[Dixielandjazz] Bop v OKOM - was - Retirement Home Gigs

[Stephen G Barbone]

Dear Marek:

I'm not so sure of that. For example, when Charlie Parker died in  
1955, he was no where near as well known or popular as say, Benny  
Goodman Duke Ellington, Artie Shaw, Louis Armstrong, Eddie Condon,  
Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald et al. Yet he had been playing Bop since  
the early 1940s.

As for Monk, he was virtually unknown in the 1950s here in the USA and  
routinely disparaged by many of those who had heard him as a no talent  
player. Fame for him was a slow climb which started to gather steam  
about 1960. And he always personally denied that what he played was bop.

Bop was never as popular as Swing still was in the USA during the 1950s.

Brubeck was another story, but his music IMO is closer to OKOM than it  
is to Bop.

Miles is popular, however IMO because of the many styles he later  
played, not the bop which he abandoned for modal jazz about 1960 and  
then went on to other jazz forms from there. (fusion etc,)

MJQ, IMO, did not play bop, but for want of a better word, chamber jazz.

Anyhow, in 20 years or so of playing retirement homes, this was the  
first time a resident requested a Monk tune.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband




On Jan 11, 2012, at 5:56 PM, Marek Boym wrote:

> Why "funny," Steve?  Bebop ruled when she was young.  Had Miles DAvis
> been alive, he'd have been 86 this year!  It seems stranger that these
> people like OKOM, even if it were quite popular in the '50's!  Even
> then, real OKOM fans were a minority among the followers of Bird,
> Monk, Miles, Brubeck, the MJQ.
> Cheers
>
>> Funny thing happened at a Retirement Home gig last night...a blue  
>> hair rose
>> up, she was about 80 years old, and asked:
>>
>> "Could you play 'Straight, No Chaser', or 'Reflections'?
>>
>> For those who may not know what these tunes are, the were written by
>> Thelonious Monk.
>>