[Tradjazz] Tradjazz Digest, Vol 17, Issue 5

[Steve Barbone]

"Bruce McNichols" <muskrat at bestweb.net>
 
> Every once in a while, I take a moment and enter the world of Google (a
> fascinating place it is).  I looked up Smith Street Society (there we were),
> Muskrat Productions (there too) and Dixieland Jazz (if we're there, we ain't
> up top).
> I checked out the listing for Dixieland Jazz - an Overview and came upon a
> very interesting thing. Check it out. Of course, I'm no expert but my lifetime
> has afforded me many impressions of our music, its origins and its
> permutations, and this seems to be a fairly accurate item.
> 
> I didn't delve into all the pages but I read the first one, which tells the
> basic facts. They covered the era of Storyville but didn't tell of it's
> closing (although maybe that comes later).
> 
> The itemizing of the various instruments, and when they came along, seems
> reasonable, although I wonder if anybody really knows the exact details.
> 
> I like the whole thing, as a primer about the music.
> 
> GO TO: http://nfo.net/usa/JO.html   (copy it over to your web browser)
> 
> ALSO:  Google dixieland jazz, for much more.
> 
> McN

Hello Bruce:

One word of CAUTION about articles like the the one you mention. They often
contain information that is jut plain LUDICROUS. This article starts out
with an incredible error, quoted below:

>"Firstly, due very greatly to the influence of one musician, Bix Beiderbecke,
>instrumental Soloing became a fixture of Dixieland Jazz. Musicians, such as
>Louis Armstrong and others, would take Bix's idea and expand on it by making
>Solos a fixed feature, along with routining the way bands would play, and some
>other improvements."

Was this part written by an idiot . . . or a racist? <grin> No wonder many
black jazz musicians claimed that whites were ripping them off.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone