Since I don't follow pop music, I really couldn't make any
comment on the titles you posted, except for recognizing some
and not others.

There's not the really good Jackie and Roy around and hasn't
been for many years.

George Russell was a guy Bob was playing on the jazz show
and it really stood out. Bill Holman does that favorite
track on 'What's New?" but I've said quite a bit about
that before.

Other bands are ones like the Vanguard Jazz orchestra
from the Village Vanguard. Bob Brookmeyer has become a
composition teacher and he has done some things for that
band since Thad Jones and Mel Lewis have passed.

I also like the newer bands of John Fedchock, Bob Minzer
and Rob McConnell. Maynard Ferguson is still touring to
high schools and small venues. A rare find of his called
"The Waltz" I managed to find in the statewide library collection.
That goes through my head on a daily basis for _years_.

We've covered the swing and pop scene but we haven't touched
the classical or ska or folk scene hardly at all.

But back to basics. Ska to me is a name; does it originate with early Bahamian Folk Tunes? I say the influence of Portugese and African rythym might describe where the dividing line that eventually created ska as I know it. Unless you mean contemporary Island and English retro-new wave derivitives. Is that where you see it?

My most played world sounds come from African new beat styles; Obu Addy and Tobando; but Fela Anikapulto Kuti is on the deck about every other day; he's amazing. I love all that township jive going back to King Sunny Ade'.

Where is that on the radio? And when you say Folk; is that commercial folk or roots music of various areas and eras?

Far as band music, you are right. Back in the 70's I experienced
'college band' jazz not really knowing what it was at the time.

College Band was supported in the professional community by the
likes of Stan Kenton as a way to raise a new generation in
the music. The college style then-- the sort written by
Holman, Russell, Dee Barton and the whole school of music that
came out of the North Texas State Jazz Lab Band and it's imitators
was a specific movement that took hold in the 70's according the
extensive liner notes on a collected cd set of Holman and Russo
arrangements for the Kenton orchestra.

It was classically influenced rather than being dance music,
though Ellington-- once you get past chestnuts like Take The A Train
find the concert Ellington, who even wrote a piece on the spot
for the University Of Wisconsin. Ellington was prodigious and his
serious work of religious, Far East, and other themed suites. These are concert works. Artie Shaw moved into this area as well I believe.

Far as Guy Lombardo and Lawrence Welk, Garrison Keillor has taken over
that slot on the radio for the next generation of old farts who want
to slide into some nice _soft_ entertainment.

I used to see a lot of the Ska bands at a place called the Funky Fish and also at Downtown. It is really good music to hear live; but it deosn't travel well into the home venue. On record it sounds flat. Really is a live art.
The Specials come to mind; I like their sound.

Plus I had a really good live band expereince at a punk ska
event featuring a band called "Less Than Jake" and some others.

These days I go out very little. There quite frankly is nothing
to go out for.

But my first ska experience was from a radio show that
was on at Sunday at 12 noon and it sounded great. Good for
cleaning house. _That_ program introduced me to the
retro swing movement of the late 90's. I would have been
unaware of the new swing at all otherwise.

Ska for me is the 'missing link' in the pop music chain. It should
have a place in club performance everywhere. But it's only in
big cities where it has had any presence at all.

I am old. I am an old fart. There is no place for me in
clubs even if I drank or smoked. It's just alien. But still,
I would go out to see a ska band in performance again.

Now how do you mean ska as the missing link? To what; reggea? Ska came from Skiffle Bands doing acoustic island influenced music;no?

I don't think I'm in the older crowd category nor do I have
any interest (I've found) with most acts that blow through
the local performing arts centers and refurbished opera houses.

Missing link migth have been the wrong phrase for ska.
There's a local ska festival in the spring at the swanky
small college here, lovingly called "the Harvard of the Midwest".

So there has been some exposure to the music. I thi k it is
_the_ club music, but it never caught on with the club scene.

I think I know the reason too and it's one of those things that
is speculation but based on knockings and things I've heard
about the tavern business.

Bars and clubs want to sell as much booze as they can. Certain
types of music are distractions from that activity if the
music (swing and ska in particular) encourages a lot of dancing
and less alcohol consumption. This argument went around
during the swing movement and I'm pretty sure it applies to
the ska movement and scene as well.

Music that is overly _slow_ and _loud_ (country, some techno, the
average white vocalist like Madonna or Mariah Carey and bar bands
of all stripes) is manufactured toward the end of getting as
much alc into people as possible. The reason given for not booking
bands that have a lot of audience attention is just this: the saloon
keepers have rejected them for reasons of profit. Hearing those
over-emotionalized, whining, fake attempts at gospel sound with that
high pitched squeal you think will never end is bad enough in the
supermarket. In the club, the same stuff is used as that which
an antidote or pain killer is needed. That's what the bar tender is
there for.

In the larger and more diverse markets I suppose these musics can
find a venue. But there is a definite lock down of the types of acts
booked or music styles given in all those clubs now owned by
Clear Channel and other cretins. It is a manipulation of the
patrons in these places that is so offensive to me but not really
recognized by the average club-goer.

Maybe missing in action is a better way to describe the lack of
variety such as ska in the club scene. There was or should have been
an entry point for ska from the days of the Specials, Selecter, Madness and the ska variations that have come up since.