[Dixielandjazz] Was Jazz ever popular music?

Thu Jan 11 14:53:50 PST 2007

Rocky - As far as I can see nothing completely killed jazz because obviously 
we still have it around in all it's forms but the listening public has 
developed an ever changing and at a faster and faster paced taste for more 
and different things.  In the 20's things went fairly slow and by ww2, radio 
and more availability of recordings sped things up a bunch.  Enter a more 
affluent teen age group.  The changes took place even faster.

While some things are not necessarily moving faster today the splinters of 
each style are proliferating so fast that most people can't even keep up 
with the names of them.  I think maybe the line was drawn when people 
stopped naming dances in the 60's and 70's.

A case in point.  Early rock and roll such as Buddy Holly, Elvis and Bill 
Haley bears almost no resemblance to today's rock except we still call it 
rock.  I think early rock is alive and well we just call it Country and 
Western.

Getting people out of their homes and away from TV is the hope of a large 
segment of the entertainment industry today.  Did TV kill the movies? 
Absolutely not but there aren't many theaters either.  Why go to the show 
when you can see it on TV for free (??)  Why should you go to a venue to 
hear a band when you can have them at their very best for the price of a CD. 
You can also turn them off too if you only want to hear one track then 
listen to another.  I can change tracks with just a touch on my IPOD so I 
can channel surf even there.  It's a far cry to when you sat and listened to 
a band for several hours.  I hate to say it but I don't want to listen to 
anything for more than an hour or so.

TV stations and some cable channels are in trouble because someone invented 
the clicker.  The American public has a collective case of ADHD.  They 
demand ever faster, funnier, bloodier, newer, cheaper and I might add more 
potty mouthed and vulgar entertainment.  Sounds a lot like the new music 
too.
Larry
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Rocky Ball" <bigbuttbnd at aol.com>
To: "Charles Suhor" <csuhor at zebra.net>
Cc: "jazz" <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Thursday, January 11, 2007 4:14 PM
Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] Was Jazz ever popular music?

>
> Maybe I'm disagreeing with you, maybe not...
>
> BUT
>
> ...the PBS Ken Burns' JAZZ series clearly notes that before the 1929
> Stock Market crash JAZZ accounted for 70% of the profits of all
> American Record Companies! I remember reading in one of the Louis
> Armstrong biographies that Louis' record sales (actual platters, not
> money!) were over a million and that was primarily sold through
> grocery stores at a nickel a disk... all in the 20s and 30s. Burns
> makes it clear in his research (and I have read it independently in
> many places before and since JAZZ) that early Jazz (ESPECIALLY before
> the Depression) WAS THE POP MUSIC (most popular music) of the day.
> The country was in the infancy of disposable income in the 1920s (at
> least until the Depression sidetracked that for 20 years) and
> American YOUTH were leading the way in an unprecedented surge of self-
> indulgence. Of course it would take another cycle of that in the
> 1950s for youth and their disposable income to usher in the
> popularity of Rock n' Roll.
>
> To me the evidence is clear that early JAZZ hit the country in 1926
> the same way that early ROCK N ROLL did in 1956 and habits, social
> mores and the music business were forever changed by it. Was Jazz
> ever POPULAR MUSIC? YES! It was THE popular music of its day and the
> repercussions of its innovations continued through the more
> commercial swing era, Rock N Roll era and into popular music today.
> The foreword to the Rolling Stone History of Rock N Roll cites Louis
> Armstrong as the most influential musician that made Rock N Roll
> possible! Ken Burns (and his celebrity contributors) affirm this
> throughout the 10 part JAZZ series.
>
> ~Rocky Ball
> Atlanta
>
>> On Jan 11, 2007, at 5:49 AM, pat ladd wrote:
>>
>>> After WWII the public didn't want the fast pace of
>>> the swing bands that had dominated for a decade but something to
>>> relax
>>> by, romantic stuff.>>
>>>
>>> Not sure about the `fast pace` Charlie.  A lot of the WW2 swing Bands
>>> tunes were sentimental ballads. Thousands of people weere away from
>>> loved ones. There was a focus on a `great day` when the war would end
>>> and everyone could return home. Sure there were bands producing
>>> fireworks but Moonlight Serenade was the top tune. Blue birds over
>>> the
>>> White cliffs, Silver Wings in the Moonlight and so on made up a major
>>> proportion of a bands  pad.
>>>
>>> Cheers
>>>
>>> Past
>>>
>>
>> You're totally right of course, Pat. And it was the dreamy sweet stuff
>> of the swing bands that people wanted to continue after the war, not
>> the hot swing, so the vocalists held sway.
>>
>> Which raises another point. It's been said that the Swing Era of about
>> 1935-45 was the main one in which jazz was THE popular music. Very
>> true
>> when we think only of the hot big band stuff by Basie, Goodman, Shaw,
>> Duke, Woody, etc.. But sooo much of  the sweet material bears so
>> little
>> resemblance to jazz that you can almost call it anti-jazz. A stretch,
>> but not by much when you listen to some of the innumerable icky
>> ballads
>> in the books of lesser and even better swing bands. It served a social
>> function both during and after the war, but it's ever farther from
>> jazz
>> than the post-ragtime/pre-Mickey dance bands of the 20's and
>> before. At
>> least, the latter had a kick to them.
>>
>> Charlie
>>
>>
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>
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