[Dixielandjazz] the Dixieland Jazz dispute revisited

[Marek Boym]

Right on, Paul.
If I prefer traditional it's not because I have prejudices against
"Dixieland," but because so many musicians object to it.  I am quite happy
with the term.
Likewise, I am with you on the "politically correct" euphemisms; to my
mind, "politically correct" has travestized the language - any language -
even of "travestize" is not a real word.
As to hatred - I am a holocaust survivor.
Cheers,
Marek

On Tue, 29 Oct 2019 at 02:41, Paul Kurtz Jr <phktrumpet at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> OK, I shouldn’t even jump into this one, but it’s a slow Monday evening.
> I’d first suggest that some of you look at the title of this mailing list.
> Secondly, Louis Armstrong and many of his era used it which is good enough
> for me. Thirdly, it’s sort-of like arguing over water in a mud puddle when
> you need a lake. I’ve been asked numerous times, “Are you visually
> impaired?” I’ve answered that to be “impaired”, you have to have something
> to b e impaired with or from and since I have no vision, I have no vision
> to be impaired. I’m what’s called blind! :-) :-)
>
> Seriously, we keep going over these things when we should be working to
> expand market share and get this music all over the place.
>
> Now, within the genre, you can describe west-coast revivalism, British
> revivalism, and many other things within the over-all genre of dixieland.
> That is helpful because it gives people like me a target to know how to
> segment and subdivide for purchasing purposes.
>
> Now, before I close, no, I don’t like the discrimination, hatred, and all
> of the other things that happened because they impacted me as a blind
> person as well as they did other minorities. The name, though, doesn’t do
> it; the reaction and peoples’ thoughts does do things.
> Paul Kurtz Jacksonville, FL
>
> On Oct 28, 2019, at 3:46 PM, Charles Suhor <csuhor at zebra.net> wrote:
>
> 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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