| Author |
 Topic  |
|
Basil Henriques
Lokahi
United Kingdom
225 Posts |
 Posted - 10/30/2007 : 11:26:08 PM
|
There has been a suggestion made by Keith Grant (Infamous for his 'DIRECTORY OF HAWAIIAN MUSIC RECORD COLLECTORS')
that we need to differentiate between the different genre's applicable to the lap steel.
This is a brief synopsis of the proposal :-
quote:
RETRO-ACOUSTIC-STEEL GUITAR :-
A revivalist pseudo jazz orientated acoustic steel guitar style strongly evocative of the "hot" steel guitar playing of Sol Hoopii and "King" Bennie Nawahi during the late 1920s and the early 1930s and, typically, played on an acoustic, metal bodied single cone or triple cone resonator guitar.
The genre was initially introduced and developed by Bob Armstrong of the "Cheap Suit Serenaders" and Bob Brozman. Leading exponents currently also include Allan Dodge formerly of the "Cheap Suit Serenaders" and now of "Dodge's Sundodgers," J.C. Grimshaw, Martin Wheatley of the "Hula Bluebirds," Cyril LeFebvre, Mike Neer fomerly of the "Moonlighters," Leopold Stepanek of the "Sons of the Desert" and Tomotaka Matsui of the "Slow Ride Pickers" and the "Sweet Hollywaiians.
If you have any suggestions as to the wording or accuracy therein, please post them here.
Basil
|
 |
Edited by - Basil Henriques on 10/31/2007 09:49:58 AM |
|
|
Mark
Ha`aha`a
USA
1628 Posts |
Posted - 10/31/2007 : 07:48:08 AM
|
Hey Basil -
If it helps folks to decide what they got, I suppose it's as good a definition as any. You might add a note about Wessenborn-style instruments. I am happy to see a distinction made between the revivalists and modern players.
Personally, while I appreciate the skill of the revivalists (and self named purists) and I enjoy old music as much as the next bloke, I like to hear someone play who recognizers that there has been some musical development on the instrument since the invention of the long-playing record.
Other than that, I don't have an opinion.  |
 |
|
|
Basil Henriques
Lokahi
United Kingdom
225 Posts |
|
|
Mark
Ha`aha`a
USA
1628 Posts |
Posted - 10/31/2007 : 11:12:15 AM
|
Basil-
Looked at the forum-- hmmm, folks sure get hot, don't they? Maybe "pseudo-jazz" isn't the best term, tho'. Maybe better to say something about "hot" jazz and popular music styles. Personally, I favor "Doo Wacka Doo" Music. Or would the "Vodie Oh Do" side be offended by that??
BTW: "revivalist" is actually a very well-defined term in the the folklore world, and one that I was never ashamed to have lofted at me or my bands by academics. Heck, I play the freakin' dulcimer, fer cry-yi! The tradition didn't die out in the Appalachians, but I'm not from the tradition and I learned from records. That's the definition of "revivalist."
As I used to say in my promo when I was doing old time music, I'm "a colorful replica of America's historical past."
I've known Brozman since we were on the same label in the 80s -- mighty Kicking Mule Records. I've seen him dozens and dozens of times, both solo and with various slack key guys. He's a great musician, and a true entertainer - particularly when playing solo.
And, yes, he is self-consciously re-creating a style of music (and entertainment) that flourished in the teens and 20's. I mean, when was the last time you saw a contemporary singer-songwriter play a steel-bodied uke behind his head?
Bob once told me that he wouldn't listen to any music created after 1927. So who's defining whom?
Mark "Pseudo-Intellectual" Nelson
|
|
|
|
rendesvous1840
Ha`aha`a
USA
1055 Posts |
Posted - 10/31/2007 : 5:42:54 PM
|
I looked at the discusion above, and stopped reading when it seemed it was going into emotional territory. Mankind sometimes wants to put labels on everything, it makes it easier to discuss or locate similar concepts. The first hawaiian album I bought was the Dancing Cat Collection, Vol. 2. The next several were ones represented on that first one. I didn't know anything Hawaiian other than Iz at that point. Hearing Bob Brozman with Cyril Pahinui and also with Ledward Kaapana, I sought out some of their duets. Reading of Bob's reverence for Sol Ho'o'pii and Tae Moe, I sought them also. The first hit I got turned out to be The Ho'o'pi'i Brothers, and from that, Wanda and I discovered falsetto. So each piece illuminates more of the total picture. I always believed in listening to the favorites of players I liked to hear. Sometimes I found the earlier players to be far superior to the later ones I heard first. Not necesarily better, just more to my tastes.But it's also good to then see where the later artists have taken the form. There are styles of music I don't care to listen to. I'm not that open-minded not to have favorites. But the twisted path that took me from Bob to Richard & Solomon wasn't really such a wrong turn after all. And it wasn't necessary; Wanda would have found her way there without my doing so. But the trip is fun, and I don't mind a winding road.
Paul |
"A master banjo player isn't the person who can pick the most notes.It's the person who can touch the most hearts." Patrick Costello |
Edited by - rendesvous1840 on 10/31/2007 5:44:53 PM |
|
|
|
Trev
Lokahi
United Kingdom
265 Posts |
Posted - 11/01/2007 : 02:56:04 AM
|
I don't think this is a bad working definition, although I agree with Mark about the use of the word 'pseudo', which has to my mind negative connotations.
In Britain (and I think Europe) the jazz from that period is known as 'swing', - is this what Americans would call 'hot' jazz?
I reckon you could say 'jazz influenced' rather than 'pseudo jazz orientated' without losing the meaning.
|
|
|
|
slipry1
Ha`aha`a
USA
1511 Posts |
Posted - 11/01/2007 : 03:32:04 AM
|
quote:
Originally posted by Mark
Basil-
Looked at the forum-- hmmm, folks sure get hot, don't they? Maybe "pseudo-jazz" isn't the best term, tho'. Maybe better to say something about "hot" jazz and popular music styles. Personally, I favor "Doo Wacka Doo" Music. Or would the "Vodie Oh Do" side be offended by that??
BTW: "revivalist" is actually a very well-defined term in the the folklore world, and one that I was never ashamed to have lofted at me or my bands by academics. Heck, I play the freakin' dulcimer, fer cry-yi! The tradition didn't die out in the Appalachians, but I'm not from the tradition and I learned from records. That's the definition of "revivalist."
As I used to say in my promo when I was doing old time music, I'm "a colorful replica of America's historical past."
I've known Brozman since we were on the same label in the 80s -- mighty Kicking Mule Records. I've seen him dozens and dozens of times, both solo and with various slack key guys. He's a great musician, and a true entertainer - particularly when playing solo.
And, yes, he is self-consciously re-creating a style of music (and entertainment) that flourished in the teens and 20's. I mean, when was the last time you saw a contemporary singer-songwriter play a steel-bodied uke behind his head?
Bob once told me that he wouldn't listen to any music created after 1927. So who's defining whom?
Mark "Pseudo-Intellectual" Nelson
I looked at the forum, too, as I do from time to time. It looks like Baz stepped into a buzz saw! Good job, though, of handling it. As Mark points out, there is traditional music in a lot of generes, "classical" music, e.g., which tries to reproduce music by people who have been dead for a couple of hundred years ago, and "Old-Timey music" in the folk world. I believe, as I have said before in this forum, that that "head set" creeps into other forms of music. As long as they let me play my stuff, I don't care what they call it (maybe "Fred" or "Arthur"?). Even though I play electric (and acoustic, too), my tunings come from the 40's, and I play in another "classic" Hawaiian style. However, improvisation is very important to that style, nad I am, unfortunately, maybe, incapable of playing the same thing twice (I bore easily). There's a classic jazz DJ here in Seattle who believes that jazz died somewhere in the early 1930's, but I LOVE his show when I get a chance to hear it. BTW, I've been in the room when Brozman was improvising, so ??? The quote about Robert Armstrong is very interesting to me. In my LA days there were quite a few folks from South Pasadena, including Armstrong and Dodge, and David Lindley and Chester Krell (aka Max Buddha) who were messing around with old Hawaiian music. D&A went up to San Francisco. met up the R. Crumb and the Cheap Suit Serenaders were born. When I get my own eclectic music show on the radio "The Kiwi Bump" will be my theme song. Also, Chester Krell wrote "Get A Load of This". He later went on to Kalidescope and The Rank Strangers under one pseudonym or another. |
keaka |
|
|
|
thumbstruck
Ahonui
USA
2168 Posts |
Posted - 11/01/2007 : 04:10:34 AM
|
My Dad told me, "Play it clean and don't hurt yourself." No one can sound exactly like someone else because playing music is such a personal thing.
As for "genres", yesterday's innovation is today's standard and tomorrow's hallowed tradition. If everyone just kept rigidly to tradition, we wouldn't have steel guitar or any other innovation. |
|
|
|
wcerto
Ahonui
USA
5052 Posts |
Posted - 11/01/2007 : 04:30:03 AM
|
| Thumbstruck - hear, hear. |
Me ke aloha
Malama pono,
Wanda |
|
|
|
hwnmusiclives
`Olu`olu
USA
580 Posts |
Posted - 11/01/2007 : 04:47:52 AM
|
quote:
Originally posted by thumbstruck
As for "genres", yesterday's innovation is today's standard and tomorrow's hallowed tradition. If everyone just kept rigidly to tradition, we wouldn't have steel guitar or any other innovation.
That's the funny thing about the term "traditional" Hawaiian music. Some people think it means chant and some people think it means Genoa Keawe. Tradition keeps evolving. The "Guava Jam" album started a new movement in Hawaiian music, and it was the first LP cover to prominently feature the word "contemporary." 30 years later, although still a masterpiece, it might be considered dated next to Keali`i Reichel, Mark Keali`i Ho`omalu, Kaumakaiwa Kanaka`ole, and some others.
"Traditional" is as squidgy a term as "pop." If I get call to play pop music, I am going to pull out the Bee Gees and Manilow and Frankie Valli covers. That was "pop" when I last used the term "pop." But I'm sure what the club wants when they ask for "pop" is Fergie and Gwen.
|
Join me for the history of Hawaiian music and its musicians at Ho`olohe Hou at www.hoolohehou.org. |
|
|
|
Basil Henriques
Lokahi
United Kingdom
225 Posts |
Posted - 11/01/2007 : 06:10:19 AM
|
Again, to clarify the point, this is a quest for a "Descriptive Genre" for a particular style of music played by those (And other similar groups) listed initially.
This isn't a personal crusade, it's on behalf of quite a few well known discographers worldwide, there is a general consensus that we need a general consensus from the vox populi.
When I say 'US" I am of course referring to the English contingent of the worldwide record discographers club, John Marsden, Keith Grant (A teacher of the English Language in Japan), myself and others in Polynesia, Melanesia, and Australasia.
It's the discographers and historians who want the label defined.
You may ask "Why should you have the right to ask", well I'm the owner and publisher of an international magazine that a lot of discographers subscribe to, and they collectively asked me to post the questionnaire.
John Marsden
(Steel Guitar Hall of Fame Jerry Byrd Lifetime achievement award 2003)
http://steelguitarforum.com/Forum15/HTML/004646.html
Keith Grant
(English language Teacher and discographer)
http://www.elderly.com/books/items/676-1.htm
Les Cook
(Grass Skirt records home of very retro material)
http://www.grassskirt.co.uk/4436.html
Malcolm Rockwell (author of the most comprehensive discography of Hawaiian music related 78's)
http://78data.com/
Professor Anthony Lis (Historian and musicologist at South Dakota State University)
Some of the interested parties..
Please help them in their quest, their combined input into steel guitar in general surely warrants some consideration. |
Edited by - Basil Henriques on 11/01/2007 09:23:22 AM |
|
|
|
Mark
Ha`aha`a
USA
1628 Posts |
Posted - 11/01/2007 : 07:49:34 AM
|
quote:
In Britain (and I think Europe) the jazz from that period is known as 'swing', - is this what Americans would call 'hot' jazz?
Hey Trev -
I think you may have hit on part of the reason for the pseudo-controversy (sorry, couldn't resisit). Music lovers in England and the States do tend to have different terminology for the same things. Jazz from the 20's is variously known as "jazz," "hot jazz," "traditional jazz" (by purists), or "Chicago-style," "New Oreleans-style" or even (gawd forbid) "Dixieland." OK this last is actually a revivalist style perpetrated by Turk Murphy. And is what I believe you Brits call "trad jazz." Oh yeah, there's also "jass."
Anyway, think Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong, Bix, etc etc. Fading into:
"Swing." Generally what came later. Though many black bands were playing swing long before the white bands figured it out. So it's hard to put a date on it, but just about everybody agrees that the "swing era" was the late 30s and 40s. Think Duke, Count, Dorsey, etc etc etc.
Just to make it stranger, for some folks "hot" jazz refers only to Django and his pals.
Basil -- here's another thought for the definition: what the Suits, early Brozman, etc were reviving is a kind of music labeled even back then as "hokum."
And, lest anyone get too riled up about the need to define music this way, remember that "Old Time" music was a marketing term. The early record labels found they could sell records (and record players) to folks if they put out old fiddle and banjo music, ballads, etc etc. And Doc Watson was playing rockabilly when Ralph Rinzler asked to to record with Calrence Ashley.
quote:
As long as they let me play my stuff, I don't care what they call it (maybe "Fred" or "Arthur"?).
Funny thing -- I missed my shot at the brass ring about 20 years ago because record labels, music stores and radio programers didn't have a genre for the music I was writing and playing with my band "Southern Light." After spending huge amounts of money on recording (this was before digital; my tape budget was a couple grand...), and, yes, hiring someone to shop my demos, I got both feet in the door with Warners, Windham Hill, Narada, Private Music and one or two other big players. Ultimately, in every case the AR guy told me the same thing: "Everyone loves your record, but we don't know how to sell it. It's not folk, it's not New Age, it's not jazz..."
So, to you guys who get all upset about attempts to classifiy music into one bag or another, let me say from practical experience-- it is important. It may not be pretty, but hey. Imagine going to a record store (remember them?) and finding something you want to hear if all the music was jumbled together by the color of the cover.
Ultimately, what I want to say when people ask me what kind of music I play is "I play music that I like."
Only that won't get me hired. I've tried.
Happy Hairspitting!
Mark
|
|
|
|
noeau
Ha`aha`a
USA
1105 Posts |
Posted - 11/01/2007 : 08:13:11 AM
|
| Yeah its like buying meat we often need to know the diff between porterhouse and rump roast otherwise we couldn't get what we wanted. So label on folks. Us players just play. If you want to work jump the hoops. Maybe a category like 'somethin new and undefined' would work. |
No'eau, eia au he mea pa'ani wale nō. |
|
|
|
Reid
Ha`aha`a
Andorra
1526 Posts |
Posted - 11/01/2007 : 08:36:38 AM
|
Sarah and I recently returned from Old Blighty and I love (really) the way all "English" speaking nations speak and write English differently. Mark noted some of the term differences (I would also add Glen Miller to Swing) and I get hooked on things like "orientated". Oriented? Boots and bonnets are on my cars as well as my body. While there, we were invited to a garden party for "sips and nibbles". We will always cherish that one.
...Reid |
|
|
|
Basil Henriques
Lokahi
United Kingdom
225 Posts |
Posted - 11/01/2007 : 09:22:48 AM
|
Now these modifications have been made by general consus :-
quote:
RETRO-ACOUSTIC-STEEL GUITAR :-
A revivalist JAZZ orientated acoustic steel guitar style strongly evocative of the "hot" steel guitar playing of Sol Hoopii and "King" Bennie Nawahi during the late 1920s and the early 1930s and, typically, played on an acoustic, metal bodied single cone or triple cone resonator guitar performed respectfully.
The genre was initially introduced and developed by Bob Armstrong, Bob Brozman and Allan Dodge of the "Cheap Suit Serenaders" in the late 1970s. Leading exponents currently also include Allan Dodge formerly of the "Cheap Suit Serenaders" and now of "Dodge's Sundodgers," J.C. Grimshaw, Martin Wheatley of the "Hula Bluebirds," Cyril LeFebvre, Mike Neer fomerly of the "Moonlighters," Leopold Stepanek of the "Sons of the Desert" and Tomotaka Matsui of the "Slow Ride Pickers" and the "Sweet Hollywaiians.
If you have any suggestions as to the wording or accuracy therein, please post them here.
Basil
BTW Reid, "Sips and Nibbles more commonly called "Tiffin"
Also 'Pseudo' over here DOESN'T carry the stigma of insult that it appears to have stateside, here it just means 'purporting to be' or 'pretending to be' but not as strong a definition as "fake" or False. |
Edited by - Basil Henriques on 11/01/2007 09:30:15 AM |
|
|
|
Lawrence
Ha`aha`a
USA
1597 Posts |
Posted - 11/01/2007 : 09:51:14 AM
|
quote:
Also 'Pseudo' over here DOESN'T carry the stigma of insult that it appears to have stateside, here it just means 'purporting to be' or 'pretending to be' but not as strong a definition as "fake" or False.
It is still a pejorative word.
The word "Jazz", "Swing", "Classical" , "traditional" or "revivalist" are not generally taken as pejorative.
But if I were to use the phrase "pseudo music" to refer to what YOU play, Basil...
...it is hard to believe you would not feel the least bit offended?
If you do feel offended, then the use is clearly pejorative.
Also "Retro" can be insulting in a similar, but not as extreme fashion, especially if modern musical innovation is added to more classical or traditional styling in the same piece as Brozman has often done.
|
Mahope Kākou...
...El Lorenzo de Ondas Sonoras |
Edited by - Lawrence on 11/01/2007 09:59:19 AM |
|
|
|
Topic |
|
|
|
Topic Locked
