Why only caucasians?
sum1
preservation bands almost exclusively caucasian?
----------
http://www.qctimes.com/internal.php?story_id=1015962&t=Local+News&c=2,1015962
Last Updated: 10:52 pm, Tuesday, August 5th, 2003
Bix kin critical of Q-C jazz festival
By Tony Robinson
.
The annual Bix Beiderbecke Jazz Festival held last month in downtown
Davenport came under fire last week for a lack of both ethnic and
musical diversity.
.
But organizers vigorously defend the event, saying it is successful
and they are dedicated to preserving the music and memory of the late,
great Davenport musician.
.
About 10 members of the Beiderbecke family from across the nation
traveled to the Quad-Cities July 24-27 to listen to the traditional
jazz music. They were among what organizers say was an estimated
turnout of 12,000, which would be a record if the final count holds
up.
.
But at least one Bix descendant was critical of the jazz band
lineup’s lack of variety.
.
Steve Beiderbecke, Bix’s great-nephew, trekked to Davenport from
Lakeshore, Colo., for the festival. He said he was disappointed not to
see any minorities performing among the 11 jazz bands and little
diversity in the audiences.
.
He pointed out that Bix Beiderbecke solidified his reputation as a
great musician while playing with black jazz performers during the
“Roaring Twenties” even when racial tensions in the
country were high.
.
“He was a white man playing a black man’s music,”
said Beiderbecke, whose display of paintings joined vendors at the Bix
Street Fest. “He alienated himself from his family and white
friends because color was secondary to his passion: the music. The
festival should evolve into something he actually stood for.”
.
He also claims festival organizers are “stuck in time,”
saying they should modernize the jazz music to attract more youth to
the concerts.
.
“During the ’20s and ’30s, (Bix) was groundbreaking,
innovative and impressive,” Beiderbecke said.
“That’s something that I didn’t see represented at
this year’s fest.”
.
Manny Lopez, a prominent Davenport trumpeter and former music director
of the Quad-City Jazz Festival, said he and his 13-year-old Manny
Lopez band groups never have been invited to the Bix event.
.
Lopez said he has attended the Bix Jazz Festival for more than 10
years and rarely has seen a minority musician there, much less an
entire band of color.
.
“I don’t know what the deal is,” said Lopez, whose
band plays various genres of jazz, including traditional. “I
figured they would’ve asked me by now, but maybe they just
don’t hire many local bands.”
.
The jazz festival was founded in 1972 along with the Bix Beiderbecke
Memorial Society. Festival organizers say any lack of diversity shows
that minority musicians no longer play the traditional jazz that
reflects the sounds of Bix Beiderbecke.
.
Lopez agreed and also said there is an overall lack of minority bands
in the Quad-Cities.
.
Rich Johnson, the Bix Jazz Festival music director, said the event is
deep-rooted in tradition and fails to attract minority musicians
because they have moved on to different genres of jazz.
.
“I attend festivals similar to the Bix Fest across the country
for scouting, and if anybody wants to call us racist, more than 75
festivals across the nation are racist too,” he said of Steve
Beiderbecke’s comments.
.
“Minorities would come out if we modernized the music, but then
it wouldn’t be the same Bix Jazz Festival,” said Johnson,
who has been associated with the society for 25 years.
.
Society president Rich Voss echoed much of what Johnson said, adding
that “if there are traditional black jazz bands out there, all
they have to do is submit a demo tape or CD” and they would be
considered if they play the kind of music the Bix event preserves and
promotes.
.
Johnson said his organization is not about to change the music
tradition.
.
“We work year around without pay to put this on. If (the family)
wants to take over the festival, be my guest.”
still...@webtv.net
people who want to play in a preservation band are almost exclusively
caucasian. Ever been to Iowa? tell Steve to start a movement to
diversify Iowa.
sum1
> < why are preservation bands almost exclusively Caucasian > because
> people who want to play in a preservation band are almost exclusively
> caucasian.
Exactly my question - why don't blacks, asians or latinos want to play such music?
Myth
with blatant racism, and where the performers had to "uncle Tom" their
appearances (sp?).
Take care,
Tom
"sum1" <su...@lycos.jp> skrev i en meddelelse
news:544b2430.03080...@posting.google.com...
still...@webtv.net
smart-ass, but the same could be said of baseball.
S&y
some artificial standard imposed by a societal or peer group.
Do you have evidence that shows people were excluded for some reason?
S&y
"sum1" <su...@lycos.jp> wrote in message
news:544b2430.03080...@posting.google.com...
Myth
been all-white, it was a symbol of black pride and progress. I think black
pride really started showing around the time that be bop developed, and
there was a kind of feeling that the trad. jazz was to much "yass Suh, we's
sho' aint got no bananas".
Take care,
Tom
(a danish caucasian)
<still...@webtv.net> skrev i en meddelelse
news:4149-3F3...@storefull-2377.public.lawson.webtv.net...
Luke Kaven
>still...@webtv.net wrote
>> < why are preservation bands almost exclusively Caucasian > because
>> people who want to play in a preservation band are almost exclusively
>> caucasian.
>
>
>Exactly my question - why don't blacks, asians or latinos want to play such music?
I suggest that there is a latency in the time that it takes for
cultural products that are borne in one culture and largely localized
in that culture to become assimilated (at least in part) by another
culture. But sometimes the product does not have a life of its own in
the secondary culture, and the extent to which is becomes assimilated
is merely as a museum piece, a recreation, or a revival.
This is not to say that white people can't play jazz, but at least in
the past, jazz certainly was native to black America and arose from
its unique qualities. While many white people were able to understand
elements of this culture, and even to assimilate the concept of
"extemporaneous composition" and to understand how jazz reflects the
*human* condition as opposed to the conditions of African-Americans,
the original styles rarely acquired genuine roots in white culture.
Luke
Glenn Wilson
Dick Gibson jazz parties are a good example but there are many others,
inlcuding a lot of 'jazz cruises'. There are jazz societies all around the
country that promote and produce jazz events which are all 'traditional
jazz', for lack of a better term. I've been involved with a few of them.
As the article describes, they are made up almost exclusively of white
musicians and the audiences are also mainly white.
I'm don't think they specifically target white jazz musicians, but these
things tend to be big jam sessions with the same tunes year after year.
These audiences want to hear 'Lady Be Good' and are not too interested in
anything original. The musicians who do these gigs know what is expected of
them going into it. I think a lot of creative musicians who have their own
groups and are trying to play their own music shy away from these things.
This is not to denigrate the musicians who do these things, because there
are many fantastic jazz musicians who don't mind just getting together with
other musicians and jamming. I've done these things with guys like Chris
Potter, Kenny Peplowski, Kenny Davern, Warren Vache, Jay Leonhart, etc. etc.
Nick Brignola did them for years. I think a lot of the fun the fans and
promoters get from it is in throwing guys together and having them create in
the moment. It's real fun for the audience, but can be not-so-much fun for
the musicians, depending on the situation. The promoters are not really
intersted in 'modernizing the music' as the article suggested. For lack of
a better term, it's 'happy jazz' and it makes people feel good. Nothing
wrong with that per se, but the depth of jazz music obviously goes way
beyond 'happy'. That doesn't mean they have to promote creative original
music. It's not their thing.
Maybe Don Mopsick of Riverwalk Band could weigh in on this issue. They are
a good example of this type of music and play a lot at these type of
festivals, but they also do a good job of saluting the masters of the music,
black and white, in their radio shows.
Glenn
www.jazzmaniac.com
sgordon
: Here's an article that raises an interesting question - why are
: preservation bands almost exclusively caucasian?
I don't know the answer to your question, but this is evident at
Dixieland festivals all over the country. The huge Sacramento
festival is probably 90-95% caucasian. It's certainly not by
design, in fact it's oft-lamented by performers and organizers.
The New Orleans Jazz Fest was a delightful exception.
Scott
JC Martin
A troll about skin color. Why am I not surprised?
-JC
Michael Laprarie
away from returning to the music of Sidney Bechet, Louis Armstrong, Coleman
Hawkins, Jelly Roll Morton, Duke Ellington, or any number of great Black
musicians active in the 1920's and 1930's. There are some, such as Wynton
Marsalis, Marcus Belgrave, and Nicholas Peyton, who have embraced and
updated this music quite well.
I would think that is self-evident that the point of a historic jazz
festival, particularly one done in memory of a specific individual like Bix,
would be primarily to highlight groups that play music from the same era and
in the same style that Bix influenced. It would not involve contemporary or
avant-gard jazz performers, and it would not include high school 'jazz'
choirs, reggae, salsa, Motown, or any of the other nonsense that usually
shows up at "jazz" festivals.
One might also ask who you don't hear Ives or Copland played at a Mozart
music festival.
--
Michael Laprarie
"sum1" <su...@lycos.jp> wrote in message
news:544b2430.03080...@posting.google.com...
Da Parrot-chick
news:4149-3F3...@storefull-2377.public.lawson.webtv.net...
> < because it is associated with a time with blatant racism > not to be a
> smart-ass, but the same could be said of baseball.
I'm not a big baseball fan but AFAIK the biggest stars are black.
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the Rebirth or Preservation Hall jazz
bands.
JC Martin
> > Rich Johnson, the Bix Jazz Festival music director, said the event is
> > deep-rooted in tradition and fails to attract minority musicians
> > because they have moved on to different genres of jazz.
Bix didn't play with black musicians anyway (at least recording-wise for the
most part).
-JC
still...@webtv.net
point was that anything that has a history going back to the early part
of last century in the U.S. could be associated with racism, not just
traditional jazz. Baseball, politics, anything. I don't think racism has
anything to do with traditional jazz biggest stars, players and
aficionados not being black. That is what I meant. One thing about music
is that everyone can simply enjoy what they enjoy. And I'm going to
enjoy the end of this thread.
pmfan57
Louis Armstrong said he played with Bix, I believe fairly often. He
said Bix was one of the greatest (When he thought he was going to die
one time, he said that Bix and Bechet were calling to him). I think
there was a lot of playing together, but recording was not allowed.
Eddie Lang had to use a pseudonym when he recorded the famous duets
with Lonnie Johnson. Heck, even later Barney Kessel had to dye his
hands with juice to look black in a jazz movie, so it could be shown
in the south.
Bix wanted to play with black musicians, but was not allowed to.
Whiteman really wanted to hire black musicians too but was told to
forget about it. The time was not ripe.
Da Parrot-chick
"pmfan57" <jwra...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:f6b28b49.0308...@posting.google.com...
> Whiteman really wanted to hire black musicians too but was told to
> forget about it. The time was not ripe.
Ever heard of Eddie South? The violinist?
Ted Lesher
> hands with juice to look black in a jazz movie, so it could be shown
> in the south.
>
segregationist laws when he toured the south with Charlie Parker?
Ted Lesher
JC Martin
I understand that. But maybe it explains why a primarily white musicians
would play at a Bix tribute. But as I said before---this is strictly a
race-baiting troll.
-JC
sgordon
: How about Red Rodney, who was billed as Albino Red to get around
: segregationist laws when he toured the south with Charlie Parker?
You're talking 20 years later...
Myth
on a sensetive matter that deals with a lot of jazz-history, and the whole
thing is conducted in a non-agressiv way.
Take care,
Tom
"JC Martin" <jcma...@sonic.net> skrev i en meddelelse
news:aOWYa.9750$dk4.3...@typhoon.sonic.net...>snip<
sum1
> I think at least part of the reason is because it's associated with a time
> with blatant racism, and where the performers had to "uncle Tom" their
> appearances (sp?).
That _might_ be true for blacks, but how about the other non-caucasians?
sum1
> Why do black musicians play bop?
Same reason whites, latinos, and asians do, I suppose. So why don't
people of these ethnic groups play dixieland?
> A troll about skin color. Why am I not surprised?
More invective. Why am I not surprised?
sum1
> This is not to denigrate the musicians who do these things, because there
> are many fantastic jazz musicians who don't mind just getting together with
> other musicians and jamming. I've done these things with guys like Chris
> Potter, Kenny Peplowski, Kenny Davern, Warren Vache, Jay Leonhart, etc. etc.
> Nick Brignola did them for years. I think a lot of the fun the fans and
> promoters get from it is in throwing guys together and having them create in
> the moment. It's real fun for the audience, but can be not-so-much fun for
> the musicians, depending on the situation. The promoters are not really
> intersted in 'modernizing the music' as the article suggested. For lack of
> a better term, it's 'happy jazz' and it makes people feel good. Nothing
> wrong with that per se, but the depth of jazz music obviously goes way
> beyond 'happy'. That doesn't mean they have to promote creative original
> music. It's not their thing.
Funny you should say that. You could easily read this as a
description of smooth jazz. Except, of course, that smooth jazz
audiences (from what I have read) tend to be of a darker complexion.
Luke Kaven
>"Glenn Wilson" <glenn.wil...@pobox.com> wrote
You're not far off. It is like an earlier generation of Smooth Jazz
that goes back to the pop-swing era. Artists like Warren Vache and
Scott Hamilton (along with the entire Concord catalog) have been
tapping into that for years, as I think does R*verwalk. As Glenn
says, these things are often institutionalized into various regional
"jazz societies". The New Jersey Jazz Society comes to mind in
particular, at least from where I sit. This older generation of
Smooth predates the rise of upwardly mobile urban black professionals
who are more prevalent in the contemporary Smooth Jazz genre, which
derives its roots from more contemporary genres such as funk and
fusion. The older Smooth also tends to be more suburban and
small-town oriented, providing a lot in the way of park and picnic
"gazebo" fare. It encompasses a lot of what used to be called "local
talent", which was a euphemism for people who didn't have roots in the
mainstream, really couldn't play that much, and tended towards the
simpler vocabularies that they understood.
Luke
sgordon
: Same reason whites, latinos, and asians do, I suppose. So why don't
: people of these ethnic groups play dixieland?
The Sacramento festival always includes guest bands from throughout Asia,
South America, Russia, etc. So I don't think what you say is true.
Scott
Don Mopsick
are
> a good example of this type of music and play a lot at these type of
> festivals, but they also do a good job of saluting the masters of the
music,
> black and white, in their radio shows.
In his Bing Crosby biography "Pocket Full of Dreams," Giddens writes at
length about the original meaning of the term "dixieland" -- in the 20s it
meant "black."
The imagined, fictitious "nostalgia" that songwriters featured in their
songs of the 1920s ("Is It True What They Say About Dixie," etc.) was meant
to depict a contented black southerner pining for his Mammy, feeling
homesick in the North (supposedly Chicago). The vast majority of the
songwriters were Jewish white men from New York City who were never south of
New Jersey, although a few black songwriters cashed in and jumped on the
bandwagon. The songs were big hits and made lots of dough for the creators.
Louis Armstrong found himself having to sing a lot of these songs during the
30s ("That's My Home," "When It's Sleepy Time Down South," etc.). So you can
see why African-Americans beginning in the 50s would find this subject
matter objectionable and offensive with the advent of Civil Rights and the
long overdue reform of racism in the South.
All of the original "dixieland" bands modelled themselves after black bands,
especially the Bob Crosby Bobcats (some of Bob Haggart's arrangements, esp.
"I'm Prayin' Humble" and "Dog Town Blues" contained sections that were quite
literally lifted from the Mitchell Christian Gospel Singers), The Lu Watters
Yerba Buena Band of San Francisco (who started the trad jazz movement) of
the 30s and 40s tried to copy the King Oliver Okeh recordings of the early
20s. It's hard to say the the Original Dixieland Jazz Band "copied" anyone
except that they were a product of the general New Orleans jazz culture,
which has been conclusively shown to be multi-racial in character. And, by
the way, most of the key men in the Crosby band were white New Orleanians
anyway.
So then by the 60s, any self-respecting African American musician wouldn't
be caught dead trying to play in this style, but there were lots of great
white players who merely continued on playing the way they always had, and
more followed in the decades since (myself ifollowing in that tradition). By
now, I see many, many bop-oriented players of all races finally able to "get
over" the political baggage and embrace the old Jurassic jazz stricly on
musical terms--which for me means that they are coming around to realize
that swinging rhythm is job #1. But that's another thread entirely.
mopo
Myth
news:eHdZa.175456$xg5.1...@twister.austin.rr.com...
Exactly the point I was trying to make earlier, but this is more concise and
to the point, well put sir.
Take care,
Tom
sum1
I'm not making any claims, just asking. Thanks for your examples.
I'm sure there more than a few Japanese preservation bands but would
anyone happen to know of any other Asian dixieland bands?
I had a peep at the Sacramento Jazz Jubilee page
(http://www.sacjazz.com) and found that the International Bands that
appeard at the 2003 festival include:
Big Band Trio and Jumpin’ Jive Orchestra - Victoria, Canada
Climax Jazz Band - Toronto, Canada
Fat Sam’s Band - Edinburgh, Scotland
Hot Jazz Band - Budapest, Hungary
Greentown Jazz Band - Ljubljana, Slovenia
Jazzin’ Jacks - Helsingbord, Sweden
Paco Gatsby - Guatemala City, Guatemala
Zenith Hot Stompers - Oxfordshire, England
You'll notice that the only non-caucasian band is from Guatemala. But
on further investigation I found that the Paco Gatsby was founded by a
US Bahai missionary and plays everything from trad jazz to many latin
forms.
Victor Eijkhout
> < because it is associated with a time with blatant racism > not to be a
> smart-ass, but the same could be said of baseball.
You would have a point if there were "preservation baseball teams" :-)
V.
--
email me: first name at last name dot net
JC Martin
Okay, I'll bite. What's your point Sum1---in all seriousness? Am I
supposed to draw something from this information? White people primarily
play Dixieland.....okay. Now what?
-JC
JC Martin
> I fail to see what makes this trolling. I find the tread a "legit" subject
> on a sensetive matter that deals with a lot of jazz-history, and the whole
> thing is conducted in a non-agressiv way.
Actually, all of his questions are devices which lead back to the smooth
jazz argument.
-JC
Myth
where this has been the case, but this......? I simply can't see it.news:4khZa.10081$dk4.4...@typhoon.sonic.net...
sum1
>
> Okay, I'll bite. What's your point Sum1---in all seriousness? Am I
> supposed to draw something from this information? White people primarily
> play Dixieland.....okay. Now what?
>
> -JC
Now nothing.
It's just something that happens to be. Must it be more?
sum1
> IMOO I think you're somewhat paranoid,
Only "somewhat"?
JC Martin
> IMOO I think you're somewhat paranoid, there may have been a lot of times
> where this has been the case, but this......? I simply can't see it.
Sum1 says later on this thread:
"Funny you should say that. You could easily read this as a
description of smooth jazz. Except, of course, that smooth jazz
audiences (from what I have read) tend to be of a darker complexion."
--------------------
Not paranoid, but definitely a realist.
-JC
still...@webtv.net
length about the original meaning of the term "dixieland"... in the 20's
it meant "black." > and I write briefly that Giddens was a great
leaper. www.wordorigins.org/wordord.htm
Joseph Scott
> I suggest that there is a latency in the time that it takes for
> cultural products that are borne in one culture and largely localized
> in that culture to become assimilated (at least in part) by another
> culture. But sometimes the product does not have a life of its own in
> the secondary culture, and the extent to which is becomes assimilated
> is merely as a museum piece, a recreation, or a revival.
The revival of interest in "Dixieland" during the 1940s was a revival
of interest in pre-"swing" jazz, and it mostly picked up steam as the
"swing" jazz fad dropped off during 1945 on, but was already underway
before 1945, e.g. Kid Ory playing on Orson Welles' radio show.
"Dixieland" was a term that Northerners had used in the 1910s to refer
to Southern styles of music, including jazz. "Dixieland" was also seen
as relating to the style of the "Original Dixieland Jazz Band."
"Dixieland" playing as of the 1940s was full of both "black" and
"white" musicians. As the market for "swing" dropped off, and the
market for "bebop" never really developed much, there were plenty of
"black" jazz musicians such as Vic Dickenson, Teddy Buckner, and Kenny
Kersey playing Dixieland. So if things are different _now_ with regard
to proportion of "Dixieland" musicians who are "black," then what got
assimilated by whom during the 1900s to 1940s period wouldn't be very
relevant to answering the question, I don't think, you'd need to look
at who got interested in what during more recent decades.
I don't understand what "a life of its own" means there. If Wynton
plays some Morton and it's good jazz and a lot of people enjoy it in
the now, does that playing of Wynton's have quote "a life of its own"?
How about Benny Carter playing some Morton in the late '40s? How about
Morton being specifically asked in the '40s to recall his older tunes
and record them?
at least in
> the past, jazz certainly was native to black America
Easy rhetoric to write, but more interesting is, what do you really
mean by it? E.g., was Benny Goodman part of "white America"/"jazz," do
you think? How about Miff Mole? Can something be "native" to people of
more than one "race" at the same time? E.g., could it be that
down-home-style blues was "native" to both Robert Johnson and Frank
Floyd as of the 1930s (and meanwhile not "native" to either Paul
Whiteman or Lena Horne)?
and arose from
> its unique qualities. While many white people were able to understand
> elements of this culture, and even to assimilate the concept of
> "extemporaneous composition"
Any child can "assimilate" the "concept" of making it up as you go
along very easily; musical improvisation is known around the world,
and long predates jazz.
and to understand how jazz reflects the
> *human* condition as opposed to the conditions of African-Americans,
> the original styles rarely acquired genuine roots in white culture.
>
> Luke
Apart from lyrics, how does jazz "reflect the human condition"?
What are "genuine roots in white culture"? Did Frank Trumbauer's music
have or constitute any "genuine roots in white culture"? Was
Trumbauer's jazz playing a recreation or revival of something? Why did
some "black" individuals such as Lester Young, Benny Carter, and Buddy
Tate admire Trumbauer's jazz playing so much -- was it because Young,
Carter, and Tate were unclear on how cultures really interact?
Inquisitively,
Joseph Scott
Joseph Scott
> length about the original meaning of the term "dixieland" -- in the 20s it
> meant "black."
Foremost, Dixie Land meant the South. How many people would have said
Shelton Brooks, Billie Holiday, or Phil Moore was from Dixie Land?
> The imagined, fictitious "nostalgia" that songwriters featured in their
> songs of the 1920s ("Is It True What They Say About Dixie," etc.) was meant
> to depict a contented black southerner pining for his Mammy, feeling
> homesick in the North (supposedly Chicago).
The songs about "blacks" supposedly longing for the good old days in
the South, mostly written for "white" consumers, were a big tradition
going back decades before the 1920s, e.g. "Carry Me Back To Old
Virginny." "Whites" wrote most of them, "blacks" wrote some of them
(including "... Virginny"). There were also traditions of songs about
"whites" longing for the good old more rustic days, in or out of the
South, or praising Dixie Land's good qualities, from the food to
whatever (e.g. some of Phil Harris's hits, which were largely a
continuation of the sort of stuff Al Bernard's generation did).
The vast majority of the
> songwriters were Jewish white men from New York City who were never south of
> New Jersey, although a few black songwriters cashed in and jumped on the
> bandwagon.
The bandwagon was already going -- there were a lot of "black"
songwriters doing well in the North before 1920. "Black" songwriters
got a good foothold in the North considerably before "black" singers
did; prior to 1920, it was normal for "black" songwriters, Northern-
or Southern-born, to write Southern-style, "black"-associated songs
for "white" Northern-based singers.
> Louis Armstrong found himself having to sing a lot of these songs during the
> 30s ("That's My Home," "When It's Sleepy Time Down South," etc.).
Louis didn't "have" to do anything. There were plenty of other "black"
singers during the same era who avoided the kinds of lyrics that Louis
apparently personally didn't mind very much for whatever reason.
So you can
> see why African-Americans beginning in the 50s would find this subject
> matter objectionable and offensive with the advent of Civil Rights and the
> long overdue reform of racism in the South.
I think in practice "Dixieland jazz" as played from the 1940s on had
little to do with the pining-for-the-Mammy stuff. Assuming that as of
the 1950s "blacks" generally were no more interested in hearing
traditional "black" fiddle players than in hearing "Dixieland"-style
jazz, which I do, then lyrical content wouldn't necessarily have
anything to do with it, it could just be a lack of interest in the
music of another generation, comparable to the lack of interest most
young "whites" have in Peter Frampton today. (Nothing personal,
Peter.)
>
> All of the original "dixieland" bands modelled themselves after black bands
It would probably be factually accurate to say that nearly all "white"
jazz bands have modeled themselves partly on earlier "black" bands,
but why you bring that up with reference to the "dixieland"-style
bands in particular I don't understand.
Does it make any more sense to say that Irving Fazola "copied" other
clarinetists than to say that Ed Hall did?
>
> So then by the 60s, any self-respecting African American musician wouldn't
> be caught dead trying to play in this style
No. Jack McVea e.g. was playing Dixieland in the '60s and I defy
anyone to show that that shows a lack of self-respect on Jack's part.
, but there were lots of great
> white players who merely continued on playing the way they always had
I disagree, I think playing "Dixieland" rather than swing or bebop or
post-bebop has almost always been a conscious choice during the '50s
to the present, among jazz musicians "white" and "black," rather than
just sticking to the style one always played. Jazz is mostly a
commercial form rather than a folk form (to put it roughly), 1920s to
present, and thus musicians have generally accepted that the styles
preferred by audiences at particular times are part of the
making-a-living-as-a-jazz-musician game.
Best wishes,
Joseph Scott
Joseph Scott
> there was a lot of playing together, but recording was not allowed.
Well, "whites" and "blacks" recording together was frowned on by most
Americans throughout the 1890s-1920s, and therefore it rarely
happened, but sometimes it did. Jimmy Durante and Achille Bacquet were
in the first mixed-race recording _jazz_ band I know of, in 1918, and
prior to that there were sometimes mixed-race recordings, none of them
jazz music, such as Polk Miller with the Old South Quartette around
1910 and George W. Johnson's duets with "white" singers around 1900.
> Bix wanted to play with black musicians
I'm curious, does anyone know what evidence can back up this claim?
Certainly it's likely, but what do we have specifically to support it
in Bix's case personally?
, but was not allowed to.
And what evidence would support this? (Much like Charlie Parker, he
was too flaky to contribute much to organizing recording sessions
himself, so musicians who recorded with him may reflect other people's
biases rather than his.)
> Whiteman really wanted to hire black musicians too but was told to
> forget about it. The time was not ripe.
To most guys Whiteman's age (b. 1890s if I remember right) segregation
would have been considered normal America, like we consider everyone
walking around with handguns eating meat normal America today, aside
from the issue of whether it's right, it's certainly normal, and thus
Paul probably didn't lose a ton of sleep over it. I've read that he
was specifically advised by, uh, advisers not to hire a couple of
"black" guys for the regular touring band on one occasion when he
personally wanted to, which would have been considered completely
normal adviser-to-"white"-bandleader behavior before Teddy Wilson and
Lionel Hampton joined Benny Goodman's band, and to a lesser degree
considerably after. Whiteman did hire Duke Ellington to write for him,
and of course he made a record with Billie Holiday.
As late as the 1940s, a "mixed" big band was perceived as an obvious
way to probably shoot yourself in the foot commercially, because of
the acceptance of segregation by most Americans, e.g. Barnet
reporetedly couldn't play at one of the biggest Los Angeles-area
venues when he came to town because he had "black" guys in his band,
and JATP had to stop playing at the actual Philharmonic because the
Philharmonic tried to give them a quota about how many "blacks" could
be in the groups.
Thus Jimmy Dorsey could be quoted saying that he thought it was great
that Benny Goodman had a "mixed" band, while at the time Jimmy had an
all-"white" band: seems strange to us today, but to Jimmy that
apparently didn't seem like much of a contradiction, hiring "blacks"
was an adventure that to the Jimmy Dorseys of the world, "normal"
"white" bandleaders, was an adventure that was commendable, optional,
and financially mostly a bad idea. (I realize that whatshername sang
with Jimmy in the late '30s, but the quote I'm thinking of was at a
time when Jimmy didn't have any "blacks" in his band.) Like Jimmy
Dorsey, Louis Jordan was a businessman with an eye on the bottom line,
and Jordan had "white" friends, sang "Ofay And Oxford Gray" which is
about "whites" and "blacks" getting along -- whereas at the same time
I can't think of the first time he hired a "white" guy for the Tympany
Five, see what I mean? (That band had tons of turnover, a la Goodman.)
Would have conflicted with touring the South and some of the major
Northern venues. Even Dizzy stuck to "black" guys for his 1945 big
band IIRC, despite his obvious liking for e.g. Chuck Wayne and Al
Haig's playing: playing along with segregation to a large extent was
normal then from a practical business standpoint; we shouldn't judge
any of these musicians out of historical context.
Joseph Scott
Myth
other understandable reasons, the divide was still there late 50's, and
don't forget it was as late as '64 or '65,again IIRC, that full citizens
rights (or is it civil rights) where "extended" to the black population, at
least in principle.
Take care,
Tom
"Joseph Scott" <j_ns...@msn.com> skrev i en meddelelse
news:a2d52481.0308...@posting.google.com...
Joseph Scott
> rights (or is it civil rights) where "extended" to the black population, at
> least in principle.
The '50s-'60s was when the Federal government was cleaning up the
South, those were reforms that had mostly taken place earlier on a
state by state level in the North. So it depends which part of the
country you're talking about. E.g. in the late '40s it was pretty
common for small jazz groups to be integrated outside the South*, but
uncommon in the South. When bandleaders were trying to put together
lineups that weren't "mixed," it was often specifically because they
had a tour of the South coming up. We were talking about Herb Jeffries
here a while back; he says that he started referring to himself as
"black" at the request of Earl Hines because Hines said it would be
inconvenient if Jeffries called himself "white" during a Southern
tour, the segregationists would make trouble. Earl Warren with Basie
was same thing to the best of my knowledge: he insisted he was "black"
whenever the segregationists wanted to hear it, for Basie's and his
convenience.
(*Southern California isn't considered part of the so-called "South,"
even though geographically it's to the South.)
Joseph Scott
Da Parrot-chick
"Joseph Scott" <j_ns...@msn.com> wrote in message
news:a2d52481.03081...@posting.google.com...
ITA and would add one point: racial segregation problems weren't limited to
the South by any means. Not a few riots occurred in Boston, LA, NYC,
Chicago, and Miami (which, although is in a southern state, isn't always the
picture of the usual rural southern segregationists).
Luke Kaven
Hi Joseph,
You ask some good questions, though in the end I feel you might have
taken my remarks further than intended, though this might have been
somewhat my own fault. I think, though, that you were looking for
hard distinctions in concepts that are, under my view, a matter of
degree. It is important to bear in mind this notion of degrees. I
don't find a problem in your historical account, or at least nothing
that I can ajudicate on grounds of historical facts. It was not my
intention to cheat the component of judgment in making these
conceptual distinctions.
It was certainly not my intention to say that no white musician could
ever play genuine jazz, nor that any black musician could. Frankie
Trumbauer was a great player by any standards. And surely we agree on
the answer to your rhetorical question.
I take it as relatively uncontroversial that jazz began largely
(again, as a matter of degree) within the black communities. Music
culture, as was music publishing, was segregated to a relatively high
degree. And I don't think you intend to claim that knowledge and
beliefs are never localized (largely) in one culture and are wholly
accessible, and instantaneously so, to another culture. I think you
can countenance my "latency claim".
It might have been better for me to distinguish between various
notions of "recreation" and "revival". On the stark side, a lot of
"re-creation" is mere mimickry. Consider a recreation of a famous
civil war battle by a "historical society". It certainly is not a
genuine Civil War battle (nor a battle at all). It is a mimicking of
the behaviors as recounted. To know what a Civil War battle was
really like, you had to either live in the time, or to somehow
assimilate the colloquial culture *in a special way*.
In my micro-treatise, I suggested that a lot of "jazz societies" were
like these Civil War historical societies. Their re-creations of jazz
ring hollow to me in the same way. They are like mimickry borne out
of ignorance.
Now again, we are running into two ways of defining jazz (which
actually come together in parts). In the one part is the nominal
definition, which says, roughly "jazz is anything that is X (Y, or Z,
etc)". One such definition says that "jazz is extemporaneous
composition". Contrast this with the naturalist view that jazz is
more akin to a species term. Under this view, jazz is a space-time
worm connected by an uninterrupted causal chain of transmission, much
in the way that the human species is characterized by naturalists.
[Ghiselin and Hull, for example, claim that a species is literally an
individual.] Now these views run together in places. Where people
become persuaded of the nominal definition, and where they transmit
that definition, then the naturalist's species becomes increasingly
characterized by those who believe in the nominal definition.
But it is difficult to divorce one's self from the notion that there
is at least one subspecies of jazz which was refined and enriched
largely (again, a matter of degree) within black culture (given
outside influences, which I don't deny), and that this subspecies
cannot "live" outside of its cultural soil. Certainly, other
subspecies can and do live in other cultural contexts. But the
subspecies that concerns me here is strongly linked with its ability
to express that which is local to black culture.
I hope, again, you will not think that I believe that white people can
never play jazz. They certainly can and do. But by and large (as a
matter of degree), those white people who can and do play the
subspecies of jazz in question do so because they have the appropriate
kinds of ties to black culture, and are situated in the appropriate
chain of transmission.
You asked also how music expresses "the human condition". I've
written here at some length about the notion that the ability for
music to express the human condition is a political notion that does
not depend upon words for its poetic and expressive force. Again, I
say, it is a matter of degree. I'll refer you to this earlier thread
we both participated in, called "Anti War theme in Jazz".
Finally, the instances you cited of "revivals" are indeed somewhat
more like intra-cultural revivals, and not like the Civil War battle
re-creations I mentioned earlier. They retained some of the life of
the original forms. I think my comments were more directed at those
who are ignorant of black culture, and to a degree, to those who are
threatened by it.
As I said before, there is considerable reliance upon matters of
degree. The existence of exceptions does not pose a problem for my
argument. Reasoning about social groups and trends involves some
essential vagueness in the boundaries of categories.
Luke
sgordon
: In my micro-treatise, I suggested that a lot of "jazz societies" were
: like these Civil War historical societies. Their re-creations of jazz
: ring hollow to me in the same way. They are like mimickry borne out
: of ignorance.
That is an interesting assertion; one on which I have a different take.
Being primarily a bebop and post-bop player who also has a fairly heavy
interest in early New Orleans jazz, I am forever amazed at the number
of jazz musicians I meet who have listened to virtually no music earlier
than, say, 1935. They are quick to either laud it or deride it, yet when
pressed we find they never actually have heard any of it. (I even run
into many musicians at these dixieland festivals who listened to very
little of it!). However, there are generally also a number of fine
musicians at the festivals who love and are deeply versed in the early
recordings, and as a result understand quite a bit about the subtleties
and nuances present in the music of Morton, Oliver, Noone, etc., that
only a small portion of today's musicians appreciate. I found them to
bring a depth of understanding to their more modern (non-dixieland)
efforts, lacking in their collegues. Which then are the ignorant ones?
: I hope, again, you will not think that I believe that white people can
: never play jazz. They certainly can and do. But by and large (as a
: matter of degree), those white people who can and do play the
: subspecies of jazz in question do so because they have the appropriate
: kinds of ties to black culture, and are situated in the appropriate
: chain of transmission.
Hmm, while I think I might generally agree with you, would Django
Reinhardt satisfy your criteria?
Scott
Steve Carras
Bix was white, and the band (Paul Whiteman's) from whence he emerged
over 75 years back was white as well. The style was symphonic jazz
(much like Duke Ellington's) but even here some jazz was allowed
(Miseur Bix for insstce).
During the 20s and 30s it was not uncommon for the fine line to be
divided between sweet (popular Harry James, early popular Kay
Kyser,Glenn Miller, Sammy Kaye and Artie Shaw with strings) and hard
(classic swing orietnated Artie Shaw, some of Kyser's recordings, and
today Cherry Popping Daddies--IF you regard THOSE cretins in the same
category, and Billy Holiday).
In the twenties and thirtes before January 16, 1938 (the Benny Goodman
historic concert @Carnegie hall) there was no discernment between a
Fred Astaire (soft)< Benny Goodman (Hard) and Charlie Barnet (somewhat
sweet), for one.
In short, lightweight and swing were synonymous.
And jazz wasn't (nor was swing music) a neccesary evil.
Goodman's 1938 concert changed all that but slowly.
muhal
> Exactly my question - why don't blacks, asians or latinos want to play such music?
So here I was, alone in a new city. A couple colleagues knew I was into music,
and took me club-hopping. Soon we got to this place, which had the MOST kicking
bluegrass band you could ever imagine. Three banjos, two guitars, tub bass in
the back, a woman in front playing the spoons. It was a good time.
We hung there a while, drank more than a little. Bluegrass is not my thing, so
one of my colleagues took us down to this little bar, set up very similar to
Preservation Hall, down to the sawdust on the floor and the hard wooden benches.
And they had this SUPERB trad / preservation / dixieland band playing there.
The trombone guy could do some *mean* second line glisses. Wonderful.
My colleagues told me about another bar, that featured blues bands. We walked
by, right as this skinny long-haired guy was finishing "Long Distance Call" (you
know, with the line "Another mule, been kicking in your stall"). It sounded hot,
but it was late, and I had to get some sleep before business the next day.
There was absolutely *nothing* special about this particular Monday night, and
I did find the bluegrass bar several months later, and heard ANOTHER band sound
JUST as fine (I'm no bluegrass expert, but I had a good time), but unfortunately
I never found either the dixieland or the blues bar again. And my colleagues,
whose office was in Kobe, were not around to guide me.
Yep, Tokyo is one funky hip city. And the Japanese, clearly, do bluegrass, trad
Dixieland and Chicago blues pretty damn well. Better, if you ask me, than most
of what you'll find in my New Jersey backyard.
Luke Kaven
>Luke Kaven <lu...@smallsrecords.com> wrote:
>: In my micro-treatise, I suggested that a lot of "jazz societies" were
>: like these Civil War historical societies. Their re-creations of jazz
>: ring hollow to me in the same way. They are like mimickry borne out
>: of ignorance.
>
>That is an interesting assertion; one on which I have a different take.
>Being primarily a bebop and post-bop player who also has a fairly heavy
>interest in early New Orleans jazz, I am forever amazed at the number
>of jazz musicians I meet who have listened to virtually no music earlier
>than, say, 1935. They are quick to either laud it or deride it, yet when
>pressed we find they never actually have heard any of it. (I even run
>into many musicians at these dixieland festivals who listened to very
>little of it!). However, there are generally also a number of fine
>musicians at the festivals who love and are deeply versed in the early
>recordings, and as a result understand quite a bit about the subtleties
>and nuances present in the music of Morton, Oliver, Noone, etc., that
>only a small portion of today's musicians appreciate. I found them to
>bring a depth of understanding to their more modern (non-dixieland)
>efforts, lacking in their collegues. Which then are the ignorant ones?
Scott, that is an interesting observation in itself. But I'm not sure
it dissents from my commentary. I don't have anything against
Dixieland or those who play it, and I don't claim any benefit to being
ignorant of it. I am sometimes bothered by those who play Dixieland
who do not know anything that came after it. And I sometimes find
that Dixieland ends up being more suitable for conservative audiences
who are threatened by the more overtly political expressions that came
after it (viz, bebop). But that isn't a strike against Dixieland,
which is sophisticated in its best forms.
>: I hope, again, you will not think that I believe that white people can
>: never play jazz. They certainly can and do. But by and large (as a
>: matter of degree), those white people who can and do play the
>: subspecies of jazz in question do so because they have the appropriate
>: kinds of ties to black culture, and are situated in the appropriate
>: chain of transmission.
>
>Hmm, while I think I might generally agree with you, would Django
>Reinhardt satisfy your criteria?
I stress that what I am offering are not criteria in the sense of
necessary and sufficient conditions. In discussing social groups and
trends, it (by and large) isn't possible to state outright criteria.
But is is possible to offer reasons that do explanatory work.
For example, I might say that in American, in the nineteen-fifies, men
typically held career employment, while women worked at home. In
attempting to explain this, one might offer reasons. Whatever the
reasons may be, they are reasons, and they do explanatory work. Of
course we all know that there were women at the time who held
professional careers, and men who stayed at home. But the presence of
such counter-examples does not impugn the claim.
I can only speculate on Django. I have a suspicion, and it may have
little merit, that the experiences of Gypsies and Jews are often
similar enough in many respects to the experiences of blacks that many
aspects of jazz as produced in black culture were accessible to them.
Luke
sgordon
: I am sometimes bothered by those who play Dixieland
: who do not know anything that came after it.
Well, I have to admit I don't know anything about rap.
I am more bothered by people who play Dixieland that
do not really know anything about Dixieland.
Scott
sum1
>
> I can only speculate on Django. I have a suspicion, and it may have
> little merit, that the experiences of Gypsies and Jews are often
> similar enough in many respects to the experiences of blacks that many
> aspects of jazz as produced in black culture were accessible to them.
>
> Luke
Hmm, that's an interesting concept. Oppressed peoples have an
intuitive understanding of jazz that oppressors do not.
So why aren't there more female jazz musicians, of any color or
ethnicity?
Luke Kaven
>> little merit, that the experiences of Gypsies and Jews are often
>> similar enough in many respects to the experiences of blacks that many
>> aspects of jazz as produced in black culture were accessible to them.
>>
>> Luke
>
>Hmm, that's an interesting concept. Oppressed peoples have an
>intuitive understanding of jazz that oppressors do not.
>
>So why aren't there more female jazz musicians, of any color or
>ethnicity?
I did not say anything about "oppressed peoples". Nor would I want to
claim that being such is either necessary or sufficient. I'd want to
look at other cultural factors. And again, for anyone who was
reading, I am not saying that I favor a criteriological account. In
my view, this would not be the appropriate method for reasoning about
social trends and social groups.
Da Parrot-chick
> su...@lycos.jp (sum1) wrote:
> >Luke Kaven <lu...@smallsrecords.com> wrote
> >
> >> I can only speculate on Django. I have a suspicion, and it may have
> >> little merit, that the experiences of Gypsies and Jews are often
> >> similar enough in many respects to the experiences of blacks that many
> >> aspects of jazz as produced in black culture were accessible to them.
> >>
> >> Luke
> >
> >Hmm, that's an interesting concept. Oppressed peoples have an
> >intuitive understanding of jazz that oppressors do not.
> >
> >So why aren't there more female jazz musicians, of any color or
> >ethnicity?
There are lots more nowadays, especially since the advent of arts magnet
secondary schools. BTW American blacks weren't oppressed in the nature of
Jews and gypsies. They were also stolen, thrown in chains, and moved
thousands of miles from their homeland, separated from their families, and
their cultures repressed under threats of torture and/or death. It's not
just a matter of being oppressed. Gays are oppressed, and any person who
isn't a pale male is also oppressed. Plus, you can't always tell a Jew or a
gypsy by looking.
Also, an oppressed person doesn't have an inherent advantage of
understanding jazz than the dominant group. That's the old "White Men Can't
Jump" argument and it crumbles like 50 year old newsprint.
Joseph Scott
> beliefs are never localized (largely) in one culture and are wholly
> accessible, and instantaneously so, to another culture.
Knowledge and beliefs are accessed by individuals. If Stan Getz or
Paul Quinichette wants to listen to Lester Young records and play a
lot like that, good for him, and as a practical matter, what
"cultures" you or I can subjectively assign Stan and Paul to is going
to have little to do with the influence of those Lester records on
their playing.
One such definition says that "jazz is extemporaneous
> composition".
Again, world music is and long has been full of extemporaneous
composition (= improvisation) that isn't jazz music, and a small
proportion of jazz does not contain improvisation. So that's not a
good definition of jazz.
> But it is difficult to divorce one's self from the notion that there
> is at least one subspecies of jazz which was refined and enriched
> largely (again, a matter of degree) within black culture (given
> outside influences, which I don't deny),
Which subspecies do you have in mind?
and that this subspecies
> cannot "live" outside of its cultural soil.
You need another "largely" here. What do you mean by "cannot 'live'"?
Can't be jazz that you enjoy the sound of?
But the
> subspecies that concerns me here is strongly linked with its ability
> to express that which is local to black culture.
What would be some examples of things that are ("largely"?) local to
"black" culture(s), and more importantly how, specifically, do you
think those things can be expressed by the playing of an instrument?
But by and large (as a
> matter of degree), those white people who can and do play the
> subspecies of jazz in question
Which subspecies? Dixieland?
do so because they have the appropriate
> kinds of ties to black culture, and are situated in the appropriate
> chain of transmission.
Would you say that Billie Holiday sang standards by "white"
songwriters well in part because she had "the appropriate kinds of
ties to white culture, and was situated in the appropriate chain of
transmission"?
I'll refer you to this earlier thread
> we both participated in, called "Anti War theme in Jazz".
>
> http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl2621325391d&dq=&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=4n9n8voa81j5bj7oo5vov3oe09q0uq7j7k%404ax.com&rnum=53
I agreed with Mike W. that you were defining "political" too widely
there for the puropses of the discussion. If you want to argue that
instrumental jazz has often been political in content (I think it
hasn't often been), in fairness you need to have some sort of
definition of "not political in content" that you're measuring all
your examples against.
>
> Finally, the instances you cited of "revivals" [such as Wynton or Benny Carter playing Morton] are indeed somewhat
> more like intra-cultural revivals, and not like the Civil War battle
> re-creations I mentioned earlier.
"Black culture" is not a monolith, and I would say that to a large
degree Wynton does not belong to the "same culture" that Jelly Roll
did. Jelly Roll was born about 70 years before Wynton. Wynton's
personal approach to respecting the music that came before him is,
imo, quite influenced by a "Civil War battle re-creation"-type
mentality (although I don't agree with you that that's a bad thing in
of itself).
They retained some of the life of
> the original forms.
Could you describe how you think Benny Carter's "Original Jelly Roll
Blues" retained that?
I think my comments were more directed at those
> who are ignorant of black culture, and to a degree, to those who are
> threatened by it.
I think if Dixieland fans were generally threatened by "black" culture
they'd generally have a whole, whole, whole lot less enthusiasm for
Louis Armstrong.
Joseph Scott
Joseph Scott
> who do not know anything that came after it.
Why? Is it okay for someone to, e.g., be interested in 1920s novels
but not in 1970s novels?
I think my ideal for a pre-swing recreationist would be someone who
doesn't listen to swing and later, because in practice the worst
"recreations" of pre-swing jazz so often have problems such as
drummers who admire Blakey-to-present drumming and saxophonists who
admire Rollins-to-present sax -- wonderful-in-themselves post-swing
sounds that are jarringly inappropriate for accurate recreation of
pre-swing jazz style.
And I sometimes find
> that Dixieland ends up being more suitable for conservative audiences
> who are threatened by the more overtly political expressions that came
> after it (viz, bebop).
Are you referring to musically conservative audiences or politically
conservative audiences? They're not the same thing. For instance, "New
Age" is musically conservative music largely marketed to political
liberals. I think it's been many decades since whether someone enjoys,
say, Basie told you much about how they vote. Also, I think
"Dixieland" jazz is less accessible to the average person today than
many other styles of music. Today, how many right-wing people you know
casually do you think would want to sit down and listen to
Hot-Fives-style music for very long, compared to current pop, oldies
rock, new or "classic" country, Brubeck, MJQ, Sinatra, Nat Cole...?
Robert Johnson probably has a greater following today among people who
vote right-wing than than any "Dixieland" revivalist does.
I don't think instrumental bebop contains significantly more "overtly
political expressions" than instrumental Dixieland does. Dizzy
certainly made a different, more modernistic kind of noise from Louis,
but I wouldn't refer to either noise as "political expression."
Joseph Scott
Joseph Scott
> Dixieland festivals all over the country. The huge Sacramento
> festival is probably 90-95% caucasian. It's certainly not by
> design, in fact it's oft-lamented by performers and organizers.
Sacramento isn't Oakland or L.A. If about 8% of the people who live in
the Sacramento area are "black," and about 8% of the people who turn
out to a jazz event in the Sacramento area are "black," I don't think
there's anything to lament, unless one thinks "black" individuals have
a greater obligation to enjoy old jazz today than other individuals
do.
Joseph Scott
sum1
> su...@lycos.jp (sum1) wrote:
> >Luke Kaven <lu...@smallsrecords.com> wrote
> >
> >> I can only speculate on Django. I have a suspicion, and it may have
> >> little merit, that the experiences of Gypsies and Jews are often
> >> similar enough in many respects to the experiences of blacks that many
> >> aspects of jazz as produced in black culture were accessible to them.
> >>
> >> Luke
> >
> >Hmm, that's an interesting concept. Oppressed peoples have an
> >intuitive understanding of jazz that oppressors do not.
> >
> >So why aren't there more female jazz musicians, of any color or
> >ethnicity?
>
> I did not say anything about "oppressed peoples".
Then what do gypsies, Jews, and American blacks have in common? To
what experiences do you refer?
sgordon
: Sacramento isn't Oakland or L.A. If about 8% of the people who live in
: the Sacramento area are "black," and about 8% of the people who turn
: out to a jazz event in the Sacramento area are "black," I don't think
: there's anything to lament, unless one thinks "black" individuals have
: a greater obligation to enjoy old jazz today than other individuals do.
That might be true, except for two things:
1. Blacks account for 15.5% of Sacramento (2000 Census, surely higher now),
and I'd be surprised if even 5% of the attendees are black.
2. A huge percentage of attendees are from out of town. I don't know the
numbers, but most of Sacramentos hotels fill up. It's not just a local
festival.
Scott
Luke Kaven
>And I don't think you intend to claim that knowledge and
>> beliefs are never localized (largely) in one culture and are wholly
>> accessible, and instantaneously so, to another culture.
>
>Knowledge and beliefs are accessed by individuals. If Stan Getz or
>Paul Quinichette wants to listen to Lester Young records and play a
>lot like that, good for him, and as a practical matter, what
>"cultures" you or I can subjectively assign Stan and Paul to is going
>to have little to do with the influence of those Lester records on
>their playing.
As a matter of degree, you could say that "merely going 'doot doot
doot'" (and believing that's all there is to it) is to be influenced
by Lester Young. Getz and Quinichette were influenced a lot more
deeply than that. The musical language they acquired and their grasp
of its expressive power did not arise ex nihilo. Those beliefs were
culturally engendered.
>One such definition says that "jazz is extemporaneous
>> composition".
>
>Again, world music is and long has been full of extemporaneous
>composition (= improvisation) that isn't jazz music, and a small
>proportion of jazz does not contain improvisation. So that's not a
>good definition of jazz.
I never said it was. I said that it was a commonly offered
definition. Ray Copeland offered that to me, and I never entirely
accepted it. But I know a lot of people do, and when I argue, I need
to address those people.
>> But it is difficult to divorce one's self from the notion that there
>> is at least one subspecies of jazz which was refined and enriched
>> largely (again, a matter of degree) within black culture (given
>> outside influences, which I don't deny),
>
>Which subspecies do you have in mind?
Pick any of a number of them--bebop for example.
>and that this subspecies
>> cannot "live" outside of its cultural soil.
>
>You need another "largely" here. What do you mean by "cannot 'live'"?
>Can't be jazz that you enjoy the sound of?
In the present context, there are a lot of people who learned jazz
solely in the academy and after they graduate with their jazz degrees,
the can play absolutely nothing on the bandstand. They know the book
of bebop phrases, but when they try to play bebop, it is shallow.
When jazz is divorced from its cultural roots, it becomes moribund,
static, hollow....lifeless.
>But the
>> subspecies that concerns me here is strongly linked with its ability
>> to express that which is local to black culture.
>
>What would be some examples of things that are ("largely"?) local to
>"black" culture(s), and more importantly how, specifically, do you
>think those things can be expressed by the playing of an instrument?
Playing bebop -- in its original context -- was a blatant act of
defiance. Black people were only supposed to be intellectual insofar
as being "noble savages". Bebop players, or many of them, dared to be
taken as serious modern artists, artists who demanded that their work
be met halfway. This was a large break with tradition. Tradition
dictated that blacks were supposed to be entertainers, and subservient
to their audience, who would give them financial rewards if they were
pleased. Blacks weren't supposed to be indifferent or disdainful
towards their audiences, turning their backs when they soloed. These
performances certainly had political content.
One doesn't look for the political content in the notes themselves,
just as one doesn't look for the political content in an abstract
drawing in the ink. The political content is in the behaviors.
>But by and large (as a
>> matter of degree), those white people who can and do play the
>> subspecies of jazz in question
>
>Which subspecies? Dixieland?
As above.
>do so because they have the appropriate
>> kinds of ties to black culture, and are situated in the appropriate
>> chain of transmission.
>
>Would you say that Billie Holiday sang standards by "white"
>songwriters well in part because she had "the appropriate kinds of
>ties to white culture, and was situated in the appropriate chain of
>transmission"?
Yes, I would. Jazz has always been tied to Western European tonal
music.
>I'll refer you to this earlier thread
>> we both participated in, called "Anti War theme in Jazz".
>>
>> http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl2621325391d&dq=&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=4n9n8voa81j5bj7oo5vov3oe09q0uq7j7k%404ax.com&rnum=53
>
>I agreed with Mike W. that you were defining "political" too widely
>there for the puropses of the discussion. If you want to argue that
>instrumental jazz has often been political in content (I think it
>hasn't often been), in fairness you need to have some sort of
>definition of "not political in content" that you're measuring all
>your examples against.
Political character exists as a matter of degree (sometimes to a
trifling degree) at all levels in behavior, so long as there is the
most trivial social content. This is not an uncommon move in
contemporary philosophy. Right or wrong, such moves have been
explored at length in the literature, and I'm committed to that line
of reasoning. If this requires an academic discourse, then we can
embark on that. If you'd like to disagree with me, then fine; but
you'd have to address the finer points of the argument on that level.
>> Finally, the instances you cited of "revivals" [such as Wynton or Benny Carter playing Morton] are indeed somewhat
>> more like intra-cultural revivals, and not like the Civil War battle
>> re-creations I mentioned earlier.
>
>"Black culture" is not a monolith, and I would say that to a large
>degree Wynton does not belong to the "same culture" that Jelly Roll
>did. Jelly Roll was born about 70 years before Wynton. Wynton's
>personal approach to respecting the music that came before him is,
>imo, quite influenced by a "Civil War battle re-creation"-type
>mentality (although I don't agree with you that that's a bad thing in
>of itself).
I don't disagree with this! Though I think the LCJO does breathe some
life into their music, and in their better moments, they transcend the
"Civil War battle re-creation".
>I think if Dixieland fans were generally threatened by "black" culture
>they'd generally have a whole, whole, whole lot less enthusiasm for
>Louis Armstrong.
Armstrong was an ambassador, adept at bridging cultures. He brought
his music to people, and was a consummate entertainer. I think no
less of him for this. But he was quite different from many who came
after him who were all but completely indifferent to their audiences.
This was mostly certainly threatening (in the parlance of the day, it
was "uppity") to white people, *by and large*.
Some, of course ate it up, the way some kids eat up Gangsta Rap today.
Gangsta Rap, in some of its forms, has certainly been threatening to
whites. Recall the imbroglio over "Cop Killer".
Myth
"Luke Kaven" <lu...@smallsrecords.com> skrev i en meddelelse
news:m2utjvsq1cahoiaal...@4ax.com...
> j_ns...@msn.com (Joseph Scott) wrote:
>
>large snip<
> In the present context, there are a lot of people who learned jazz
> solely in the academy and after they graduate with their jazz degrees,
> the can play absolutely nothing on the bandstand. They know the book
> of bebop phrases, but when they try to play bebop, it is shallow.
> When jazz is divorced from its cultural roots, it becomes moribund,
> static, hollow....lifeless.
This is certaily true, but by now it's no longer strictly a question of race
IMO
Epistrophy
numbers, but most of Sacramentos hotels fill up. It's not just a local
festival. >>
Exactly. People travel from all over the western U.S. and beyond to come to the
Sacramento fest. And the overwhelming majority of them are lily-white, just
like those who attend almost every other traditional jazz festival in the
nation. The only blacks we saw at the Mammoth Lakes Jazz Jubilee in July were
musicians from about four of the bands!
- Todd
Luke Kaven
>"Luke Kaven" <lu...@smallsrecords.com> skrev
>> j_ns...@msn.com (Joseph Scott) wrote:
>>
>>large snip<
>> In the present context, there are a lot of people who learned jazz
>> solely in the academy and after they graduate with their jazz degrees,
>> the can play absolutely nothing on the bandstand. They know the book
>> of bebop phrases, but when they try to play bebop, it is shallow.
>> When jazz is divorced from its cultural roots, it becomes moribund,
>> static, hollow....lifeless.
>
>This is certaily true, but by now it's no longer strictly a question of race
>IMO
Agreed. I did not intend to imply a strict notion of race.
Da Parrot-chick
"Myth" <tomkri...@webspeed.dk> wrote in message
news:3f3f70b3$0$5176$edfa...@dread11.news.tele.dk...
>
> "Luke Kaven" <lu...@smallsrecords.com> skrev i en meddelelse
> news:m2utjvsq1cahoiaal...@4ax.com...
> > j_ns...@msn.com (Joseph Scott) wrote:
> > >Would you say that Billie Holiday sang standards by "white"
> > >songwriters well in part because she had "the appropriate kinds of
> > >ties to white culture, and was situated in the appropriate chain of
> > >transmission"?
> >
> > Yes, I would. Jazz has always been tied to Western European tonal
> > music.
It's more likely she sang those songs because she wanted to work and those
were the popular songs of the day.
If you want to argue that
> > >instrumental jazz has often been political in content (I think it
> > >hasn't often been), in fairness you need to have some sort of
> > >definition of "not political in content" that you're measuring all
> > >your examples against.
Dollar Brand (Abdullah Ibrahim)? Charlie Haden Liberation Orchestra?
"Tribute to Jack Johnson" by Miles Davis? Those aren't political in nature?
> > >> Finally, the instances you cited of "revivals" [such as Wynton or
Benny
> Carter playing Morton] are indeed somewhat
> > >> more like intra-cultural revivals, and not like the Civil War battle
> > >> re-creations I mentioned earlier.
> > >
> > >"Black culture" is not a monolith, and I would say that to a large
> > >degree Wynton does not belong to the "same culture" that Jelly Roll
> > >did. Jelly Roll was born about 70 years before Wynton. Wynton's
> > >personal approach to respecting the music that came before him is,
> > >imo, quite influenced by a "Civil War battle re-creation"-type
> > >mentality (although I don't agree with you that that's a bad thing in
> > >of itself).
> >
> > I don't disagree with this! Though I think the LCJO does breathe some
> > life into their music, and in their better moments, they transcend the
> > "Civil War battle re-creation".
Wynton Marsalis is the product of an upper middle-class upbringing and
privilege. Jelly Roll Morton was an entrepenure in a culture of overt and
government-supported racism. Hardly the same thing, no?
> > >I think if Dixieland fans were generally threatened by "black" culture
> > >they'd generally have a whole, whole, whole lot less enthusiasm for
> > >Louis Armstrong.
As long as there's a white man singing it, there's no problem.
> > Armstrong was an ambassador, adept at bridging cultures. He brought
> > his music to people, and was a consummate entertainer. I think no
> > less of him for this. But he was quite different from many who came
> > after him who were all but completely indifferent to their audiences.
> > This was mostly certainly threatening (in the parlance of the day, it
> > was "uppity") to white people, *by and large*.
You don't remember Louis Armstrongs very public comments on the Viet Nam
war, or American racism?
> > Some, of course ate it up, the way some kids eat up Gangsta Rap today.
> > Gangsta Rap, in some of its forms, has certainly been threatening to
> > whites. Recall the imbroglio over "Cop Killer".
Ah, yes. This is the typical attitude of someone who knows no more or rap
than what they read about in the newspaper. Also, remember the most popular
rapper in the world today is white, and he's not just rapping about male
prowess and partying.
Joseph Scott
> and I'd be surprised if even 5% of the attendees are black.
Strange, I did a little web search and hit a page that said the
percentage of "blacks" in the Sacramento metropolitan statistical area
(whatever that is) is a little under 8%. Perhaps the 15.5% is for the
city limits and the 8% is for a larger geographical area.
>
> 2. A huge percentage of attendees are from out of town. I don't know the
> numbers, but most of Sacramentos hotels fill up. It's not just a local
> festival.
I didn't know that. (When I lived in Oakland I almost never bothered
to visit either the Sacramento area or the L.A. area for any reason --
California is bigger than some people realize.)
Anyway, the question remains whether any individual today has an
obligation regarding what they happen to like doing for enjoyment. Imo
no. E.g., should there be more or less Asian-Americans into stamp
collecting or boating than there are now, no, each individual who's
Asian-American or not should pursue whatever interests s/he enjoys
without being guilt-tripped about making sure to represent anything,
that's not what aesthetic recreational enjoyment ought to be about.
Take care,
Joseph Scott
Joseph Scott
A "lily-white" majority? Kindly look up "lily-white" in a dictionary.
Joseph Scott
Joseph Scott
> doot'" (and believing that's all there is to it) is to be influenced
> by Lester Young.
I wouldn't say that, and don't understand what point you're trying to
make.
Getz and Quinichette were influenced a lot more
> deeply than that.
Yep.
The musical language they acquired and their grasp
> of its expressive power did not arise ex nihilo.
I haven't said anything arises ex nihilo out of anything. Could you
please describe Paul or Stan's "grasp of" anything's "expressive
power," because I'm unclear what you mean by "expressive power."
Those beliefs were
> culturally engendered.
Could you describe in your opinion which of Getz's beliefs regarding
music were "culturally engendered" by what cultures?
>
> >> But it is difficult to divorce one's self from the notion that there
> >> is at least one subspecies of jazz which was refined and enriched
> >> largely (again, a matter of degree) within black culture (given
> >> outside influences, which I don't deny),
> >
> >Which subspecies do you have in mind?
>
> Pick any of a number of them--bebop for example.
I think it's clear that bebop was "refined and enriched largely within
black culture," although less "largely" than, say, early R&B. (E.g., a
significantly greater proportion of the major bebop guitarists of the
late '40s were "white" than the major R&B guitarists of the late
'40s.) Do you think that fact has something to do with who plays
Dixieland?
>
> >and that this subspecies
> >> cannot "live" outside of its cultural soil.
> >
> >You need another "largely" here. What do you mean by "cannot 'live'"?
> >Can't be jazz that you enjoy the sound of?
>
> In the present context, there are a lot of people who learned jazz
> solely in the academy and after they graduate with their jazz degrees,
> the can play absolutely nothing on the bandstand. They know the book
> of bebop phrases, but when they try to play bebop, it is shallow.
> When jazz is divorced from its cultural roots, it becomes moribund,
> static, hollow....lifeless.
Which cultural soil are we talking about? I thought we were talking
about "black culture(s)" and "white culture(s)," but the "white" jazz
musicians of e.g. the '20s-'50s, Dixieland, bebop, and otherwise,
rarely learned jazz "solely in the academy," right? Which cultural
soil is it that any subspecies of jazz (Dixieland, bebop, or any other
you'd care to choose) cannot "live" outside of, or largely cannot
"live" outside of?
>
> >But the
> >> subspecies that concerns me here is strongly linked with its ability
> >> to express that which is local to black culture.
> >
> >What would be some examples of things that are ("largely"?) local to
> >"black" culture(s), and more importantly how, specifically, do you
> >think those things can be expressed by the playing of an instrument?
>
> Playing bebop -- in its original context -- was a blatant act of
> defiance.
Please describe bebop's original context. (If you only respond to one
thing, please choose this, because I'm curious what you think bebop's
original context is.)
Black people were only supposed to be intellectual insofar
> as being "noble savages".
I don't think being "intellectual" is generally considered part of
being a "noble savage" at all, is it? Perhaps you mean that "black"
people were only supposed to be creative within limits predefined by
the "noble savage" myth. Obviously there's a ton of truth to that,
with regard to what many, not all, "white" people in the U.S. were
looking for in entertainment during the first half of the 20th
century.
I don't think _bebop_ music in particular has much of a special
relationship with the "noble savage" myth dying off. E.g., Charlie
Parker, Monk, and Bud Powell come off as pretty much "noble savages"
in a lot of the mythology, relative to say people who were big just
pre-bop such as Benny Carter, Coleman Hawkins, Willie Smith, Duke
Ellington, and Teddy Wilson, don't you think? The way Dizzy marketed
himself with the dancing and slang and costume was largely an
extension of Cab, and Cab had been around long enough that his
approach partly came out of the heavily
'20s-Northern-"black"-for-"white"-audiences-influenced Cotton Club
"jungle music" stereotypes, which were certainly impacted
significantly by the "noble savage" myth, don't you think? I think a
lot of the "revolutionary" contrasts between bebop and swing we read
are mostly pretend (as is so common with revolution-oriented paradigms
as opposed to evolution-oriented paradigms), and I think this is one
of them.
Bebop players, or many of them, dared to be
> taken as serious modern artists
And many non-bebop players dared to be taken as serious modern
artists. Do you you think the average bopper was more interested in
being perceived as a "serious modern artist" than these people?
Sissieretta Jones
John Thomas Douglass
"Blind" Boone
Harry Burleigh
Scott Joplin
C.A. Tindley
Will Marion Cook
Jim Europe
Roland Hayes
Marion Anderson
Carroll Clarke
Sidney Bechet
William Grant Still
Duke Ellington
Josh White
Coleman Hawkins
Teddy Wilson
Lester Young
Billy Eckstine
Dinah Washington
, artists who demanded that their work
> be met halfway. This was a large break with tradition.
Bebop was considered adventurous by '40s standards; prior to that
there had been plenty of styles that were considered adventurous by
the standards of previous decades, including Dixieland in the '10s and
swing in the '30s.
Tradition
> dictated that blacks were supposed to be entertainers, and subservient
> to their audience, who would give them financial rewards if they were
> pleased. Blacks weren't supposed to be indifferent or disdainful
> towards their audiences, turning their backs when they soloed. These
> performances certainly had political content.
The earliest year that a large number of bebop recordings were made is
'45. What's the earliest year you know of when a jazz musician turned
his or her back on the audience?
Also, do you assume that audiences have never experienced a musician
turning his/her back on them for a while as an enjoyable part of the
show-going experience?
>
> One doesn't look for the political content in the notes themselves,
> just as one doesn't look for the political content in an abstract
> drawing in the ink. The political content is in the behaviors.
You've retreated to behaviors rather than the music itself, which
suits me fine: Would you please give me an example or two? What's
something "political" that Charlie Parker did behaviorally, and how
closely can you tie it to the way his music sounded?
>
[[A]]> >But by and large (as a
> >> matter of degree), those white people who can and do play the
> >> subspecies of jazz in question do so because they have the appropriate
> >> kinds of ties to black culture, and are situated in the appropriate
> >> chain of transmission.
> >
[[B]]> >Would you say that Billie Holiday sang standards by "white"
> >songwriters well in part because she had "the appropriate kinds of
> >ties to white culture, and was situated in the appropriate chain of
> >transmission"?
>
> Yes, I would. Jazz has always been tied to Western European tonal
> music.
Now what I'm getting at is, how much does it buy us in describing
music history to bother to say either [[A]] or [[B]]? Isn't it kind of
obvious? The less wordy version of where you're partly coming from, it
seems, would be "Jazz has been largely 'black'-influenced music." And
everyone knows that full well already. Do people write long posts on
computer programming lists pointing out for everyone's information
that they've figured out that a large proportion of important computer
programmers have been "white"? If they do, why do they bother?
[...]This is not an uncommon move in
> contemporary philosophy. Right or wrong, such moves have been
> explored at length in the literature, and I'm committed to that line
> of reasoning.
Try not to be committed to anything in the literature. The literature
is very often deadline-driven creative bull -- jazz, philosophy, and
otherwise.
If this requires an academic discourse, then we can
> embark on that.
I'm not interested in being an academic, I'm interested in music
history.
> >"Black culture" is not a monolith, and I would say that to a large
> >degree Wynton does not belong to the "same culture" that Jelly Roll
> >did. Jelly Roll was born about 70 years before Wynton. Wynton's
> >personal approach to respecting the music that came before him is,
> >imo, quite influenced by a "Civil War battle re-creation"-type
> >mentality (although I don't agree with you that that's a bad thing in
> >of itself).
>
> I don't disagree with this!
Good, that clears up two of my major concerns about your earliest
posts in the thread, then: not enough qualifiers, making some
sentences appear to be sweeping generalizations, and a seeming dualism
between one timeless "black culture" and one timeless "white culture"
rather than a more nuanced view.
> Armstrong [...] was quite different from many who came
> after him who were all but completely indifferent to their audiences.
I think it's been _very_ uncommon for successful jazz musicians to be
completely indifferent to their audiences.
Regarding the whole area of who has been threatened by whom, I think
to some extent you're overgeneralizing and jumping to conclusions. For
instance, many "white" people didn't think "Cop Killer" was a
praiseworthy song, no kidding: What do you think most "black" cops,
ministers, accountants, librarians, garbage collectors, teachers,
musicians thought of "Cop Killer"?
You haven't heard any recordings of Benny Carter playing Jelly Roll,
have you? Yet you offered a judgment about the quality anyway. That
is, you wrote of Wynton, Benny Carter, and Morton playing Morton:
"[T]he instances you cited of 'revivals' are indeed somewhat more like
intra-cultural revivals, and not like the Civil War battle
re-creations I mentioned earlier. They retained some of the life of
the original forms." If you offer us your opinion of how some Benny
Carter music you've never heard sounds, that's jumping to a
conclusion, right?
Joseph Scott
Don Mopsick
> > All of the original "dixieland" bands modelled themselves after black
bands
>
> It would probably be factually accurate to say that nearly all "white"
> jazz bands have modeled themselves partly on earlier "black" bands,
> but why you bring that up with reference to the "dixieland"-style
> bands in particular I don't understand.
Because in a discussion of why mostly caucasians play in a style labeled as
"dixieland" these days, it's ironic to note that the word, according to
Giddens, was a code in the 1920s for "black" and "Southern," and that the
white musicians of that era and later (esp. Bing Crosby, Iriving Fazola, Bob
Haggart, Eddie Condon, Wild Bill Davison, Lu Watters, Turk Murphy and
continuing on to the present with guys like Bob Wilber who was under the
wing of Bechet) took their inspiration (not "copied") from black musicians
who might have been labelled as "dixieland" by white culture in general.
Exactly like virtually all female black singers in the 20s and 30s were
called "blues" singers no matter what degree of actual blues influence may
have existed in their singing style, from Bessie to Ethel.
>
> Does it make any more sense to say that Irving Fazola "copied" other
> clarinetists than to say that Ed Hall did?
>
I certainly wouldn't make that distinction were it not for the racism of
jazz writers. In the 50s, groups like the DeParis Brothers and Buck
Clayton's Jam Sessions were labelled by jazz writers as "Small-Band Swing,"
but the exact same music played by Eddie Condon, Muggsy Spanier, Art Hodes,
etc. was given the "dixieland" label. Why? Jazz writers of that era (and
this) feel the need for categorizing in order to have something to write
about and to play on pre-existing predjudice. It's so easy to fall into what
you think people know, but the reality is often much more complicated and
takes much more 'splaining.
mopo
Luke Kaven
[...]
>> > >Would you say that Billie Holiday sang standards by "white"
>> > >songwriters well in part because she had "the appropriate kinds of
>> > >ties to white culture, and was situated in the appropriate chain of
>> > >transmission"?
>> >
>> > Yes, I would. Jazz has always been tied to Western European tonal
>> > music.
>
>It's more likely she sang those songs because she wanted to work and those
>were the popular songs of the day.
And those were popular with mainstream white culture, which obviously
also came out of the western European tradition of tonal music.
[...]
>> > I don't disagree with this! Though I think the LCJO does breathe some
>> > life into their music, and in their better moments, they transcend the
>> > "Civil War battle re-creation".
>
>Wynton Marsalis is the product of an upper middle-class upbringing and
>privilege. Jelly Roll Morton was an entrepenure in a culture of overt and
>government-supported racism. Hardly the same thing, no?
Skip, I don't know which one of us you're responding to. You don't
think I disagree with this, do you?
[...]
>> > Armstrong was an ambassador, adept at bridging cultures. He brought
>> > his music to people, and was a consummate entertainer. I think no
>> > less of him for this. But he was quite different from many who came
>> > after him who were all but completely indifferent to their audiences.
>> > This was mostly certainly threatening (in the parlance of the day, it
>> > was "uppity") to white people, *by and large*.
>
>You don't remember Louis Armstrongs very public comments on the Viet Nam
>war, or American racism?
I do. He ventured that late in his career when it was much safer and
more popular to do so, and after he had established a sigificant
amount of strength in the public's esteem--enough so that he couldn't
destroy his own career by making such remarks.
>> > Some, of course ate it up, the way some kids eat up Gangsta Rap today.
>> > Gangsta Rap, in some of its forms, has certainly been threatening to
>> > whites. Recall the imbroglio over "Cop Killer".
>
>Ah, yes. This is the typical attitude of someone who knows no more or rap
>than what they read about in the newspaper. Also, remember the most popular
>rapper in the world today is white, and he's not just rapping about male
>prowess and partying.
I don't know if you're talking to me here, but I think you misread me.
You kind of surprised me here, like you have me confused with someone
else. I haven't got any idea what you think I was saying.
Are you saying that the white establishment didn't become alarmed with
the release of Body Count/Cop Killer, whose main claim to fame was not
in the extreme lyrics, but in the fact that the extreme lyrics were
being eaten up by white kids in the suburbs? No, of course the white
establishment became alarmed, and Warner Brothers capitulated. Now
this is fifteen years ago. Today we have new rappers of all kinds,
white, Chinese, and hispanic. Do you deny that RAP came out of black
communities (along the way from Kingston to South Central LA)? I
wouldn't think so. Am I saying anything about white rappers today?
Of course not.
still...@webtv.net
defiance > The intellectual historians may say that. What if Parker and
Diz were white? These two guys along with the others at Mintons were
just so good they just exploded what was known as the playing "music" up
to that time. These human beings were making advances in music.
Sociologists can say whatever they please, These human beings were
advancing the music. I see it similar to Roger Bannister breaking the 4
minute mile mark. They were reaching musical heights never scaled
before. Sociologists with their smug all-knowingness can say- Ah, they
are being defiant against white supremacy. The sociologists might get a
better take if they pick up a trumpet or sax, try to play it then listen
to them again. IMHO
Da Parrot-chick
> "Da Parrot-chick" <ju...@sk.me> wrote:
> [...]
> >> > >Would you say that Billie Holiday sang standards by "white"
> >> > >songwriters well in part because she had "the appropriate kinds of
> >> > >ties to white culture, and was situated in the appropriate chain of
> >> > >transmission"?
> >> >
> >> > Yes, I would. Jazz has always been tied to Western European tonal
> >> > music.
> >
> >It's more likely she sang those songs because she wanted to work and
those
> >were the popular songs of the day.
>
> And those were popular with mainstream white culture, which obviously
> also came out of the western European tradition of tonal music.
This is true today too. Mainstream whites are the dominant culture today
and any numerical success has to appeal to them in some way. Sometimes it
takes odd ways.
> >> > I don't disagree with this! Though I think the LCJO does breathe
some
> >> > life into their music, and in their better moments, they transcend
the
> >> > "Civil War battle re-creation".
> >
> >Wynton Marsalis is the product of an upper middle-class upbringing and
> >privilege. Jelly Roll Morton was an entrepenure in a culture of overt
and
> >government-supported racism. Hardly the same thing, no?
>
> Skip, I don't know which one of us you're responding to. You don't
> think I disagree with this, do you?
If you say you didn't write the above, that's cool. I was disagreeing with
the premise only, not the writer,
> >> > Armstrong was an ambassador, adept at bridging cultures. He brought
> >> > his music to people, and was a consummate entertainer. I think no
> >> > less of him for this. But he was quite different from many who came
> >> > after him who were all but completely indifferent to their audiences.
> >> > This was mostly certainly threatening (in the parlance of the day, it
> >> > was "uppity") to white people, *by and large*.
> >
> >You don't remember Louis Armstrongs very public comments on the Viet Nam
> >war, or American racism?
>
> I do. He ventured that late in his career when it was much safer and
> more popular to do so, and after he had established a sigificant
> amount of strength in the public's esteem--enough so that he couldn't
> destroy his own career by making such remarks.
That's true. Part of his his success, apart from talent and personality,
was tied to his non-threatening manner. He didn't make his anti-war
statements until the 1960s (he still paid for them, though).
> >> > Some, of course ate it up, the way some kids eat up Gangsta Rap
today.
> >> > Gangsta Rap, in some of its forms, has certainly been threatening to
> >> > whites. Recall the imbroglio over "Cop Killer".
> >
> >Ah, yes. This is the typical attitude of someone who knows no more or
rap
> >than what they read about in the newspaper. Also, remember the most
popular
> >rapper in the world today is white, and he's not just rapping about male
> >prowess and partying.
>
> I don't know if you're talking to me here, but I think you misread me.
> You kind of surprised me here, like you have me confused with someone
> else. I haven't got any idea what you think I was saying.
I want to make the distinction between the overall genre of hip hop and its
sub-genre gangsta rap. The latter is for a very specific audience, yet the
mainstream media has embraced the stereotype of its performers and listeners
of violent and materialistic young black men. This results in people
thinking all hip hop is gansta rap by definition, right? So it's easy to
lump all spoken-word music into gangsta rap, since that's all that exists
according to mainstream media. That's what I meant; hope it helps.
> Are you saying that the white establishment didn't become alarmed with
> the release of Body Count/Cop Killer, whose main claim to fame was not
> in the extreme lyrics, but in the fact that the extreme lyrics were
> being eaten up by white kids in the suburbs? No, of course the white
> establishment became alarmed, and Warner Brothers capitulated. Now
> this is fifteen years ago.
Right. Ice-T, the composer and performer, outlines that episode with quotes
and documents in his autobiography.
Today we have new rappers of all kinds,
> white, Chinese, and hispanic.
Yes--interesting that so many cultures have embraced hip hop. I've heard
French, Turkish, Eythiopian, and German rappers. Me, I think it's kind of
cool that an art form is so diversivied without a concious effort.
Do you deny that RAP came out of black
> communities (along the way from Kingston to South Central LA)? I
> wouldn't think so.
There are several relatively independent and simultaneous origins of which I
know, all in the black community. The first widespread hit for hip hop was
the collaboration between Debbie Harry's band Blondie and DJ Melle Melle.
That was in NYC. IMHO its true roots are Pan-African. Storytelling in time
to a steady, rhythmic drum beat, in which it's a lot older than we
origianlly thought.
Am I saying anything about white rappers today?
> Of course not.
No you weren't; I wanted to give mention of MNM to amplify your point.
Zoot
rhythmically talking over some kind of pedestrian beat. but really how
much exposure did rappers have to that. i don't they had access to
much music with the sad state of the education system. now i think it
came from jumping rope.
its no wonder it is embraced by so many cultures. it's not complicated
by musical content. to bad the poetry is so lame. the rhythms are
pretty basic too. the quarter note triplet seems to be a big deal. so
why are we discussing this on bluenote?
Joseph Scott
> > >privilege.
Money, hmm. Sidney Bechet's, Miles Davis's, Dexter Gordon's, and
Charlie Barnet's parents had money, and Louis Armstrong's, Dizzy
Gillespie's, Benny Carter's, and Benny Goodman's parents didn't: so
what? What would Wynton be better at today if only his parents had had
less money?
Joseph Scott
Da Parrot-chick
He might be a little more humble, for one.
Da Parrot-chick
"Zoot" <aba...@ns-design.com> wrote in message
news:4700fe11.03081...@posting.google.com...
> once i thought rap came from native american music. you know
> rhythmically talking over some kind of pedestrian beat. but really how
> much exposure did rappers have to that. i don't they had access to
> much music with the sad state of the education system. now i think it
> came from jumping rope.
Good point with the jumping rope. IMHO both the poetry of rap and the
poetry of jumprope are African in nature and origin. In Native American
drumming circles, the meter stays the same but the one changes regularly.
In all Sub-Saharan African beats I've heard, the rhythm is always 2/2, 4/4,
6/8, or 12/18. Never an odd or changing meter unless thge entire songs
change. But one drum groove can last an hour, easy.
> its no wonder it is embraced by so many cultures. it's not complicated
> by musical content.
That may be the secret. In order to rap, you don't have to sing in tune or
remember complicated arrangements; the message is the song itself. Since
even odd meters are steady and can groove, and since virtually all cultures
have rhythmic devices, anybody with a good sense of rhythm can rap in any
language, to any groove.
to bad the poetry is so lame.
That's a matter of taste, no?
the rhythms are
> pretty basic too.
That would depend on the artist. You aren't familiar with Jay-Z or early
Nelly? It's nothing but polyrhythms; they barely ever hit the one.
> the quarter note triplet seems to be a big deal.
It is!
so
> why are we discussing this on bluenote?
I didn't bring it up, and you're discussing it. You tell me :)
Luke Kaven
>< Playing bebop - in its original context - was a blatant act of
>defiance >
>The intellectual historians may say that. What if Parker and
>Diz were white?
You are imagining counterfactual situations while holding all else
equal without good reason. What reason do we have to think that all
else would have been equal, and two other people (of whatever race)
could have developed bebop? If you are criticizing method in the
social sciences, then you ought to take a more critical look here.
> These two guys along with the others at Mintons were
>just so good they just exploded what was known as the playing "music" up
>to that time. These human beings were making advances in music.
>Sociologists can say whatever they please, These human beings were
>advancing the music. I see it similar to Roger Bannister breaking the 4
>minute mile mark. They were reaching musical heights never scaled
>before. Sociologists with their smug all-knowingness can say- Ah, they
>are being defiant against white supremacy. The sociologists might get a
>better take if they pick up a trumpet or sax, try to play it then listen
>to them again. IMHO
Be aware that you are doing sociology here just as surely as the
people whom you are inveighing against. You are accountable in just
the same way for your claims, and your claims are just as strong as
any you are criticizing.
The important thing to note here is more a matter of common sense. No
matter whether you think bebop was a mere advancement in music, you
are overlooking the fact that these were black people doing it, and
that thereby the actions could have very different consequences than
if white people were doing it, especially at that time. That is the
nature of racism and segregation.
Have you ever seen the look of fear on a black man's face as he weighs
the consequences of taking a drink out of a public water fountain in
front of a white man and his family? Do you understand that fear? If
you never lived in the south circa 1967, then maybe you never
witnessed that. But to deny it would be ridiculous. Take it further
-- If you were a white man and you had sex with a white girl there was
nothing wrong with that. If you were a black man and you had sex with
a white girl, you might expect to be murdered.
Now if you think that for a black man to play bebop in 1945 was not an
act of defiance in some respects, then you don't understand the risks
and the dangers inherent in that social context.
From Dizzy's autobiography _To Be or Not To Bop_:
"the bebop era, socially speaking, was a major concrete effort of
progressive thinking black and white males and females to tear down
and abolish the ignorance and racial barriers that were stifling the
growth of any true culture in modern America."
" We refused to accept racism, poverty or economic exploitation, nor
would we live out uncreative humdrum lives merely for the sake of
survival. But there was nothing unpatriotic about it. If America
wouldn't honor its constitution and respect us as men, we couldn't
give a shit about the American way. And they made it damn near
un-American to appreciate our music."
Myth
from the civil right struggle and the racism of society in general. And I
also think that music was the spearhead in the bettering of "race-relations"
even when it, meaning the participants, wasn't consiously trying to. The way
the "the powers that were" (and still "be") reacted,sorta proves the point,
when you consider how they tried to suppress the music and it's
practicioners.
Take care,
Tomnews:hp01kvsp8q0rn3i3l...@4ax.com...
Myth
"Da Parrot-chick" <ju...@sk.me> skrev i en meddelelse
news:9mS%a.6846$7z1....@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net...
> "Luke Kaven" <lu...@smallsrecords.com> wrote in message
> news:p6pvjvshtuf53usq6...@4ax.com...
> > "Da Parrot-chick" <ju...@sk.me> wrote:
> I want to make the distinction between the overall genre of hip hop and
its
> sub-genre gangsta rap. The latter is for a very specific audience, yet
the
> mainstream media has embraced the stereotype of its performers and
listeners
> of violent and materialistic young black men. This results in people
> thinking all hip hop is gansta rap by definition, right? So it's easy to
> lump all spoken-word music into gangsta rap, since that's all that exists
> according to mainstream media. That's what I meant; hope it helps.
>
> > Are you saying that the white establishment didn't become alarmed with
> > the release of Body Count/Cop Killer, whose main claim to fame was not
> > in the extreme lyrics, but in the fact that the extreme lyrics were
> > being eaten up by white kids in the suburbs? No, of course the white
> > establishment became alarmed, and Warner Brothers capitulated. Now
> > this is fifteen years ago.
On a historical note, I have a recording with The Golden Gate Quartet doing
"The Preacher and the Bear", with the lead singing rapping with the best of
them. I use this record a lot when talking to the younger people trying to
sell hip hop or what ever it's called on the day i.e
trash-trance-club-trip-hoppin', as the now thing, since the recording was
made August 4 1937
Take care,
Tom
Joseph Scott
As humble as Muhammad Ali?
Joseph Scott
Joseph Scott
> "The Preacher and the Bear", with the lead singing rapping with the best of
> them. I use this record a lot when talking to the younger people trying to
> sell hip hop or what ever it's called on the day i.e
> trash-trance-club-trip-hoppin', as the now thing, since the recording was
> made August 4 1937
> Take care,
> Tom
Good example! And just to be more clear about what you're accurately
pointing out, "rapping" usually specifically means rhythmic speech
rather than rhythmic singing, and this GGQ recording includes lots of
rhythmic speech, not just rhythmic singing.
The GGQ were working in a professional performance tradition that went
back to the 1800s and was influenced by both stage gospel (Fisks,
Norfolks, etc.) and "coon songs" (also a stage form, more than a folk
form). Rhythmic speech wasn't terribly unusual in that tradition. One
of the things that tradition influenced was "black" and "white"
close-harmony secular groups of the '30s-'40s, and by the '40s even
Nancy Walker for instance (the young "white" pop singer who ended up
playing the mother on _Rhoda_) was taking a rhythmic speech break in a
song, in the GGQ stage-oriented tradition.
A good recording that represents c. '30s-style "rapping"/"toasting"
from a more folk rather than stage perspective is Peg Leg Sam (Arthur
Jackson)'s toast "Ode To Bad Bill," which is a rhythmic speech version
of a folk song that was well-known to Southern poor "whites" in the
'20s (and probably in the '10s too). Jackson was born in 1911 in South
Carolina.
Also, the "talking blues" style -- stuff that is not what we usually
think of as "blues" music, but includes moderately rhythmic speech --
that became popular in "country"/"folk" music in the '20s and remained
popular all the way down to, famously, Bob Dylan is believed to have
roots in "black" "toasts" that the Bouchillon family (the "whites" who
popularized "talking blues" in the first place) would have heard from
"black" performers in Georgia in the '20s and possibly earlier: the
evidence in favor of that includes lyrical connections between the
Bouchillons' stuff and various "black" recordings of the era.
Joseph Scott
Myth
"Joseph Scott" <j_ns...@msn.com> skrev i en meddelelse
news:a2d52481.03081...@posting.google.com...
Anothet aspect of GGQ, as I hear them, is that they sound far more "african"
than just about any other american ensemble, at least till some point in the
60's. The way they make chant-patterns, don't know what else to call it.
I've heard some african vocal albums that was so similar in nature and
feeling. IMO a very interesting band that left all their contemporaries
behind, forget about The Mills Brothers ect.
Take care,
Tom
Joseph Scott
> matter whether you think bebop was a mere advancement in music, you
> are overlooking the fact that these were black people doing it
Some of the people doing it weren't "black." Is that a problem for you
for some reason? What do you think of Joe Albany's playing? Was it a
mistake for Bird to hire him? Was it a mistake for Bird to work with
Marmarosa? Diz with Haig? With Chuck Wayne? (As of the year 1945,
Chuck Wayne is the best bebop guitarist I can think of, how about
you?) Was it a bizarre anomaly that the first bebop band on the West
Coast, McGhee's, had one "white" guy in it? Those examples are all
'45-'46.
To what degree do you think Woody Herman's, Jimmy Dorsey's, Boyd
Raeburn's '42-'45 recordings of Gillespie compositions are "bebop" in
style? How about Marmarosa's playing on "The Moose" ('43)?
You're talking as if you have a pretty good knowledge of early bebop,
but I suspect you really don't.
If
> you never lived in the south circa 1967, then[...]
You place the origin of bebop at Minton's, right? So if you think
creative innovation was inspired by fear, why not tell us directly
about the fear that New-York-based jazz musicians were feeling as of
the early '40s?
>
> Now if you think that for a black man to play bebop in 1945 was not an
> act of defiance in some respects, then you don't understand the risks
> and the dangers inherent in that social context.
Defiance of what? What does "Woody 'N You" or "Oop Bop Sh'Bam" or
"Ornithology" have to do with water fountains, any more than "Take The
A Train"?
Dizzy was prolific, and was part of bebop from the start. What's the
first recording Dizzy ever made, in your opinion, that you'd call a
civil-rights-related tune or song?
Joseph Scott
sgordon
: Strange, I did a little web search and hit a page that said the
: percentage of "blacks" in the Sacramento metropolitan statistical area
: (whatever that is) is a little under 8%. Perhaps the 15.5% is for the
: city limits and the 8% is for a larger geographical area.
Right. The 8% (actually it's a bit over 8%) is for Sacramento County, and
the 15.5% is for the metropolitan area. Sacramento itself is quite diverse
(the University is, believe it or not, the most ethnically diverse in the
entire CSU system), but as you move out of the city it gets pretty rural
pretty quick.
In any case, I'd bet if they moved the Sacramento dixieland festival to
Oakland, the percent attendance of blacks would remain very low.
:> 2. A huge percentage of attendees are from out of town. I don't know the
:> numbers, but most of Sacramentos hotels fill up. It's not just a local
:> festival.
: I didn't know that. (When I lived in Oakland I almost never bothered
: to visit either the Sacramento area or the L.A. area for any reason --
: California is bigger than some people realize.)
Indeed, it is arguably (or was a few years ago) the largest jazz festival
in the world.
: Anyway, the question remains whether any individual today has an
: obligation regarding what they happen to like doing for enjoyment.
Oh, certainly nobody has an obligation to like anything in particular.
But for me, I'm just a bit curious why it's the way it is, and I haven't
read anything in this thread approaching what sounds to me like a logical
explanation. I don't have one to offer either. Everyone seems to think
they know the answer or can explain everything sociologically -- I don't
think so. But just because we may not actually know the answer to such
tricky questions doesn't mean we can't ask the questions.
Scott
Luke Kaven
Over the course of this thread, you've been picking sentences out of
context, questioning me rhetorically on things my words were never
intended to say. For all that I've tried to write in explanation, it
doesn't seem to me that you've assimilated it, seemingly preferring to
pursue a straw man. I've absolutely no idea what point you are trying
to make by now. Here again, you act as though I am saying "black and
only black" versus "white and only white" no matter how many times
I've written that this isn't what I mean. If you had concentrated
more on the passages from Dizzy's book that I quoted, you would know
the answer to your questions below. Why on earth would I have problem
with Al Haig and Joe Albany, both of whom played music that I love?
And why do you think this impugns my point? In the way that you've
splintered the discourse, I don't see how to pull it together again.
You've also derided my philosophical commitments, as though I were a
slave to the work of others, damning all such discourse under the
requirement to meet deadlines for some reason. I've studied
post-graduate philosophy over the course of ten years and I have my
own commitments, which, right or wrong, are the result of my own
honest toil. I have to stand on those commitments. Regardless of my
academic work, most of what I write about comes from my direct
experience, and from what musicians have told me over the years about
their reasons for making music. In the end, unless you would like to
focus on one or two points, I don't think I can participate in this
thread any further. The best I can offer by way of mitigation is
that, after all this, I don't really see where our views are that much
different.
Myth
"sgordon" <sgo...@sonic.net> skrev i en meddelelse
news:YF80b.12681$dk4.4...@typhoon.sonic.net...
>snip<
But just because we may not actually know the answer to such
> tricky questions doesn't mean we can't ask the questions.
>
> Scott
Good point !
Take care,
Tom
Joseph Scott
> than just about any other american ensemble, at least till some point in the
> 60's. The way they make chant-patterns, don't know what else to call it.
> I've heard some african vocal albums that was so similar in nature and
> feeling. IMO a very interesting band that left all their contemporaries
> behind, forget about The Mills Brothers ect.
For vocal group sounds that to the best of my knowledge are more
African-influenced than the GGQ's, I'd recommend _John_ Lomax's
recordings of group prison songs (many of John Lomax's recordings have
been reissued on CDs with the name Alan Lomax in big letters, which is
a bit confusing because you should definitely go for John Lomax's
recordings first, but Alan made more later), the Georgia Sea Island
Singers, early Norfolk Jazz Quartet, and the Delta Big Four, among
others. The early Mills Brothers sound was less African than the early
GGQ's, I'd agree with you there.
It's worth noting that at the time the record industry really got
going in Africa, Africans were already very interested in foreign
music including New World music, so sometimes what might seem to be
evidence of an Africa --> U.S. influence in the sound of an African
vocal group recording may actually be evidence of a U.S. --> Africa
influence.
Joseph Scott
Da Parrot-chick
the same capitol A. You wouldn't like people writing denmark, would you?
"Myth" <tomkri...@webspeed.dk> wrote in message
news:3f4107d9$0$5183$edfa...@dread11.news.tele.dk...
Da Parrot-chick
"Joseph Scott" <j_ns...@msn.com> wrote in message
news:a2d52481.03081...@posting.google.com...
> "Da Parrot-chick" <ju...@sk.me> wrote in message
news:<nHZ%a.7325$7z1....@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net>...
> > "Joseph Scott" <j_ns...@msn.com> wrote in message
> > news:a2d52481.03081...@posting.google.com...
> > > > > >Wynton Marsalis is the product of an upper middle-class
upbringing
> > and
> > > > > >privilege.
> > >
> > > Money, hmm. Sidney Bechet's, Miles Davis's, Dexter Gordon's, and
> > > Charlie Barnet's parents had money, and Louis Armstrong's, Dizzy
> > > Gillespie's, Benny Carter's, and Benny Goodman's parents didn't: so
> > > what? What would Wynton be better at today if only his parents had had
> > > less money?
> >
> > He might be a little more humble, for one.
>
> As humble as Muhammad Ali?
What does Muhammad Ali have to do with Wynton Marsalis? Or my point?
Mr Zed
Well, it looks like you have now definitely scaled the heights of
ignorance. Is that how it looks from the peak?
Joseph Scott
I think Giddens' creativity is misleading you. Can anyone think of an
example of anyone in the 1920s (or 1910s or 1930s or 1940s) taking
"Dixie Land" to specifically refer to "black" Southern music as
opposed to "white" Southern music?
I think Buck Clayton's jam sessions can be described accurately as
small-band swing and are different in style from Condon.
Joseph Scott
Myth
"african"
> > than just about any other american ensemble, at least till some point in
the
> > 60's. The way they make chant-patterns, don't know what else to call it.
> > I've heard some african vocal albums that was so similar in nature and
> > feeling. IMO a very interesting band that left all their contemporaries
> > behind, forget about The Mills Brothers ect.
>
> For vocal group sounds that to the best of my knowledge are more
> African-influenced than the GGQ's, I'd recommend _John_ Lomax's
> recordings of group prison songs (many of John Lomax's recordings have
> been reissued on CDs with the name Alan Lomax in big letters, which is
> a bit confusing because you should definitely go for John Lomax's
> recordings first, but Alan made more later), the Georgia Sea Island
> Singers, early Norfolk Jazz Quartet, and the Delta Big Four, among
> others. The early Mills Brothers sound was less African than the early
> GGQ's, I'd agree with you there.
I have two of the prisonsong-records that you're refering to, but IMO the
don't have the same rhythmic subtlety (sp ?) as GGQ
Take care,
Tom
still...@webtv.net
you tried to play trumpet and tried to find the notes Dizzy is playing,
you would look at him as a trumpet player who is a black man, and not a
black man who is a trumpet player.
Myth
"Da Parrot-chick" <ju...@sk.me> skrev i en meddelelse
news:ocb0b.389$xD6...@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net...
> It's African, Tom. Not african. African with a capital A. And American,
> the same capitol A. You wouldn't like people writing denmark, would you?
>
context I was writing "african" in, with a capital letter, if I have
misunderstood the american/english rules I'm sorry, but absolutly no
disrespect was meant as such concerning Africa, or the USA, or africans or
americans. It's not that i want to flame about this but I'm really surprised
about your statement
Take care,
Tom
Erin Evans
mentioned the CD and I told him my Uncle was on piano. He said an
amateur musician friend of his noted that Bill played really quietly and
tentatively on the date as he must have been 'scared to death'. I asked
'why, because he was intimidated as he was now in the big leagues?' He
said no, 'because he was the only white guy in the band'.
Well, that goes in my top 5 list for moronic statements made about jazz.
I then tried to explain Bill's introspective style to him which may be
interpreted as tentative on the date (not to mention that Miles did
somewhat structure the recording towards that 'quiet' style). I got a
blank look.
Ok, Then I told him it's no secret that Bill and Miles got flack for the
pairing. Not an easy date for Bill (even by Mile's own admission). But,
I looked at this guy, who is also a local musician and said 'you're a 27
(?) year old struggling pianist and you suddenly get asked to join the
greatest jazz group on the scene. What would you do?. And some 40 odd
years later it's still on your stereo'. The next stare wasn't as blank
:-).
He asked me if he could borrow a couple of CDs. I gave him "Quiet Now".
Erin
Group: rec.music.bluenote Date: Fri, Aug 15, 2003, 1:11am (PDT+9) From:
tomkri...@webspeed.dk (Myth)
IIRC Bill Evans and Miles got a lot of grief in the black clubs, albeit
for other understandable reasons, the divide was still there late 50's,
and don't forget it was as late as '64 or '65,again IIRC, that full
citizens rights (or is it civil rights) where "extended" to the black
population, at least in principle.
Take care,
Tom
"Helped are those who love and actively support the diversity of life.
They shall be secure in their differentness."
Alice Walker
sum1
> Dear Joseph,
>
> Over the course of this thread, you've been picking sentences out of
> context, questioning me rhetorically on things my words were never
> intended to say.
Strange how that often happens to you, isn't it?
Perhaps if you wrote in a less pedantic style others would have less
difficulty construing your meaning.
Luke Kaven
>Luke Kaven <lu...@smallsrecords.com> wrote
>
>> Dear Joseph,
>>
>> Over the course of this thread, you've been picking sentences out of
>> context, questioning me rhetorically on things my words were never
>> intended to say.
>
>Strange how that often happens to you, isn't it?
>
>Perhaps if you wrote in a less pedantic style others would have less
>difficulty construing your meaning.
No, Joseph is a smart person, and in a face-to-face conversation, he
and I could see clear to one another I think. My disagreements with
him don't amount to very much; they're partly an artifact of the
practice of responding to people's postings sentence by sentence.
Most people here are smart, and disagreements are ones of kinship.
The only one that strikes me as being sadistic by nature is you. As
far as what I write, I use what language I need to express what I want
to say.
Don Mopsick
> example of anyone in the 1920s (or 1910s or 1930s or 1940s) taking
> "Dixie Land" to specifically refer to "black" Southern music as
> opposed to "white" Southern music?
No, I am not misled. Read the book, please. Here it is on amazon:
Here's a reader's review:
"Those unfamiliar with Crosby's earlier work, may not quite realize what a
significant figure he was in the evolution of popular music. Here was a
white artist singing and legitimizing for a broader audience the songs,
techniques, and feeling of black artists."
mopo
Da Parrot-chick
I'm not mad atcha. No problem. It's just respect for one's homeland I
would expect from anybody. A simple mistake. Nothing personal.
I just went to drummer John Robinson's home page and tried to read his
complete discography. That was a big mistake :)
http://www.johnjrrobinson.com/JR-pages/JR-discography-full.html
Don Mopsick
> I think Buck Clayton's jam sessions can be described accurately as
> small-band swing and are different in style from Condon.
>
> Joseph Scott
Yes, Condon and Clayton Jam Sessions were slightly different in style but
both can accurately be described as small-band swing. Condon hated the term
"dixieland," the title of his autobiography sums it up, "We Called It
Music."
"Dixieland" was hung on white musicians playing in a small-band swing style
(another example: Muggsy Spanier) because of the blatant racism of so-called
"jazz jounalists" of the 50s. It's no trivial matter, carrers were destroyed
because of it. And, by the way, present-day players of pre-war jazz avoid
the d-word like the plague.
What tunes do you think "black" bands of the 20s and 30s played? Milestones,
Giant Steps? No, they played Panama, Weary Blues, Royal Garden Blues, and a
lot of other tunes in contrapuntal collective improvised ensembles just like
present-day "dixieland" bands do. We (www.riverwalk.org) just finished
recording a collection of Fletcher Henderson charts from the 20s and 30s.
What tunes did Fletcher play? Jackass Blues, Singin' the Blues (a tribute to
Bix, who had just died), Milenberg Joys, etc. Yah, "dixieland" tunes. They
were called "dixieland" tunes because "black" bands like Fletcher's played
them.
So who was in that band? Coleman Hawkins, Don Redman, Buster Bailey, and for
a time Armstrong himself.
Joseph, sometimes I think you're contrary just to be contrary.
mopo
Myth
this difference in the rules of the American/English language and the Danish
on this subject, but I guess you, or in this case rather I, still learn a
little every day
Take care,
Tomnews:Bqi0b.782$xD6...@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net...
Da Parrot-chick
"Myth" <tomkri...@webspeed.dk> wrote in message
news:3f41ff7d$0$5162$edfa...@dread11.news.tele.dk...
Joseph Scott
> "Joseph Scott" <j_ns...@msn.com> wrote in message
> news:a2d52481.03081...@posting.google.com...
> > "Da Parrot-chick" <ju...@sk.me> wrote in message
> news:<nHZ%a.7325$7z1....@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net>...
> > > "Joseph Scott" <j_ns...@msn.com> wrote in message
> > > news:a2d52481.03081...@posting.google.com...
> > > > > > >Wynton Marsalis is the product of an upper middle-class
> upbringing
> and
> > > > > > >privilege.
> > > >
> > > > Money, hmm. Sidney Bechet's, Miles Davis's, Dexter Gordon's, and
> > > > Charlie Barnet's parents had money, and Louis Armstrong's, Dizzy
> > > > Gillespie's, Benny Carter's, and Benny Goodman's parents didn't: so
> > > > what? What would Wynton be better at today if only his parents had had
> > > > less money?
> > >
> > > He might be a little more humble, for one.
> >
> > As humble as Muhammad Ali?
>
> What does Muhammad Ali have to do with Wynton Marsalis? Or my point?
Muhammad Ali grew up poor and isn't known for his humility. Agreed?
Ditto for e.g. Ray Charles and Paul McCartney, both whom say they
admit they don't even pretend to be humble because they know how much
they've accomplished musically, and Little Richard, whose claims to be
"the architect of rock and roll" are unfair to the rock and roll
musicians who came before him. I don't think this hypothetical Wynton
whose parents had less money necessarily would have been less or more
humble, I don't see how we'd guess much either way.
Joseph Scott