[Dixielandjazz] origins of bluegrass, ol timey mountain music, etc

Tue Feb 27 10:35:16 PST 2007

This is a highly unlikely explanation.  For several reasons.  The first has 
to do with the radios available in the 20's and 30's and radio waves.  The 
crystal sets that were available, in the 20's and 30's only had about a 50 
mile range with a good antenna.  There were regenerative radios that could 
pick up further but required batteries or electricity.  Almost none of these 
people had electricity so if they had radios then their radios had to be 
crystal sets that require no electrical source.  Many people made their own 
sets but the costs were still too high for most of the poor mountain people 
to own.  But assuming that they had them then the 50 mile range, on a good 
night, would be  considerably reduced by mountains and other things.  The 
low frequency of the radio ( approximately 200 meters ) at the time didn't 
skip very well so they had to get their signals by what is called ground 
effect and more or less line of sight.  Unless the radio station was line of 
sight and I don't think many of them had their radio antennas on the tops of 
mountains, then there were no signals.  Even today, radio signals are 
somewhat problematical in the mountain areas.  Since they had a meager life 
style then they couldn't afford radios which were pretty expensive at the 
time.  Only people in large cities  had much access to radio stations.

When I was a kid in the 40's and 50's my parents liked Grand Old Opry which 
was on a clear channel but it could only be heard at night if there were no 
atmospherics and that was with a fairly good modern Superhetrodine radio 
which is a long way from a crystal set.  My grandparents in the 40's lived 
on a farm and they had a (car) battery powered radio.  They got their 
battery charged each week in town but as I recall had to buy "A" batteries 
for it.  They didn't get electricity in their house until about 1950 and 
that was right here in Missouri not 100 miles from St. Louis.

There are other reasons that I think this is hooey.  Appellation and 
Bluegrass use drone strings which are similar to drone pipes on a bagpipe. 
I understand that few can agree on a definition of jazz but there is no jazz 
that I can find in early mountain or Appellation music.  It is highly 
repetitive, has few chord changes and has that drone string .  If there is 
any improvisation it is more likely to be in the vocal.

There may be more than one definition of improvisation but I hear very 
little of what I think of as improvisation in Blue Grass music especially in 
the guitar and banjo parts which is more machine like.  That's not to say 
that modern players, influenced by jazz, don't improvise but I just don't 
think it's true of early mountain or Blue Grass music.

During the depression the government through it's make work programs sent 
musicians out to preserve this music.  Burl Ives and  Woody Guthrie were 
two.  Burl Ives made a career based on these tunes with several albums 
dedicated to it.  There was a pretty good movie about a woman Musicologist 
going into the mountains about 1915 to record mountain music.  Unfortunately 
I can't remember the title.  Maybe someone saw it.

Although I can't quote a source right now, musicologists usually trace this 
music to England and Scotland and occasionally find a piece that is 
virtually unchanged.  Music brought over by early colonists was preserved 
due to the isolation of these people and while radio did help break that 
isolation I just can't picture those people rushing out to try jazz.

This is the first time I have ever heard anyone attribute jazz origins to 
Bluegrass or any other mountain music.

To quote Judge Judy " If it doesn't make sense it isn't true"
Larry
St. Louis
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <Cebuisle2 at aol.com>
To: <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Monday, February 26, 2007 8:12 PM
Subject: [Dixielandjazz] origins of bluegrass, ol timey mountain music, etc

> Years ago I took some courses in music at Queens City College in N.Y. One 
> of
> the texts explained the origins of what we know as "Bluegrass" thusly-
>
> Long before the Great Depression the mountain people of the Eastern states
> were poor. They had always been poor. The new jazz music could be heard on 
> the
> radios in the mountains, which pretty much became the biggest source of
> entertainment. The locals couldn't imitate it-the costs of buying wind 
> musical
> instruments was beyond their meager lifestyle. However, many homes had the
> string instruments hanging on pegs, and players aplenty. The result was 
> toe
> tapping "Bluegrass" done with fiddles, banjos, guitars and simple rhythm
> instruments. A different kind of "jazz" music, and still popular today.
>
> Never forgot the lesson-but did forget the title and author of the  text!!
>
>
>                                Ted
> <BR><BR><BR>**************************************<BR> AOL now offers free
> email to everyone.  Find out more about what's free from AOL at
> http://www.aol.com.
> _______________________________________________
> Dixielandjazz mailing list
> Dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
> http://ml.islandnet.com/mailman/listinfo/dixielandjazz
> 