Here at the end of the year I'm cleaning out the literally hundreds of little bits of info that I've taken of the internet that I though twas interesting enough to revisit.
I thought I'd share this with you, a Facebook response from a native New Orleanian conversing about the huge influx of out-of-towner "Jazz" musicians and their effect on the natural environment that creates New Orleans culture. I'm so sorry to not attribute the statement, but it rings true to my experience.
Lots to think on, especially for those engaged in cultural activities that they are not native to:
"Musical styles evolved throughout time.
Here's an exercise that may explain my view.
1) Take a photograph of a flowing river.
2) Give the photo a descriptive title.
3) Try to duplicate the subtleties of that "titled photo" by taking another photo of the same river.
You can't. Culture is fluid.
But the river has its uniqueness as per the location of the photo even though no 2 will be alike.
I am not as vocal as I used to be but I will say this. New Orleans is a culturally unique place.
I am who I am because I paid no attention to what "you" thought of me.
Have you ever felt an intimate relationship with a dancer as you played from your heart? Time is the secret to all of this.
Now that I've given you the answer, you can work on it, like I've done and continue to do, or you can continue to critique the framed whitewashed canvas as a snow covered plain.
Rest assured, I will not mumble behind your back about your deficiencies."
Or as a local instrument repair man calls them, "Fartaphones." New Orleans may rightly claim to the be Sousaphone Capital of the Western World but, if truth be told, it's actually the Fiberglass Sousaphone Capital of the World. They're cheaper, lighter and seemingly all stolen from a school band in Mississippi (ok, not true but true enough to be funny.) Most seem to be held together with duct tape and good intensions and I've never seen one ever even close to a hard case, much less a gig bag. The cats who play them in the street bands don their best to pump as much air through them as they can, producing, well, a great blatting roar. I've played them, but they're never my first choice. I was loaned a lovely older King, like the one pictured in the William Bell ad here, when I was teaching at Klez Fest UK in London. And the NCTA provided me one for my appearances with Frank London's Klezmer Brass
W/ Susan Watts @ Richmond Folk Festival
All Stars. Which was a good thing too because at the American Folk Festival in Bangor, a coastal storm came up out of nowhere during our main stage performance, making the band scatter but for reasons I'm still not sure about I just kept playing in the driving rain. I guess I subconsciously realized that wrapped in plastic, I'd be safe from a lightning strike. I don't own one of these, but I wouldn't turn one down if you have one sitting in you garage or attic. Seriously.
Having made my musical life for so long in Texas/Oklahoma and now living in New Orleans, I'm confronted regularly with so called "jazz" music. Seems that having played Texas Swing for so long, I've been exposed to a great big chunk of the core material that makes up the standard repertoire of the Non-African American dance music "scene," here. But unlike just about every musician I encounter here, I don't have a college degree and I didn't study music formally. I don't read music, well enough that is to sight read on a gig at any rate. And no one ever taught me any of these tunes, I had to learn them on the bandstand. It's been a STEEP learning curve, I tell ya. And the keys that they play in here are mostly in Eb, Bb and Ab, which is good natural keys for trumpets and clarinets. Bet they're HELL on the tenor banjo or fiddle which play best in keys without flats, and having to re-learn all the classics in a new key has been a real challenge. A fun one, but still. I have a LOT to learn here and it's been very humbling and affirming as I make the changes to become a working New Orleans musician.
This is what a Texas Swing band looks like.
One of the aspects that I really loved about the "Texas Swing" approach was that it was founded by dance band trained folk musicians, "breakdown" fiddlers and such, who were exposed to African-America music styles who then clumsily, but honestly, reconfigured the music to suit themselves and their audience. Milton Brown, Cliff Bruner and Pre-War Bob Wills recordings always sparkled with this new concoction of melding the established traditions of Anglo-American dance music and the aspirational sounds of the Black "hot music" bands that they would run into. It's not for no reason Milton Browns' sides were cut in here in New Orleans. Steel man Bob Dunn was a hot jazz Trombonist before he pioneered the brand new instrument that came to dominate Texas Swing to this day. It's was "swinging," but it wasn't "Jazz." It was something all its own.
Nice hat, but he's not from Texas. Actually a Jew from Rhode Island.
It wasn't until WW2 and just after did the "hillbilly" guys start playing with the instrumental and arranging sophistication of not only the great Black dance bands (Ellington, Basie) but also the White City-boy bands like Woody Herman and Stan Kenton. Here and then the "Texas" sound start to fade replaced with the now California based "Western Swing," essentially "jazz" played with cowboys boots. It's not my favorite development, but listening to the best examples of it show just how far the Texas boys had strayed from "Boil Them Cabbage Down." (Tex Williams' amazing note for note rendering of Stan Kenton's "Artistry in Swing" as "Artistry in Western Swing" is as fine as an example as you will find.) This is where guys like Ray Benson and his Asleep at the Wheel start listening and take from there. Seriously. He told me so in person, "that old hokum stuff from before, it's just not cool." Which explains his personal version of the music which for good or ill has become the de facto standard of the form in it's present and entirely de-contextualized version.
How refreshing it was to find this video of just some band leaping into a fun tune, no different really from any the groups I saw growing up as a kid in Oklahoma on say, the Jude and Judy show on WKY-TV or playing the weekly square dance where my folks club "the Norman Thunderbirds" would dance. A hot NOLA standard too.
Enjoy:
Submitted humbly is my personal version of Texas Swing music:
I'm very lucky to be a member of the Carnival Season brass agregation, the Panorama Brass Band. Essentially a enlarged version of the amazing Panorama Jazz Band with some wacko out-of-town ringers (like me.) This year's parade season was the best yet, in my opinion and this particular version of the band has a really wonderful and sweet vibe all week long. I produced a CD for the Jazz Band just a few months prior to Katrina hitting, and you should try and find yourself a copy.
What's also amazing is the fact that cell phone technology has advanced to the point where nearly every moment of parade is available for viewing on YouTube. So, I have compiled here quite a few little snippets of the parades, up to and including rolling with the St. Anthony Ramblers on Mardi Gras day.
I must say one of the most moving and tender moments I've had all year was performing a chorale in honor of one of the Rambler's who passed over to glory in the last year, while we were introduced to brand new Rambler's who just recently came into this world. All on a Mardi Gras Day, in the Marginy in New Orleans. (Makes a big boy like me pretty weepy. And yes the sound is awful, but I hope you get the spirit that was created in the moment.)
We actually took a couple days off between rolls and recorded a CD, which I hope will be all wrapped up and out soon. The 2010 version of the Panorama Brass Band was:
Patty Farrel, alto horn
Don Godwin & Mark Rubin, tenor horns
Charlie Halloran, slide trombone
Ben Schenck, clarinet
Aurora Nealan, alto sax
JR Hankins, truba
Jack Pritchett
, trumpet
Dan Oestreicher, bari sax
John Gross, sousaphone
Boyana Travanova, spinning drum
Greg Mervine, bass drum
Sean Clark & Ritchie Barshay, percussion
Bon Mardi Gras, y'all. See you next year, for sho!!
Since you most likely missed it, here's the Panorama Brass Band parading with the St. Anthony Ramblers in the French Quarter. We're just leaving the church on Jackson Square and headed down Charters. The tune is a Sher, can't recall the title, but from the Yiddish repertoire. I'm the 2nd tenor torn player. Yes, in this band, I'm happy to the tenor horn man.
Look about 2 minutes in where I run into another Krewes musicians, who quite cooincidentally turns out under his mask is a fellow Austinite and band mate of mine in the Monkey Butlers Oliver Steck. You see where I hand him a flask of 20 year old home brewed Slivovitz provided to me by a dear friend from Serbia, and saved for toasting this very occasion.
I hope all of you can come celebrate the rebuliding of New Orleans, both phsyically and spiritually in years to come.
I can hardly contain myself. A few short days, a trip to the rental car joint, and then it's I-10 West to New Orleans to roll with the Panorama Brass Band.
February 15, Knights of Babylon, Uptown, rolls at 5:45pm February 16, Krewe of Morpheus, rolls at 7:45pm Cafe Brazil, post parade shindig February 17, post-Edmyion party, Rusty Nail, Lee Circle, 9pm February 18, Box of Wine, Garden District, rolls at 4:30pm February 19, busking in Jackson Square, 11am-2pm Mimi's (Franklin & Royal,) 9am-12am February 20, MARDI GRAS, all over the French Quarter
