[Dixielandjazz] How does who keep The Saints from boring her or him

[ROBERT R. CALDER]

I think the question was "how do you keep St James Infirmary from boring you?"
One obvious answer is that like in not being bored by THE SAINTS it helps a lot to be dead and to have gone to Heaven. 


I remember Dick Hyman being amazed on his first trip to play stride piano in Europe, 

that musicians he heard didn't follow the practice of tune-eating zombies 

there was actually an interest in the older repertoire.  

The absence of that level bleeds the music dry  


I went with a friend to an evening of the most eminent brass band musicians in England when in Birmingham, Warwickshire, about ten years ago. Somebody was talking about jazz tuba, and a jazz repertoire. 

I wish I could have called him a lazy sod for not referring beyond a James Bond film. 

His ensemble played well,. but with the superefficient mediocrity of people who could have been doing rather better with their considerable resources. How can people not get bored if there's no hint given of anything beyond the crass oversimplifications mass media deal in? Of course the same inertia and inanition can follow where support for the Arts is managed by professional administrators immune to knowledge that there is more to this world than their unphilosophical failure of dreaming allows!

Great fun writing sentences like that one, but I still mean them!
Cheers!
Robert