[Dixielandjazz] Ray Nance

[ROBERT R. CALDER]

I can hardly think of Bill Haesler as a a lost soul!!!!  

> If you haven't done so already, you will probably give me up as a lost soul 
> this time.
>> Very kind regards,
> Bill.

I'm not canvassing a change in listening concern, 
but whatever the material Ray Nance was working with on Blues in Orbit
he showed a startling range of musical resource. 
Actually I don't know so much 1950s Ellington myself 
I knew nothing much of the period after Bill lost interest
until as a schoolboy I heard the post-Nance band live,
and actually reprising a lot of pre-1945 music --
and unlike my seniors of the '50s and '60s I'd access to a lot more 1930s Ellington.
More I could catch up on. 
I know that Ruby wasn't acquainted with the 1967 band ---
I heard the interview in which he was told Lawrence Brown had been playing the Tricky Sam music. 
"Lawrence?" he gasped, incredulous and speechless without the epithets or effithets Jim Godbolt transcribed, 
"he did that to Lawrence?" 

Usually when there is an intelligent absence of empathy like Bill's
it registers something to be listened for in the music. 
I try to keep to the borderline of group interest.
There is such a thing as bad music, and it comes in various varieties, 
and should by no means be confused with all music in which one is not oneself interested.

Bad music don't mean a thing to anybody 

Some people like it, without it meaning much if anything, 

beyond the context in which it occured or occurs,
or the memories it brings back, 

and some approve vapid trad,
and others emptily applaud serious music whether Dodds or Dolphy 

on a listening so superficial as not to note whether there's anything there.
Lost souls pretend to interests which aren't there.

Even in the least musical reaches of ethics and theology.

best regards!
Robert