Today is the last Sunday before Lent begins, and at my Episcopal church in Anchorage it’s our custom to hold a “Dixieland Mass” before we head into the solemnity of the Lenten season. We get a trumpeter and a clarinetist to come join us for the day, and we play all the music in Dixieland style.
Most of the musicians in the worship group I lead besides me are serious, gigging jazz musicians, and so we actually play the music in a credible, authentic way.
Instead of bringing an acoustic guitar and my usual mandolin to this service, I use my guitar-banjo and mandolin-banjo. They definitely give me the correct sound for Dixieland music, and both are accurate for the period.
Another nice aspect of using these banjo mutants for this music is that even with several other loud instruments (piano, trumpet, clarinet, drum set, electric bass, National resonator guitar and tambourine) the guitar-banjo and mandolin-banjo were both perfectly audible, and I was able to lead the singers and other musicians effortlessly.
These hybrid banjos DO cut through...
Naturally, my good friend the bassplayer (who I’ve gigged with for more than 30 years now) had to give me some grief:
“Have you got a permit for those banjos?”
I explained that, yes, federal agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Banjos had inspected the instruments, written down their serial numbers and issued me the appropriate licenses. I’m courthouse legal with both of them, even though in the wrong hands banjos ARE weapons of mass destruction.....
Anyway, it was a lot of fun playing gospel music Dixieland style for the service today, and it’s stylistically correct for the music, too. My guitar-banjo and mandolin-banjo have paid for themselves many times over with the joy they’ve brought me and my friends and fellow parishioners.
Wade Hampton “When The Saints Go Marchin’ In!” Miller
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