[Dixielandjazz] An idea whose time has come?

[Stephen G Barbone]

Sounds like fun. Perhaps some enterprising jazz band could assemble a collection of early jazz tunes about sex and drugs and make a fun  presentation with them, as did the below musicians. See Musica nuova's website http://www.musicanuova.org/  for their description and stated goal of "providing a framework to engage newcomers and offer a new level of understanding to experienced listeners." 


If they can make Baroque music fun, why can't we make jazz fun? 

Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband




Take These Bawdy Ditties as Balms for Melancholy

By James Oestreich   

The classical-music club scene in New York grows ever livelier. Though “grows” may seem an odd word applied to the tiny performance space at Jimmy’s No. 43, a basement bar and restaurant in the East Village. Musica Nuova, a spunky Boston-born early-music ensemble, opened its second New York season at Jimmy’s on Thursday evening with a fast-paced, 50-minute program, “Men, Maids and Mischief: Bawdy English Songs,” and delivered the goods (bads?) handsomely.

Most of the program was drawn from “Wit and Mirth, or Pills to Purge Melancholy,” a six-volume collection of poems issued by the English dramatist Thomas d’Urfey in 1719 and 1720. Some of the poems came fitted out with tunes, whether d’Urfey’s own or (mostly) pre-existing, and some were real gems of low humor. (Can you cite the title “Was Ever Maiden so Leericompooped?” in The New York Times?)

There were also ditties by reputable composers, including Henry Purcell (“A Farewell to Wives”), Thomas Weelkes (“Three Virgin Nymphs”) and John Eccles (“My Man John Had a Thing That Was Long”). The program opened with John Stafford Smith’s “Anacreontic Song,” the source for the melody of Francis Scott Key’s “Star-Spangled Banner.”

Musica Nuova’s semistaging was heavy on slapstick and camp, often over the top, which seemed just about right. The props were little more than a bedsheet, a decidedly frumpy wig and the conveniently pregnant belly of the mezzo-soprano, Amanda Keil, Musica Nuova’s artistic director. Brooke Bryant, the soprano, and Nicholas Tamagna, a momentarily bewigged countertenor, had to use pillows to feign pregnancy.

The vocal performances, accomplished as they were, wisely played to character rather than polish. Peter Becker, a bass-baritone, filled out the vocal quartet, although the lutenist, Grant Herreid, who accompanied the whole program deftly, also took an occasional part with his serviceable tenor. In all, a short but delightful evening.

The program is repeated on Monday evening at Pete’s Candy Store, 709  Lorimer Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn; (718) 302-3770, musicanuova.org.