[Dixielandjazz] The Case For A New Kind of Popular Music

[DWSI at aol.com]

As interesting as John Rockwell's NYT article is, I'm not sure where he's 
going with it, or what he is promoting. The concept, "A new kind of Popular 
Music," implies more musical structure than exists for the old or the new in my 
opinion. To me, it's really more like an ongoing blending of familiar influences 
and ideas that always produces new songs or albums. But one rule does seem to 
emerge in the history of pop music evolution versus bigger musical forms; 
i.e., step outside your idiom and risk total failure. The first of the great 
popular artists I know of who tried this was Scott Joplin. His legendary ragtime 
piano pieces (successfully translated into band arrangements too) made his place 
in all musical history. But he wanted to elevate his songs to operatic levels 
and actually wrote, according to different biographies, two operas, one of 
which remains (Treemonisha). My question upon learning of his obsession to 
compose "opera" was simply, why? So many successful popular musicians seem to want 
to win the prestige of working in another "higher" art form and it makes me 
wonder if they appreciate what they really accomplished in the first place. I 
would have advised Mr. Joplin to keep writing better ragtime songs. It was his 
unique idiom and he did it so very well.

Dan (piano fingers) Spink