European Trad Jazz of the pre-Beatles era

[Rabshakeh]

Intended as a sort of greasy toupee-wearing alcoholic uncle of the thread from around a year ago relating to European bop / modernism.

My understanding (and I was strictly not there, so please correct me) is that most Western European countries developed explosively popular jazz scenes in the shell-shocked years of post World War 2 recovery, mostly seeking to follow the model of what in the USA was the Dixieland revival.

In the UK, pseudo-New Orleans revivalist "trad" was a huge deal. For a Londoner of my generation (came of age late 90s), it was known primarily as the long forgotten music that your parents hated, and for being mocked by the Bonzo Dog Doodah Band for reasons that were no longer apparent. Plus for the fact that it had generated elder statesmen who were still on TV and BBC radio but who rarely played any actual music.

My father in law, who was a war baby, died a few years ago and left us a bunch of LPs, many of them trad. Listening to it, it strikes me how amateurish the scene was (partly deliberately I assume) and how adulterated the 'jazz' edges were - so much pop or boogie woogie in the sound that it sometimes veered on early rock n roll - and by how little it sounded like contemporaneous US classic jazz and dixieland scenes (whether the USA revival's poles of New Orleans and Chicago authenticity, New York folk revivalist Carnegie Hall studiousness or the dreaded varsity / fraternity stuff). The UK stuff sounds very grubby and bone headed. It seems that essential to the whole concept was a rain-soaked and bombed out vision of some sort of mythic vision of America that was too uninformed tell the difference between a riverboat gambler and a cowboy. It is difficult to understand how it could have been so popular. Who listened to this stuff?

My understanding is that there were similar scenes in France and Germany at least. I don't know whether they developed among different lines though. I know that Stephanie Grappelli aged into an elder statesman role across the channel, and I suppose that the presence of Bechet may have had an effect on any French scene.

I also assume that contemporaneously there must have been an accompanying big band 'dance music' scene, but for whatever reason that music does not get mentioned much.

Presumably the Beatles and the Boomer generation's coming of age is what wiped this stuff out. It was and still is a constant presence in discount bins over here. 

I'd be interested in any members views on the music in general, and their memories of it. Particularly those members who are from Europe or experienced it at the time or during its occasional revivals.

Also, are there any good records from the era that you think stand out? LPs in particular. Live albums, vocal and joint leader dates all welcome.

Edited March 18, 2023 by Rabshakeh

[Big Beat Steve]

6 hours ago, Rabshakeh said:

My understanding is that there were similar scenes in France and Germany at least. I don't know whether they developed among different lines though. I know that Stephane Grappelli aged into an elder statesman role across the channel, and I suppose that the presence of Bechet may have had an effect on any French scene.

I also assume that contemporaneously there must have been an accompanying big band 'dance music' scene, but for whatever reason that music does not get mentioned much.

Correct on all accounts (except that Grappelly never was part of the traditional jazz scene but was a swing man throughout - with some "modernized" leanings later on). Sweden and Italy had their "trad" scenes and bands too, for example.

Cannot offer any recollections (am far too young for that, unless you refer to the 70s traditional ("Dixieland") jazz scene in Germany too (which already was an evolution of the early post-war and 50s traditional jazz scene here.
More later on when I have more time to expand on it.

The European traditional jazz scene of the post-war period seems to be a touchy subject, though. Often dismissed as it certainly had too much of a very basic "home-made" quality  to it. But it was accessible and one easy way of getting the young'uns into jazz.

As for your impression of the UK "trad jazz" recordings you "inherited", it all depends on what records and artists these exactly were. There WERE artists and band leaders to be reckoned with well beyond the "trad" fad - Humphrey Lyttelton, Alex Welsh, Max Collie, Chris Barber et al.

As for the European big bands - yes, they were there in the 50s and early 60s too (long before Doldinger and Herbolzheimer in Germany, for example, lest anyone refer to these right away). But they usually were and are given short shrift for several reasons: U.S. authors sneered at most of them (though many bands certainly were fairly able to hold their own against Ray Anthony - and definitely his Brother Lee Roy, Ralph Flanagan, Ralph Marterie, Billy May and others in that league), European authors and fans appreciated them back in the day (so you would have to look up contemporary publications to read up on them) but later on this audience found they had "outgrown" them (towards modernism, of course) and did not wish to be reminded of their earlier tastes, often dismissing them outright. Beyond the problem of really excellent rhythm sections often being in short supply, of course there was the eternal problem of almost all of the these European big bands being unable to survive on their jazz "book" alone in their everyday business. They had more commercial "books" (which figured prominently in their live appearances and recordings - so you have to fine-comb their recordings for the jazzier "gems" - which there were, though).
OTOH, as far as I have read even the outright U.S. jazz big bands had their commercial "books" for their one-nighters and residencies, even Basie, or Lunceford with his "waltz" book, for example. (Usually conveniently forgotten by jazz historians, though)

BTW, getting back to the UK "trad" scene, take the time and watch both parts of this 1956 short from start to finish to catch a bit of the appeal and atmosphere of the times. It IS rewarding IMO in a time-capsule sort of way:

 

 

Edited March 18, 2023 by Big Beat Steve

[JSngry]

Everybody loves somebody sometimes 

[Rabshakeh]

4 hours ago, Big Beat Steve said:

Correct on all accounts (except that Grappelly never was part of the traditional jazz scene but was a swing man throughout - with some "modernized" leanings later on). Sweden and Italy had their "trad" scenes and bands too, for example.

Cannot offer any recollections (am far too young for that, unless you refer to the 70s traditional ("Dixieland") jazz scene in Germany too (which already was an evolution of the early post-war and 50s traditional jazz scene here.
More later on when I have more time to expand on it.

The European traditional jazz scene of the post-war period seems to be a touchy subject, though. Often dismissed as it certainly had too much of a very basic "home-made" quality  to it. But it was accessible and one easy way of getting the young'uns into jazz.

As for your impression of the UK "trad jazz" recordings you "inherited", it all depends on what records and artists these exactly were. There WERE artists and band leaders to be reckoned with well beyond the "trad" fad - Humphrey Lyttelton, Alex Welsh, Max Collie, Chris Barber et al.

As for the European big bands - yes, they were there in the 50s and early 60s too (long before Doldinger and Herbolzheimer in Germany, for example, lest anyone refer to these right away). But they usually were and are given short shrift for several reasons: U.S. authors sneered at most of them (though many bands certainly were fairly able to hold their own against Ray Anthony - and definitely his Brother Lee Roy, Ralph Flanagan, Ralph Marterie, Billy May and others in that league), European authors and fans appreciated them back in the day (so you would have to look up contemporary publications to read up on them) but later on this audience found they had "outgrown" them (towards modernism, of course) and did not wish to be reminded of their earlier tastes, often dismissing them outright. Beyond the problem of really excellent rhythm sections often being in short supply, of course there was the eternal problem of almost all of the these European big bands being unable to survive on their jazz "book" alone in their everyday business. They had more commercial "books" (which figured prominently in their live appearances and recordings - so you have to fine-comb their recordings for the jazzier "gems" - which there were, though).
OTOH, as far as I have read even the outright U.S. jazz big bands had their commercial "books" for their one-nighters and residencies, even Basie, or Lunceford with his "waltz" book, for example. (Usually conveniently forgotten by jazz historians, though)

BTW, getting back to the UK "trad" scene, take the time and watch both parts of this 1956 short from start to finish to catch a bit of the appeal and atmosphere of the times. It IS rewarding IMO in a time-capsule sort of way:

 

 

Thank you, for a really brilliant answer.

Are there any LPs that stand out for you? It seems like it was a singles genre: Bad Penny Blues to Stranger on the Shore standing out as singles more than albums. But still, it lasted well into the LP era.

I have also found this thread, which has some good recollections too. And some discussion on the perennial trad jazz question: why trad jazz?

 

 

[BillF]

Why trad jazz? Because there was a revival - just as there is now a hard bop/Blue Note revival. (Check Smalls jazz club on YouTube).

As for the traditional jazz revival, look into Kid Ory, Bunk Johnson, George Lewis and Ken Colyer.

The Barber band in the videos must now be seen as something of a classic (I saw them once in 1957), a legitimate offshoot and development from the New Orleans jazz of an earlier era. (Listening to 1950s Bechet, Lyttelton and Barber soon took me to Morton, Oliver and Armstrong.)

[Rabshakeh]

17 minutes ago, BillF said:

Why trad jazz? Because there was a revival - just as there is now a hard bop/Blue Note revival. (Check Smalls jazz club on YouTube).

I mean, why, at that particular time in the UK was Dixieland revival type music not just a reasonable scene but actually chart topping?

[Big Beat Steve]

8 hours ago, Rabshakeh said:

Are there any LPs that stand out for you? It seems like it was a singles genre: Bad Penny Blues to Stranger on the Shore standing out as singles more than albums. But still, it lasted well into the LP era.

I have also found this thread, which has some good recollections too. And some discussion on the perennial trad jazz question: why trad jazz?

 

As for "why Trad Jazz", I think the above thread from 2013 has most answers. I cannot find much to add (and will leave it to English forumists anyway - they will know better). Except that I was about to mention the "Restless Generation" book by Pete Frame for a background description of the evolution of the scene through the 50s but then saw I already had mentioned it in the earlier thread you linked (10 years already - how time flies ...). And as for the question "Why Trad Jazz when they could have had Rock'n'Roll as their teenage music?", it should be remembered that traditional jazz had found its audience quite a while before R'n'R really made an impact in Europe. We tend to think of 1954 as the start of R'n'R but in Europe it rather was 1956/57.

Regarding records to recommend, this is a bit hard for me. Revival Jazz (US or European) is a niche part of my jazz interest and not at the core of my jazz preferences. I tend to pick up originals when I come across them at prices where you can just give them a try.
I never cared much for the 60s "Stranger On the Shore", "Petite Fleur" or "Midnight in Moscow" kind of Trad Jazz(-cum-Pop?) chart hits but prefer the somewhat earlier European traditional jazz recordings, and some of my interest may come from an attempt to explore this as part of jazz history.
I remember several years ago I bought an armload of Trad 45s (mostly Chris Barber, plus some Kenny Ball and Cy Laurie a.o.) at a clearout sale of our #1 local record shop but soon after this had me wondering "What was I thinking?" Though the price was almost impossible to resist and some records are quite good (for what they were intended) and showed the artists had paid their dues (e.g. EPs of "Chris Barber Plays the Music of Clarence and Spencer Williams").

When you go for LPs and unless you focus on reissue compilations,  look at the 10-inch LP bins. As you have seen for yourself, revival jazz was a 45 singles and EP medium at the time (like music geared at the teenagers usually was in the 50s) and what LPs there were often were 10-inchers (even after 12-inch LPs had become the norm in jazz).

Some LPs I find stand out from the crowd or provide a good sampling of the period productions (among those I am aware of which may be far from comprehensive):

- "New Orleans Joys" - Chris Barber's Jazz Band & Skiffle Group (Decca)
- "Jazz At The Royal Festival Hall" - Humphrey Lyttelton (Parlophone)
- "Jazz Session with Humph" - Humphrey Lyttelton (Parlophone)
- "Jazz aus der Eierschale" - Spree City Stompers (Germany) featuring Wild Bill Davison
(something of a "seminal" 50s revival jazz record on the German scene)
- "Fatty George spielt Dixieland" (Telefunken) (an Austrian who straddled the fence of trad and modern with his band that was at home in both idioms)
- "Dixieland Ball" (Brunswick) - a 1956 V.A. LP with some of the major revival bands from Germany and Switzerland
- "Dixieland!" - The Two Beat Stompers (Brunswick) - another of the major German traditional jazz bands (feat. Emil Mangelsdorff in the lineup), rec. 1954 to 57

An intriguing item:
- "Barber At The London Palladium" (Columbia, Philips, MFP - depending on what pressing you stumble upon) - Chris Barber at a  Poll Winners' concert of 1961, featuring Joe Harriott who sat in on some numbers ...

And then there was Sidney Bechet. His European recordings - as well as those of his French acolytes (with or without him as the featured soloist) - are a history to itself, enough for a separate post.
As are major revival jazz acts from other European countries. The Dutch Swing College Band (DSCB), for example, had numerous LPs out, and you cannot really fault them for their musicianship. They were more than a notch above the typical home-made dixieland-skiffle combos.
And if you'd like to sample how revival jazz was popularized elsewhere in Europe while the UK had "Trad" (and are not taking this too seriously 😁), check out Papa Bue's Viking Jazz Band from Denmark when he jazzes up old nursery rhymes or the Old Merry Tale Jazz Band from Germany who had a thing going with jazzing up popular songs from the 20s or folk tunes. As did the Feetwarmers from Germany (including Klaus Doldinger in some of their early lineups) - and the DSCB, too.

On another note, some well-established European revival jazz bands of the 50s and early 60s may have done some of their best work acompanying visiting (or resident expat) U.S. jazzmen of the older school (Albert Nicholas, Nelson Williams, Benny Waters, Edmond Hall a.o.). Another wide field.

Edited March 19, 2023 by Big Beat Steve

[Gheorghe]

When I was young I still remember there was quite a vivid trad jazz scene in Viena. 
There was bands that almost each month performed at "Jazzland", like the "Barrelhouse Jazzband", the "Red Hot Pots", the "Picadilly Onions" and so on. Well, they had a lot of fans from an older generation. 

Í´d say it was like a paralel-society. The Trad fans where one group of fans or musicians, and the "modernists" where another one. 

But I´m glad that they existed, since our wonderful "Jazzland" would not have survived for so long time if it had not covered the whole "market". 
I heard great musicians there from the genres I dug, like most of all the then brand new Dave Liebman, and be/hardbop legends like Art Farmer, James Moody, the wonderful Woody Shaw and all of then, and I have performed in that club and will do so further. All my love to that place and the people who run it. 

As I said, the trad clique was another society. They were more straight ahead people in private live, than many of us others were. 

My only encounter with one trad group was when somebody had urged me on stage to sit in with such a group for a few tunes. There was no animosity from my part, the leader, a very fat and white bearded banjo player called "Sweet Georgia Brown" and when my turn came, my idea was just to play my boppish stuff to interpolate it with them their stuff, like those friendly battles where let´s say Bird sat in with a trad group, or how they performed some old time tunes on that "Bands for Bonds" thing. "Sweet Georgia Brown" has nice changes, they were used by Jackie McLean on his tune  "Dig aka Donna" , Bud played it once in the studio, Fats Navarro/Allan Eager played it ...., and I thought I was good, and some of the guys in that trad band who had a bit more open mind, smiled at me when I did my stuff. Anyway I tried to simpatizize with them by changing my own stuff into a more Teddy Wilson sounding stuff, with some stride in the left hand, but the more chromatic lines were to the complete dislike of that fat white bearded banjo playing leader who almost chased me from the stage and I think later in the evening when he got juiced he cursed me as a long haired arrogant kid who never had worked some real work in a factory or in construction or who knows what.....

[BillF]

Gheorghe, your post recalls the Trad v. Modern war that raged in this country in those days, and which I am sure has already been well described on Organissimo.

So I'll just mention one incident. When Humphrey Lyttelton, who was moving stylistically towards Kansas City, added altoist Bruce Turner to his lineup, a group of trad fans stood up in a concert (in Birmingham, I think) and displayed a banner that read GO HOME DIRTY BOPPER! 😀 

[Big Beat Steve]

4 hours ago, Gheorghe said:

When I was young I still remember there was quite a vivid trad jazz scene in Viena. 
There was bands that almost each month performed at "Jazzland", like the "Barrelhouse Jazzband", the "Red Hot Pots", the "Picadilly Onions" and so on. Well, they had a lot of fans from an older generation. 

But I´m glad that they existed, since our wonderful "Jazzland" would not have survived for so long time if it had not covered the whole "market". 

 

I just read up on this in the "Jazz in Österreich 1920-1960" book by Klaus Schulz, and the "Jazzland" club does not figure in there, so it must have opened after 1969. This was the second wave of traditional (aka Dixieland, aka oldtime) jazz that sprouted in Germany, too, throughout the 70s and was a sort of "revival of revival jazz".
Similar to your "Jazzland", there was "Onkel Pö's Carnegie Hall" in Hamburg (a stronghold of this second Dixieland revival) that existed from 1970 to 1985 and featured decidedly modern or rock jazz-influenced acts at live jazz concerts as well, some of which were released on vinyl (as mentions of this club here by non-European forumists testify. )
Our #1 local jazz club (opening in 1972) of that period had been geared towards traditional jazz as well but did host artists like Dave Brubeck or Bill Evans too through the years.  The hotel (where this downstairs club was located) closed a couple of years ago, along with the club. The club reopened recently under a new name but now caters to the "club-hopper"/lounge crowd (with some smooth jazz probably being as jazzy as it will ever become) and no longer has a stage for live music.
On the few occasions I went to that club the acts went well beyond dixieland. I cannot recall having heard of any incidents along the "moldy figs vs sour grapes" lines. According to your stylistic preferences you went there or you didn't. And - as in Gheorghe's case - as the average age of the jazz audience overall had increased by the 70s/80s most of them must have mellowed with age, being glad to be able to catch some live jazz. And the "club" setup helped. The dance floor in front of the stage was relatively small, and concerts usually were "seated events" with most of the room filled with tables. And whatever dancing occurred was not so much jiving but usually more like some more or less spirited foxtrot dancing. With things sometimes probably getting a bit too staid. I remember one occasion we went to that club in 1990 with about a dozen of our friends to catch a band led by an expat Brit that billed themselves as a "barrelhouse" traditional jazz band but had a "Louis Prima Revival" side project going that was featured that night (reviving his Las Vegas Capitol-era tunes, but not - to my personal regret - his 30s small-band swing, but spicing the set up with some Louis Jordan tunes as well IIRC). We enjoyed ourselves, gathered in front of the stage, some couples started jiving and at one point three of our girls (in their early to mid-20s) who had brought their maraccas along hopped on stage, shaking their maraccas and moving to the rhythm - thus kicking some life (more in tune with THIS music) into the proceedings. For a moment the band looked baffled, but then carried on and seemed to enjoy all this more and more. Just like the obviously bemused audience at the tables who took their time to figure out what this was all about but in time probably took our maracca girls and the general excitement as part of the show they got for their money that night. After the set I remember overhearing the leader exclaiming to some of the regulars, "I sure have never seen anything like that before!" (Which in earlier decades would have been saying something!)

But all this was part of the "revival of revival jazz" starting in the 70s. The stylistic feuds may well have been more intense among the still-teenaged crowds in the 50s. In FRANCE they definitely were. The Traditional Jazz public, in particular, quickly acquired a bad reputation for making their dislikes heard very loudly and clearly, with bulb horns, cowbells and other  "instruments" added to augment their booing. And according to period reports it was not uncommon for "partisans" from either faction (though the trad-minded were more aggressive, it seems) making a point of trying to spoil the others' live events. (If Brownie reads this he may have some stories to share ...?)
 

Edited March 19, 2023 by Big Beat Steve

[John L]

The English trad jazz scene was a bit different than on the continent due partly to the fact that the UK had tougher restrictions on allowing foreign musicians to come and work there.   A central figure in the French trad jazz scene was Claude Luter, who continued the tradition into the 21st century.   The scene received a big boost when Sidney Bechet moved to Paris.   

[Rabshakeh]

I hadn't realised that France had suffered so severely in the jazz wars. I think that I had naively assumed that the French jazz fan public quickly embraced bop.

[JSngry]

HA!!!!!

[Gheorghe]

20 hours ago, Big Beat Steve said:

I just read up on this in the "Jazz in Österreich 1920-1960" book by Klaus Schulz, and the "Jazzland" club does not figure in there, so it must have opened after 1969. This was the second wave of traditional (aka Dixieland, aka oldtime) jazz that sprouted in Germany, too, throughout the 70s and was a sort of "revival of revival jazz".
Similar to your "Jazzland", there was "Onkel Pö's Carnegie Hall" in Hamburg (a stronghold of this second Dixieland revival) that existed from 1970 to 1985 and featured decidedly modern or rock jazz-influenced acts at live jazz concerts as well, some of which were released on vinyl (as mentions of this club here by non-European forumists testify. )
Our #1 local jazz club (opening in 1972) of that period had been geared towards traditional jazz as well but did host artists like Dave Brubeck or Bill Evans too through the years.  The hotel (where this downstairs club was located) closed a couple of years ago, along with the club. The club reopened recently under a new name but now caters to the "club-hopper"/lounge crowd (with some smooth jazz probably being as jazzy as it will ever become) and no longer has a stage for live music.
On the few occasions I went to that club the acts went well beyond dixieland. I cannot recall having heard of any incidents along the "moldy figs vs sour grapes" lines. According to your stylistic preferences you went there or you didn't. And - as in Gheorghe's case - as the average age of the jazz audience overall had increased by the 70s/80s most of them must have mellowed with age, being glad to be able to catch some live jazz. And the "club" setup helped. The dance floor in front of the stage was relatively small, and concerts usually were "seated events" with most of the room filled with tables. And whatever dancing occurred was not so much jiving but usually more like some more or less spirited foxtrot dancing. With things sometimes probably getting a bit too staid. I remember one occasion we went to that club in 1990 with about a dozen of our friends to catch a band led by an expat Brit that billed themselves as a "barrelhouse" traditional jazz band but had a "Louis Prima Revival" side project going that was featured that night (reviving his Las Vegas Capitol-era tunes, but not - to my personal regret - his 30s small-band swing, but spicing the set up with some Louis Jordan tunes as well IIRC). We enjoyed ourselves, gathered in front of the stage, some couples started jiving and at one point three of our girls (in their early to mid-20s) who had brought their maraccas along hopped on stage, shaking their maraccas and moving to the rhythm - thus kicking some life (more in tune with THIS music) into the proceedings. For a moment the band looked baffled, but then carried on and seemed to enjoy all this more and more. Just like the obviously bemused audience at the tables who took their time to figure out what this was all about but in time probably took our maracca girls and the general excitement as part of the show they got for their money that night. After the set I remember overhearing the leader exclaiming to some of the regulars, "I sure have never seen anything like that before!" (Which in earlier decades would have been saying something!)

But all this was part of the "revival of revival jazz" starting in the 70s. The stylistic feuds may well have been more intense among the still-teenaged crowds in the 50s. In FRANCE they definitely were. The Traditional Jazz public, in particular, quickly acquired a bad reputation for making their dislikes heard very loudly and clearly, with bulb horns, cowbells and other  "instruments" added to augment their booing. And according to period reports it was not uncommon for "partisans" from either faction (though the trad-minded were more aggressive, it seems) making a point of trying to spoil the others' live events. (If Brownie reads this he may have some stories to share ...?)
 

Klaus Schulz was a very nice guy and did an interview with us somewhere in the early 90´s for "Jazz Podium" after a gig. 
Our "Jazzland" was founded in 1972 and still goes and I´m so glad about it. 

I was not so historically "educated" to know if the trad revival was THE revival or a revival of a revival. I don´t think the animositys between those two groups were so strong. It was just two different things. The guys who would go listen to Barrelhous Jazzbands or how they where named were not the same like those who would listen to modern jazz. And as you mentioned Brubeck.....that was also another separate group, mostly the intelectuals who were students in the 50´s and attracted by that kind of style. 

About dancing to jazz.....yeah we had a club called "Jazz Freddie" where they had really good acts (the first time I heard Griffin when I was still a boy), and in the  after hours it turned out to be more dancing, I don´t know if they called it jive or boogie or foxtrot, it was "people of the night" who very often came after the regular live concert, and it became quite loud there. But those jive dancers or what they was was always couples. I think that act of "maraccas girls" could also be seen, but in other places. That sounds more like "urban alternative szene" , and the dancing at "Jazz Freddie" seemed to be more like a more rude suburban scene. But I didn´t notice all of that stuff around......, my goal was to be involved with the musicians and somehow I  had blinders torwards the rest of the proceedings.....

Edited March 20, 2023 by Gheorghe

[Rabshakeh]

Thinking about it, do we even have a thread on the forum relating to the classic jazz revival in any of its forms? It is a subject that interests me from an historical perspective. Seems bizarre that we would not, but I have tried looking.

[Rabshakeh]

Many of the obits for Peter Brotzmann mentioned his start in Dixieland. I don't think that's particularly uncommon for the stars of the European scenes who emerged in the 1960s.

Do any recordings exist of him or others playing trad styles?

Hoping for records with Derek Bailey playing banjo on My Old Man's A Dustman or of Manfred Schoof tootling on When The Saints Come Marching In.

Edited June 25, 2023 by Rabshakeh

[Niko]

Albert Mangelsdorff's discography has quite a few entries like that (but also swing and cool jazz) similar for Han Bennink who recorded with Dixieland bands well into the late 60s... I think it's really quite common

Here, Track B4 has the combination of Schoof and Jaki Liebezeit playing Taps Miller in 1959 (and there are more names that became famous later on across those lineups, Süverkrüp, Olaf Kübler, Jack van Poll...)

Edited June 25, 2023 by Niko

[mikeweil]

There was a widespread traditional scene in Germany because this was a style older people could relate to from the time before the NAZI regime. The radio big bands covered the swing style. Newer styles like bop and cool were known only to connoisseurs and the audience of the few jazz concerts staged.

One more problem was and is that the tradjazz scene has many amateur musicians, doctors and lawyers, and younger musicians being opposed to their lifestyle. Modern and free jazz developments here had a lot to do with avoiding anything associated with remainders of third reich culture. The Brötzmann interviews posted in his obituary thread will tell you some about this.

Mangelsdorff made similar statements in interviews l have watched or read.

2 hours ago, Rabshakeh said:

Do any recordings exist of him or others playing trad styles?

Brötzmann made his first recordings in 1965 with free style bands. One would have to search for all the names in the Tom Lord Disco to find out about the others.

Edited June 25, 2023 by mikeweil

[Niko]

Amateur dixieland bands are one thing i wouldn't blame the Nazis for - at least, they existed in many European countries as well as in Australia, the US etc... And, for instance, in the Netherlands people clearly had exposure to swing e.g. via Coleman Hawkins who spent quite some here in the 50s... And still, young aircraft engineers and the like founded the Dutch Swing College... Or, in the US you have the ivy league dixieland scene etc etc 

And I guess it's also fairly common that part of the first generation of free jazz musicians didn't come from the professional modern jazz scene of the 50s and early 60s... There are some nice interviews from the Dutch scène who Bennink had to choose between the proper musicians who wore suits and appeared on tv (like the Jacobs brothers) and other scenes like the Dixieland and the Free Jazz Scene

[Big Beat Steve]

Let's not forget Klaus Doldinger who started out with The Feetwarmers and played with them long enough to make several records with them.

And then there were the very popular Two Beat Stompers whose lineup for a while included Emil Mangelsdorff and Joki Freund. Incidentally, as for Albert Mangelsdorff, I wonder if whatever recordings in a traditional jazz style by him are more likely to have been side effects of his appearances with his brother Emil who was more of a swinger and less of an all-out modernist. At any rate, his "Opa Hirchleitner Story" session was a (very well-done) spoof but no Dixieland (though the titles of the session read like it).

I am not sure if the very early live and festival appearances by Volker Kriegel were in the swing or older traditonal jazz style. I think, though, that hardly any of these have been documented on record as there were no recordings released prior to the 1958 German amateur festival.

And one more from the US that at first listening sounds like Dixieland - and yet ...:
Anyone familiar with the very early recordings of Steve Lacy that he did in the mid-50s with the Dick Sutton combo for the Jaguar label? They are a very odd but highly fascinating and entertaining mixture of Dixieland that the players try hard to modernize and extend by going straight to modern jazz, bypassing the swing style - yet without totally leaving the traditional idiom. Fittingly enough, the original releases were referred to as "Progressive Dixieland". They were reissued on a 2-LP Set on Fresco Jazz and later on CD by Fresh Sound (who else? ).

Edited June 26, 2023 by Big Beat Steve

[Gheorghe]

On 6/25/2023 at 2:38 PM, Big Beat Steve said:

 

 

the players try hard to modernize and extend by going straight to modern jazz, bypassing the swing style - yet without totally leaving the traditional idiom. Fittingly enough, the original releases were referred to as "Progressive Dixieland". They were reissued on a 2-LP Set on Fresco Jazz and later on CD by Fresh Sound (who else? ).

Decades ago a regular band that visited Jazzland and played there was called "New Traditional". It was during the time was the "cortina de fier" and they came from Bratislava (CSSR). Maybe they had special permission from the system down there. Bratislave is not far from Viena, so it can be done just for a one nighter without much logistic trouble, if they were not stopped for ours when leaving or re-entering the CSSR. 
But musically (I didn´t go to them there shows) Mr. Melhardt, the boss of Jazzland praised them as being not only traditional, but also progressive, including "influences of rock" . Anyway, their bass player played electric bass. 

[Niko]

That fairly busy electric bass sounds indeed funny in that setting...

 

I also like those 50s recordings of progressive Dixieland from that Freshsound Twofer... Music from back when at least some people believed that the great unification of music in third stream would not just encompass classical and modern jazz but also dixieland (and obviously that's very different music than Novy Tradicional)

Edited June 27, 2023 by Niko

[Rabshakeh]

5 hours ago, Niko said:

That fairly busy electric bass sounds indeed funny in that setting...

 

I also like those 50s recordings of progressive Dixieland from that Freshsound Twofer... Music from back when at least some people believed that the great unification of music in third stream would not just encompass classical and modern jazz but also dixieland (and obviously that's very different music than Novy Tradicional)

That's really interesting. Not something I'd have ever found on my own. At times it sounds like a Bonzo Dog spoof.

On 6/25/2023 at 1:38 PM, Big Beat Steve said:

Let's not forget Klaus Doldinger who started out with The Feetwarmers and played with them long enough to make several records with them.

And then there were the very popular Two Beat Stompers whose lineup for a while included Emil Mangelsdorff and Joki Freund. 

Which of the Feetwarmers' and the Two Beat Stompers' records should one seek out? 

On 6/25/2023 at 1:38 PM, Big Beat Steve said:

And one more from the US that at first listening sounds like Dixieland - and yet ...:

Anyone familiar with the very early recordings of Steve Lacy that he did in the mid-50s with the Dick Sutton combo for the Jaguar label? They are a very odd but highly fascinating and entertaining mixture of Dixieland that the players try hard to modernize and extend by going straight to modern jazz, bypassing the swing style - yet without totally leaving the traditional idiom. Fittingly enough, the original releases were referred to as "Progressive Dixieland". They were reissued on a 2-LP Set on Fresco Jazz and later on CD by Fresh Sound (who else? ).

I think Roswell Rudd may have also got his start in Dixieland. Another one I'd be interested to hear.

I may imagine it, but I do hear Dixieland elements, especially timing, in both Rudd's and Lacy's later work.

On 6/25/2023 at 1:38 PM, Big Beat Steve said:

And one more from the US that at first listening sounds like Dixieland - and yet ...:

Anyone familiar with the very early recordings of Steve Lacy that he did in the mid-50s with the Dick Sutton combo for the Jaguar label? They are a very odd but highly fascinating and entertaining mixture of Dixieland that the players try hard to modernize and extend by going straight to modern jazz, bypassing the swing style - yet without totally leaving the traditional idiom. Fittingly enough, the original releases were referred to as "Progressive Dixieland". They were reissued on a 2-LP Set on Fresco Jazz and later on CD by Fresh Sound (who else? ).

I think Roswell Rudd may have also got his start in Dixieland. Another one I'd be interested to hear.

I may imagine it, but I do hear Dixieland elements, especially timing, in both Rudd's and Lacy's later work.

On 6/25/2023 at 9:16 AM, Niko said:

Albert Mangelsdorff's discography has quite a few entries like that (but also swing and cool jazz) similar for Han Bennink who recorded with Dixieland bands well into the late 60s... I think it's really quite common

I had a root around for the Bennink and A Mangelsdorff early recordings in the idiom, but struggled to find. Which are the ones you are referring to?

[Niko]

For Bennink I was specifically thinking of this here

https://www.discogs.com/release/3377971-The-Stork-Town-Dixie-Kids-The-Stork-Town-Dixie-Kids

recorded in the summer of 1967 and thus remarkably late....

For Mangelsdorff I was also thinking of something like this

https://www.discogs.com/master/1028857-Two-Beat-Stompers-Thats-Dixieland

What I find remarkable is that Mangelsdorff and his circle (like Joki Freund) really recorded in three quite separate genres in the 50s, Dixieland, Swing (with his brother, Albert M sometimes on guitar) and Cool (e.g. with Hans Koller) 

This also looks interesting, Mangelsdorff again on guitar

https://www.discogs.com/master/2884543-Benno-Walldorf-Blues-Combo-Wailin-The-Blues

I don't know all this music I should say...

Edited June 27, 2023 by Niko

[Rabshakeh]

Thanks!!

Thanks!!