Greg Stephens,

I too am a little mystified with the dearth of jigs in the American old time music scene of the 20th century (AOTMSOTTC).

I respectfully disagree that "it can't be for the lack of dancers" at least as far as the AOTMSOTTC is concerned.

For as long as I can remember (a few decades), dancing in the AOTMSOTTC has meant square dancing and contradancing. When nonprofessional old time musicians are doing something other than jamming, they are playing for square or contadances. I've never run into a tune or a dance other than a waltz based on units of three at either type of dance. The only people I've ever seen dancing to non-waltz music based on 3 are Irish (Arsh in Appalachia) dancers and it is always in a performance setting. I know very little about dancing outside the southern mountains of the US. For example, do a bunch of Irish dancers ever get together in an informal, nonperforming setting with a pickup band and dance as a group for fun? If so, would they dance jigs?

Also, in the AOTMSOTTC the music is/has become/has usually been (there's been a some debate about this in places like Fiddle-L)very highly syncopated. As was mentioned in this thread and as I've noticed myself jigs seem to require a pretty straightforward rhythm. If once is used to syncopation this makes jigs a little less fun/interesting/exciting to play. Not to mention more difficult.

To be blunt, if people in the AOTMSOTTC aren't playing jigs, it's because there's no market for them.