Klarinet Archive - Posting 001144.txt from 1998/07

From: Lisa Clayton <lisakc@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Benny Goodman/Jazz Clarinet
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1998 01:24:40 -0400

At 11:29 PM 07.24.98 -0400, you wrote:
>Basically true. What the early jazzmen played in the 19-teens and twenties
>was merely called "jazz" at the time. But by the 1940's, when a need
>developed to differentiate what they were playing then with what had gone
>before, bebop players used the term "dixieland," usually in a disparaging
>manner, to refer to the older pre-swing style. The term probably
>originated from "The Original Dixieland Jass (sic) Band" of the 19-teens,
>by then considered pretty corny. Those early years WERE the "Jazz Age,"
>after all, and the term "jazz" was used for almost everything, musical or
>not. Very little that Paul Whiteman performed was actually jazz, yet he
>was the "King of Jazz." Jazz in the 30's and 40's was a very heavy
>influence on popular music, but not all jazz was popular, and certainly not
>all popular music was jazz. But I digress. Basically, the continuum of
>jazz, as I see it, was Ragtime, Dixieland, Swing, Bebop, Cool...(it goes
>on, but I don't get too excited about the rest of it). And it IS a
>continuum. The transitions are not sudden, but often almost imperceptibly
>gradual, and the divisions arbitrary and overlapping. Kind of like other
>types of music, eh?

You're probably right. The labels, they've always confused me. I've gotten
the impression that it went Rag, Traditional, Swing, Bebop and then it
split into cool and free, and then there was a bunch who revived the old
Trad jazz sound but added a swingy feel to it and it became "dixieland"
(Bunk Johnson, Lu Watters, Turk Murphy, etc). Then there was M-base,
fusion, modern, avant garde. You get to today and every little band on the
cutting edge seems to have their own little label: trip hop, acid jazz,
new Jack swing, nouveau cocktail, space-age music, world jazz, etc. Which
only goes to show you how little labels really help you sort out musical
trends.

Thanks!

Lisa Clayton
lisakc@-----.com

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