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From: Duke Gilleland
Date: October 17, 2003
I'm not sure if Bill Boyd applied Jazz to "Under The Double Eagle". No more than Bob would have applied it to "Cotton Eyed Joe". Although anything's possible with W/S as we know there should never be any "straitjackets" when it comes to W/S.
Bessie Smith: The blues mentor of both Bob Wills & Jack Teagarden. I feel that both of these 2 men sort of saw the music in the same circle, so to speak, even though they played in different worlds. Milton Brown could surely be added to this group. Both groups, W/S & Jazz respected each other. That is until Be-Bop and "cool" modern jazz came about after WW II. Today's Jazz is so far from what it was 60 years ago, you don't even recognize it when heard. It think Billy Jack saw this and might have been drifting that way when Bob put a stop to it out in California in the early 50's. Personally, I liked Billy Jack's music. Things have not changed much in Western Swing in the last 60 years. We still have lots of folks DANCING to it just as hard as any ever stomped to Jazz played at the Savoy by Chick Webb. I think W/S is closer to the old Jazz than the current so called cool Jazz musicians would want to admit. Jazz today has little heart, soul of the old "guard." Heard a top high school Jazz band play Caravan a while back and you could not even recognize it! I think Ellington would have been mad! This is "Modern" Jazz?
Bob had the answer when he said "Tear it up-But don't you ruin it!" Western Swing listeners and dancers still demand those hot, driving solos that journey BUT don't get lost. We have not forgot our "roots" and pass them on to younger listeners and musicians who come along. Is Western Swing Jazz you ask? Not as the current Jazz world would have it. But then modern, cool Jazz reminds me of something Texas politician "Cactus Jack" Garner once said about being vice President of the U.S...." 'Bout as good as a warm bucket of spit." Meanwhile, down in Texas dancin'!