"LJS" <ljschenck@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:da7ddc25-5d4f-4720-b990-37f15fc08bff@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> "The La Roca brothers [sic] and the other members of this band played
>> with
>> Papa Laine's band in 1888"
>>
>> I didn't 'misread' it - you specifically say "...La Roca ...played
...in
>> 1888." Any "intelligent person" can see this.
>
> And you mis read it again as I said that this was a typo and
> explained how an intelligent person should have noticed this. But
> instead....
You are constantly trying to claim that jazz existed much earlier than
there
is any evidence for it: I'll take every such claim as a "typo" from now
on.
>> But if you really do want to lean about what jazz, blues, and ragtime
>> are:
>> try the Victor Military Band's 1914 recording of W C Handy's "Memphis
>> Blues". It is an excellent example of what brass and wind bands were
>> doing
>> at the time following the rise in popularity of ragtime. It is blues
>> (in
>> form), ragtime (in style), and jazz in no respect whatsoever. Then
>> listen
>> to any one of dozens of jazz renditions of Memphis Blues from the
1920s
>> and
>> try and hear the difference.
> Again, you bring out points that have no bearing on the music.
It has every bearing on the music.
> I may
> be wrong, or misinformed by his grand nephew about the brother playing
> in the band.
You may indeed be. One does have to be careful about checking one's
sources.
> He probably said that he played with the band, and not
> said that he was on the recording, however I don't see how this
> applies to anything.. To the fact that the ODJB all played with
> Laine's band, well <http://www.redhotjazz.com/odjb.html>
does seem to
> disagree with you.
The original 5 may have done but I haven't heard that ****elds (who
replaced
Nunez) and Sbarbaro (who replaced Stein) did. Not that it is im****tant.
[That site BTW is reasonable for a general impression, but it is not an
academic history, makes few references (or none) to actual historical
research, and has to be read with some caution.]
> Who knows and who cares! It all has nothing to do
> with what I am trying to explain to you and your refusal to try to
> look at our music from any point of view other than your own that
> centers around these first recordings!
My view is informed by the recordings and also by proper historical
research
texts.
> I will say it for the last time.
> There was a body of music that had been going on in New Orleans for a
> very long time before these recordings that you discovered...
Of course there was, but i'll say it again: it wasn't jazz, or anything
like
it.
> BUT it is do***ented that it existed
> in the links that I sent you from somewhere between 50 and 100 years
> before you seem to acknowledge.
Evidence?
> It was not Jazz because there was not
> a name for this large body of music, but this music certainly did
> exist.
It certainly, as far as any respectable investigation has show, and
according to rthe reminicences of the early jazz musicians, didn't. I am
*not* talking about the name, I am talking about the music.
> The pianists and their music was called "raggedity piano" and other
> various names.
Whatever they called it, it didn't make it jazz. Ragtime was incredibly
popular well before 1915: the first ragtime sheet music publication was
in
1899, and it sold like hot cakes. And it was obviously a mature art
form.
(Though for me Artie Matthews's "pastime rags" are the pinnacle of the
piano art form - but they came 20 years later.) Soon everyone -
including
military bands (even Sousa's though not under his direction) was playing
ragtime. It was enormously popular - but it wasn't jazz.
>...
> BUT it wasn't Jazz, by
> your definition, as it had no name.
It wasn't jazz (by the definition accepted by everyone but you) because it
wasn't jazz.
> In 1897 (about 20 years before your recordings) Storyville was
> created. It was an area that tolerated prostitution and other
> activities that were not generally acceptable in the other parts of
> the city. In this district, the slang word, "Jas", was connected to
> the music and became the basis of the term "Jazz". Its meaning, for
> those that may not know, referred to the activity that was "sold" in
> this district.
You're not telling me anything new about Storyville - but this is one
theory
only on the origins of the term. There is still no evidence for jazz
(the
music, not the name) before about 1915.
> I don't believe that this term was published by the
> press until the bands opened in Chicago around the time of your
> recordings, but this is where the word came about. So now, there was a
> name for these improvisational styles of music that was part of the
> N.O. culture,...
Jazz didn't exist as part of "N.O. culture" until about 1915.
>This provided an
> atmosphere where the music that you heard had a chance to develop more
> quickly. The music that you have recorded from 1917ish is a result of
> the intermingling of the various styles that were already happening
> for years.
Indeed jazz was strongly influenced by marches, by ragtime, and by the
blues, but jazz itself (which is easily distinguished from all of those)
did
not appear before 1915. All the evidence pointsto that, and you have
produced none to the contrary.
> These recording used a format and instrumentation that was
> very friendly to this kind of music and it stuck (with some
> alterations and refinements) and became what we call (although many
> outsiders dispute the real term) Dixieland Jazz.
"Dixieland jazz" is slightly later phrase as a popular general designation
(ie other than in the name of the ODJB). It became used more after there
were other kinds of jazz.
> This is what you are saying is the beginning of Jazz. I don't agree
> with you. Jazz is the collective body of improvisational music that
> had been going on for years before.
>Thus, as I have said many, many times over. If you only consider this
> one style of music that was on your records as Jazz,
EVIDENCE?
What I call jazz is nothing more nor less than what everyone calls jazz -
notably the jazz historians. It is a generally understood term. You
can
redefine it any way you like to make it exist as early as you like, but
you're on your own there.
> I find your concept of what it is to be very
> limited and to be honest, more than a bit racial,
ROFL!
> even though I
> understand that you don't realize the racism inherent in your earlier
> statements in the previous thread on this subject.
I'm afraid your attempts to brand me a racist are absolutely pathetic.
We
don't have that particular problem over here to anything like the extent
that it exists, even now, in the USA: as many of the jazz bands found when
they came over here. And in fact it was you who started all the arguments
about race, with your ridiculous stereotypes of Creoles and Blacks. ]
> I am really tired of trying to point out to you that your views are
> certainly correct as far as they go, but that they are NOT the entire
> picture of Jazz (or improvisational music based on popular tunes)
> at was part of out culture...
Evidence?
All you have to do is provide some evidence which contradicts the music
historians, and the reminiscences of the players themselves, and I'll
start
to believe you. Until then it is just hot air. Mre of it will not change
that.
> Jaz as I know it today is an extremely
> multifaceted genre as well. The early formations of it also had many
> facets that you just won't accept as having any connections to jazz.
> (Blues, Ragtime, marching bands, Gospel, etc) Well, this is something
> that I just can't accept as not having a direct bearing on Jazz ...
When I say jazz, I mean jazz. I am fully aware of what jazz owes to
blues
and ragtime, I have many recordings of both, but blues and ragtime were
not
jazz. I am not inventing this - it is absolutely well known.
As I said last time, listen to the Victor Military Band's superb ragtime
recording of Memphis Blues, and then listen to some good Jazz recordings
of
it. They are different.
> So that is it. I am tired of your taking disputed details
You haven't produced anything that is "disputed": you just keep saying the
same things for which there is no evidence. If you produced some evidence
then we'd have something to dispute.
> And I am tired of your not ever taking the time or making the
> effort to clarify your thoughts and actually say something in response
> to the ideas that I have suggested to you.
When you said creoles didn't play jazz, I named a whole load of the most
famous original pioneers. When you said jazz existed before 1915 I
produced
quotes of some of the most respectable jazz historians, including Schuller
and Rust, to point out that no-one has any evidence for this, and there is
a
lot of evidence that it didn't exist. When you confused ragtime with
jazz,
I asked you to listen to memphis Blues as a ragime recording from 1914 and
a
jazz recording from a little later, and pointed out that if you do, you'll
find them utterly different.
Whenever you have said jazz existed earlier, I have asked you for
evidence.
In your efforts to make it earlier you have claimed it existed before 1803
(the Lousiana Purchase) and said very clearly specifically that Nick La
Rocca played in 1889, though you now claim that the mistake was purely
typographical.
>You have made up your mind.
Indeed I have - on the basis f the recorded music and the historical
texts.
but I am always open to new evidence, and you just saying it was so in the
face of all the evidence, doesn't cut the mustard.
> Your early recording is the exclusive beginning of JAZZ
I have never said that. There is a bit of evidence which points to jazz
performances in 1916, (a year before the first recordings) and one can
conjecture ther may have been in 1915 (though I have no evidence), but
before that, there is no sign of jazz anywhere.
>and that is
> that. I have tried to expand your perspectives,
My perspectives are fine thank you. I know enough of jazz, of blues, of
marching bands, and of ragtime to see your romantic history for the
fiction
it is.
> but in doing so have
> fallen into your trap of misreading and misrepresenting posts
Misrepresenting your statement "..la Roca .. played .. in 1889"? (Noun
verb
adverbial time clause)? If any one of those elements was a typo, then
it's
you who are misrepresenting yourself. Misrepresenting your statement
that
I am claiming jazz for europeans because the jazz musicians weren't
Americans before the Lousiana purchase in 1803? It doesn't fell like a
trap; it feels like a laugh.
> and
> information and you can believe what you want to believe.
I'll believe the evidence when I have seen it, if it stands up. But you
haven't given any. I'd love to believe you, but you won't (can't) give
any
evidence.
> Enjoy your music.
I'm also hoping to enjoy Alan Lomax's 1939 interview with Jelly Roll
Morton
which is being rebroadcast on BBC radio 4 on Saturday. :-)
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
|
