Word: musics
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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That quip was uncharacteristic of a man who scrupulously separates the clarinetist from the comedian and never tells a joke on the bandstand: when Woody is playing jazz, he's all stick and no shtick. Not that funny things haven't happened in connection with Woody's music. When he and his New Orleans Funeral and Ragtime Orchestra first got together in the early '70s, they were summarily ejected from the first few clubs they played in because their music was so noncommercial. At one establishment, the band was fired in the middle of a particularly lugubrious spiritual, after...
Michael's Pub, where the band finally landed a regular gig in 1971, has been the scene of more than a few light moments. When the Mets were in the 1986 World Series, sports-junkie Woody showed up with a tiny transistor television and propped it up on his music stand so he could watch the game while he played. Trombonist Dick Dreiwitz and his wife Barbara, the tuba player, tell of a surprise visit by Groucho Marx. "After one of Woody's solos," says Barbara, "Groucho reached up and handed him a few pennies as a tip." Psychiatrist...
...there to play. It's strictly business with me." Yet many patrons expect something different from the former stand-up comic. "Most of them are shocked that he doesn't speak or tell jokes," says banjoist Eddie Davis. "But after a few tunes, they get caught up in the music...
...whom come from the slick Dixieland school, share Woody's abiding passion for the rough-hewn New Orleans style or his aversion to tuning up. Despite the different approaches, says pianist Dick Miller, the band tries mightily "one night a week to create the collective sound that resembles the music he loves...
...effort to get even closer to the music he loves, Woody has been quietly rehearsing with a group of more New Orleans-oriented musicians for the past year or so. He remains vague about his ultimate plans for the group, but banjoist Davis says there is talk of booking it in a jazz club one night a week, and there have been feelers from several European jazz festivals. The tapes are always rolling during the rehearsals, moreover, so there is a chance that the sessions could ultimately produce something Woody has long resisted: a record featuring him on clarinet...