[Dixielandjazz] The Music is Going To Hell

[Steve barbone]

Saw an interesting TV special on satellite last night about the evolution of
amplified Guitars and Guitarists who play them.

>From Charlie Christian, to Les Paul to Charlie Bird, to BB King, etc., etc.,
all the way to the past and current Rockers.

It blew me away because it pretty much agreed with my thoughts and that
seems to be a rarity these days. :-) VBG

Sure, Led Zepplin might have been responsible for more bad bands copying
them than any other band in history . . . BUT.

MANY Rock Guitarists are GREAT PLAYERS. They evolved the style. They
sometimes were/are as creative as almost any jazz player you can name.
Much musical difference among them. Very individualistic/inventive.

Their music is not all rotten. Some of it is EXCELLENT.

IMO, when we generalize about a genre, we are for the most part speaking
from very limited personal experience.

Branford Marsalis talking about his kind of jazz (HKOM) and dissing all
other genres said to his dad one day: "I know what I like"; Replied Ellis;
"No you don't, you merely like what you know. To know what you like, you
have to LISTEN TO IT ALL."

IMO, there is lots of good music out there. Perhaps not widely heard, since
the bulk that gets heard is what the mega recording companies put out. Or
what is on TV, MTV, etc.  However, as Dan Augustine recently posted, there
is a hell of a lot going on in small clubs, or on Indie music sites etc.,
Rock, Jazz, Pop, no matter, lots of it is good. And some of it is OKOM.

The audience is crying out for "good" music. Problem is in distributing or
marketing it. We haven't learned how to do that well yet since the existing
audience got old.

Cheers,
Steve