C ar t be Sad when I hear I re d
Jazz. that is
Ay George W fa-ley
I he last Sunday tn February found the Seaside
(in ve ntio n center vib ra ting as a hand-dapping, foot
stomping crowd roared its appreciation of the
lust-concluded fifth annual S easid e
and a ll tha t
Jazz »estival
Festival chairman Diet Pearson was as happy as the
a'tendrr-. We finished welt in the black * he told me,
adding that this year s success insured another fine
festival in 1995
If you haven l been attending, plan now - - it's
always the last wert end in Febr uary and, luud and
lodging aside, costs around $ 40 for a week end
all - events badge
So what 15 Trad Jazz. 1 hear someone saving9 Why
man that s Dixieland. Ragtime and the or igmal
o ld -tim e gospel blues That s the music that came up
out of New Orleans around the turn of this century,
music lhaf grew out of the black street bands of the
1890 s. music that was played for weddings, funerals,
in churches and at brothels Street music, people
music - - music that sang and soar ad and lauqhad and
cried, that set feet a-dancin andcarr ied its listeners
through the ups and downs of their lives
it was black music then, energetic, imaginative and
inprovtsational. but at some point as the new century
got underway it caught the Ihe imaginations of white
musicians who, m time, make it largely their own
If you realty want its history, ask your lib ra ry to
find you a copy of fro m ¿2» «ariZO to f im e r t
An
Illu s tra te d History o f African American Popular Music
from 1 0 9 5 to 1950 by Thomas L Morgan A W illiam
Bar low (E lliot S> Clark Publishing, Washington DC) or
maybe get /n Saar cP o f fludto So/fcn by Donald M
Marquis ( Louisiana State U niversity Press) If ’ hey
hook you. you 11 find ample bibliographic material to
keep you reading u n til next year's Seaside jazz festival'
But getting back to this year s bash I, began the last
Friday night, w ith a Or and Open inQ ceremony featuring
b rie f sets by a number of festival bands There were
10 hands in a ll, but if you recall the weather, you II
understand that some of them got in a tad late
a irp o rt problems in Portland, lost/misdirected luggage
and a foggy dr ive out to the Coast Oregonians are used
to that but Californians aren t
Not that they all camo from California - -th e Garden
Avenue Seven is based in Largo. Florida, the Buck
Creek Jazz Band hails from North Vancouver. B ritis h
Columbia, w hile Portland s Stumptown Jazz
represented Oregon
The festival setup is simple - - you can lite ra lly stay
in (Xie spot and have all the bands come to you or you
can iro t around town a b it (o r take the shuttle buses
provided) and follow a favor ite band or two to its
various locations Each band played about 8 times
during the weekend
The Convention Center has two halls - - th e huge one
downstairs ( where the open mg and closing ceremonies
were held in addition to sets throughout the weekend)
and a smaller upstairs room which, fra n kly, I
preferred and largely lived in
A th ird venue was provided by the E Iks I odge with
the last two at the Ocean View hotel W ith 15 minutes
between sets ( bands do need time to get fr om one place
to another and set up and tear down), there was ample
time to either change your own location or to fuel up at
I he Centers snack bar Dinner breaks long enough to
go to any of Seaside s enter ies ( or go souvenir
shopping) were scheduled as well
Souvenirs9 Of course One Convention Center room
was given over to sales of period clothinq - - fringBd
dresses, parasols (m ore about parasols in a m inute),
vests, hats - - plus T -s h irts , sweet sh irts and jew elry
ranging from earr mgs and necklaces to tie tacks and
pins One novelty pin sold out almost immediately
Some bands mix in a bi, of swing or country music and
some Trad Jazzers don't welcome tha t. so S T A D
buttons ( S h it, That A in't D ixie) were in evidence
Jan Scobey, widow of the late greet Dixieland
trum peter Bob Scobey, was there w ith scores of tapes
and CDs ( Send $5 to Jan Scobey s Hot Jazz. 10 755
Bachelor Valley Road. W itter Springs, Ca
9 5 4 9 3 -9 7 1 5 for a year s subscription to her
jam-pocked catalog of hundreds of COs, tapes, videos
and old fashioned” v in yl platters )
And the bands have tapes and. in some cases. COs of
th e ir music (Stumptown even had a video of a Gospel
service they did a year or so ago More about Gospel
services later on ) I am livin g proof that it is not a' all
d iffic u lt to quickly go broke amongst such a wealth of
recordings'
Enough of that Whet of the bands9
W ell, if they weren't top notch, they wouldn t be
there But festival audiences do pick favorites and I'd
say that this year it was the Blue Street Band, a
h ig h -sp in te d aggregation of young, highly skilled
players who captured the hearts of the audience as well
as the s p irit of Trad Jazz
As is often the case with Trad Jazz bands, Blue Street
boosts musicians closely connected w ith the music
scene outside the Dixie scene Several of them teach in
various school systems in California and 1 sure envy
the ir pupils There was nothing like that available to
me when I took up the tuba many decades ago
Nor was there anything like the Sacramento summer
jazz camp which is fram ing today's teenagers to ca rry
Trad Jazz on into the 21st Century B lue Street s
vocalist, lovely 2 , -ye a r-o ld Sherr 1 Colby, is not only
a jazz camp graduate but has been singing w ith a band
since sne was 13
The bands boast an eclectic collection of players
ranging from young chaps 1 Blue Street, lor example)
wta ve fallen in love w ith the music of their
grandparents (o r great -grandparents) to snowy-
haired oldsters who have found little music they enjoy
more since that from the decades between 1895 1935
And there's audience participation as well Not just
o ffe rin g , fw x j clapping and loot stompm but dancing
and parading I mentioned parasols W ell, you am t
3«n nuthm less you see a line of hiqh-steppinq ladies
(anda few derby-hatted men), tw irh n fane, beaded,
fringed phase's w hilst Strutt in t South R a m p a rts
Parade or W h en Ih e S a in ts Go M a rc h in g In or
any one of a dozen other tunes that demand yuu do more
than just sit and bounce up and down in your seat
Having mentioned my own tuba playing, you can
understand why I s till retain a fondness for that
weighty aggregation of shiny tubing vx! the growly
sounds it can produce
So I admit to having the hairs s tir on the bar» of my
neck while listening to such brass virtuosos as Bob
Pettmgeli (Stumptown Jazz). Earl McKee (High S ierra
Jazz Band), and Dave Lewis ( Natural uas Jazz Band)
going far beyond the baste Oompah Qompah I lew ned as
a Junior High School tubaplffver This is not to slight
the other fine brass bassists, but those three realty got
to me
McKee. I should note, doubles as vocalist for High
S ierra, and bis less-than tender hear ted rendition of
*1 had Someone f ise Befor e 1 Hat You and I II Have
Someone After You ve Gone * displayed perhaps the
ultim ate m male cynicism towards the faire r sex
But for all its raucous, hard drivin g , toe tapping
beet, (and the sometimes not p o litica lly correct songs
of yesteryear -- * 1 Had a Bimbo Down on the Bamboo
Isles w ill win no awards from fem inists, though no
one at Seaside seemed to mind) Trad Jazz is tru ly the
folk music of a quieter. gentler time
a time that, for
a weekend, is brought back by Dick Pearson and a
hard- workmg aggregation of volunteer s. all under the
aegis of the Seaside Chamber of Commerce
Baer flows — but there are no noisy drunks The
par king lot overflows, but d ri vers courteously yield to
one another with smiles and fr tendly waves Andon the
dance floor , couples wlx»e ener g, belies their year s
deft ly maneuver around other equally energetic dancers
without anyone try in g to slam dunk anyone else I
couldn t help thinking that the world would be a better
place if everyone could only partake of the feelings that
Trad Jazz m o ts to imbue in its listeners
And that feeling was reinforced on Sundey. when the
traditional Oospel 5 ervicr is held Open free to the
general public as well as to I estival attendee-,. this
year s ser vice was a double one Stumptown Jazz held
forth at the mam Convention center hall while Blue
Street was at a local church The pr ogr am called for a
mix of gospel songs and tunes plus some testimony
about the two organizations to whom the fre e w ill
offer mgs went Stumptown attendees contr ibuted over
$1100 to the Columbia Pacific Heed Start program
while Blue Street listener s donated nearly $ I 700 to
the Victory Over Child Abuse proqr am
Hopefully some of you out there may now have an
itch to participate in a Trad Jazz festival
there area
host of them up and tkiwn the Pacific Coast almost year
round But how to find them9 Simple Join the
L ighthouse Jazz ixcie ty ( 1545 N Roosevelt. Seaside
9 7 1 3 8 ) and t h e , 11 introduce you to the whole Trad
Jazz scene For example The Rose City Classic
Festival of Jazz ( wr ite them at 13155 SW Foothill
Drive. Portland 9 7 2 2 5 ) w ill be at the Oregon
Convention Center m Port land over I abor Dev Weekend
while Lighthouse is sponsor mg the I 2th Annual Oregon
Dixieland Jubilee in Seaside beginning Sept 30th And
that barely scratches the surface of what's available
You can t be sad when you re hear mg trad
go thou
and listen'
ire tla n c e w r t lt r George W fa rle y lives in s secluded
hideaway in the upper Hood River Valley w ith his wife
Margo. his big Halamule Thunder and ‘more jazz CDs than
Margo cares to count *
<1
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