On Jun 1, 9:48 am, "David Webber" <d...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
wrote:
> "LJS" <ljsche...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>
>
news:64f4605e-a302-4e51-8347-0a67cc5ef5ba@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> > No it doesn't. But if you live there and you are part of the community
> > and you speak to a lot of old people that come from long lines of
> > people that were there before the recordings that you heard were ever
> > even a possibility, you certainly know a bit more than someone that
> > has been there only twice and that relies so heavily on a limited
> > amount of research done by someone else that had only sketchy and
> > biased sources of information.
>
> You really don't get it, do you? This period has been the subject of
very
> extensive historical research, since the days when the pioneers were
> actually alive and interviewed at great length by proper music
hstorians.
> and there is an immense amount of recorded jazz from 1917 onwards, and
> NOTHING before that - although there are plenty of ragtime, and other
> non-jazz recordings from significantly earlier.
>
> The sources of information available to the researchers was a lot less
> sketchy than what is available now, and the recordings are as they made
> them - real musical evidence. I really don't know why you see fit to
> denigrate, my knowledge of the era, and especially not that of your
> compatriots who have researched it, thoroughly, using evidence available
to
> them from the 1930s onwards, which no longer exists. Every sentence
you
> utter, makes it clear that you know a lot less than they did.
>
> I have never claimed that the source of my knowledge was the two visits
-
> they were just curiosity. And of course I did listen to the last,
though
> rather tenuous, contact with the old days - a great tourist attraction.
>
> > I spoke to musicians who's fathers were
> > well established players at the turn of the century and their grand
> > fathers were part of musical families way before then.
>
> This surprises me considering the ignorance of early jazz which you put
on
> show here. Who?
>
> > When one is
> > interested in the evolution and the heritage of their profession,
> > being there does make a difference. You can read about it all you
> > want. It can not substitute for reading about it, interviewing people
> > about it and living and working in the culture consistently since the
> > mid 40s.
>
> The point is you can *read* the interviews which were done decades ago -
> interviews of the players who were there. and you can listen to their
> music, though it is clear you have never done so.
Come on Dave, I heard those recordings 50 years ago. I studied them in
the late 60s. Do you really think that I haven't heard these records?
They are fine for what they are. They are a record of the state of the
music when influence of the earlier musicians whose work spreading
their craft reached the popularity that prompted the record industry
to record this style of music. And then they chose a white band for
the first recording! The Original Dixie Land Jass Band's recording of
"Livery Stable Blues", coupled with "Dixie Jass Band One Step" became
the first Jazz record ever released on February 26, 1917 for the
Victor Talking Machine Company. It was wildly successful. The La Roca
brothers and the other members of this band played with "Papa Laine's
band in 1888 and these white bands did not start this whole thing. The
La Roca's picked this style up from the Black musicians that was
playing as they grew up!
>
> > As to the European influence on the music, you either mis read what I
> > said, took it out of context or there was an error in my writing!
>
> There are lots of errors in your writing - little else in fact on this
> subject.
>
> >The
> > European tradition of education did play a big role. It gave the
> > Creoles the education necessary to read and write the music that was
> > already going on there and it gave some, that you mentioned like
> > Joplin, and Handy,
>
> Neither of whom were Creole AFAIK and neither of whom had anything
> significant (directly) to do with jazz.
Strange, the authorities say that these are directly related to the
style and all of this and other styles are the components that came
from the thread of music that is and was Jass. BUT of course you know
better than them.
>
> > etc the education to take the music they heard and
> > "correct" it to fit into the European language of music that allowed
> > it to be acceptable to the American and European culture. Any
> > reference to
>
> Can you get much more partronising? You are talking about geniuses -
> people who were better musicians than you or I will ever be.
You have no idea of what kind of musician that I am! that is a very
strange thing for an educated person to say.
>
> >> There was no jazz in 1803 and absolutely nothing like it. It's
first
> >> exponents were born three or more generations later. If you're
talking
> >> about roots that far back, you may as well credit Mozart and
Beethoven
> >> with
> >> jazz, and credit Chopin with ragtime, or point out that my great
> >> grandfather
> >> was into Rock and Roll.
>
> > You are sticking to the absurd notion that it just happened to appear
> > on one day when it was recorded!
>
> I have never said that. The best evidence is that the music which we
call
> jazz did not exist before 1915, and was first recorded in 1917. At
which
> point it was developing very rapidly, and two years was an eternity.
The
> contrast in style between the ODJB's 1917-19 recordings, and anything
else
> shortly afterwards (Paul Whiteman, Joe Oliver,....) is enormous. It was
> obviously an art form developing at an amazing pace: you only have to
listen
> to it to understand that.
Lets see, recorded in 1917 and first concieved in 1915. Yes, that is
how long it took to evolve! You really should construct a time line. I
see now that you are saying that it was not the Creoles that started
but the La Roca family! Yes they did the first recording, but they are
accused of stealing the style from the Black musicians and
capitalizing on it! I am not sure which Dave I am talking to anymore!
And yes, it did develop at an amazing pace after the record industry
got involved. You, however, seem to want to just dismiss all the Black
musicians that painstakingly promoted it before that for many, many
years!
>
> >In spite of citations that I have
> > provided concerning people, bands, descriptions of the music and
> > anything else that you need to see that this just wasn't true!
>
> What citations?
Read the old posts, they are all in my earlier responses that
do***ented the music back to the mid 1800s. What do you think I have
been talking about in all these posts about your not reading the
research I sent you through the group! You are constantly talking
about your research, but you have refused to look at any other
research! You are disputing things without checking the sources that I
gave you! What part about that don't you understand!
>
> > Really
> > Dave, you seem to think that one day Jelly Roll just woke up and said,
> > "Hmm, I will go down and record the first improvisational recording of
> > music that is entirely new and has nothing to do with the past."....
>
> He just recorded what he wanted to record. Tell me then - who else has
> recorded anything like that before hand? What is your evidence that
anyone
> was playing like that significantly before he did? When he was
> interviewed (in 1939 IIRC) he clearly said that no-one was.
That is the point Dave, THERE WAS NO RECORDINGS BEFORE THE La Roca
Dixieland Jazz Band! NO ONE RECORDED BEFORE THAT! You seem to be
saying that the music started with the recordings. Common knowledge
and the research that I sent you show that this style was pretty well
established before that! Long before that. After it was recorded, of
course, things started to change and morph the style into various
schools of Jazz. But the music was well established long before 1917
or 1915! This is when the new era of popularity started.
>
> > It just didn't happen that way. The early recordings were a ***ulation
> > of decades and more evolution and mixing of all the aspects of life in
> > New Orleans.
>
> But not of decades of jazz.
Only because the NAME was not yet invented! the music was there.
>
> >There as music at the funerals since before anyone can
> > remember.
>
> And there were marches - but not jazz.
You know this because? No, this is your supposition, the facts tend to
suggest otherwise!
>
> > There was blues taken from the African music,
>
> How far the blues goes back is very obscure - it probably wasn't as long
as
> you think. But in any case it was not jazz.
I see, even though the first recording was a blues, it has nothing to
do with Jazz! That's logical!
>
> > this was
> > crafted by use in the churches, there was Caribbean influences of
> > rhythm and dance and melody from the VooDoo services.
>
> There is certainly a Latin influence but nothing significant I can
remember
> to do with voodoo.
That is another part of our culture that you know nothing about!
>
> > There was
> > marching bands that were part of the social clubs formed by the freed
> > slaves as well as the Creole families, there was music with the Mardi
> > Gras parades there was music in the Opera houses, there was music
> > everywhere...
>
> But no jazz.
And no citations by you to refute the citations that I sent you!
>
> > The music was spread by many in its earlier stages and in its
> > component parts. Way back before there were recordings.
>
> But no jazz.
Again, only your unsup****ted opinion!
>
> >The reason
> > that it was such a hit, was that sophisticated people in Chicago, New
> > York and other parts of the world had heard about this music, they had
> > talked to people that was down in New Orleans and thus when Jelly Roll
> > (I think that was the one you mentioned, we have so many early greats)
> > and the other bands were recorded by the recording companies, they
> > were well established.
>
> Yes they had been doing it for a few years. A decade or so if you're
> talking about the Red Hot Peppers recordings of circa 1926.
No, they knew about Jass before the recordings of 1917
>
> > The market was hot to hear this sound that was
> > already called Jas in the whore houses and was already a part of the
> > music scene for a long time in New Orleans.
>
> No - what we now call "jazz" had been going only a very short time.
However
> much you want to romanticise it.
>
> > The early recorders
> > discovered Jazz.
>
> The people who played it on the early recordings were inventing it.
>
> > It was not created with these recordings. Musicians
> > were playing it long before they were exploited by the recording
> > industries.
>
> Not for long. One or two of the record companies were quite quick,
once
> the riverboats hit Chicago.
I see, now the riverboats started in the 1900s as well! You are
correct in that the boats brought Jass up the river, but even that was
earlier. And then it was spread by train even earlier and any way that
people traveled back then.
>
> >T hink about it Dave, its not only the tons of
> > do***entation that I provided,
>
> All you have done is rubbish the academic studies, the interviews of the
> musicianss who were there at the time, and point to one or two internet
> sites which give scant sup****t for their assertions (which do not in any
> event show that jazz existed before around 915).
Then you didn't read the sites and follow the do***entation did you? I
am not going to write a book for you, if you want to truly learn, you
have to make some effort!
>
> > it just could not have happened the way
> > you ****tray the inception.
>
> I didn't happen the way you say I ****tray it, that's for sure. But
then I
> didn't say it did.
But you refuse to say how I am misinterpreting what you said! I have
asked many times for you to clarify my misconceptions of what you have
said but to no avail! You say that I don't understand your position,
but I have told you what I understand you to have said and you never
refute it except to say that I "don't understand you!" Well, what is
your position on this? When was Jazz formed and how did it happen? I
have been looking for a more sensible explanation now for two very
long threads and you refuse to clarify your position! Is that because
I really do understand what you are saying! What else can anyone
think?
>
> ..... Jazz from the era of 1915 through today.
>
> > BUT, that was not the beginning of the music.
>
> All the evidence says it was teh beginning of what we know as "jazz".
Oh, is this your hedge now? You will redefine "what we know as Jazz"?
Well then lets hear it! What is "what we know as JAZZ".
>
> > It was the beginning of
> > the "recorded history" of our music.
>
> The recorded history of the popular music of the day goes a lot further
back
> than the first jazz recordings of 1917. But no-one recorded jazz
> because there wasn't any.
You keep saying that! but you don't provide any backup!
>
> > The end result? Well until fairly recently, most of the research was
> > in these romanticized and less than perfect accounts of what actually
> > went on.
>
> No. There were one or two very respectable academic studies of who
> Schuller's is one. There are others.
Yes, Schuller. When was he here again? Wasn't he the one that hired
>
> > Just because there was no interest outside of New Orleans while Jazz
> > was in its infant stages does not mean that it did not exist.
>
> There was lots of interest outside New Orleans - so much so that it
spread
> very rapidly to rather distant (and to me obscure) places like
Daven****t,
> Iowa, as well as to New York, Chicago, and California.
>
> >Even in
> > its simplest forms, it is a very complex form of music when you get to
> > the actual sound and how and why it all works. It did NOT just occur
> > overnight in the first two decades of the 20th Century.
>
> So you keep saying, but there is no evidence for anything we might call
> "jazz" before that, and a lot of evidence that there wasn't anything.
>
> >> Actually I didn't. You're making it up.
Then tell me what you said. I have asked before, but no answer was
forth comming
>
> > I believe that you said several times that there was no Jazz before
> > the recordings that you have.
>
> No - I said there is no evidence for jazz more than a couple of years
before
> them.
I have given you a couple of years before that over and over again.
You say that there was no jazz then before 1915! Big difference in
light of the fact that I have shown you that it was well established
before 1888 even in the White community and they were by no means the
originators of the style. They learned the style by listening to
established bands long before that. So stop with this "I didn't say
there was not jazz before 1917 it was before 1915" that they didn't
have any! long before 1888 was definitely before 1915 as well! Really
Dave!
>
> > And you said that there was no Jazz in
> > Storyville and that it was all a creation of (I may have the wrong
> > person here) Jelly Roll Morton.
>
> What are you rabbitting on about now? Jelly Roll Morton worked in
> Storyville. And yes he was one of theearliest pionneers of jazz. His
> statement that he invented it has to be taken with a pinch of salt - but
> no-one has shown it to be that far from the truth (especially if you
omit
> the "single-handedly".)
Well in the older thread, you disputed my assertion that there was
jazz in Storyville. BTW, I thought he was one of the originators that
you claimed to be the start of the Creole inventions of Jazz, sorry
for that, who did you say invented it in 1917 with the recording?)
Storyville was opened in 1897, 20 years before you claim, and even
this is not the beginning of the Jazz idoom, only the word Jas was
given to the music then. The music was around before it was named.
>
> > I see. So you HAVE NOT read the do***entation that I sent you.
>
> Do***entation? There were a few web links to a few simple articles,
which
> you interpreted by assuming that everything they advertised a "jazz" (or
> "jass") to get the crowds in was in fact jazz (as we would recognise it
> today).
Then you should review how to use a website! There were links in those
pages, if you even actually read them, that linked to pages and pages
of other links that do***ented everything! And now you seem to be
setting up an "out" for your unsup****ted statements! Now it is that
they said they were playing Jazz, ( hmm, in the era that it did not
exist, and before there was this name for the music!) but they were
lying to get the crowds (hmm, if it was only popularized after 11917,
what crowds were going to come to hear a music that was not named nor
was it even in existance?) to come to see this non existent music! And
I suppose that you will soon play your OUT card by saying that "Well
it is not Jazz as we (meaning you I suppose, because I am sure I would
recognize it if one could actually hear it before it was recorded!)
would recognize it today"!. Well, its not like the music that we play
today. It is, however like some of the music that is played in G.B. by
musicians that think they are playing jazz in these music clubs that
are wonderful, but are not really very authentic. The ones that came
here from that crowd seemed to think that if you played a bit out or
tune and a very choppy that you were authentic. There are a few of
those guys still around. The ones still here are the ones that learned
what Dixieland Jazz was really about and thus they learned to play it
properly. No, these recordings are not the way we know jazz today just
as the jazz from the 20s is not nor is the music of the 30s or even
the 40s. Everything changes and if you arbitrarily say that the way
YOU want to think of as Jazz started, well YOU can say it began
whenever you want and there can be no argument and if you had said
that, then I would not have questioned anything that you said.
BUT, you didn't. You said that there was no JAZZ before these
recordings and that the Creole people invented Jazz and the Black
musicians that came from the slave culture had nothing to do with it,
that Jazz was not related to the Blues, marching bands, funeral bands,
ragtime, ragitty piano, or any other of the styles of improvised music
that was played in the New Orleans culture. It is ALL jazz. Jazz is
much more than your recordings (which are great and they are jazz
also!) but ALL of the music that I have mentioned are all variations
of the improvised music that was later to be named Jazz. Just like the
music of today, there are many faces to Jazz. There were many faces to
Jazz back then even though it had not adopted the name. All the
musicians played the music of New Orleans. This is Jazz the music that
was created here. he recordings are merely one facet of the entire
face of Jazz. After the recordings made "Jazz" popular, all of these
musicians that specialized in the other facets of the larger picture
of Jazz, got to make some money doing their own thing. There were
society jazz bands, street jazz bands, solo piano jazz players,
(Ragtime and other forms, usually many forms by the same musician)
there was good jazz bands, bad jazz bands, the Magnolia Indians had
their own form of Jazz bands in a later period, ALL of the styles I
mentioned, are Jazz. To continue to insist that it started in 1917
when one particular face of the Jazz World as it existed in New
Orleans, made it big on the national scene. To think that your small
exposure to an admittedly im****tant facet of the whole is the ONE AND
ONLY JAZZ is extremely self centered and extremely egotistical! From
some of your improvisational questions and other comments about Jazz,
one can see that you are still learning the style, yet you have the
nerve to claim to be the one, the only one, that is qualified to
determine what Jazz is and what it was when you obviously don't really
understand the style from a musical standpoint.
>
> >Until
> > you do, you will not see how your research is out dated.
>
> I'm afraid, it cannot now be updated by interviewing people who are now
> dead. And there is still no evidence in anything you have shown me
that
> jazz existed before about 1915, and a lot of evidence that it didn't.
New do***ents have been found. They have filled in some of the gaps.
If you don't know this, then you haven't looked lately. Check what I
sent you! Its all there if you know how to use the web for research.
>
> Dave
> --
> David Webber
> Author of 'Mozart the Music Processor'http://www.mozart.co.uk
> For discussion/sup****t
seehttp://www.mozart.co.uk/mozartists/mailinglist.htm
So in conclusion:
I give up. You refuse to look at the more complete research. You
won't look at the do***entation that I gave you. You insist that Jazz
was formed in 1915. or very near to that. You know better than the
Tulane University Jazz Archives, after all, what do they know, they
are such a slipshod research facility that is world renown for their
research and their musicological programs, you know better than WWOZ
who sponsors research and programs to research the sort of thing. You
know more than the Barbarians that I have spoke to, more than Danny
Barker who explained a lot about the links to the slave musicians,
more than the Lastie family. You know everything about our Creole
culture, you know more about our culture than all of the other people
that have made a life of studying these origins. You should write a
book and show all the others that have actually been here, did the
real research. You win. We are ALL WRONG! We know nothing about our
heritage!
LOL, and if you believe that, I would like to talk to you about some
beach front property right south of New Orleans. I can get you a real
deal!
You have not looked at the information that I sent you.
I don't think that you even heard of the Tulane Archives.
Maybe you heard about WWOZ but I doubt if you spoke to any of their
people.
You know better than the Barbarain family members that I know and
have spoken to.
You know better than the Lastie family.
You know better than Danny Barker.
Better than the La Roca family.
You know it all and you don't want to learn any more!
Charles "Buddy" Bolden was a top draw playing what was later named
Jazz in 1900. He didn't get this way overnight. He is considered by
many to play ragtime and this is considered to be the forerunner of
jazz by most. He doesn't count.
The Marching Bands and the Second Line Funeral bands playing the music
doesn't count.
I just saw in the paper today that referred to Louis Armstrong went to
Miline Boys Home in 1913 where he learned to play the trumpet. Why did
he go there? Because he shot off a revolver in celebration in front of
a jazz bar that is now looking for the proper way to be renovated! Why
did he learn the trumpet, because an older (soon to be called) Jazz
musician advised him to in order to stay out of trouble. He grew up
listening to Jazz, but oh no, he couldn't according to you because it
didn't exist!
Nothing started until the recordings started! Oops, make that two
years before the recordings started!
So what more can I say. Those that know everything don't want to
learn any more! If you decide to check out the links that I sent you
and do some research, I may continue this discussion. But your name
calling and aspersions without ANYTHING to back up your view except
for some very old research by Gunter Schuller and I don't even know
how accurate you are interpreting his writings! are getting just to
inane to even consider. Unless I see anything that you say that is
more than "I know better than you because you don't know anything!" or
something else that shows you can back up anything you have said
besides by quoting Gunter Schuller, I am finished with your
*****sment of our music and our culture.
You keep referring to the recordings as being the most im****tant
aspects of musical evidence. Yes, it is good evidence all right, it is
evidence that this particular facet of our music was recorded at that
time. It is absolutely not evidence of what went on before that pr of
what the entirety of our music was at that point in time. It only
addresses that particular facet of jazz and what occurred afterward!
Yes, circa 1920 was a very im****tant part of the spread and thus the
popularity and the commercial possibilities that caused rapid advances
to our music. It was, however, a big part of our culture well before
that and it had developed many genres of its own even way back then.
But you know better, so there you are. Your recordings represent all
of our music that was happening at that time as well as all that came
before it! Lets not mess up your world by giving credit and
acknowledgment to the multitude of musicians that brought this music
to this point and that were playing solo piano, and marching, and
playing funerals, and singing this music in church and playing it in
the brothels and in the bars and for the dances. None of these
contem****ary musicians that were not fortunate enough to get in on the
band wagon of the FIRST recordings that were labeled Jazz. But after
this, (did you ever consider?) the spread of Jazz was very rapid
because all of these other people WERE ALREADY PLAYING THE SAME THING
and now that there was a market for it, they started to work as well!
This is why it spread so quickly! It spread because IT WAS NOT NEW TO
US! It was only new to the rest of America and the world! YOU
discovered it at that time! We had been playing it all along. Sure it
spread, we needed the bucks! The musicians were playing this music for
practically nothing, but after 1917 and with the Prohibition money
floating around, we were all too happy to capitalize with what he had
been doing for generations. FINALLY, someone discovered us! This is
the way it was. One single facet of Jazz made it to your ears and you
think that this is the whole picture.
So unless you come up with the goods, you are just bumping your gums.
Maybe Gunter Schuller, (that great jazz player!) has convinced you
that this recorded sound is the only music that we played in the jazz
idiom. The families that played it before you and he say that they did
don't agree and neither do the more adept researchers that have a more
complete picture of the story. It is like crossing the Atlantic. If
you don't look beneath the waters, you will not see how deep the ice
burg really goes!
LJS
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