"All these dixieland groups today," tiny Max Kaminsky complains in a small, high voice, "are a lot of bands that play it corny and just a few that make it swing right." Boston trumpeter Kaminsky opened Monday evening at Katherine Donahue's Savoy. His band swings, no doubt about it, but all is not as right as it could be.

It may be that Kaminsky's group suffers by comparison. Muggsy Spanier's fine ensemble ended a long stay at the Savoy last weekend, and Spanier's is a difficult act to follow. But the Spanier band was good because its members play well together, with well-integrated styles. Kaminsky seems to be a victim of the New York Condon's-Nick's melting pot of cacophony--where musicians of totally different schools of dixieland drift together for too brief a time to achieve the cohesiveness of harmony that makes for a great combination.

Clarinetist Prince Robinson ("Say he's from New Orleans," says Max. "That's a good place to be from.") is an Armstrong alumnus from way back, and does indeed play in the very ancient Crescent City tradition. Kaminsky blows his horn with a sharper, thinner tone and with less imagination than in past days; it comes out a New York or modern-Chicago style. And trombonist Munn Ware alternates strangely between a "suffering" blues tone and the most modern, polished sound of the three.

The rhythm section is one saving grace. Boogie-woogie specialist Sammy Price and drummer Art Trappier quadruple-handedly provide a strong driving beat that accomplishes much toward knitting the band closer together. Kaminsky's group plays jazz. It's one on the synthesized side.