[Dixielandjazz] two comments

[Marek Boym]

Hi Charles,
The professional musician is young, so he started long after the revival.
True, the kids read their music, although it is difficult to know whether
they have the whole thing written down, or just lead sheets.
This reminds me of a story I heard from my late trombonist friend, Roy
Crimmins: At some stage Roy (a founder member of the Alex Welsh band),
joined a well known traditional band, and got a book with all his solos
written down.  After a while he became fed up with playing set solos and
asked the leader whether he could play his own solos.  The answer was "by
all means."  It turned out that his predecessor could not improvise!  And
yet, the band was quite popular (I heard the band live, with Roy on
trombone, at the Prince of Orange many a moon ago).
Sure, I've heard more swinging bands, but the band does not sound stodgy.
More than I could say of a band I heard in London last November!
A short camp is certainly not enough, but at least some of the kids are
likely to carry on and learn - they don't get much exposure to jazz
otherwise.
Cheers
On 19 June 2017 at 22:01, Charles Suhor <csuhor at zebra.net> wrote:

> I listened to this, and it’s hard to react. The trumpeter-teacher,
> obviously an adult pro, is carrying the jazz feeling, The kids are mostly
> reading the music that's on the floor without a lot of natural swing. The
> culture has changed beyond recognition, but when in New Orleans as teen
> (and I suspect in many cities in pre-rock & roll times), the musical
> environment and kid-adult everyday camaraderie were such that
> apprenticeship and enthusiasm evolved pretty naturally. The generational
> peers who I played with, surrounded by Dixieland and swing as we grew up,
> included Connie Jones, Bill Huntington, Buddy Prima, Reed Vaughan, Charlie
> (Chicken) May, Nick LaRocca, Jr., Al Hermann, Cecile Laurie, Theresa Kelly,
> Larry Muhoberac, Murphy Campo, Pee Wee Spitelera….Only 3 to 7 years older
> were the Assunto brothers, Pete Fountain, Don Suhor,  Al Belletto, Jack
> Delaney, Herbie Tassin, Stan Mendellson, Johnny McGhee, Al McCrossen, Lou
> Timken, Oliver (Stick) Felix, Don Lasday. (Pardon any omissions and
> misspellings). The ones in the list you haven’t heard of were equally or
> more talented than the ones you know.
>
> The local environment explains much of that, I suppose, but I suspect
> there was talent DNA afloat as well. The point, if there is one, is that an
> ear and a bent for improvisation with a jazz feeling seem most often to
> come from within, discovered in some cases, teachable in others, but not
> convincingly evoked for most youth in a short jazz camp setting. To quote
> Thornton Wilder, it don’t do no, harm, I guess. But is it the basis for a
> new generation of players of what we call OKOM? Okay, I wrote this in haste
> and am ready for views that will lighten me up. Maybe your own experiences
> as learners of the music will bring other perspectives.
>
>
> On Jun 19, 2017, at 10:31 AM, Les Elkins <leslie.r.elkins at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >1)  Young Kids have NO jazz feelings!
>
> I'm just back to the real world from the New Orleans Adult Traditional
> Jazz Camp, held last week. This time around it included a number of Young
> Kids. They were in the ensembles like the rest of us, and while like the
> rest of us many have a ways to go, I'll strongly disagree with "NO"
> feeling. But the camp brought their scholarship students into WWOZ for a
> bit, so judge for yourself....
>
> https://www.wwoz.org/events/247086
>
> For me- it took me many years to find this music. I just can't imagine
> being exposed to this stuff at their age, and I am confident to say that if
> I had been, it would have been a stretch for me to have been anywhere close
> to as competent, musical, or as overall nice as these folks are.
>
> -Les Elkins
>
>
> --
> "NEVER use a maj7 chord in any bar that is named after a deceased NASCAR
>   driver, a large-calibre firearm, or an intoxicated farm animal."
> -Rev. Billy C. Wirtz's Universal Chord Law
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