Dixielnd Bands

Billy Tonnesen · Post by **Billy Tonnesen** » 13 Nov 2009 2:00 pm

Other than probably in the Deep South, are Dixieland
Bands still alive and kicking ? There used to be some pretty good groups in So. Calif. Dixieland and Western Swing can be very close to each other !

Post by **Dave Mudgett** » 13 Nov 2009 2:35 pm

We have a few in this large-university town in Pennsylvania, and they tend to do fairly well in a particular niche - private parties, pizza parlors or other restaurants, town and university sponsored shows, and so on, but so much in clubs. The musicians tend to be solid and it's fun for all ages.

At least for the bands I know, I don't hear a strong resemblance to western swing. The feels are different and the only stringed instrument is a tenor banjo. Everything else non-percussion - including the bass (tuba) - is a horn. But the guys I know here who play trad jazz do like western swing, no question.

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 13 Nov 2009 3:39 pm

I played bass for a year in a New Orleans style Dixieland band back in the late 60's.

I think there are some in Orlando and in Tampa.

Billy Tonnesen · Post by **Billy Tonnesen** » 13 Nov 2009 4:41 pm

Listen to some the cuts on Asleep at the Wheel's tributue to Bob Will album. The first song "Red Wing" stafrts out as Country as you can get and ends up in complete Dixieland mode at the end with horns added and it all melds together.

Bob Wills back in the 40's and 50's was always shifting the style of his band between Western Swing and Dixieland. I saw him once at the Riverside Rancho in Glendale, Ca. where Bobby Koeffer was playing Steel and the Band also had a Trumpet, Sax, Trombone and Clarinet and they were primarily playing Dixieland style.

Mitch Drumm · Post by **Mitch Drumm** » 13 Nov 2009 11:24 pm

Fifty or sixty years ago "dixieland" would have meant Eddie Condon, Wingy Manone, Muggsy Spanier, Turk Murphy, Jack Teagarden, and even Louis Armstrong. These guys were masters who could play nearly anything in the pop vernacular of the time.

The term has since come to often refer to WASPs in loud sports jackets and boaters playing a narrow repertoire, typically in pizza parlors, with a listening audience of squares who wouldn't know Turk Murphy from Audie Murphy.

I wouldn't walk across the street to see the latter, but would dearly love to see the former.

So, it depends on what you mean and what you are looking for. I wouldn't know where to find either one on the average Friday night.