The Death of Jazz

Subject: RE: The Death of Jazz
From: Jack Campin
Date: 25 Feb 13 - 07:22 PM

I just had a look at Metthew Halsall's website. I was curious to know who the harpist on the YouTube tracks is.

You can find no information whatever about his band lineups on that site. Or any biographical details at all. The whole site is so abysmally uninformative I am thinking of submitting it to http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/.

Subject: RE: The Death of Jazz
From: pdq
Date: 25 Feb 13 - 07:51 PM

That was great treatise on "Pops" Armstrong by GUEST,DDT so I withdraw my question.

BTW, a few decades back, Fletcher Henderson would have been given lavish praise and Don Redman very little, but I guess truth has won out.

OK, why aren't Phil Lesh and Jerry Garcia listed as two of the Jazz greats of alltime?

Subject: RE: The Death of Jazz
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 25 Feb 13 - 08:17 PM

'I see little connection between five Black cats playing 3 chord songs featuring brass instruments back in 1923, and the White guy in a Las Vegas lounge in the 1970s playing slick electric guitar using chord progressions so advanced that Stavinsky would have to think hard about them.'

there used to be black cat ciggies when i were a lad. with cork tips.

I don't see the connection perhaps its just a fortuitous twist of language. Like the one that had all them serious folksingers empty the folk clubs which were chugging along with Julie felix/Bob Dylan types. Real folk music, they said.....

and quorn sausages - not much to do with real sausages. Lincolnshire chipolatas.

Its language itself that plays false with us. Reality is mislabeled.

Subject: RE: The Death of Jazz
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 26 Feb 13 - 05:35 AM

Jack - The harpist is Rachel Gladwin, who you can also hear on the album by top Manchester folk-rock Juggernaut, The Woodbine and Ivy Band.

Subject: RE: The Death of Jazz
From: GUEST,DDT
Date: 26 Feb 13 - 08:11 PM

"I hadn't heard of the Kirkcudbright festival - seems they don't bother telling people in Edinburgh about it."

I don't really care for jazz festivals. Jazz was meant for small venues. It loses something vital when it's played in large outdoor places. It's an intimate music and needs to be heard intimately. When you're sitting at a table right at the bassist's elbow or something like that, that's when jazz is at its best.

Subject: RE: The Death of Jazz
From: GUEST,Chris B (Born Again Scouser)
Date: 27 Feb 13 - 03:27 AM

I wouldn't want to talk about the 'Death of Jazz' but one thing I noticed during the years I spent taking Jazz guitar lessons at my local college was how much of a 'Lifestyle' choice it seemed to be among people who'd started out as rock-listening hippies who'd grown older and ended up working in publishing, interior design or for the BBC.

It was like country music for arts graduates - something you 'get into' when you reach an age when you start looking a bit silly trying to play rock'n'roll. Mea culpa there, I'm afraid.

Subject: RE: The Death of Jazz
From: Will Fly
Date: 27 Feb 13 - 03:59 AM

when you reach an age when you start looking a bit silly trying to play rock'n'roll

Heh, heh. Been there and done that. And, actually, I still play the stuff (rock'n roll) in a pub on rare occasions - always gets the room rocking, and I don't give a toss what I might look like.

I worked for the Beeb in the late '60s and ran their folk club (Clanfolk) for a spell. I met up with like-minded souls through work and the club, and we formed a jug band, playing regularly at the Redan pub in Queensway. Gradually, more and more 1920s and 1930s dance tunes crept into the band's repertoire, and we got people like Bob Kerr and Diz Disley sitting in with us. When I moved down to Brighton in the late '70s, I went to the regular Sunday lunchtime jazz jam sessions at the King and Queen and then got drawn into the scene, joining a mainstream band for a few years. It was a great musical education in harmony, melody and improvisation. Then I started playing rock'n roll...

Subject: RE: The Death of Jazz
From: Jack Campin
Date: 27 Feb 13 - 08:01 AM

Jazz was meant for small venues. It loses something vital when it's played in large outdoor places.

The Kirkcudbright festival hasn't announced the venues it'll be using yet, but it's safe to say they will be closer in scale to phoneboxes than fields.

Subject: RE: The Death of Jazz
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Feb 13 - 12:08 PM

RE: Kirkcudbright-It would be better, from one view, anyway, if the original poster would restrict himself to being dismissive of things he actually knows something about.

Subject: RE: The Death of Jazz
From: Ron Davies
Date: 27 Feb 13 - 12:45 PM

Dream on.

Subject: RE: The Death of Jazz
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 27 Feb 13 - 10:25 PM

if it is dead, I'm not sending flowers....sod it!