Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene

Subject: RE: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: Rasener
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 05:23 PM

>>I've also heard fantastic blends of folk and jazz - though more recently they've featured modern rather than Trad jazz<<

Good point Sheperdlass

A band that springs to mind is the Miranda Sykes Band who are brilliant, but I tend to class them as Folk Modern Jazz (Hope you agree Miranda).

So if you can have Folk Modern Jazz, you can have Folk Trad Jazz which is more up my street.

Subject: RE: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: shepherdlass
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 05:12 PM

Fascinating stuff. Is Trad part of the folk scene? Don't know if it is now, but it surely helped kickstart the "second revival" in Britain.

Malcolm - I've come across snobberies on both sides of the fence (it's certainly not just the jazzers who put up barriers, as Dazbo demonstrated). I've also heard fantastic blends of folk and jazz - though more recently they've featured modern rather than Trad jazz. The Unusual Suspects and La Bottine Souriante spring to mind, and does anyone remember the jazz-folk supergroup Lammas? On the traddier side, there was that Martin Carthy/Diz Dizley collaboration in the 60s. And so many people on the folk scene have used trad. standards like "Nobody Knows You When You're Drownin' Trout" or "Pasadena" as suitably rowdy set-closers, there are arguments that the crossover of genres has always been there in part.

Subject: RE: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: Rasener
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 04:58 PM

I am really enjoying this thread. Very interesting indeed. Lots of brilliant debating.

Subject: RE: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: The Sandman
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 04:55 PM

Im in Ireland not the u.k.
Dixieland was originally pinkie white JAZZ.
new orleans black, brown, or creole.

Subject: RE: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: M.Ted
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 04:47 PM

"Dixieland" was a ubiquitous club music popular during the 50's and 60's--Pete Fountain/Al Hirt sort of music, derived from and imitative of older forms of jazz, but with overriding ideosyncratic elements of it's own--

While brilliant musicians like Lenny Tristano and John Coltrane poured out their hearts and souls, in small, dark, bars, the great unwashed flocked to hear clarinets and trombones slithering inexorably through everything from "When the Saints Go Marching In" to "Mame" at places like "Shakey's Pizza"--

Subject: RE: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 04:06 PM

Ah, but there's them as would use the term "Dixieland" as referring to a slightly debased variant on the true New Orleans holy writ.

These people can get very intensively sectarian. Which just goes to demonstrate that it must be folk music...

Subject: RE: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: The Sandman
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 04:05 PM

well m ted. dixieland is one thing to us, new orleans is another but they are both trad.dixieland is personified by the ORIGINAL DIXIELAND JAZZ BAND,New Orleans BY King Oliver,BuddyBolden, early loius armstrong. the emphasis in 4/4is on a different beat of the bar.
I quote the jazz book byJoachim e Berendt . IN NEW ORLEANS the rhythmic emphasisis on beats 1 and 3.
Dixieland and chicago style as well as new orleans jazz as played in in Chicago, in the twenties shifts the accent to 2 and 4.
both New ORLEANS AND DIXIEland rhythms are two beat rhythmsin so far as the bass drum is assigned two beats per measure.
however;;;;;;; Louis armstrong- requested Baby Dodds toplay an even four beats.
the ODJB had very few solos, relying on ensemble work.loius Armstrong and king oliver and kid ory had much more solo work.

Subject: RE: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: M.Ted
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 03:22 PM

For the Americans, (who maybe thought, wrongly, of course, that jazz was traditional American music), "Trad Jazz" is the name that them in the UK use for what we called "Dixieland".

You UK'ers have no idea how peculiar this discussion seems to Americans--

Subject: RE: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 02:58 PM

I wonder if there's a website somewhere where there are people arguing about "What is Jazz?", and a section of them hotly denying that Trad Jazz really counts as Jazz? On account of a presumption about how an essential element of Jazz is that innovation must always be in the driving seat, whereas, in Trad, innovation is a bit suspect. "That stuff isn't Jazz" they'd protest - "It's folk music."

With us it's the other way round - innovation is tolerated rather than idolised. (See this thread for example).

It seems to me that the situation is best represented by one of those Venn diagrams, with circles intersecting each other. Folk music, in all its varieties, is one circle, and Jazz, in all its varieties, is another circle, and where they overlap you find Trad Jazz.
.........................
"What do you mean by Trad Jazz? 1920's-style?"

Yes - and pre 1920s.

Subject: RE: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: fat B****rd
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 02:44 PM

F**K second thoughts. Keep 'em separate enjoy one or both. (Or none, if you like)

Subject: RE: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 01:00 PM

I seem to remember reading that Alan Lomax both discovered, and wrote a biography of, a famous Jazzman. I think that it was Jelly Roll Morton - but could be wrong.

In my home town, in the late 50s/early 60s, it was the Jazz fans who started the first Folk Club. They, obviously, enjoyed both types of music but, in their wisdom, decided to keep the separate - a decision that I agree with.

Subject: RE: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: Scoville
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 12:49 PM

What do you mean by Trad Jazz? 1920's-style? Then, yes, very much so, at least in the United States. Tremendous overlap between 1920's jazz styles and old-time string-band music, jug-band, and some Cajun. Jug-band was conspicuously part of the folk revival over here. Real string-band and Cajun revivals were a bit later, but the string-band/jazz overlap has been in place for a long time.

Subject: RE: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: Bert
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 12:42 PM

What McGrath Says. Not as much as it should be.

Subject: RE: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: Alexis
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 12:36 PM

I think the answer must be no.However if you booked a jazz band for a folk festival and didn't tell people what genre.........
Going back to improvisation, you are no doubt right Ian in that most music would have a degree of it whether because of forgotton notes, or similar. When I used to play trad, the improvised solo was fundamental. If you could n't improvise - you couldn't play jazz. None of the folky stuff I play nowadays (sessions or morris or ceilidhs) has improvisation as the basis of the music.
In order for trad jazz to be part ofthe scene, the labels have gotto come off.
Alex

Subject: RE: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: Rasener
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 11:32 AM

Thats good then :-)

Subject: RE: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 11:27 AM

No, nay ,never

Subject: RE: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: Rasener
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 11:07 AM

Did I detect a definate No from Dazbo :-)

I guess Dazbo won't come to my club then LOL

Subject: RE: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: The Sandman
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 10:20 AM

dazbo, thats almost as bad as B Rileys kinetic art.

Subject: RE: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: Dazbo
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 09:55 AM

No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No.

Jazz (of all types) should be consigned to the dustbin of "Emperor's New Clothes"

Subject: RE: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 09:07 AM

I know people who play in both the folk world and the trad jazz scene. What tends to be the case is that people use different styles and techniques for playing within a particular genre, possibly a different instrument (Guitar for folk scene, trumpet for New Orleans Marching Band).
Whilst a different musical scene might be welcomed as something different on an occasion, I thing you would get complaints if a jazz band turned up EVERY week.

I used to live in Bradford, which was a great place as you could find all sorts of music played live in pubs. Trad jazz, rock, folk (listening), folk (sessions), rhythm & blues, bhangra, you-name-it. Often you would see the same faces there, the folkies at the jazz gig, the rock band guitarist in the folk session, the bhangra singer out with the carol singers.
I don't think that keeping stuff separate is a bad thing. You can choose what to go to see.
Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: Scrump
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 09:01 AM

All the trad bands of the golden era (for that music) of the 1950s and early 1960s had a banjoist, even the star bands of Acker Bilk and Kenny Ball (yes, I know they are sometimes scoffed at as 'commercial' by trad purists, probably because they had more success than the rest, but they were, and IMO still are, very good). I can only assume that on cost grounds the banjoist was the first to go (as perhaps more dispensible than the trumpet, clarinet, trombone, drums, piano and bass) unless anyone knows different? Although primarily a rhythm instrument, you used to get some good solos now and again, and I certainly find there's something missing from the sound without the banjo in the band.

Subject: RE: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: Rasener
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 08:52 AM

The Red Beans n Rice Trad Band do have somebody playing the Tenor Banjo and that reminds me a lot of Lonnie Doengan. A trad band to me has to have a banjo player in it.

I wouldn't put a Jazz band on with the normal folk evening, but as a seperate event.

Subject: RE: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 08:37 AM

Part of "the Folk Scene" - not as much as it should be.   But of course Trad Jazz is a folk music. What else could it be?

I suspect a proper trad band is a lot more likely to be warmly received in a folk event these days than in most Jazz events.

It's a music that is overdue for a revival. The problem is it requires a lot of instrumental skill at entry level. With folk or rock you can start with a voice, and then maybe a couple of chords and work your way in. With trad jazz you've got to have a whole bag of tricks before you can even start.

Subject: RE: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: Ernest
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 07:55 AM

I do like trad jazz as well but I don`t think that there is much of a common "scene" in the sense that musicians and fans in a sufficient number mingle with the other style very much. Each is constituting its own scene, so to say.
Skiffle seems to be something like the "missing link" here and now.
Best
Ernest

Subject: RE: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: BanjoRay
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 07:20 AM

It was the sound of the banjo in a jazz band that got me started trying to play one a year or two back (1961), and I suppose the Old Time string band music I play now has a lot in common with New Orleans jazz. There's not as much improvisation, but the swing is very similar. Old Time is definitely part of the folk scene in the US, but I get the impression it's barely tolerated over here in the UK.
As for jazz in folk clubs, I agree it's very difficult to mix the styles on the same evening, it would be like combining Indian and Chinese food in the same meal -seperately delicious but an indigestible mix.
Ray

Subject: RE: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: The Sandman
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 06:55 AM

I like jazz.I would like to remind people that the Ballydehob jazz festival, OCCURS MAY7 2007.
In traditional irish, scots, english music, melodic improvisation or ornamentation takes place, although the tunes stick closer to the melody, than in jazz,.it is essentially dance music, as is trad jazz

Subject: RE: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 06:44 AM

Yes I saw Bob Davernport do an unaccompanied song at a jazz evening. And Roy Harris. Both of them went down well.

Subject: RE: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: Scrump
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 06:23 AM

Slightly off the topic, but related: has anyone noticed the demise of the banjo player in trad jazz bands? The ones I've seen in recent years seem to have dispensed with them - maybe it's a question of costs, because a 7 piece band is obviously not going to be cheap to book.

But I used to like the sound of the banjo in trad jazz, and it's a shame it's gone, IMO. Does anyone know the reason? (Please spare me the banjo-haters' "jokes" though!)

Don't forget Lonnie Donegan wass a banjo player in Chris Barber's band - he went on to become quite an influence on folk music in the UK (like it or not).

Subject: RE: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: IanC
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 06:16 AM

Er ... Alexis ... which of the traditions doesn't have improvisation?

Subject: RE: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: Andy Jackson
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 06:16 AM

Andy , shame on you ,check spelling first!! But since I'm back....Have you ever seen an unaccompanied folk singer do a spot in the middle of a trad jazz club evening? Much as I enjoy many different musics I strongly believe they should be kept well seperate for fear of a purple plasticine splodge of sound alikes. As for a jazz night at your folk club, why not organise a club trip to a good Trad Jazz Club instead?
I'll go away now!

Subject: RE: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: Andy Jackson
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 06:10 AM

NO! any more than steam engines or canal boats.
But it is a happy fact that those of us who enjoy good folk music (whatever that is, please define for yourself)also have a leaning towards if not a passion for those other interests.
The Sidmouth Syncopaters always drew a good crowd at there only two venues Sidmouth and Chippenham festivals. The audience always included many "proper folkies" myself included.

Andy

Subject: RE: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 06:08 AM

Interesting Les! Tell us what you decide and find out.

Subject: RE: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: Rasener
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 05:48 AM

>>It's probably more folk music than a lot of the popular contemporary stuff being done at the moment<<

My thought as well Rhiannon.

My favourite trad Jazz Bands were Chris Barber, Terry Lightfoot, Ken Collyer.

I found this website of what I think is a great Trad Jazz Band that play in Suffolk and wouldn't mind booking them. See what you think, they have some MP3 snippets on their website. I have already talked with them.

Red Beans 'n' Rice

I am also going to go to the Louth Jazz Club and see what their band is like.

One of the difficulties is the cost of the band and the price you would have to charge per person.

Subject: RE: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 05:46 AM

No what I was saying was that middle class young college kids read about the sporting houses in New Orleans - Mr Jelly Roll and all that, and having no experience of black people - they got a romanticised view of them, through the lyrics and literature of trad jazz.

I think that was the romantic view of the music. maybe I'm wrong - it was slightly before my time as an adult.

Subject: RE: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: Scrump
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 05:15 AM

Villan, if there's enough interest (and you need to be fairly sure of this first) in having a trad jazz evening at your club, why not go for it. You can publicise it in advance to make sure no disappointed jazz-hating folkies will turn up. It's sometimes fun to have a 'non-folk' evening once in a while (e.g. bluegrass, country or rockabilly, etc.), and the regulars will often enjoy an occasional change from the 'standard' folk stuff. It would be better (IMO) to have a whole themed evening rather than try to combine it with folk - but some may disagree (I'm sure we'll soon find out...)

As for the demise of trad jazz, yes, the Beatles and the 'beat boom' of the early/mid sixties made it suddenly seem 'old hat' with teenagers in particular - the likes of Acker Bilk and Kenny Ball who had enjoyed huge chart success in the late 50s/ early 60s were suddenly nowhere, chart-wise (from about 1964 onwards). But they had the last laugh - they're still going, and where are the Beatles now? :-)

Subject: RE: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: Paul Burke
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 05:15 AM

What put me off trad jazz was all the dressing up, the waistcoats and bowlers and stripy shirts. And a certain amount of implied racism among the afficionados back in the 70s. It may have started as black music, but I never saw any faces other than pinko-grey in the audience. Perhaps that was a local thing (Coventry then).

As for there being fewer Black people in 1950s Britain, true- but I think irrelevant. There's nothing that says Black people have to relate to jazz- it's an American tradition, and Black British are from West Indian and (mostly West) African backgrounds. In particular, the West Indian connections are well reflected in the development of British music- Calypso, Reggae, Ska etc have all had their place in the rain.

Subject: RE: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 05:14 AM

I suspect that any "disdain" came from the jazz fans. Jazz (at least the older forms of it) is far more welcome in folk clubs than folk music is to the average (rather snobbish, in my experience) jazz audience.

Subject: RE: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 05:08 AM

You think the Chieftains and Martin Carthy don't improvise......

Subject: RE: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: Zany Mouse
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 05:07 AM

First define folk music ...

In my humble opinion I regard jazz, particularly trad, as part of folk music. In view of it's history what else can it be? It's probably more folk music than a lot of the popular contemporary stuff being done at the moment.

Rhiannon

Subject: RE: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 05:06 AM

Also interesting that the early MacColl records featured jazz players like Bruce Turner. And of course if you followed the career of trad jazz banjo player Lonnie Donegan you learned a hell of a lot of folksongs.

It would be interesting to know at precisely what point it started, this disdain for and rejection of this kind of music - that in 1961 or thereabouts seemed like an integral part of the English scene.

I don't think the rejection and disdain was totally from the folk world - see the attitude of the rocker character Jim Maclain towards jazz in the That'll be the day film. It is hinted that jazz is middle class - joe college stuff. Also this was a theme in John Mortimer's Leslie Titmuss plays. Apparently The Cavern was a trad jazz club just prior to The Beatles coming on the scene.

Subject: RE: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: Rasener
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 05:03 AM

One of the reasons I ask, is because I enjoy Trad Jazz very much. I happen to think that they have a place in the Festivals and wonder why that doesn't happen.
Secondly, I have had several people who come to my folk club who have asked me if I can get a trad jazz band along one time.

Subject: RE: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 04:50 AM

Some songs and tunes by unknowns, passed by the oral tradition, close relationship between musicians and audience?

I saw Mr Green's Punch and Judy, from Blackpool sands, at the Grove in Leeds once ????????????

Subject: RE: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: GUEST,Alexis (hopefully cookied)
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 04:50 AM

Isn't it more fundamental in that, it's not the tunes or songs, but the fact that the structure is so different - improvisation for example.
Alex

Subject: RE: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: Scrump
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 04:44 AM

The short answer is probably "no", but I'm glad you raised the question anyway, because I happen to like trad jazz, and there are similarities in the way both types of music are viewed by the general public (minority tastes, virtually ignored by the media, etc.); and a certain amount of overlap too, in the material (e.g. many trad jazz adaptations of folk songs). Yet both types of music have a relatively small but thriving fan base (AFAIK, I'm a bit out of touch with the trad jazz 'scene' these days).

I've been to a few outdoor trad jazz events in the summer and had as good a time as I've had at many a folk festival.

But I doubt trad jazz would be accepted in your average folk club, or I daresay vice versa.

Subject: RE: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 04:22 AM

A lot of trad jazz standards were well in evidence at the dawn of the folk clubs. but you'd go quite a long way nowadays before hearing St James infirmary. The suppression of Americana in English folk clubs, has also led to the suppression of this uniquely English or at any rate uniquely European perspective on jazz that was at one time feeding into our folk music.

When what were regarded in America as trad jazz people (like Eddie Condon) came to tour England in the 1950's - they were astonished to find young English people writing and performing songs in a style that harkened back to 1920 and King Oliver and even before.

Some of this is down to the fact that there were very few black people living in England in the 1940's and 50's. if you listen to George Melly's reminisences of the time, his views of black people are rather like Baudelaire's a hundred years earlier - they are exotic creatures and their music tells of a sexually liberated and hopefully depraved existence - not available in 1950's Britain. A view hard to sustain in a more integrated community.

Interesting question........

Subject: RE: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: Paul Burke
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 03:34 AM

Is folk part of the Trad Jazz scene?

Since folk hasn't got strict boundaries (see other threads ad desperandum), the odd trad set would probably be acceptable in certain types of session/performance.

Is klezmer part of the folk scene? Performance styles very much influenced by the American recording period 1910ish-1929ish being slap alongside the popularisation of trad jazz.

Subject: Is Trad Jazz part of the Folk Scene
From: Rasener
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 03:25 AM

Always wondered about that. What do mudcatters think?