[Dixielandjazz] the Dixieland Jazz dispute revisited

[Charles Suhor]

The last three issue of Syncopated Times have included lively exchanges over use of the term "Dixieland Jazz," based on the reasonable point that "Dixieland" is inherently is associated with images of the Old South. plantation life, slavery, etc. The November issue includes two pages of readers' views, including my ambivalent one, below. —Charlie 


I appreciated Joe Bebco’s thoughtful views on the term “Dixieland Jazz” and the exchanges that followed. I totally agree with Bebco that musicians who don’t want that tag applied their music should be respected. I fact, no practitioners of any art should be saddled with labels that they don’t approve of.

But we’ve been dealt a  confusing, stilted hand as we inherited the “Dixieland Jazz” term, with its racist associations. I was born in New Orleans in 1935 and grew up when the term was simply functional--the coin-of-the realm name referring to a style that arose after early New Orleans jazz. To oversimplify, musicians had moved away from rapid vibrato and ricky-tick phrasing of non-jazz (and some early jazz) musicians. The “Dixieland” style was being wonderfully realized in New Orleans, Chicago, New York, and elsewhere by Sharkey Bonano, the Bobcats, Art Hodes, Eddie Condon units, Ben Pollack, Muggsy Spanier, Armstrong’s All-Stars, and innumerable other groups. 

The music wasn’t “revivalist” in intent or style but a fairly recent evolutionary development. The terms“revivalist” and “trad" didn’t even appear until around the mid-forties, mainly through the British bands that were enamored of Oliver, Bunk, and Bechet--similar to West Coast conscious revivalists like Bob Scobey and Turk Murphy. I had a few of their records, but Dixieland players and many critics saw the revivalists as reactionary or outright corny. (Bobby Hackett remarked, “It’s certainly funny hearing those youngsters trying to play like old men.”) A rash of bands with tubas and banjos in the rhythm section, varying hugely in quality, emerged in following decades and continues today. A more inventive revivalism flowered only in recent years with groups like Tuba Skinny. 

The “Dixieland” term came to be increasingly (and justifiably) regarded as offensive. I’d welcome a new term, but “traditional jazz,” “classic jazz,” “hot jazz,” “New Orleans jazz,” and “Chicago jazz” are either too general or limiting, or they already have other popular meanings. Any new term would have to gain a foothold in the jazz community and ultimately, in general usage. I believe that my choice, “post-foundational/pre-swing jazz” gets to it, but it’s a mouthful.

As a historian, I’ve had to deal with the fact that the “Dixieland” term is embedded in the literature of jazz. I dealt at length with the problem in my 2001 book, Jazz in New Orleans--The PostWar Years Through 1970. I didn’t presume to settle the matter but set out operational definitions so that readers would know what I was talking about when I discussed kinds of jazz. I acknowledged the “Dixieland" dilemma but had no other term to communicate the fundamentally identifiable sub-genre which, through accidents of history, a came to be called “Dixieland Jazz.” I’ll continue to use the term with a short explanation of the historical context, or when a musician or band self-describes with it. 




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