a ticket on the next flight to Hawaii,’ and he returned to the island without giving any further notice.

Steve Voce

>
>> On 09/09/2011 20:13, Marek Boym wrote:
>>
>> Marek also admitted that not everyone in an audience is able to understand
>> the good music, and can be drawn in by the showmanship.  I remember trying
>> an experiment back in the late 1960's when I was playing midnite to 4 am
>> seven nites a week.  If you play THAT much you tend to come up with
>> experiments in your spare time!!
>>
>> I played a solo on a blues...well constructed, artistically as well as I
>> could do at the time, with the slow build to a climatic ending, etc, and
>> etc.  I used no body movements, or "put myself physically" into the solo.
>> No applause, no particular appreciation.  Later in the nite, I did another
>> blues solo, also well constructed, etc., but with the visual side of the
>> horn applied, if you know what I mean.  Tremendous applause&  general
>> appreciate!
>>
>> The general public first "sees"&  then hears.
>>
>> I am not an advocate of joke telling and long talks between songs, which
>> some people might concur to be showmanship.  I am referring more to at least
>> looking like you're "into" your music, and enjoying yourself, and maybe the
>> occassional Teddy Buckner style trick (mentioned in an earlier post) tossed
>> in.
>>
>> Jim
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