[Dixielandjazz] "Jazz" was Re: NO Wanderers, was Chicago jazz show

[Phil Wilking]

I am hardly the expert, but it has long been my impression that "jazz is 
supposed to be an improvised music" is a modern concept which goes right 
along with the (to me bad) idea that jazz is a concert music.

Did not the early hot bands which played what now is called "New Orleans" or 
"Dixieland" jazz term themselves "ragtime bands?" George Lewis called his 
band a ragtime band to the end, no matter what others called it.

Ragtime is certainly not improvised. And those bands played for dancing, and 
I can vouch as a dancer that what I want from the bandstand when I have an 
attractive woman pressed against me on the dance floor is a nice tune and 
utterly reliable rhythm and tempo. I do NOT want attention demanding vituoso 
solos (and I especially do not want Gene Krupa wannabees on the drums).

I am positive John Gill can write on this topic much more expertly than I 
can.

Phil Wilking, K5MZF, www.nolabanjo.com

Those who would exchange freedom for
security deserve neither freedom nor security.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ken Mathieson" <ken at kenmath.free-online.co.uk>
>
> This raises the interesting issue of how much improvisation there is some 
> of the great jazz recordings since, after all, jazz is supposed to be an 
> improvised music. But we know that Louis, Bechet, Jelly and others had set 
> solo routines worked out on specific numbers and that they stuck very 
> close to those templates for the rest of their careers. When Armstrong 
> began working with Don Redman in the late 1920s, the concept of informally 
> pre-planned solos merged with the concept of formally orchestrated 
> performances and you get pieces like St James Infirmary, where virtually 
> every note played by Louis is shadowed in a harmony line by one or more of 
> the other horns.
>