DDT JAZZBAND

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DDT JAZZBAND
When a jazz band reaches the age of fifty, scarcely anybody expects it to branch out from the principles on which it was founded, especially if the crew has remained almost the same for all this time. And furthermore if the band was created mainly to continue a legacy that originated at the beginning of last century.

Some may see this a weakness, but it can be a strength as well: a maturing man concentrates on what he knows. In life as well as in jazz.

Hot and from the source.
The stylish idiom of the DDT Jazz Band is to be found in the New Orleans revival of the forties and fifties. It’s a concept also known as Dixieland music.

But diverging from many of the international names in this business, the band has never focussed solely on just one era of that period: DDT has persistently striven to enlarge its stylistic framework, with swing-orientated rhythm and even Duke Ellington-coloured orchestrations.

The band cherishes this musical legacy independently and without prejudice. Occasionally even roughly, in this case a positive expression.

The specific DDT sound comes from four frontline wind instruments (trumpet, trombone and two clarinets) plus a rhythm group consisting of piano, bass, drums and banjo.

With these elements the music has developed an earthy, masculine feeling, which immediately separates it from many of the later Dixie bands.

Export jazz class winner
DDT has been a popular group since the band met Louis Armstrong himself at a welcoming ceremony at Helsinki Airport in 1962 and later on the concert stage.

There have been thousands of gigs all around Finland and the world-over. Weddings and funerals, international business congresses and enterprise happenings. But, primarily, it is at clubs, concerts and festivals that DDT’s jazz is at home.

DDT has performed some twenty times at the international Pori Jazz Festival. In 1970 the band was awarded first prize in its class at the Montreux competition. From then on, the band has visited most parts of Europe.

Jazz as semi professionals
In 1979, DDT was invited to perform at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. The band was honoured by being compared with the local Black musicians. DDT has made three successful tours to Japan, has made several TV programs in Finland and abroad and has published some ten records.

This legacy has been mainly maintained by semi-professionals: engineers, advertising men, dentists. That’s the Downtown Dixie Tigers, alias DDT Jazz Band.

It explains a lot: a maturing man concentrates on what he knows.

Tommi Liuhala