International Jazz Banjo Newsletter

The 6th Holland Banjo Festival has been held on November 9 at the Jazzplace Artishock in Soest, the central town of the Netherlands. About 125 banjo players turned up all filled with great enthusiasm. The day was packed with jams and featured performances of top German Banjo players Peter Bayerer ( accompanied by Peter Rederer on the Piano) as well as Achim Hippenstiel and friends. His Group consisted of German players Achim Hafkesbrink, Rolf Quack and on the Tuba, (Dutch!)Joop Hendricks.
The audience was very impressed with the super fast playing of Peter Bayerer whose first visit to the Festival was very impressive. The Banjo jams with all the Banjo player was more or less lead by Hans Joerg Elter from Germany, who performed as guest last year but returned this year as visitor. His enthusiasm had a great impact with the Dutch Banjo players.
The next Festival has been scheduled for November 15, 2009. More information at www.jazzbanjo.nl or with festival organisor Fetze Pijlman at fetzepijlman@jazzbanjo.nl

Dear banjo friends, I am glad to announce that last Saturday we had a jolly reunion of several Italian banjoists, both 5- and 4-stringers.
It was the first official meeting organised by the Italian Banjo Guild, a Yahoo Group that gathers 137 banjoist of all styles in Italy and in the nearby Italian-speaking part of Switzerland.

It was an afternoon rich of fast forward and backward rolls, furious tremolos and fierce discussions on how good each of our respective banjos were.
Happily, the nearby neighbours were not affected at all because we found a former church in the centre of a beautiful city park, so the only eardrums involved by this kind of unruly celebration were our own ones!
Although that is not completely true, because at 6 P.M., we opened the doors of the auditorium for the final concert and, much to our surprise, many patrons were already waiting on line.
First we made sure that they would not have hidden baseball bats and then we let graciously them in.
Unbelievable! They even enjoyed the concert!
Italian Banjo Guild is planning a new national meeting within next Spring 2009 and we do hope to be able to extend invitations also to our European fellow banjoists: we will let you know.
In the meantime our Vega, Paramount, Gibson, B&D, Deering and OME banjos will keep on ringing all over our Country in spite of what other musicians may think of us!

Nino Frasio
List owner of the Italian Banjo Guild
www.myspace.com/ninofrasio

Technology progresses but one thing we can be sure of is that there is nothing quite like the self-made music and happiness that one can produce from the banjo. However, the digital age has so far been a wonderful way of spreading that banjo happiness around the globe. It is not difficult or complicated to use a computer and for a music fan the internet can be like finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
For example The Jazz Banjo Videos Libary that I host on www.YouTube.com has over five hundred short films of players of all varieties, both modern and vintage, including rare clips of Eddie Peabody, Harry Reser etc. Wonderful online radio stations such as Jazz Banjo Radio are unique and vital in giving our music a higher profile in this “plastic pop” driven age. Radio is changing too and the way it is delivered to the listener will change dramatically within the next few years. Internet in cars will become standard in the near future and it will be possible to tune into stations such as JBR anywhere on the planet. This is not only an advertisers dream but also a way of breaking free from the relentless dribble that is pumped out daily by a dial full of FM radio stations that all play the same songs that are sent (and paid for) by the sponsored “payola“ record company play-lists! Does anyone (apart from us Radio Hams) listen to AM, Long Wave or even Short Wave programmes these days?
Websites are of course a way of spreading your message and most modern players have them. My musical performance contracts come by e-mail these days and even the postman only delivers printed “hard copy” bills that need to be placed in front of the accountants/tax man’s eyes at the end of the year.
Buying a CD from one of your favourite players is a great way of not only helping the musician involved to pay the bills but also a way of furthering the cause of the music. There is nothing quite like having a copy of your favourite CD or magazine in your hands. However with rising postage charges, the price of getting these delivered has to be increased too. For example, it costs the equivalent of $10 to post just one of my CDs from Germany to the USA. In these financially challenged times the answer is to this problem is to use modern technology. It is called an MP3 file, a way of compressing music onto a file that can be played, sent and received to and from a computer. This in turn can then be transferred onto an MP3 portable player, burned onto a CD disk or put onto any device that can play an MP3 file.
Firms such as I-tunes, Napster, Amazon Music, CD Baby and countless others have been selling “pop” music this way for years now and the reduction in CDs sold has resulted in the modern “Download Charts” that have replaced CD sales. I’m sure the change was almost as drastic when 33RPM LPs replaced 78s in the 1950’s. I can remember when LPs stocked the shelves in a record shop but were replaced almost overnight by CDs. Times change and so must I as a professional banjo player. The ukulele community is, to a degree, a worldwide self-supporting family. If Joe Bloggs in Australia wants to buy my recordings, he is now able to do so quickly and economically by downloading either from my Website or by using one of the major distributors. Such firms that were once only the domain of “pop” stars are no longer exclusive clubs!
All of my music is now available to download. You can buy just one tune if you wish for 99c or all four albums at $9.99 each. They are easy to buy and you could have the complete collection within minutes. The excitement for me is to see "our sort of music" available for anyone to buy, anywhere in the world, on a major distribution Website.
To download my music go to www.SeanMoyses.com or enter my name in I-Tunes, CD Baby, Amazon.com, Napster etc. Hopefully you will enjoy my efforts.
In finishing up, I must also mention that you can now learn to play uke-banjo with me online by the use of web-cams. The idea was pioneered by my good banjo playing friend Dave Frey in California and I can now offer you to take a lesson with a professional player in the privacy of your own home, world-wide, on a “one-to-one” basis. Imagine if this technology had existed in Reser's day?

Regards,
Sean Moyses

www.SeanMoyses.com