Word: jazzed
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...period saw a Dixieland revival on college campuses--a merger of old New Orleans traditions with modern technique and Harmony--and Harvard was no exception. Harvard dixie activity hit its stride in the early Fifties, when Crimson Stompers made many sounds and WHRB assumed the roule of a jazz-oriented station. Herb Pomeroy, now a Boston bandleader, helped link Harvard and Boston jazz...
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...
This crimson cold shoulder to Dixieland may have daunted or diverted Harvard dixie activity; but Mel Dorfman, Bowdoin grad and clarinet man, hurls a challenge of his own at collegiate non-concern. Remember jazz at Tulla's last fall, or Crimson Cafe Dixieland early this year? These were Dorfman's groups--the most recent phases of a three-year campaign for Harvard Square jazz. As Mel will say, "Since last fall things have really started to move...
...Jazz left the Crimson Cafe under pressure from the law. The Cambridge licensing bureau proscribes anything but a "three-piece string orchestra" in public drinking places, and Dorfman's dixie group failed to fit. "I've been to Europe and I've seen how good they treat jazz over there; and it's a shame they make it run away from where it started." Dorfman now plays in 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...