Welcome, faithful readers! I’ll begin this entry with a confession, followed by a question that I sincerely hope one of you might be able to answer. First, my confession: I do at times enjoy playing for general audiences that aren’t intimately familiar with early American pop music more than I do for the cognoscenti. It isn’t that I feel I have to be more “on my game” with ragtime and jazz fanatics; it’s more that by playing for the largely uninitiated, I’m presenting something that they just might like, thereby creating more people who have an awareness (and desire to hear more) of the music I hold so dear.
I take little credit for this. The material is superior, so even an average rendering of it is sure to induce more followers. If you listen to a local dramatic society soprano sing Carmen out-of-tune, you’ll cringe, but if a B-level band stumbles through “High Society” or “That’s a Plenty” the crowd goes wild. Regarding the audiences I play for, I sometimes find that the less one thinks they know about OKOM, the less prejudiced they will be and the more likely they’ll settle back and enjoy the show without comparison, judgment, or note-checking; a happier experience for listener and performer alike!
This is not to say that I suggest we performers should try to get away with something; it’s crucial if one is going to put oneself forward to represent a certain type of music to actually know what one is doing. It’s just that a general audience of curious people take in the performance without any preconceived notion of how it should sound. They’re open to possibility and novelty and ready for a good time! This wonderful situation occurred twice in one week for Anne and me on our recent return to the UK.
Our first gig was shared with a versatile, insanely talented percussionist called Jack Amblin. He plays a vintage drum kit and washboard, sings, and tap dances: sometimes all at once! [He received front page coverage in TST January, 2023.] Jack sorted a gig for us in Camden (an area of London) in a club called the Green Note, an intimate venue that is open seven nights a week from 7 until 11 pm only, and nightly presents acoustic music of all sorts while offering high quality beverages and noshes. We had a packed house, and I’d say only 10% of the crowd was familiar with the composers and music we offered. Yet, the hooting and hollering between numbers, the attentive listening, and the standing ovations illustrated that they really dug tunes that were 80-125 years old that they’d never before heard. They were OPEN to a new experience, not jaded by preconceptions. Oh yes, I’ll take an uninitiated (or perhaps I should say not indoctrinated) audience any day!
The second gig was a solo for me in Hemel Hempstead at the Fishery Wharf Cafe, although when I had Anne join me for a couple of tunes the audience demanded her inclusion for the bulk of the remainder of the evening. It was a delightful venue, manned by the perfect promoter and staff, in a nonpareil room with wooden walls and ceiling that comfortably seated 50, cabaret style. The people at our concert regularly attending the shows presented by this amazing establishment situated on the Grand Union Canal are used to eclecticism; blues, folk, and jazz all have a place at the table and are all equally respected and popular. Our sold-out crowd kept shouting for encores, turning our two 45-minute sets into over an hour each. Anne and I went away exhilarated and wondered when was the last time we’d encountered a knowledgeable jazz audience that responded with such abandon.
At this second gig, the small room allowed for connecting with every member of the audience during the show. I quickly noticed a girl right in front of me who had to be in her teens sitting at a table with whom I surmised was her mom sitting behind her. In between numbers I chatted with her and asked if she played piano, which she did. I first asked if she’d like to play and she demurred (she was only in Grade 2 piano: early intermediate), so I thanked her for being there to listen to music created over 70-110 years earlier than she’d been born and the crowd gave her a round of applause! Lovely. After the session, she was immediately on her phone posting snippets of the show on all of those social media platforms that make up someone of her age’s world and her mom stopped to talk with me out in the foyer.
“Thank you for paying attention to Violet tonight. She’s only 14 and she’s never experienced something like this before.”
“My pleasure,” I replied, “thank you for bringing her here.”
“Oh, she absolutely loved it. And I’ve a quote for you to use on your website.”
I cast a slightly askance look at her and nodded my invitation for her to continue.
“She’s, oh what do they call themselves, a ‘Swiftie.’ She’s been to two Taylor Swift concerts in the last 16 months. When I asked her what she thought of tonight’s show, she looked seriously at me and told me ‘This was better than Taylor Swift!’”
I gawped but quickly regained my composure and offered Violet’s mom our effusive thanks. She then hurried to catch up with her daughter, who was already no doubt deep in her virtual screenscape universe, BUT had taken the time to emerge from it to try something new (old? new-old?).
After everyone had left, I mused for a moment over how we’d include that in our promo materials “Fourteen-year old Violet declares Jeff and Anne Barnhart better than Taylor Swift!” seemed a little too preening and fatuous. I mean, we’re NOT! We’re just different. Taylor Swift is actually a really deep musician who will provide many more surprises as she ages. Frankly the idea of a sentence including both “Jeff Barnhart” and “Taylor Swift” is an insane one, on many levels.
If not putting young Violet’s declaration on my website was the path to take, I then wondered what I could actually do with it. Could I just go ring Ms. Swift’s doorbell and declare that one of her hordes had momentarily abandoned the Taylor wagon? This would not be geographically infeasible. One of Taylor Swift’s mansion/estates is in a little seaside village called Watch Hill in Rhode Island, about a 20 minute ride from where Anne and I are living in Mystic, CT. For perspective, Watch Hill makes Newport look like Disneyland; no-one’s actually parading people through their old-money homes in Watch Hill. This little hamlet boasts a merry-go-round built in 1867 (that was abandoned for some reason by a traveling carnival in 1883 and has been in continuous operation since), as well as a pristine miles-long crescent-shaped white-sanded beach, and little else. It was only Swift’s mega-mega-(mega) millions that allowed her to buy into a place that had never previously endured having a celebrity live in town.
I thought the gambit of going up to her house to be too risky. There’s a legion of full-time security prowling the place waiting for any surprises and I wouldn’t get farther than two steps past the gate before they descended on me. Maybe the way to accomplish letting her know of the chink in her Swiftie fortress would be to buy her a subscription to this publication, but I assume mail of any sort has to go through her secretary’s secretary’s assistant’s assistant’s attendant’s attendant before it reaches her so I abandoned that scheme as well.
Which leads me to the question I promised at the beginning of this column: What should I do with this quote? While I hope you’ll “keep it clean,” I’m open for any suggestions.
For now, I guess I’ll just have to quietly revel in the realization that there are young people who have interests outside the boxes created for them by society and that they’ll slowly influence their peers to give something unusual a try [NB: I use “influence” here in the original sense of the word, not regarding the current online “influencer” mania where people try to convince you to eat bugs or take an overnight bath in ramen noodles for your health.] It’s these people who will help OKOM continue to survive.
Indeed, it’s quietly happening all over. While the age of Anne’s and my crowd at the Fishery Wharf Cafe averaged out to the mid-50s (young by US—and most countries’—jazz festival standards), I’d put the median age of the audience at the Green Note in London to be in the mid-40s. Of course, the audiences in large cities tend to be more cosmopolitan, revealing one of the reasons why so many young classic jazz performers live in those overcrowded, loud hubs: young people in cities are generally more open to fresh experiences. Our most recent two gigs give me hope that in addition to the plethora of players continuing to emerge, a growing number of new pairs of ears are ready to listen to them. May it ever be so!
