Word: finds
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Dixie remains the most universally popular jazz form, either as an end in itself, or the first step towards "intellectual" jazz. Yet the remnants of this era--the few dixie bands centered at Harvard and the musicians who play in make-shift Combos--find Cambridge surprisingly cool to straight Dixieland, at least job-wise. Herb Gardner's Royal Garden Six, for example, has four Harvard members, yet seldom plays in town. "Around here anyone who wants six pieces wants a dance band; so we play Dartmouth and RPI--mostly frat parties. Dixie fits in a frat...
Time poses another problem to jazz growth at Harvard, as at any college. Most Harvard jazzmen play for fun, or spare change, and if they find the rat-race for contacts and publicity takes too much time, jazz fades out. A shortage of skilled players and the lack of practice time kills most chances for a well-rounded dixie group--a band without a "weak link." The missing "weak link" makes Gardner's group unique, and even here the talent is one third alien...
...Boston, but is planning another venture into the Square this fall "if we can get around the law." "What we need is a student-run place where the kids will know it's cheap. We'll bring names in on week-ends and draw the crowds. First we'll find out about this...
...jazz is not much better off. Yet during the past few years people have noticed a remarkable internal shift in Harvard jazz activity from the day when it was "all dixie with a modern jazz splinter" to today, when a student can remark: "Dixie's joe-college stuff; you find it in your state universities, or maybe at Brown, but it's out of place here." In the opinion of most observers Steve Kuhn, more than any other force, has caused this change to a modern jazz approach from the neo-dixie outlook...
...with a "feel" for the jazz idiom, works in a wider sphere than Kuhn, playing both modern and dixie piano, and this year conducting the Bach Society Orchestra. John's major complaint is that "most fellows don't get to play enough, and only Steve has had time to find a style of his own. Two years ago there were Sunday sessions in the Union, but no more...