If there isn't there should be.
On Feb 18, 4:23 pm, mistertaterbug <[email protected]> wrote:
> Aha, now I get it. Sorry, but it's hard for me to think about more
> than one thing at a time like you young college whippersnappers. So,
> New Jersey was a mecca for banjo enthusiasts in the early days? Cool.
> Thanks for taking up for banjo players and trying to keep the
> bubbatooth syndrome in check.You've got at least one "attaboy" for
> that. I get as much mileage out of banjo jokes as the next guy, but I
> know the reality is there's a lot of very complicated music played on
> banjos, and not just by classical players. I reckon if anybody could
> bring respectability to banjo culture it would've been guys like
> Ossman and Van Eps (Aren't Fred Van Eps' recordings supposed to have
> been one of Earl Scruggs influences?). But beings this comes up, I
> wonder if so much minstrel and classical banjo music came from the
> northeast because of business opportunities (publishing/printing/
> licensing) due to the number of people and venues closer together, or
> was it due to the most prominent players of the instrument in that day
> being located there, which obviously would attract more prominent
> writers/players? I know that there were a number of banjo
> manufacturers located in the Northeast. Why would the North feel so
> compelled to write romantic musical scenes about the South, however
> unrealistic? How romantic was it for the blacks and the dirt-poor
> whites? I doubt it had anything to do with climate.
>
> I do find it funny that you brought up the NJ connection considering
> Hartford said one time that "you gotta be Jewish and from NJ to play
> oldtime music these days". I think he was kidding, but still the
> reality of it may not be too far off base.
>
> Val, where could a copy of "The Secret Lives of Banjos" be obtained?
> And yes, I do think that 27 banjos in one place is way over the legal
> limit. There's probably an ordinance against it someplace.
>
> puhtater
>
> On Feb 18, 12:18 pm, Val Mindel <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>
> > Mike H, if you ever get a chance to catch "The secret lives of
> > banjos," you should. It's a show put together by Jody Stecher and Bill
> > Evans and includes a great story about Arctic explorations, banjos and
> > penguins ... It also shows the broad reach of the instrument. They use
> > something Iike 27 banjos in their show and demonstrate convincingly
> > that the banjo has a wild and well-traveled history.
>
> > Meanwhile, for my $.02, I think we can play outside our immediate
> > zones, just as we listen outside those zones, given sufficient will
> > and passion/obsession. It's a matter of relating to the underlying
> > emotion. Music really is generated from just a few main themes --
> > love, death, god, events, work -- mixed and matched as appropriate,
> > and we can relate to these themes, even if the specifics (collard
> > greens) are foreign. Granted there is music that is outside my ken
> > (Chinese opera, for example), but I suspect that if I wanted to and
> > had a spare lifetime to mess around with it, I could tackle anything
> > that moved me. But being moved by it is the key. Just look at some of
> > our Japanese old-time musician friends who play great, with scrupulous
> > regard for the channels the music has come through. Of course, the
> > farther you are from the source, the harder it is to pick up the
> > nuances, rhythmic and otherwise, but I don't buy the you-gotta-have-
> > been-born-there notion, nor do I think the music died with some past
> > generation. Many young people are playing it well, with great
> > attention to detail and history, and not-so-young people like me are
> > still working at playing it, and that's a good thing, I think. But
> > then I've spent much of my life in zones where the frost-free date
> > skated to the end of June (or where other climatic realities dominate)
> > so I'm hardly any sort of argument for regional authenticity. best,
> > val
>
> > On Feb 18, 11:19 am, Mike Hoffmann <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > > Tater tater tater tater tate-
> > > Your post was about ethnic groups and then there was a sentence about
> > > Chicago. I drank a cup of coffee and read a big chunk of a book (Making
> > > the
> > > second ghetto - race and housing in chicago 1940-1960) that I really
> > > should
> > > have already finished yesterday before working on music. The chapter I
> > > left
> > > half finished was on white ethnic neighborhoods in Chicago. Then the
> > > coffee
> > > actually started working and I picked up my mandolin and was playing and
> > > listening to stuff on my computer whence I should have been doing homwork.
> > > That lead to reading this mailing list and thus your post, reminding me
> > > about white ethnic groups and Chicago and that I should be reading that
> > > book. I guess I should have just left the response in my head! Sorry for
> > > leading us off track.
>
> > > On another note, I was once told that NJ was a hotbed of classical banjo
> > > activity. I also just read an account of a North Pole expedition that
> > > mentioned banjos AND accordions playing home sweet home while in the
> > > arctic.
> > > I think banjos were everywhere. Fred Van Eps and Vess Ossman both lived
> > > here and played extensively in Asbury Park, but certainly not old-time
> > > music. My dad always calls our local area banjo land because he gets
> > > frustrated at the inability to think liberally at school board meetings
> > > and
> > > such. I always get mad and remind him that it takes a large mind to play
> > > a
> > > banjo. The banjo gets pigeonholed as a rural, southern thing. Even a lot
> > > of the minstrel stuff was written in NYC, and it certainly romanticized
> > > the
> > > south. There is something about fantasizing about the South for us
> > > Northerners. Even Dixie was written up North. Maybe that is why old-time
> > > music is so popular up North in New England, MN, and Wisconsin
> > > specifically.
> > > It's cold and in the south it is so warm. I get jealous when I listen to
> > > Charlie McCoy sing, "in the wintertime I'm doing mighty well, but in the
> > > summertime its a burning hell" because in the wintertime here it is cold!
>
> > > On a side note, I am watching Dora the Explorer with my niece right now
> > > and
> > > a flower is lost in the snow and they are trying to find their way back to
> > > warmer climates. Perhaps that is the same as us Northern flowers
> > > listening
> > > mournfully to southbound trains. Also, in the background I could swear
> > > they
> > > keep playing little brown jug.
>
> > > need to organize my thoughts better
> > > Mike H- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
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