[Dixielandjazz] two comments

[Marek Boym]

Very well put!
A while ago, at a British jazz fest, I met a guy who played with a local
band somewhere in England.  He told me that a prominent player at the
festival had been allowed to sit in with his band as a teenager, "and look
where he is now!"
Now the said musician leads bands and organizes jazz festivals.  As I am
not sure he is interested in the exposure, I'll leave his name out.
Cheers

On 20 June 2017 at 23:27, Fuzzy <fuzzymail at fuzzyjazz.com> wrote:

> Many of these New Orleans camp kids have gone on to make a name for
> themselves, or at least play with New Orleans bands.  Doyle Cooper (The Red
> Hot Jazz Band), Catie Rodgers (Gentilly Stompers), etc.
>
> On the contrasting side: As a 15 year old kid – I knew of Benny Goodman,
> and was just getting to know Artie Shaw’s records.  I had seen Maynard
> Ferguson twice, and Buddy Rich twice…even got stuck on a closed road in a
> blizzard trying to see Buddy Rich a third time…not because I understood
> anything he was doing – but because we were told how great these men were
> at the thing we longed for…”Jazz.”  Yet the jazz we produced ourselves
> sounded harsher than a room full of dropping pans.  It wasn’t our lack of
> passion.  It was a lack of understanding.  A lack of exposure.  A lack of
> access to music and musicians…and a lack of skill.
>
> About a year later, I happened across a CD in the store – I bought it
> because of the photo on the cover (a bunch of guys in tuxedos with a tuba,
> trombone, etc.).  “Tiger Rag Dukes of Dixieland” ProJazz label…not the
> original Dukes – I had never heard playing like this before!  What kind of
> music was this?!  WOW!  I was so excited that I immediately took my “boom
> box” to school and had my band teacher listen to it.  “Oh, that’s
> Dixieland…I used to play in a Dixie band when I was in college.”  He spoke
> of this music with the same magnitude of excitement as if I had just
> pointed to a potted plant in the corner of the room!  How was it that I had
> never heard this music before?!  Love at first sound.  A year later I
> bought the next release “Best of the Dukes of Dixieland” (Decades later,
> thanks to the kindness of Tim Laughlin, Jim Snyder, and Mike Sizer, I was
> finally able to pin down Mike Sizer as the clarinetist on the unlabeled
> album – exciting stuff.)
>
> As a result of my excitement over those two albums, my (amazing) band
> instructor ordered in some Dixieland “charts” – all written out in nice,
> tidy, neat…(ahem)…arrangements.
>
> (Insert moment of awkward silence here…)
>
> Copenhagen, Struttin’ With Some Barbeque, etc.  Somehow, we found
> volunteers to meet before and after school to form our own little band.  We
> worked hard, and played at nursing homes, business openings, school
> concerts, community events, and even the school’s music competitions.  We
> loved it, and the crowds loved it.
>
> We were on top of the world.
>
> Then, the inevitable happened…a male flute player from the concert band
> approached us after one of our fun evening performances.  “My dad lived in
> New Orleans and he says that what you guys play is NOT the REAL jazz they
> play in New Orleans.”  (After pulling the verbal dagger from my heart…I may
> have muttered something intelligent like, “Well, duhhhhhh!” – though I had
> no real way of knowing – other than the fact I knew we were no “Dukes of
> Dixieland”, and his comment stung as only the truth can.)
>
> After graduating, and heading off to college, I found the atmosphere to be
> not merely intolerant of clarinetists pursuing jazz of any kind, but
> downright militant.  I was informed that I should just switch entirely to
> saxophone if I wished to pursue any type of jazz.  Furthermore, other
> students were forbidden to join any “trad” or “Dixie” group that I might
> try to form.
>
> I had been the “all-state clarinetist”, the “1st chair Tenor Sax player”,
> the “guy on scholarship” – yet I couldn’t play a single note of early jazz
> correctly.  Yet that had been my  primary goal every year from the age of
> sixteen onward, and I knew with every fiber in my being that the flute
> player’s dad was right.
>
> Because of that history, I’m always excited (and admittedly almost
> envious) when I see kids reaching out and showing a desire/ability to play
> early jazz.  Maybe they aren’t ready to cut their first CD/Digipak, and
> maybe they’re not playing like Pete Fountain and George Girard did at the
> age of 16 & 17…but they’ve found the music and are trying to follow it
> using whatever they have at their disposal – fighting the education system
> and other roadblocks along the way.  Having even a single musical friend
> can help these kids launch.  Sometimes all it takes is a person saying,
> “Hey, don’t hit the high hat like that every time – try it this way.” – and
> the world changes.
>
> For me – my questions were usually stupid, and the answers painfully
> obvious to a pro…yet totally hidden to me.  (“Yes, Fuzzy…that is an
> elephant in the room.”  “Oh – okay, I guess I see it now…hmmm, not sure how
> I missed it before…would you please ask it to set me down now?”)
>
> I’m really hopeful that these camps will help foster those relationships
> and provide that “friend.”  One of the nice things about the New Orleans
> camp, is that these kids are special attendees of an otherwise all-adult
> camp…so they are surrounded by potential mentors.
>
> Warmest Regards,
> Fuzzy
>
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