Memorial Day Weekend in Sacramento brings the biggest (their words, not mine) jazz festival in the west. That’s right, when we are not busy making names for ourselves trying to yank “under God” out of our daily pledge to the flag, we bring together the world’s best jazz bands to Old Sac (not Old Town, you Pasadenians) and its nearby environs. And in celebration of this musical extravaganza, do you know what I do? That’s right, I stay the hell away from it because my God, the crowds.
When I was a kid, it was called the Sacramento Dixieland Jazz Jubilee. Now it’s called the Sacramento Jazz Jubilee. Why? Because apparently, now it’s sans dixieland jazz. Which as far as I’m concerned is a crying shame. I for one, do not like standard jazz particularly, but I love dixieland jazz. It’s so bouncy and happy and New Orleansy. I mean, who can listen to When The Saints Go Marching In without tapping at least three of their feet? I will listen to NPR all day long, until that blasted “trad jazz” crap comes on. Then I ferociously spin the dial over to some golf station. You know, because I’m lookin’ for something that MOVES me.
I know a lot of people are of the opposite view, to whom I say: DIXIELAND-DIXIELAND-DIXIELAND. And it’s because of you anti-dixites, that MY kinda music has been scraped from the playlist like the charred part from toast.
Now for all I know I’m talking out of my ass, assuming dixieland jazz is all but eradicated from the event, but when I looked at the genre of bands (traditional, zydeco, blues, etc.) guess which category was NOT on the list! So, while the Black Tuesday Jazz Band claims to play dixieland, they are listed under “classical”. It’s like: “OK, you play dixieland jazz? Well, we can’t really put you under that, because we don’t want to scare people. We’ll just see who comes in and then see how it goes. You know, AFTER we get their $100.”
So Dixieland jazz has been relegated to the underground. How do you like that? Secret handshakes and passwords and sunglasses and trenchcoats and “Pssst, c’mere buddy” and twenty-dollar bill-slippin’ to the man in the know just to find out where you can get you some o’ dat. Because as you know, you can never quite get rid of all the burnt bits, no matter how much you scrape.
