[Dixielandjazz] where does Dixieland end?

[Ulf Jagfors]

For what it is worth. This is a few excerpts from the autobiography by the
banjo player Johnny St Cyr. It is about his engagement in Fate Marable river
boat band 1918.
The whole article can be read from this Web page:
http://www.doctorjazz.co.uk/jstcyrjj.html
It is really a lecture of the early jazz history until 1930.

Quote;
"Most of us were not real good readers and Fate agreed to help us out with
parts until we caught on.

Now, the music we played - how the band sounded - this would be more like a
swing band than the New Orleans type jazz band. Strekfus had a standing
order with the music publishers and they shipped him all the new
arrangements right off the press. He just paid them by the month. We just
played the arrangements as they were, we never changed them. We had no staff
arranger, no special jazz arrangements.

The other bands used the same music we did. We just had that feeling, that
rhythm, that swing. We were very popular in New Orleans that summer and
fall, so they made arrangements to take us to St. Louis for the next summer
season. We rehearsed one morning a week (Tuesdays) for two hours, we played
the same program all week and changed on Sunday night. One of the Strekfus
brothers was always at rehearsal to make sure everything was just the way
they wanted it.

This was strictly a reading band, no hot solos. We played all through the
winter in New Orleans, then we went to St. Louis in April, by train, where
we joined the St. Louis Musician's Local, then up to Davenport, Iowa, where
the boats were stored. Steamer St. Paul was our boat. Now, if Bix Biederbeke
came out to hear us, I couldn't say, but many musicians did come out to hear
us and he may very well have been there. From Davenport we worked our way up
to St. Paul, then back to St. Louis by Decoration Day (May 30)."

Ulf