"LJS" <ljschenck@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:6ac49f4b-3d61-460c-9fc3-53dbc5f5b7eb@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> On Mar 18, 4:28 am, "David Webber" <d...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> I think that your cart has somehow gotten in front of your horse.
???? You seem to be on neither the horse nor the cart but on another
planet, and all from one throw away remrk abof mine about Creole and
Cajun.
> Notice some of the things that you have said.
> Louis played 2nd cornet (the jazz chair) in the King Oliver band.
There weren't any other kind of chairs in that band :-)
>Joe
> Oliver took the band etc.
>
> Louis was not Creole. Oliver was.
Yes and he was a generation older than Armstrong (a jazz generation, at
least). And despite your comments below about blacks not mixing with
creoles, Armstrong played in Oliver's band and learned an awful lot from
him.
> This is a good example of what was
> going on. The music was created by the workers, the peons both black
> and white. It came from the fields of slavery.
???? Jazz did not come from the fields of slavery. From what is known
the fields of slavery were largely devoid of polyphonic instrumental
improvisation, and the slaves couldn't afford to buy trombones. The
Blues
were born out of slavery, but other ingredients in jazz weren't.
> Creoles were not slaves
> or low class workers.
I don't understand "low class" - I thought you Americans always claimed a
classless society and hung the class label on us? They were certainly
not
all rich.
> Jazz developed in the brothels of Storyville by...
Well every bordello had its resident pianist and that's where Morton
learned
his trade (making him "low class" or not?) but the original jazz bands
were
just the local marching bands.
> the working class blacks....
perhaps "non-whites" is a better designation
> and it was their ticket to a better life.
and again in the earliest days that is not so clear cut. Later on
Fletcher
Henderson (for example) got a chemistry degree, found that his colour
barred
him from using it an a proper job, and found he could earn more playing
the
piano - so I suppose that *was* a ticket to a better life. But I have
never thought of early jazz as a "class" thing: except of course its
proponents were non-white if that's what ou mean (including, I believe,
the
Creoles in US parlance).
[I confess I have always had difficulty with American ideas of class and
race. For example we'd be in all sorts of trouble in Europe if we
regarded
"hispanic" as a different race from "white" - most countries in the EU
have
a healthy racial mix, but we don't think of the Spanish as being different
from the rest of us!]
> The
> pay was good, the surroundings were nice, and the work was a lot
> easier than most of the other choices.
Well again in the earliest days (before the invention of jazz clubs), I'm
not at all sure of this. If you're talking about Ellington at the Cotton
Club, well maybe by then (though I have to stretch to think of a club
where
the band could be black but the clientelle couldn't as "nice"). But
certainly until jazz broke out of New Orleans and started attracting a
white
audience, then I don't think this applies.
> The owners that hired them were
> American owners and Creole owners.
The Creoles *were* American.
>The Creole people were not related
> to the black slave culture in New Orleans. They were the educated
> class
On the whole more educated tha the blacks yes (but see Fletcher Henderson
above!)
> and the class with money
You really shouldn't generalise so.
> and the class that was the most
> cultured at that time.
"Cultured" is a nice word, though its definition various with time and the
definer! But yes, certainly thay had their own culture, with a
significant
(continental) European influence.
> They promoted Jazz, they did not create it.
No, you're wrong.
They *invented* it - Jelly Roll Morton was as creole as can be and he says
so! :-)
Ok he was a character, but he can certainly lay claim to being the first
"jazz composer" and he created one hell of a lot of jazz all by himself.
Then there was Joe Oliver who created lots of jazz. And Sidney Bechet
(theres even a CD now called "Sidney Bechet creole prodigy")
> Very early on, so did the White people.
Well yes I suppose Paul Whiteman was one of the earliest. But white
people like the brilliant (and very middle class) Bix Beiderbecke, Larry
****elds, Nick La Rocca, Jack Teagarden et al, created jazz as well, and
fairly early on, and so even that is not completely clear cut.
> There were of course educated
> Creoles that exploited the medium.
Perhaps. Who?
> They hired the musicians and made
> money off of it, it was not, however, Creole music.
It was New Orleans music, played by non-whites first, of whom a lot of the
most significant early practitioners were, quite contrary to your
assertions, Creole.
> Today, the lines are very blurred. You will have long lines of Creole
> families that are big local (and national) names in the music
> business. But at its inception, the Jazz musicians that created the
> style were the workers.
Again you can't generalise like that. Many of them had enough money to
pay
for instrumental lessons.
> They were hired to play the music. I don't get
> the feeling that the difference of the Creole and the freed Slaves are
> understood here.
I get the feeling I'm being patronised. I understand it well enough
thank
you. (And we're talking about approx 50 years (two generations) after
the
abolition of slavery in the USA and significantly longer than that since
its
abolition in the West Indes.)
>They were not the same people. Creoles did not mix
> with the Blacks.
You only have to look at the early jazz bands to see what total nonsense
that is. Creoles and blacks played together all the time!
> Many Creoles were slave owners themselves.
Certainly not by 1910-20.
> Things did
> meld together to a great extent, through the 60's
Well the 1860s were a little bit early for jazz, so I guess you mean the
1960s - but what on earth has that to do with the origins of jazz????
> even, there were
> very strong divisions between the Blacks and Creoles.
Look at the early jazz bands, for heavens sake! Are you telling me the
people who played together (and Oliver and Armstrong form just one of a
plethora of examples) couldn't have done so because of "strong divisions".
> Even today, the
> Creole and the Blacks are very different demographic groups.
So what?
> If you enjoy the fantasy of the Creole stories that romanticize the
> history, enjoy. But that is not the way that it came about.
I haven't romanticised *anything*. (I have never AFAIK heard any
"Creole stories", but I have got a record collection and a number of books
on jazz.) It is quite indisputable that Morton and other really great
early practioners were Creole, (though I was never claiming jazz as the
racially pure Creole art form (a) that you are trying desperately to hang
around my neck, and (b) that you seem to be trying to ascribe purely to
blacks. The image of Morton playing piano in a bordello does not sit
easily with your description of Creoles as a monied "high class" society.
Things were a lot more complicated (and less segregated) than you're
giving
them credit for.
> The music
> is the music not matter how it came to be, but it is really one of the
> true "grass roots" movements of all times. It came from the Black
> churches
I thought, a moment ago, you said it came from brothels???? But now
you're
confusing jazz with Gospel music...
> and the fields
....and Blues,
> and from using the European instruments to
> play popular songs.
And many instruments used by jazz musicians became available after army
bands disbanded after WWI - but that doesn't make jazz a military music
either (though Blues and Ragtime were both occasionally played by early
military bands).
> The Creoles were Catholic. They were the business
> people.
That's a completely misleading generalisation and...
> Only later did they join the Jazz bandwagon. They were not the
> originators.
....that is the most utter rot.
I'm afraid you're the one who is rewriting history. If what you say were
true, then I guess I'll have to thow away all my recordings of King
Oliver,
Jelly Roll Morton, Sidney Bechet, Alphonse Picou, A J Piron, Alcide
Nunez,
Omer Simeon, Kid Ory, Freddie Keppard, .... These people were
obviously
impostors.
If Jelly Roll Morton was not the first jazz composer, then who was?
And just from curiosity - who are you claiming did start the "bandwagon"
that all these people "jumped on".
Dave
--
David Webber
Author of 'Mozart the Music Processor'
http://www.mozart.co.uk
For discussion/sup****t see
http://www.mozart.co.uk/mozartists/mailinglist.htm
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